Cool Books I Read While I Was Too Overwhelmed To Review

You want reviews? I've got reviews! Small ones!

Back in February, I rounded up some recent-ish books that I received review copies of, and read, but couldn't find the time or headspace to review at the time. Well, surprise! There were more books that I still hadn't got around to reviewing! This is the second round of clearing the decks for me, inspired in no small part by all the great reviewers and creators I got to hang out with at Glasgow Worldcon. Let's get back into it:

The Last Hero by Linden A. Lewis wraps up the trilogy that began with The First Sister, and it's a book that particularly deserves attention for anyone looking for more books in the vein of Emily Tesh's Hugo winning Some Desperate Glory. While Lewis' trilogy doesn't have that book's 90 degree plot swerves, it offers a much deeper look at what radicalisation and deprogramming look like when the bullets are actually flying, and we get to watch the young protagonists from across different factions—the fundamentalist Geans, the caste-based Icarii and the marginalised Asters—grapple with what is expected of them within their respective systems, and the price of trying to overthrow them. Add in some great bits of worldbuilding and a hefty dose of character gender feelings, and you've got a trilogy well worth checking out.

The Bone Shard War by Andrea Stewart also closes out a trilogy (the Drowning Empire) about exploitation and the cost of change, and especially grapples with the question of who ends up on top when said exploitative system is overthrown. It is also, deliciously, about earnest but silly youths in love, who are being kept apart and even forced into betrayals! At this end of the Drowning Empire, the brutally high cost of bone shard magic isn't as viscerally present, and that feels like a bit of a loss despite the emergence of new magics and the rediscovery of how this world functions, and (relatedly) what those cute animal companions that the main characters picked up have been about this whole time. While it has its ups and downs, this is a cool trilogy by an author I hope to see even better things from in future.

Book three, but not a series ender, The Mystery of Dunvegan Castle by T.L. Huchu is part of the Edinburgh Nights series, and while I'll forgive this year's Hugo voters for not putting it on the best series ballot, my patience on that front is not endless (nor will the series be). These books are the chronicles of Ropa Moyo, a highly motivated Zimbabwean-Scottish teenager who is offered entry to a prestigious occult library... as an unpaid intern. This time, Ropa's aspirations and hustle come fully up against the barriers placed in her way, and this series does a great job of showing how institutional racism and classism are perpetuated not just by bigots in the institution, but by people who limit their allyship or try to offer "meritocratic" entry points rather than fighting the corner for marginalised people. It's an interesting shift for Ropa—who, to this point, has been a bit naive about her circumstances and whether she can just push through them—and it makes me even more eager to see what book 4 brings.

System Collapse by Martha Wells. The second Murderbot novel feels structurally closer to the novellas than the previous Murderbot novel, and at this point the recommendation is "if you like Murderbot, you'll like this Murderbot." Unlike the rather static-feeling Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse does push things onwards from Network Effect in an interesting way, both literally (conflict de-escalation through documentaries!) and in Murderbot's character development and how it narrates its story. We quickly learn that Murderbot is not working at full capacity, and that it is keeping something from us about how this happened, and while the reader is used to the quirks and selectiveness of Murderbot's narration, this withheld information immediately puts the reader off balance, adding an extra layer of tension to both the conflicts and the crew relationships that are both staples of this series. Of course Murderbot and friends save the day with the power of love and justice—not that Murderbot itself puts it quite that way.

The Ten Percent Thief by Lavanya Lakshminarayan wasn't a Subjective Chaos Award winner this year, but it was an interesting addition to a stacked ballot. This mosaic novel, centred around a future Bangalore now known as Apex City, shows us the ins and outs of a society where citizens are constantly tested against the "Bell Curve". The city's residents are constantly striving - through conspicuous displays of capitalist productivity - to be promoted to the super-privileged ten percent, and to avoid deportation outside the city to join the "Analogs", who are treated as sub-human and denied basic ameneties by a city that nevertheless relies on them for its continuation. Through the novel, we see both confident Virtuals and those barely clinging on inside the system, as new technologies create further alienation; we also see, though not with as much depth as I would like, the way in which Analogs are organising themselves to resist and overthrow their oppressors. It didn't add up as well as I wanted it to, but there's a lot going on here for readers to enjoy, especially if you like Black Mirror-esque technological absurdities and the overthrow of transparent dystopias.

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee was just beneath the Hugo finalist cut-off this year, and it's a very well-crafted fantasy novella: Ester's story has a strong thread of revenge, but there's also more going on: her progressing in her vocation as a rukher to a roc named Zahra, the relationships she builds with her comrades (and her bird), and the strains of being part of a military campaign whose political and propaganda motives seem at odds with actually making the Kingdom safer. Untethered Sky does suffer from the "author of incredible thing (Green Bone Saga) goes on to write pretty good thing" but it works great. 

The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi is an incredible book, and somehow it's not on the Hugo longlist, but it is on the Ignyte novella shortlist so we can celebrate that recognition at least! The best thing about this story is its worldbuilding, which feels like it's come straight out of a fable: the protagonist comes from the "City of Lies," which has made the terrible bargain to cut the tongue out of every adult resident in return for an annual allocation of water from the Ajungo. This, of course, means that its residents can no longer tell their own story, and that their own history is now in the hands of their oppressors. When almost-13-year-old Tutu leaves the city in search of water to save his mother, he somehow avoids the disappearance that has befallen every other child who has left, and instead he finds out the truth behind the Ajungo's conquests and where his city falls within it. Amazing stuff.

Finally, Earth-space adventure Beyond the Hallowed Sky by Ken MacLeod, fantasy adventure The Wolf of Oren-Yaro by K.S. Villoso, and mecha-YA Moonstorm by Yoon Ha Lee are all series openers which fall into the "fun, but probably not reading on" category for me—a category which I need to be more firm in maintaining, as the list of books gets bigger and my time on this Earth grows shorter (fatalistic? me?) I did enjoy MacLeod's speculation of near-future superpower blocs, especially the split between Anglophone death capitalism and optimistic-but-also-vaguely-sinister European socialism; and The Wolf of Oren-Yaro did not disappoint with its main character's Bitch Queen credentials, but had me shrugging at its relative cliffhanger ending rather than rushing to download the second book. Moonstorm, I am simply not the target audience for, and that's OK! I think this is a great contender for the Lodestar list, especially since books by authors who have also been nominated for adult SFF do very well there, and I hope that this story of giant robots, terrible empires, friendships, rivalries and betrayals IN SPACE finds each and every one of its people.

Adri, Nerds of a Feather co-editor, is a semi-aquatic migratory mammal most often found in the UK. She has many opinions about SFF books, and is also partial to gaming, baking, interacting with dogs, and Asian-style karaoke. Find her on Bluesky at adrijjy.bsky.social.

Review: Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee

 Giant birds are cool - let's go hunt monsters! Now with bonus EmotionsTM.

Untethered Sky is a brief, beautiful novella that packs in themes of family, love, loss and belonging, all under the wing (ha) of a compelling plot about training giant birds to fight monsters.

Ester is a trainee rukher in the royal mews, ready to move to the next stage and try to tame a newly captured wild roc. Once she completes the first, dangerous step in bonding with her charge, she'll be sent out to hunt the manticores that plague the countryside, and there is nothing she wants more in life than this. She's a young woman dedicated to a dream, surrounded by a precious few who understand her obsession, and holding deep in her heart the reason she left her family behind to follow this path. We watch her take those steps into the life she's dreamed of, and watch the relationships she develops with the people - and giant birds - around her as she grows into that life and her own self.

Untethered Sky is a perfect example of what a novella should be - beautifully self-contained, efficient and neat. Fonda Lee uses the shortness of the form as a boon, not a burden, so tightens in the focus on Ester, her perspective, her emotions and her struggles, leaving us deeply embedded in how she views her own life. It's not a book that throws the big drama at you right away, and not one for dramatic, sweeping emotional moments, but it has a quiet certainty that builds as you read, and leaves you in an emotional chokehold by the end of the story. All the more impressive when it does it in only 160 pages.

The viewpoint we get, then, is a very narrow one - just Ester, her two closest friends, and her bird, with brief moments and appearances from others as required. It's this triad of friendship, with the only people who can really understand what she cares about, that is the focus of the first half of the story, though we expand out a little as we go on. And again, that close focus is such a boon to this novel, because in so little space, we get such a good understanding of the three characters, how they interact, and the bittersweetness of this period of their relationships.

Because this isn't a happy fun novel of monster-hunting adventures. It's more a story about growing up, especially emotionally, and about losses of various different kinds. It's a story that's interested in the complexities of friendship dynamics, and how people can behave in perfectly reasonable ways that nonetheless hurt even those closest to them, and the guilt we can feel for our actions that drives us, no matter how unreasonable it may seem on the outside.

What is also does, which I found particularly interesting, is to tell it from the perspective of a character who could so, so easily have been a secondary character in a story told a slightly different way. Ester is great, and interesting, and a lovely, flawed person whose head we ride inside. But Ester is, in a certain light, not really the protagonist of the events we see. And so we're seeing only one particular side of these events, one particular slant on them.

And, of course, that's true of any story. But it is a well-managed thing that Lee has crafted her story such that it works, it stands alone and as itself, and is interested and balanced and complex... while at the same time, leaving us with a lingering feeling that this isn't the main event, or the close view. We're looking in at the window, instead of riding in the front seat, and that's fascinating. To play with the audience's perspective like that, and to do it without being heavy-handed or obvious, is such a delicate, skillful thing, and it was a joy to read.

Unsurprisingly for the author of The Green Bone Saga, the world Lee has created here is also fabulous. But again, the brilliance of it comes through in the fact that there are only 160 pages in which to do it. Lee has given us a world inspired by historic Persia, but she has mainly done so in little parts here and there, rather than focussing on it. We see satraps and fire rites, of a king and the manticores that plague his kingdom, but none of these are foregrounded, instead just moments that enrich the main story of Ester and her obsession and her life. It is surprisingly well-fleshed for how little actual page-time is dedicated to it, and once again it is a testimony to Lee's deftness in craft. 

It's also a setting we see less often in fantasy, and one which felt just as ripe for that extra flourish of the fantastical as any of the other historical settings we see more often.

If I have one critique of the story, it is that the foreshadowing at times is quite heavy-handed, and perhaps feels more weighty than the events that later happen actually deserve. That being said, logically, some of it is genuinely catastrophic from the characters' perspective, so the problem is more that, having had the foreshadowing, the actual events are not made to feel quite so dramatic in the moment for the reader. But it's a very minor gripe, and one that did not really spoil the narrative at all for me.

Over all, I think Lee has crafted a poignant, beautiful novella, rich in emotion, and one that exists in such a perfect, neat form that it could only ever have been as it is. Some stories do not need a full novel to explore, and are better for their brevity - we inhabit them for a moment, focussing on a small window or time, or a specific idea or emotion, without the core of the narrative or themes being muddied by wider context. This is precisely one of those stories, and I hope we see more standalone novellas from Fonda Lee in the future, if this is what they're going to look like.

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The Math

Highlights: impossible to put down while reading, beautiful world-building, big sads

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Reference: Fonda Lee, Untethered Sky [Macmillan, 2023]

POSTED BY: Roseanna Pendlebury, the humble servant of a very loud cat. @chloroform_tea

Nanoreviews: A Mirror Mended, The Jade Setter of Janloon, The Legacy of Molly Southbourne

A Mirror Mended, by Alix E. Harrow [Tordotcom Publishing]

A Mirror Mended is the follow up / sequel to last year’s Hugo Award finalist novella A Spindle Splintered and picks up the story some five years later where Zinnia Gray is traveling the multiverse of fairy tales and fables, rescuing and facilitating escapes for those varied heroines trapped within a forced narrative that doesn’t quite fit. Rather than chasing her own mortality, Zinnia spends her time avoiding her life in lieu of these adventures until a villain wants that same escape Zinnia has offered so many others.

As much as I liked A Spindle Splintered, this is a much stronger novella that goes deeper. Harrow dives into how women are treated in these stories, slotted into neat roles - even the villains, because what other paths do some women have? With quick dialogue and a sharp eye for storytelling - A Mirror Mended is top notch.
Score: 9/10

The Jade Setter of Janloon, by Fonda Lee [Subterranean Press]

Prequel novella to the Green Bone Saga focuses on a specialty jeweler, a “jade setter”, officially allied with a small and fiercely neutral clan. Pulo is an apprentice jade setter to the master setter Isin. Because their clan is neutral, their business caters to all and is treated as neutral ground. When a ceremonial sword from The Mountain Clan is stolen from the shop, that neutrality will be tested.

What works is that if you’re familiar with the Green Bone Saga, this is a story set on the periphery of characters and clans we know and if you’re not, this is a really good story of fairly regular folk potentially caught in the middle between two much more powerful factions. That’s not what the story is, but it provides color and texture.
Score: 8/10

The Legacy of Molly Southbourne, by Tade Thompson [Tordotcom Publishing]

I never wrote about the Molly Southbourne novellas for Nerds of a Feather, but from the start I was hooked on this series - though I didn’t know it was going to be a series when I first began. The Murders of Molly Southbourne featured Molly, a young woman with a peculiar affliction - everytime she bleeds, another “molly” is born full grown and intent on mindlessly murdering her. What a concept! I loved it. I *liked* the second, but it was a somewhat different thing. Still compelling, but perhaps less. It widened the scope of what we knew of the mollys, it just didn’t reach the same highs.

The Legacy of Molly Southbourne is the third, and this time presumably final book in this sequence - now with a community of molly’s trying to make their lives and, interestingly, a community of Tamaras doing the same, until a presumed dormant Soviet cloning program rears its head and puts them at odds.

I’m not likely to do justice to The Legacy of Molly Southbourne, but it takes so much of what I loved about Murders, broadens it, adds depth, and just hits on every level. There’s a murderous molly, a molly-hunter, and a gathering storm of a final fight on the horizon. It’s friggin great. You absolutely need to read the first two books for Legacy to hit. But if you do, watch out.
Score: 8/10

Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, Hugo Award Winner. Minnesotan. He / Him

Mind Meld : One Spot Holodeck

For years, the essential sci-fi blog SF Signal published Mind Meld, a regular column I and others created that featured a weekly roundtable discussion of the tropes, themes, politics, and future of genre fiction. The Mind Meld solicited answers from writers, editors, readers and fans on a rotating basis. After the closure of SF Signal, this feature was picked up and continued for a time by the Barnes and Noble Sci Fi Blog. I am delighted that I have resumed the feature here at Nerds of a Feather.

Today’s Mind Meld question is the following...

Congratulations. You have been given a Star Trek style holodeck, fully capable otherwise,you can bring in anyone you want, hold a roomful of people but not an entire Worldcon in it,  but you can only program it to be fixed to one time and place or the verse of one fictional work or series. 

Where/what do you program your holodeck for? (Star Wars and Star Trek are off the table!)

Fonda Lee

Fonda Lee is the World Fantasy Award-winning author of the Green Bone Saga, consisting of Jade City, Jade War, and the forthcoming Jade Legacy, which releases on November 30. 

Assuming I can program the holodeck to also give me the illusion of powers in said fictional world, I’m definitely heading to the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Who wouldn’t want to travel in style on a flying bison to visit the different kingdoms? Myself, I quite like the idea of striding down the deck of a Fire Nation warship in Azula’s boss outfit and and bending the elements to my will. 

Beverly Bambury

Beverly Bambury is a publicist who promotes and markets SFF, horror, mystery and more. Find her at beverlybambury.com

I would set my holodeck for Themyscira. Who could be better personal trainers than the skilled and strong Amazons? I mean, maybe if I hung out on the island and followed their routines I could get the buff shoulders I’ve always wanted. It's not all about fitness, either. Time spent in Themyscira would be time I’d never have to worry about any men sending unsolicited, um, photos. What’s not to love? Anyhow, I am the furthest thing from a badass warrior, but I like to think I’d learn a thing or two from the Amazons. 

Cora Buhlert

Cora Buhlert was born and bred in Bremen, North Germany, where she still lives today – after time spent in London, Singapore, Rotterdam and Mississippi. She has been writing, since she was a teenager, and has published stories, articles and poetry in various international magazines, and is a two-time Hugo finalist for Best Fan Writer. Visit her on the web at www.corabuhlert.com or follow her on Twitter under @CoraBuhlert.

I've decided that I'd like to program my holodeck for the solar system as it was imagined in the pulp science fiction of the 1930s and 1940s. 

There are plenty of fascinating places to explore, whether it's the dying desert world of Mars with its canals and ancient ruins, the fog-shrouded jungles and misty oceans of Venus, the twilight belt of Mercury, the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn and of course the asteroid belt with its floating casinos and pirate hideouts. Every single world in this version of the solar system is not just habitable, it's also full of fascinating alien lifeforms. You can hop between planets in gleaming finned rockets and enjoy an early 20th century idea of futuristic luxury.

The pulp science fiction shared solar system is a fascinating place I've always wanted to explore, so that's what I'd program the holodeck for.

Arturo Serrano

Arturo Serrano, is translator for Constelación Magazine, and reviewer for Nerds of a Feather Flock Together, currently querying an alternate history novel. 

I would travel to the DCAU, which is still the unsurpassed interpretation of the DC heroes (and the work that introduced me to Vixen, the best superhero ever). What struck me about the DCAU is how seamlessly it handled varying scales: one day you could have a massive spacetime anomaly and the next day you could dismantle a weapon smuggling mafia, and it would still feel like the same universe. Plus the characters were masterfully layered and you never felt you were done knowing them.

Mikaela Lind

Mikaela Lind is a Swedish fantasy author who started to write in her teens. She is somewhat surprised that she is still doing it, and equally surprised that people actually read her books. You can find her on twitter as  @mikaela_l , on Facebook  and on www.mikaelalind.com where she irregularly blogs.

 When I read the subject for this MindMeld I immediately knew where I wanted to go. Maybe in a time of my life I would have picked something else, but right now I really, really need a vacation. So I am taking a bunch of my friends and going to a beach. Which beach? I am leaning toward the Shifting Sands resort, which is a fictional resort in the Caribbean catering to shifters. What can I say, after the last year I need sun and warmth and a frozen daiquiri. 

Hannah (H. M.) Long 

Hannah (H. M.) Long is the author of the Viking-inspired epic fantasy HALL OF SMOKE, the upcoming TEMPLE OF NO GOD (01.18.22), and numerous other works of fantasy and science fiction. She lives in a ramshackle cabin in Ontario, Canada, where she writes her books, reads too much and tries not to get eaten by the local wildlife. You can visit her online at www.hmlongbooks.com and find her on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook @hmlongbooks, as well as on Twitter @hannah_m_long. 

I feel like it’s telling that I didn’t even have to think about this... I’d go to Skyrim, Elder Scrolls V style. I’d lock that holodeck in on my own epic quest as Dovahkiin, bring in my family and nerd friends as trusty companions and *fus* a path to glory from Helgen to Sovngarde. The weapons! The enemies! The settings! The music would be a must too – some Jeremy Soule to back climbing snowy mountains, riding dragons and fighting draugrs in ancient tombs. 

Claire O'Dell

Claire O’Dell is a writer, a reader, a mother, and a geek. Her latest works include her Janet Watson series from Harper Voyager, and the re-release of her epic fantasy series, A River of Souls. Check out more details at www.claireodell.com.

Oh gods, there are SO many wonderful worlds to choose from. Okay. Plucking my first idea from the air…I choose Heather Rose Jones’s historical fantasy series, set in the mythical country of Alpennia, and taking place in first quarter of the 19th century. The books are all about women—women with swords, women as scholars, as friends and lovers, as scientists, seamstresses, and politicians. 

Maurice Broaddus

Maurice Broaddus is an exotic dancer, trained in several forms of martial arts–often referred to as “the ghetto ninja”–and was voted the Indianapolis Dalai Lama. He’s an award winning haberdasher and coined the word “acerbic”. He graduated college at age 14 and high school at age 16. Not only is he credited with inventing the question mark, he unsuccessfully tried to launch a new number between seven and eight. When not editing or writing, he is a champion curler and often impersonates Jack Bauer, but only in a French accent. He raises free range jackalopes with his wife and two sons … when they are not solving murder mysteries. He really likes to make up stories.  A lot.  Especially about himself.

You should already know my answer is going to be Wakanda. The great thing about it is the depth of it as a world and how it sets a great context for all sorts of interesting conversations. It is a culture of stories and how they relate to one another. A people’s history embedded into all of the traditions within it. It’s the intersection of art and science impacting its look, including its architecture. In short, every aspect of Wakanda as a setting reinforces and is defined by the worldview of the people. A place I’d be excited to explore. With guests.

Catherine Lundoff

Catherine Lundoff is an award-winning writer, editor and publisher from Minneapolis, MN. Her latest book is Blood Moon: A Wolves of Wolf’s Point Novel (Queen of Swords Press, 2021). www.catherinelundoff.net

I waffled around on my responses to this because while I normally go for adventurous fun times, real life has been awfully exciting of later. So I’m picking Lois McMaster Bujold’s Beta Colony as my holodeck destination and all of you who want to join me can come along.  Why? It’s so very civilized, with its relative calm and its earrings that signal one’s romantic and sexual interests, its emphasis on consent and art and beauty. Sure, there’s that pesky weapons-development thing, but it can be ignored, at least for a time, in favor of other scientific wonders. Maybe Cordelia can give us some pointers on what to go see.

K.B. Wagers

K.B. Wagers is a whiskey-drinking, non-binary author of science fiction whose latest NeoG adventure Hold Fast Through the Fire, drops July 27th. 

If I had access to a holodeck, I'd gather some of my closest friends to go spend the day sailing the open seas during the Golden Age of Piracy. All the joy of the wind in your hair, the salt in the air, the horizon stretching on forever, (okay and maybe some plundering as well *grins*) without the risk of scurvy or hanging! Who could ask for more? 

Elizabeth Bear

Elizabeth Bear was born on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. She is the Hugo, Sturgeon, Locus, and Astounding Award winning author of around 30 novels and over a hundred short stories. Her most recent novel is MACHINE, a science fiction adventure about a trauma doctor who specializes in deep space rescue.

Because a holodeck is for recreation, I would pick a lovely laid back vacation spot, a pleasure garden of lush trees, sandy beaches, a constant mild warm temperature, and an array of great recreational opportunities. 

I think that leaves me with the Southern Continent of Anne McCaffery's Pern series, where you can go swimming, you can go horseback riding, you can lie on the beach and eat fruits named after primary and secondary colors, you can fly on dragon back or laze around on the veranda and as long as interstellar parasites aren't falling from the heavens, the skies are blue and full of telepathic lizards.

Camestros Felapton

Camestros Felapton is a blogger and a 2018 Hugo finalist Fanwriter. He and his cat can be found at https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/ His current work in progress is a history of the Sad Puppy controversy entitled "Debarkle".

I'm going to assume there is some massive and very creative AI behind this holodeck that can extrapolate the fictional universe it replicates and fill in the gaps. I'm going to go and visit the enigmatic Sisterhood of Karn from Doctor Who. There's only a small bunch of them but in theory, they are the most likely people to have the foggiest idea of what is going on in the crazy timey-wimey mess of Doctor Who continuity. They also look like a cool bunch of people to hang out with for a bit.

Andrew Hiller

This is the second time Andrew has melded minds. He now knows things he shouldn't. Andrew was named author of the year in 2019 by the Baltimore Faerie Faire for A Halo of Mushrooms and his first picture book, Pitter Patty Finds Another Day is scheduled to be released in 2022. You can find his work in print, on canvas, and on the radio at andrewhiller.net

When Geordie pulls off his visor to become Lavar and asks, “What world would you like me to read you into?” be careful. Being asked to enter a world created by a holodeck is as dangerous as parsing out how to phrase a wish a genie has just offered.

I mean do you want a house to fall on you? Do you want a Lost Boy to stab you? Are you going to risk indigestion at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe after the chef realizes that Yelp ratings don't matter once the universe ends?

Do your homework. Be specific. Don't blurt. 

Me? 

I might choose Catherynne Valente's Fairyland after the shadows were returned. Imagine the food, the celebratory magic, the creatures, and all that exuberant music.

Mind you, I'm getting out before the next book starts. 

K.B. Spengler

K.B. Spangler lives in North Carolina with her husband and two completely awful dogs. Her most recent book is The Blackwing War.

Before the pandemic, I would have said my Holodeck adventure was set in Pern, or Narnia, maybe even standing alone with my sword in a tulgey wood. An adventure! Something new, something novel, something beautiful and terrible and, most of all, beyond!

Now? I want to go back to Disney World with my family. It was our first vacation together since my niece turned old enough to have a personality. She loved it, experiencing all of these pieces of fiction that were recurring characters in the background of her daily life.

To me, Disney is a slick streamlined package of forced nostalgia and commercialism which exists to stripmine both intellectual property and bank accounts. Before the pandemic, I gritted my teeth and endured the crowds, commercialism, and Florida. Clarification: Florida in late July.

After the pandemic, I don’t want anything more than to see my niece lose her shit over Rapunzel.

I want to be there as my niece enjoys her Holodeck.

Nancy Jane Moore

Nancy Jane Moore’s fantasy novel For the Good of the Realm is coming June 1 from Aqueduct Press.

The Murderbot ’Verse. Not only am I, like many others, obsessed with Murderbot, but Martha Wells has created a universe with a huge realm of possibilities for play. For starters, people could run The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon along with many other shows from SecUnit’s media storage. You’ve got the Corporate Rim contrasted with Preservation, ART’s missions, and alien contamination. The minute I saw Amena pursuing the catalogue for the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland, I wanted stories about her as a student there. Plus all the nice moral dilemmas about who counts as a person.

Shelley Parker-Chan

Shelley Parker-Chan is an Asian-Australian former diplomat who worked on human rights, gender equality and LGBT rights in Southeast Asia. Raised on Greek myths, Arthurian legend and Chinese tales of suffering and tragic romance, her debut novel She Who Became the Sun owes more than a little to all three.

One of the most frustrating things about being a fan of Chinese danmei (queer) TV dramas is how productions have to bend themselves in knots to comply with China’s strict broadcast rules. Queer content, time travel, reincarnation: banned! Given that the source novels are full of disallowed content, TV adaptations can end up like Swiss cheese. One of the worst cases of a great novel turned incomprehensible show was Guardian (2018), which involves a mild-mannered professor who’s actually the King of Hell, and his cop boyfriend who’s the reincarnation of an elder god. I’d materialise the incredibly charismatic cast of that show—then I’d feed the original webnovel into the computer, and get myself a faithful, uncensored adaptation. With kissing.

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POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Top 9 Books of the Year

Some people do a top ten list, others do a top eleven (insert your Spinal Tap joke here), yet others may only do five. My list is 9 books long. Why? Partly to be a little bit different and partly because I want the tenth spot on my list to be reserved for that really great book which I simply did not get the chance to read during 2019. That really great book may also be something I have only heard whispers about and I may not discover for several more years. Whatever that tenth great book is, I’m holding a spot for it on my list.

Also, there is no doubt that this list, like every other list out there is built entirely on the combination of the books I've actually read with my own prejudices, taste, preferences, and the choices I made when selecting books to read across the breadth of 2019. That's really what we're saying when we say we've put together a list of the "Best Books of the Year". It's the best we've read, the best we can remember, the best based on what we appreciate in speculative fiction. One of the other best books I've read this year is Colson Whitehead's latest novel The Nickel Boy, but this is a speculative fiction blog focusing on more nerdy endeavors, so for the sake of theme I'll limit this list to science fiction, fantasy, and everything in between and around the edges.

This Top Nine List is more or less in order.  The top two or three slots are a complete lock, but ask me tomorrow and some titles may shift around a bit.  Whichever order the list is in, these are the nine novels published in 2019 which I feel were the strongest titles of the year.

1. The Light Brigade: The Light Brigade is a bold novel in the tradition of Starship Troopers, The Forever War, and Old Man’s War. I don’t use this as an opportunity to list the titles of three significant military science fiction novels I’ve read. I view this more as a recognition of where The Light Brigade should be considered in the larger science fiction conversation about canon (as if there is a singular canon) and of which novels get to be held up as classics of the genre which revitalize and engage with the genre’s past. That’s a bold statement to make about a novel that was published less within the last twelve months, but there it is all the same. The Light Brigade does all of that while telling a strong story about a soldier in the middle of an absolutely messed up war (is there another kind?) that is messed up even further when her combat drops sometimes place her in the wrong battle at the wrong time – the wrong “when”. Hurley ties together all of the complicated timelines and fits it together perfectly. The Light Brigade is a gem of a novel.  (Paul's review)

2. A Song for a New Day: You know how Sarah Pinsker’s stories are little bits of perfection? This novel is all of that, but even moreso. A Song for a New Day is an expansion and a complete reworking of “Our Lady of the Open Road”, one of my favorite stories from Sarah Pinsker. A Song for a New Day is a beautiful and romantic story about live music in a world where large gatherings of people have been made illegal as a result of terrorism. The novel deals with the struggle to hold on to that bit of authenticity and heart that comes from performing in front of a live audience, the humanity found in shared spaces, and yes, it is a gut punch of the best rock and roll. There is a visceral presence to the music and the passion in A Song for a New Day and it’s everything I hoped for from Sarah Pinsker’s debut, and more.

3. Gideon the Ninth: The tag line I’ve seen all year long is “Lesbian Necromancers in Space” and while that is technically correct and was absolutely a selling point for the novel (as was the spot on cover art from Tommy Arnold) that’s not really what Gideon the Ninth is. This is a love story. This is a hate story. This is a locked room mystery (locked citadel on an abandoned planet mystery?). There is beautiful swordfighting, necromancy, magic, absolutely foul mouthed characters, and it’s all a friggin delight. In her review, Adri wrote about the claustrophobic atmosphere and that’s an apt description – which is why the “in space” part doesn’t really apply. The “Lesbian Necromancers” – yeah, it’s very much that and it’s pretty spectacular. One of the most impressive aspects to Gideon the Ninth is that it lives up to the massive hype. Gideon the Ninth is a brutal, sharp, nasty, wonderful novel. Tamsyn Muir will gut you. (Adri's review)

4. The City in the Middle of the Night: If somebody told me that 2019 would bring us a novel that has the strongest resemblance and feeling to Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hainish novels, I’d have been more than skeptical – but The City in the Middle of the Night is so very much that novel. Several times, I had to check the cover to remind myself that this wasn’t Le Guin. It’s not, but The City in the Middle of the Night is a worthy successor to Le Guin’s work while still very much being a Charlie Jane Anders novel and its own thing. There is a tidally locked planet, fascinating characters, absolutely original and creative alien creatures, and a conversation about morality. The City in the Middle of the Night is a novel of big ideas and just as important, it’s a book you don’t want to put down. Anders is doing the work here. This is an absolutely compelling novel that I cannot recommend highly enough.(Paul's review)

5. Jade War: To quote my review: The ongoing conflict between the No Peak and Mountain clans is the core of the story Fonda Lee is telling first with Jade City and now with Jade War, but the heart of the novel is the interplay within the Kaul family of the No Peak clan. The dynamic between Hilo and Shae as siblings and also Pillar with his Weather Man is painfully and perfectly drawn out. It is nearly impossible to not reference The Godfather (either Puzo's novel or Coppola's film) when discussing Jade War because Lee's novel has that feel of family and crime tinged with legitimacy and vengeance and hints of what it looks like from the wider world. Jade War fulfills the promise of Jade City and then raises the bar once again. The novel expands beyond the island of Kekon and Fonda Lee's rich description makes brings each new location alive with the smell and feel of the city and Kekonese in exile. Once again Fonda Lee has delivered a spectacular novel. (my review)

6. The Luminous Dead: Caitlin Starling’s debut novel is a claustrophobic story of deep cave exploration. Starling gets into the reader’s head – the deeper Gyre Price gets, the more fraught the caving, the increased paranoia of Gyre (and the reader!), the deteriorating relationship between Gyre and her guide on the other end of a comm, the isolation of being so deep underground with nobody to come get you if something goes wrong – The Luminous Dead is a deeply unsettling novel and it is a spectacular debut. Starling nails the storytelling and delivers an eerie combination of terror and madness that hits all the right notes.

7. Middlegame: Middlegame is perhaps the most ambitious novels from Seanan McGuire and is a showcase for her skill at telling a good and complex story. Twins, math, alchemy, murder, time-bending, family, secret organizations, impossible powers, and just about everything McGuire can throw into this wonderous novel. Seanan McGuire has blended together as much as she possibly could stuff into one novel and she makes the whole thing work. It’s impressive. McGuire goes big with Middlegame. Doubt Seanan McGuire at your peril. (my review)

8. The Deep: The Deep is a story borne out of the legacy of slavery, of the horrifying reality of slavers crossing the Atlantic Ocean and dumping the bodies of pregnant women over board. It is a story borne out of wondering about what life might grow out of that death. The Deep is a story of origins and new beginnings, of the horror of institutional memory and what it costs the individual. Solomon's writing is incredible. With only a few sentences I felt the water, the pressure of the deep, the movement of current and body. The water almost became a character and, not to mix metaphors too much, grounded the story into a particular location that the reader can sense.

The Deep is a novella filled with pain and despair and rage and a glimmer of hope. It is built off of real history and pulled in unimaginable directions, except that it was imagined and we're all better off because Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes, and Rivers Solomon saw the possibilities of building something beautiful out of raw horror. (my review)

9. Exhalation: It's been seventeen years since Ted Chiang's last (and first) story collection, Stories of Your Life and Others. Exhalation was a literary event that lived up to the hype. Exhalation contains three Hugo Award winners including the excellent The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate. Across the board, these are top tier stories from one of our best storytellers.



As I mentioned in the introduction, for as many books as I read in a year, there is always something amazing that I missed and that I just didn't have time to get to. Or, as plugged in as I try to be, that I just haven't heard of (or heard enough about). As much as I wanted to, I did not read A Memory of Empire (Arkady Martine), The Future of Another Timeline (Annalee Newitz), The Wanderers (Chuck Wendig), The Ten Thousand Doors of January (Alix E. Harrow), The Dragon Republic (R.F. Kuang), Ancestral Night (Elizabeth Bear), or Magic for Liars (Sarah Gailey), among others. The list of highly recommend and presumably stellar novels that I just didn't get to read this year is long and distinguished. That's the reason for the tenth spot on the list.

Also it is worth noting six books that just missed the list but were in serious contention: Alliance Ricing (C.J. Cherryh and Jane Fancher), Tiamat's Wrath (James S.A. Corey), Atlas Alone (Emma Newman), Gods of Jade and Shadow (Silvia Moreno-Garcia), In An Absent Dream (Seanan McGuire), Vigilance (Robert Jackson Bennett),


Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 3x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan

Adri and Joe Talk About Books: The Best of the Decade

As we near the end of a decade we had the highly original thought of looking back at some of the best novels of the last ten years. Ten years is ultimately as arbitrary of a way to divide and group novels as any, but it serves as sufficient reason to reflect back on some of our favorite novels and discuss which have had lasting impact on the genre, on us as readers, and what just stands out as just really damn good books.

Any list of the nine or ten (or fifty, or five hundred) “best” novels is subject to the biases and perspectives of the writers putting the list together. What we find to be excellent may not line up with someone else. We may not have read a book that otherwise would have found a place here. We might not have agreed on a particular book, but this is our consensus of nine of the best novels from the last ten years. And, because we can’t just create a list and let it go, we’ve selected three more novels as our personal honorable mentions. Even then, we still mourn the novels we left off due to arbitrary space reasons.

We don’t expect there to be consensus as to the absolute rightness of our list, but we hope it sparks conversation about some really great books that we loved.

So here we go.

Range of Ghosts, by Elizabeth Bear (2012): Elizabeth Bear is something of a chameleon of a writer. Whether it is near future cyberpunk thrillers, urban fantasy, alternate historical vampire fiction, espionage, space opera, steampunk, a Criminal Minds meets the X-Files mashup, or epic fantasy - Bear can write it all.

Eschewing the trappings of the stereotypical European setting, Range of Ghosts is silk road epic fantasy - meaning that the novel has a more Mongolian flavor and has an entirely different cultural grounding than what is so often considered “traditional epic fantasy”. Bear pulls no punches in delivering a full realized and top notch epic with rich characterization and incredible worldbuilding. The magic and religion and battles of Range of Ghosts is handled with a deft touch and the best thing is that all of this is set up for something far larger. Range of Ghosts is Elizabeth Bear at the height of her considerable powers. (G's Review) (Joe)

Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie (2013): The story of Breq, a woman who was once the AI of the spaceship Justice of Toren, spread across hundreds of “Ancillary” bodies. Now Justice of Toren has been destroyed, and Breq, the sole survivor, single handedly bent on revenge towards the Emperor who set her and her crew up to die, begins in this crushingly good space opera, full of tea ceremonies and folk songs and the exploration of an empire whose vision of “civilisation” is synonymous with its own culture. The dual narratives of Ancillary Justice, which tell of both Breq’s present and the events leading up to her death as a spaceship. Its a novel which operates with respect and care for the space opera tropes it deploys, while challenging any traditional assumptions about what aspects of human culture might be taken up by a remote spacefaring civilisation - to the Radchaai, gender is not a thing, but gloves very much are, and the ruling consciousness of Emperor Anaander Mianaai is spread across thousands of clones, who may or may not be working for completely common purpose. And, of course, its all driven by pitch-perfect action in both timelines, as Justice of Toren tries to hold it together on what it doesn’t realise will be its final mission, and Breq makes her way across the galaxy on her hopeless revenge mission. (Joe's review)  (Adri)

The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison (2014): The term "hopepunk" might have been coined by Alexandra Rowland a couple of years after the release of Katherine Addison's highly-charged elven political fantasy, but the centering of kindness and decency even in the most lonely and high pressure of circumstances was already a standout feature of this novel back in 2014, giving it an undisputed edge over other contenders in the "young royal out of their depth" field. The Goblin Emperor is the story of Maia, the unwanted fourth child of the elvish emperor, who was born from a political marriage with a woman from neighbouring goblin kingdom (elves and goblins, being in this world, different races of the same species, and elven prejudice against goblins being therefore far more akin to racism than any possibly-justifiable biological taboo). Raised in seclusion with only abusive minders for company, Maia is therefore as surprised as anyone when an assassination of his father and three half-brothers propels him to the throne. What follows is his attempts to develop alliances and figure out who to trust in a court he's barely set foot in before now: a task he rises to with grace and skill, despite the many enemies who would rather not see him on the throne. Come for the courtly intrigue; stay for the way Addison effortlessly includes the characters' ear movements into their facial expressions without it getting weird. (Jemmy's review) (Adri)

The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin (2015), by N.K. Jemisin: We’re not ones to claim that any subjective list of the best of anything is invalid because the list maker did not include our particular favorite, but we would definitely give the side-eye to any list of the best science fiction and fantasy of the last ten years that didn’t at least consider N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season.

The Fifth Season was an absolutely brilliant opening novel to Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy. When I wrote about the novel in 2016, I had this to say “While the worldbuilding in The Fifth Season is superb and extraordinary, it does not hold a volcano's breath to how strongly written the novel is and just how incredible these three women are. The nature of the terribly oppressive world of The Stillness, really of the Sanze Empire, is examined through the lives, actions, heartbreaks, oppression, heroism, grief, discovery, and amazing characters of Damaya, Syenite, and Essun. Jemisin will rip your heart out.” I have no doubt that not only is The Fifth Season stands out as one of the best of the decade, The Fifth Season will hold up as one of the all time great fantasy novels. (Joe's review) (Joe)

Black Wolves, by Kate Elliott (2015): Do you want an epic fantasy where most of the primary characters are fully mature adults? What about a world that sets up a particular worldview and culture and then spends the rest of the novel deconstructing everything we thought we knew about it? What about a novel dealing with persecuted minority cultures, oppressive religions, and a question about how reliable memory is when considering history? Black Wolves has all that. Highly competent women bringing the excellence in a variety of ways? Black Wolves has that. A very high body count and solid action? Black Wolves has that. Giant eagles? Black Wolves has that, too.

Black Wolves is as epic as epic fantasy can get and it was an incredible start to what should have been one of the best new series of the last ten years, except that we’re not getting the sequel because of publishing. Readers - Black Wolves is as good an epic fantasy novel as any that has been published in the last ten years and beyond, and even though I know that I am unlikely to get the follow up, I still heartily recommend everyone go read Black Wolves. You won’t be disappointed. (Joe's review) (Joe)

Infomocracy by Malka Older (2016) Informocracy is a bold and brilliant thought experiment on democracy, a novel which takes as its starting point a not-too-distant future where many nation states have dissolved in favour of a system of microdemocracy in which "centenal" units of one hundred thousand people elect their governments from a range of globally-active parties. What makes this possible, we are told, is the global system of Information, which provides an augmented reality fact-check to citizens in all parts of their daily lives, providing a particularly important service when it comes to the once-a-decade elections. Of course, with a new global system comes a new global bureaucracy, and Informocracy follows a couple of cogs in that machine - idealistic campaign manager Ken and Information agent (and maybe a spy) Mishima - as they try to keep the system working over a particularly hot election cycle.

What makes Informocracy special is not just the world it creates, but the book's ability to engage and invest us in the agency of its main characters, while still showing their relative helplessness in the face of the global political system they operate in. By introducing the concept of narrative disorder - a compulsion to fit objectively unrelated or coincidental occurrences into a satisfying but misleading single story - Older's series presents a political thriller that questions the very foundations that allow it to exist, while still delivering something that satisfies on all the levels that matter. Like many books on this list, it's here because its stayed with me well beyond reading, and I hope it's a book we continue to associate with our own political moment when we're looking back on genre in future decades. (Charles' review) (Adri)

Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire (2016): Reading Every Heart a Doorway was like coming home again to a story that I didn’t know that I had lost. It is a beautiful and heart wrenching story of kids who don’t belong anywhere except perhaps the one place they can’t get back to. Every Heart a Doorway is a portal fantasy where all of those kids who went through a wardrobe or a secret door and had adventures and a place to belong had to come home to a world that didn’t believe them and couldn’t understand them. What happens to those those kids when they come home? What happens is that Seanan McGuire writes a beautiful novel that seared itself so deep into my heart that it touched emotions I’m still not able to fully talk about almost four years later.

I wrote about the novel, “Perhaps moreso than any other book I am likely to read this year, my emotional response to Every Heart a Doorway has everything to do with who I am now and who I was when I was a teenager. I wish this is a story I could have discovered when I was twelve. I love this book with a warm and full heart as an adult, but I would have lived in Every Heart a Doorway as a child. I would have made friends with these children even though their experiences were so alien to mine. I can't imagine that I would have noticed that Nancy is asexual and that Kale is trans, or that I would have understood either concept. That part of the story wasn't for the child I was, but each of those elements are very much for other kids who would never see who they were in a story like this one. It matters that it doesn't matter for the story, if that makes sense.”

It is a beautiful, beautiful novel and I am so glad that it exists in the world. (Joe's review) (Joe)

Jade City, by Fonda Lee (2017): You've never read epic fantasy quite like this. The opening volume of Lee's Green Bone saga introduces readers to the island of Kekon, a culturally Asian island shrugging off decades of occupation and now ruled by rival gang families trained up in using bioreactive jade to power feats of martial arts prowess. The narrative follows various members of the No Peak clan - clan leader Kaul Lan and his siblings, the loyal but vicious Hilo and reluctantly repatriated sister Shae, as well as Anden, a cousin in his final year of training to be a Green Bone - as they try to see off challenges from the rival Mountain clan, as well as responding to wider geopolitical factors shaping the destiny of Kekon. Lee's writing is nothing short of outstanding in the way it brings the world of the Kauls to life, whether it's depicting regular scenes of Janloon street life or cinematically showcasing the supernatural powers of the Green Bone warriors. And, of course, it's all in service of a story that had me absolutely hooked from beginning to end, as we watch (possibly through our fingers) as the Kauls and their allies fight, torture, murder, get murdered, fall in love, make business deals (sensible or otherwise), fail to impress elderly parents, fight some more, and otherwise make difficult choices in service of family, honour and jade. (Adri's review) (Adri)

The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley (2019): It is a bold move to describe a book from the current year as one of the decade’s best, but The Light Brigade is a bold novel in the tradition of Starship Troopers, The Forever War, and Old Man’s War - which is not an opportunity to simply list the titles of significant military science fiction novels but a recognition of where The Light Brigade should be considered in a larger science fiction conversation and as to which novels get to be held up of classics of the genre which revitalize and engage with its past. The Light Brigade does all of that while telling a strong story about a soldier in the middle of an absolutely messed up war that is messed up even further when her combat drops sometimes place her in the wrong battle at the wrong time. Dietz is often not when she is supposed to be, and Hurley ties together all of the complicated timelines and fits it together perfectly. (Paul's review) (Joe)


As we discussed in the introduction we couldn't leave well enough alone and just live by a list of 9 novels which we believe are some of the best of the decade. And even after putting together our honorable mentions, there are still novels we feel like were just on the cusp of making the list. Joe nearly included The Calculating Stars and An Unkindness of Ghosts, and Adri regretfully left off Monstress and Ninefox Gambit. There have been so many excellent novels these last ten years, and here's a few more that we thought were pretty great.

Adri’s Honourable Mentions

Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho (2015): Zen Cho's Sorcerer Royal books are set in an alternate regency world where magic and faerie are everyday parts of life for many people, but magic in Britain is considered entirely the province of elite white men, closeted away in an academy while elite young women with magic attend special academies to repress their powers and people outside the elite are left to their own various devices. It's only when the position of Sorcerer Royal falls, through an accident of bonded familiars, to Black former slave Zacharias Wythe, raised by the former holder of the post as part son and part racist curiosity, that the rest of the establishment finds itself confronting the realities of their own changing society. Meanwhile, Zacharias' attempt to hold on to the post brings him into contact with Prunella Gentleman, mixed-race ward of a women's "magic" school and a powerful, irrepressible force of nature in her own right. Racism and elitism in the British empire are heavy subjects, but Cho is able to use the conventions and wit of a Regency novel to eviscerate the white supremacist assumptions and the ridiculousness of the characters upholding them, all while offering a brilliant, hilarious adventure in a compelling alternate world. I loved it. (We missed reviewing this, but here's Adri's review of Book 2, The True Queen)

After Atlas, by Emma Newman (2016). Because of the time at which I read Planetfall, Emma Newman's series of a dystopian Earth - and the various factors and faiths that cause people to leave it - is embedded in my brain as a foundational example of science fiction. From the troubled, grief-stricken extrasolar colony of Planetfall itself, to the claustrophobic, unsettling mysteries of the Martian colony in Before Mars, the series combines a challenging vision of a future under technologically advanced capitalism, with a realistic but always compassionate look at what happens to people trying to survive, and their own personal traumas and mental health challenges. For this list, though, my pick has to be After Atlas, the story of Carlos Moreno, a corporate indenture investigating the murder of the leader of a religious cult - who also happens to be a figure from his own difficult childhood. Carlos' journey to figure out the truth leads him to uncover secrets both past and present about the Atlas mission, and the powerful figures attempting to control it, and humanity's access to the stars. It's a compelling mystery, but what really brings After Atlas to life is its vision of future life: where people and their rights can be bought and sold by corporations, "real" food is an unimaginable luxury to the majority of the population, and intrusive AR advertising is a reality for anyone not wealthy enough to turn off the algorithms that control it. Terrifying in its real-world implications, and compelling in its treatment of characters, After Atlas is by far my favourite "dystopia" of the decade, and a book that everyone should check out. (Sorry, we don't have a review of any of the Planetfall novels, but they're delightful)

This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (2019): This Is How You Lose the Time War is perhaps the weirdest book on this list - an epistolary romance between two rival agents for immensely powerful future factions ("techy-mechy" Agency and "viney-hivey" Garden), charting their travels through dimensions as they try to nudge futures in the direction of their respective overlords, and the letters they leave each other in various ephermeal forms throughout the timeline. In my review for Strange Horizons, I said that This Is How You Lose The Time War's greatest strength is "its exquisitely pitched story of romantic connection and its ability to bring all other aspects of the novella—its epistolary form, its expansive and yet understated worldbuilding, its themes of connection and agency and change—into the service of that emotional core. It's a romance whose portrayal of human connection is all the more powerful for the fact that it takes place between two beings who are otherwise not comprehensible to us, leaving their hopes, fears, and longing as the only elements left for a reader to cling to, and thus turning the love between Red and Blue into the most important thing in an unimaginably large multidimensional time war." I also mentioned it was the only book of 2019 to make me cry, and while that's not quite true any more (but that's a story for next decade's roundup) it still stands out as one of the most pure emotional experiences I have had reading a book - all the more incredible for the fact that it packs such a punch in novella length. (Paul's Review)

Joe's Honorable Mentions

 

Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer (2014): I find myself at a loss as to how to talk about Annihilation. There’s an expedition into Area X, the location doesn’t exactly matter but it’s in the American South presumably somewhere in Florida. What we know is that we don’t know anything. Area X is weird, it is unexplained - nobody knows exactly how or when it appeared and took over the land - and it is largely unexplored even though there have been eleven previous expeditions to do so. They haven’t gone well. This is the twelfth expeidtion.

Annihilation is weird, a little obscure, thrilling, occasionally claustrophobic, terrifying, and absolutely fantastic. I’m not sure there’s another novel like it, not even Authority or Acceptance - the two follow up novels to Annihilation. There are also few other novels this decade that have stuck with me for as long as this one has. I find myself thinking about the novel again and again, never quite getting anywhere with my thoughts but just wondering and letting the atmosphere of my memory wash over me. Even that is unsettling, just like everything is in the book. It’s an exceptional novel. (G's Review) (Joe)

 

Uprooted, by Naomi Novik (2015): Readers of childhood fairy tales will find so much that is familiar in Uprooted, but Naomi Novik is holding up a twisted mirror to those fairy tales while still holding tightly to the heart of what we so love and remember. Novik may not be completely deconstructing fairy tales here, but she is definitely playing with the form.

The star, driving force, and shining heart of Uprooted is the character of Agnieszka. The more conventional fairy tale that Novik appears to be telling in the first chapter is not necessarily the one that we get as the novel progresses. Agnieszka appears to be a wilting character, shrinking back from the anger and ubruptness of the dragon. This is not who she becomes. Through her own strength of character and intelligence, Agnieszka begins to grow into the person she never would have dreamed she could or would become. The concept of this Agnieszka would have been as alien and as foreign to her as the reality of life at court. Though still raw and impulsive, the progression of the novel begins to give her the seasoning required to not only help in the fight against The Wood, but also to become the sort of character parents will want to use as an example to their children.

Fairy tales are for kids, right? Uprooted straddles that line. It is both very much a novel that adults can, should, and will appreciate. Adults will recognize many of the things that Novik is doing in tweaking some of the conventions of fairy tales, but will also enjoy the novel simply for what it is. Older kids will enjoy Uprooted for simply being a kick-ass book with an awesome heroine and an exciting story for which they simply must know what happens next. Naomi Novik has a little bit for everyone in Uprooted. (Joe's review) (Joe)

Into the Drowning Deep, by Mira Grant (2017): If I told you that this was a novel about mermaids, you’d probably have visions of Disney and The Little Mermaid and maybe some vague sense of unease if you have recollections of historical depictions and sirens. Mira Grant’s mermaids are terrifying, compelling, and all too plausible. Grant herself said that the novel “does for mermaids what Jurassic Park did for velociraptors” and that’s entirely true. Into the Drowning Deep is a true page turner of the highest quality - you might not be able to sleep after, but you’ll want to stay up for one more page, one more chapter. (Joe's review) (Joe)



Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 3x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan

Adri is a semi-aquatic migratory mammal most often found in the UK. She has many opinions about SFF books, and is also partial to gaming, baking, interacting with dogs, and Asian-style karaoke. Find her on Twitter at @adrijjy.