Reading the Hugos: Lodestar

This is the second year of the Lodestar Award for Best YA Novel and, from the perspective of a reader who isn't much of a YA reader, the Hugo nominators have done a solid job each year in finding a worthy lineup of finalists.

For reasons of time and priority, the only novel from last year's ballot I read was the one I had already read prior to the announcement of the finalists (Philip Pullman's La Belle Sauvage, for those keeping score at home), but I made a point this year to read the full ballot.

Unsurprisingly, the novels here are consistently excellent.

I do wonder a bit about the choices I make as a reader. I don't want to make this more of a general point, so I'll keep the focus squarely on what I can speak to. As a general rule I am not a YA reader, mostly because there is so much I am interested in reading and even though I read somewhere between 100 and 150 books in a given year (sometimes more, seldom fewer), I still need to make choices as to what to read and there is just so much I am excited to read in the adult SFF sphere that doing any sort of deeper dive into YA is something that would take away from the other other books I am looking to read.

Generally, it takes a novel that breaks out of the YA spaces and gains visibility in some of the more SFF communities that I engage with (see, Children of Blood and Bone) or has some aspect that catches the attention of those communities (see, Dread Nation) or are beloved by commentators I deeply admire and respect (see, Tess of the Road). Also, I almost said the "wider SFF communities", but that would not have been correct because YA publishing and readership is absolutely huge and has a significant overlap in science fiction and fantasy that should not be understated.

This is all to say that I was familiar with three of the novels on the ballot, and I was excited to read everything here to see which novels would break out into my list of new favorites. At least one, and let's find out which.


The Belles, by Dhonielle Clayton (Freeform / Gollancz)
Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt / Macmillan Children’s Books)
The Cruel Prince, by Holly Black (Little, Brown / Hot Key Books)
Dread Nation, by Justina Ireland (Balzer + Bray)
The Invasion, by Peadar O’Guilin (David Fickling Books / Scholastic)
Tess of the Road, by Rachel Hartman (Random House / Penguin Teen)

The Invasion: The novel least on my Hugo / YA radar is also my least favorite of the Lodestar finalists. The Invasion is the second volume in a sequence began with The Call, and I went into The Invasion blind. O’Guilin gives new readers enough to pick up what the story is and how everything fits together well enough that even though there is surely nuance and important references missed, The Invasion stands fairly well on its own despite being very much a continuation of a larger story. It’s a mixup of Irish mythology, survival horror, and faerie. It happens to be one of two novels on the Lodestar Shortlist dealing with faerie. Unrelated to the awards, I’ve read a surprising number of novels this year touching on faerie.

The Invasion is a solid novel, and one which I would normally be interested in reading more of, but this is a really solid class of novels on the Lodestar ballot and The Invasion doesn’t hang with the others. It is also perhaps not surprising with this year’s Worldcon being held in Dublin that a number of voters from Ireland would nominate a novel from their country, which is as it should be.

Tess of the Road: I was nervous to read Tess of the Road because I know how passionately Adri loves the novel, how hard she has championed it not just for the Lodestar but also as a potential contender for Best Novel. What if I don’t like it? What if I hate it? It’s not that our reading tastes line up perfectly anyway (she doesn’t love The Calculating Stars and I don’t understand), but still. So, with a small amount of trepidation and a moderate amount of excitement, I started to read Tess of the Road. Friends, I didn’t love it. It was only because of Adri’s enthusiasm that I pushed through beyond the midpoint of the novel because those first chapters, even up to nearly the first half of the novel, were not working for me. I had decided to not re-read Adri’s review of the novel because I didn’t want to have someone else’s take fresh in my mind, but I was curious what she saw in Tess of the Road.

I kept reading and something changed around the point we got to the road crew and the old nun. I think it was where we saw more of Tess’s change, where Tess had fewer moments of raw desperation to survive or escape and more time forming into the woman she would become. That’s where I began to be sold on the novel. The first half of the novel is necessary for the second half to have meaning (or to even be understandable), but I was fully engaged and excited during that second half and completely disinterested in the opening section of the novel. I do recommend you read Adri’s thoughts on the novel for another perspective. Also, there is a moment very late in the novel that functionally amounts to a recounting of most of what Tess did during the novel and it shouldn’t work. It’s a summary in the form of conversation, and it’s a beautiful capstone to Tess of the Road, a novel that I appreciated far more by the end than I ever thought I midway through the story.

The Belles: It is a sign of the strength of the Lodestar category this year that The Belles ranks as far down my ballot as it does, because Dhonielle Clayton's novel was engaging and a painful delight. As a general rule, I appreciate and enjoy YA novels which feature some alternate world with a major societal change to divide citizens in some way - Uglies, The Hunger Games, Divergent, etc. The Belles is that sort of novel, one where Beauty (capital B) is vital - most people are drab and gray, but the power of the Belles is transformative - defining beauty standards and changing drab gray individuals into vibrantly bright realized humans. The Belles is over the top, like Effie Trinket on steroids and multiplied hundreds of times.

The novel is a commentary on beauty and how the external becomes self worth, told through the lens of an absurd concept of a society and magic system and it is absolutely delightful.

Children of Blood and Bone: One of the biggest novels of 2018 was Tomi Adeyemi’s epic fantasy debut Children of Blood and Bone. It’s a YA novel and, from my perspective, much of the conversation lived in YA circles until the novel’s momentum and importance on the year had built so much that it could not be ignored by the more “traditional” genre sphere. I put “traditional” in quotes because I think that is becoming an increasingly outdated way of looking at genre conversation and I also recognize that I may also be inadvertently be considering the small space that I occupy and can see from as “traditional” and others that I’m not aware of as not part of the usual / historical places that genre conversations are occurring and I suspect there is a good chance that I was wrong. With that said, it still *feels* to me that Children of Blood and Bone broke into the genre conversation from a YA base.

Of course, we are considering Children of Blood and Bone as a finalist for the Lodestar Award for Best YA Novel with a need to decide how it stacks next to the other finalists in the category. Children of Blood and Bone is the only finalist I had read prior to the announcement of the ballot and it remains a favorite of mine and a very strong debut for Adeyemi. The novel is inspired by West African mythology, though more than that I can’t say, and hits hard on racism, oppression, and slavery. With that, Children of Blood and Bone is very much an epic fantasy with a quest and it hits those familiar and welcome beats for fantasy readers. It’s a strong debut and I can’t wait to see what Adeyemi does with the follow up.

The Cruel Prince: Holly Black is the most accomplished writer of the finalists for the Lodestar Award for Best YA Novel. She is the author of nine Young Adult novels (including The Cruel Prince) and co-author to some fourteen middle grade novels (including the Spiderwick Chronicles), if my count is at all accurate. Black is a previous winner of the Andre Norton (Nebula) Award for Best YA Novel. The Cruel Prince is the first book of a new trilogy (The Folk of the Air) that is related to a previous series which began with the novel Tithe. No knowledge of those previous novels are required (nor did I have any), though I suspect long time Holly Black readers will nod familiarly at old friends and enemies appearing in this volume.

The Cruel Prince is a very engaging novel, though as with many stories of faerie, not a very pleasant one. Jude and her sisters are brought to faerie when her parents are murdered and they are raised by the murderer (the father of Jude’s oldest sister). The Cruel Prince is a novel of betrayal after betrayal, trickery and plots, of rebellion and desperation to belong. It’s delightful, which is a word that I over-use when describing things, but The Cruel Prince is an absolute delight to read. Jude is an engaging protagonist, as relatable as can be for a character now younger than half of my age. Her relationships with her sisters, with Cardan (the presumed “cruel prince” of the title), with another character better left discovered, are all so well done and well written that Jude is a fully realized character. Children of Blood and Bone may be the more important novel in the long term, but The Cruel Prince is the better book. Holly Black is a master storyteller.

Dread Nation: The American Civil War did not end with Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. It ended because the dead rose during the battle of Gettysburg and fighting a zombie uprising was more pressing than fighting the living. Slavery has been abolished, but in its place is the Native and Negro Reeducation Act and other laws like requiring non-white children to attend “combat schools” to better learn how to more effectively kill the dead.

Justina Ireland is doing so much work in this novel, and likely so much more than I can even recognize as a comfortably upper middle class white male approaching middle age. I fully recognize there are parts of the novel that aren’t written for me and that I don’t have the lived in experience to even see, let alone viscerally feel to my core that other readers will. Dread Nation is a post apocalyptic zombie novel that deals with race, gender, class, and I have no idea what else. There is action, ass kicking, violence as near ballet, violence as dehumanizing brutality, a clear recognition that slavery isn’t dead but just going by a different name, surprising allies, expected enemies, continued legal oppression, and a searing rage permeating the novel.

Dread Nation is absolutely spectacular. If I had read it earlier, it may well have found a slot on my Best Novel ballot. This is as good as it gets.



My Vote
1. Dread Nation
2. The Cruel Prince
3. Children of Blood and Bone
4. The Belles
5. Tess of the Road
6. The Invasion


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

New Books Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of the New Books Spotlight, where each month or so we curate a selection of 6 forthcoming books we find notable, interesting, and intriguing. It gives us the opportunity to shine a brief spotlight on some stuff we're itching to get our hands on.

What are you looking forward to? Anything you want to argue with us about? Is there something we should consider spotlighting in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Ireland, Justina. Dread Nation [Harper Collins]
Publisher's Description

At once provocative, terrifying, and darkly subversive, Dread Nation is Justina Ireland's stunning vision of an America both foreign and familiar—a country on the brink, at the explosive crossroads where race, humanity, and survival meet. 

Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—derailing the War Between the States and changing the nation forever.

In this new America, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Education Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead.

But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It's a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.

But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston's School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose.

But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies.

And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems. 

Why We Want It: Per the author, Dread Nation is a post-reconstruction novel about zombies and racism. Also, the cover. That cover is magnificent is as much a selling point as anything else I'm going to read about the book.

Miller, Sam J. Blackfish City [Orbit]
Publisher's Description

“Miller gives us an incisive and beautifully written story of love, revenge, and the power (and failure) of family in a scarily plausible future. Blackfish City simmers with menace and heartache, suspense and wonder. Plus, it has lots of action and a great cast of characters. Not to mention an orca and a polar bear!” —Ann Leckie, New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Clarke Awards 

After the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle, a remarkable feat of mechanical and social engineering, complete with geothermal heating and sustainable energy. The city’s denizens have become accustomed to a roughshod new way of living, however, the city is starting to fray along the edges—crime and corruption have set in, the contradictions of incredible wealth alongside direst poverty are spawning unrest, and a new disease called “the breaks” is ravaging the population.

When a strange new visitor arrives—a woman riding an orca, with a polar bear at her side—the city is entranced. The “orcamancer,” as she’s known, very subtly brings together four people—each living on the periphery—to stage unprecedented acts of resistance. By banding together to save their city before it crumbles under the weight of its own decay, they will learn shocking truths about themselves.

Blackfish City is a remarkably urgent—and ultimately very hopeful—novel about political corruption, organized crime, technology run amok, the consequences of climate change, gender identity, and the unifying power of human connection.  

Why We Want It: I'm not as familiar with Sam Miller's work, though the praise I've seen for his last novel, The Art of Starving, is immense. This was has piqued my interest. There's an orcamancer. That's awesome.

Newman, Emma. Before Mars [Ace]
Publisher's Description

Hugo Award winner Emma Newman returns to the captivating Planetfall universe with a dark tale of a woman stationed on Mars who starts to have doubts about everything around her. 

After months of travel, Anna Kubrin finally arrives on Mars for her new job as a geologist and de facto artist in residence–and already she feels she is losing the connection with her husband and baby at home on Earth.

In her room on the base, Anna finds a mysterious note, painted in her own hand, warning her not to trust the colony psychiatrist. A note she can’t remember painting.

When she finds a footprint in a place that the colony AI claims has never been visited by humans, Anna begins to suspect that she is caught up in an elaborate corporate conspiracy. Or is she losing her grip on reality? Anna must find the truth, regardless of what horrors she might discover or what they might do to her mind.  

Why We Want It: I'm a bit behind on my Emma Newman reading, but I loved Planetfall, Newman's novel of interstellar colonization, and though I should really read After Atlas next, I'm putting this here as a reminder to get to it. Before Mars is the third volume of Newman's loose trilogy and the strength of Planetfall has interested in all of it.

Scalzi, John. Head On [Tor]
Publisher's Description

"As much as Scalzi has the scientific creativity of a Michael Crichton, he also has the procedural chops of a Stephen J. Canell to craft a whodunit with buddy-cop charm and suspects aplenty—most of them in someone else's body." —USA Today 

John Scalzi returns with Head On, the standalone follow-up to the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed Lock In. Chilling near-future SF with the thrills of a gritty cop procedural, Head On brings Scalzi's trademark snappy dialogue and technological speculation to the future world of sports.

Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent’s head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are “threeps,” robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden’s Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real and the crowds love it.

Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.

Is it an accident or murder? FBI agents and Haden-related crime investigators, Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, are called in to uncover the truth—and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hilketa, where fortunes are made or lost, and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field. 

Why We Want It: At this point I'll read pretty much anything John Scalzi writes. I was slightly nervous going into Lock In because it was a significant departure from the space based awesomeness he normally writes, but I really enjoyed that book. Head On is the mostly standalone sequel to Lock In, so I'm on board. Plus, it's written by Scalzi. Of course I'm there!

Wallace, Matt. Taste of Wrath [Tor.com Publishing]
Publisher's Description

With seven books for seven sins, Taste of Wrath is the adrenaline-fuelled finalé to Matt Wallace's Sin du Jour series, which Chuck Wendig calls "a raucous, riotous tale of culinary madness"! 

Bronko and his team of crack chefs and kitchen staff have been serving the New York supernatural community for decades. But all that could be about to change.

The entity formerly known as Allensworth has been manipulating Bronko and his team from Day One, and the gang at Sin du Jour have had enough.

Old debts are called in, and an alliance is formed with the unlikeliest of comrades.

Some will die. Some will descend. And some will rise.  

Why We Want It: You've probably already seen my review of Taste of Wrath. I love this series with all of my twisted heart and Wallace nails the friggin ending. It's bittersweet, but it had to be. I heartily recommend every one of the Sin du Jour novellas and if you're only just hearing about them, I entreat you to go start with Envy of Angels and prepare yourself for the delight you are about to encounter.

Valente, Catherynne M. Space Opera [Saga]
Publisher's Description

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy meets Eurovision in an over-the-top galactic science fiction spectacle from bestselling author Catherynne Valente where sentient races compete for glory in a universe-wide musical contest—where the stakes are as high as the fate of planet Earth.

A century ago, the Sentience Wars tore the galaxy apart and nearly ended the entire concept of intelligent space-faring life. In the aftermath, a curious tradition was invented—something to cheer up everyone who was left and bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity, and understanding.

Once every cycle, the civilizations gather for the Metagalactic Grand Prix—part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part continuation of the wars of the past. Instead of competing in orbital combat, the powerful species that survived face off in a competition of song, dance, or whatever can be physically performed in an intergalactic talent show. The stakes are high for this new game, and everyone is forced to compete.

This year, though, humankind has discovered the enormous universe. And while they expected to discover a grand drama of diplomacy, gunships, wormholes, and stoic councils of aliens, they have instead found glitter, lipstick, and electric guitars. Mankind will not get to fight for its destiny—they must sing.

A band of human musicians, dancers, and roadies have been chosen to represent Earth on the greatest stage in the galaxy. And the fate of their species lies in their ability to rock. 

Why We Want It: I really don't know what to say if the first paragraph of the publisher's description doesn't do it for you. It really is the most amazing book description I think I've ever read.


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 & 2018 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Writer / Editor of the mostly defunct Adventures in Reading since 2004. Minnesotan.