Book Review: Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor

Nnedi Okorafor’s ambitious new novel tackles major global issues from AI to the power of storytelling

The title alone, Death of the Author, sets up this novel to engage with how we think about authorship, readers, and the life of a story. The novel follows Zelu, a failed adjunct professor, who at her lowest moment, writes a science fiction novel. Her previous literary novel, which she had worked on for a decade, had failed to sell, but after she sends in this new novel about robots in Nigeria thriving after humanity has destroyed itself, her agent declares it will be a hit. And it is. Zelu’s life entirely changes as she is swept up in the fantastical life of a celebrity author.

Zelu’s rise to literary stardom is marked by her struggles with her family. As a girl, she fell from a tree and became paralyzed from the waist down, which impacted how her family treated her and continue to treat her as an adult. Zelu comes from a large diasporic family, with many of her siblings living successful lives in Chicago, while Zelu is, at first, the failed writer with only an MFA. As her uncle says later in the book, “You’ve been shrugging off the house they built around you since you wrote that book. […] You rewrote your narrative” (312). The more compelling part of this novel is following Zelu as she rewrites this narrative that her family and Nigerian culture has constructed around her. Even before her success as an author, she displayed a level of independence from her family by smoking weed, using autonomous driving vehicles instead of relying on the family for rides, and having an active dating life.

Braided within the story of Zelu’s family life and literary career is the novel that rockets her to stardom, Rusted Robots. This novel follows Ankara, a Hume robot who collects stories. While walking the human-less earth, Ankara learns a terrible piece of information that will lead to the destruction of the planet and must find more Humes who can help avert this destruction. During the search, Ankara becomes entangled with a NoBody, a type of AI which lives in a hive with other NoBodies. They believe they are superior to Humes and other robots who continue in a physical existence. Even so, Ankara and the NoBody named Ijele learn to work together for survival. 

Meta books like Okorafor’s novel are particularly tricky to pull off. Usually, when describing a novel within a novel where the story is a global sensation, there are two common routes: either the sensational novel is included, emphasizing the story-within-story, or it is only referenced and summarized by various characters, never giving the reader any, or very little, insight into the text. The problem with including the sensationalized story in the novel is that it has to live up to being a global sensation, which is a task for any novelist. Okorafor braids the story within a story of Rusted Robots throughout the novel, but it never caught me up as an inspiring hit. Moments of Rusted Robots were moving, funny, beautifully described, but it didn’t quite deliver the promise of the frame: that it would capture readers globally to the level of reading it over and over, obsessed with these characters, obsessed with the author. Rather, Zelu's story is more compelling and personal. Even so, Rusted Robots has a lovely meditation on the importance of story as the character Ankara collects tales and ultimately, uses fiction to help save the planet. As Ankara says: “Stories are what holds all things together” (412). 

The reference of the novel’s title promises the reader an investigation of storytelling, and the novel does deliver on some of those ideas. The title, Death of the Author, comes into play as Zelu must release her novel Rusted Robots into the hands of her readers, thus completing Roland Barthes’ maxim at the end of his essay by the same name: “We know that to give writing its future, it is necessary to overthrow the myth: the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.” This release becomes particularly troublesome for Zelu when the movie adaptation is far afield of the Nigerian-based book that she produced, becoming a much more “American” version, which Zelu hates. Yet, the movie becomes incredibly popular and praised, leading to more interest in her novel via this interpretation of her work that she deems incorrect and insulting. This meditation on the struggle of being a successful SFF author captured the meta-ness the novel promises as Zelu struggles with being “canceled” and the demand for a sequel alongside the threats that come from becoming so rich so quickly. In something of an American fairytale, Zelu manages to pull herself up by her bootstraps and is richly rewarded for her hard work as a writer, with even her snotty students apologizing to her after her stardom. Of course, there are also struggles as she has negative interactions with interviewers who want to focus on her race, her disability, or her class, but these interactions and right criticisms of the media industry do not detract from Zelu’s ultimate success and wealth. 

It was refreshing to see this type of meta narrative in science fiction as opposed to the postmodern literary novel. Throughout the novel, the commentary on science fiction as a powerful tool is clear, as one character says: “[Science fiction is] about being different, seeing more, examining human nature, and imagining tomorrow” (383). To that end, parts of Zelu’s stardom story are troubling if we are to believe in the power of science fiction to imagine tomorrow. Plot points hinge on the interest and action of two rich, white men—one working in medical science and another investing in citizen space travel. The timing of this book does not lend to the positive associations these character garner from Zelu—published a few days before a “rich” white man was inaugurated for a second term as President of the U.S. and a few weeks before the richest man in the world would speak in the oval office while disassembling parts of the U.S. government. There are gestures of criticism in the novel to the fact that Zelu is accepting opportunities from these rich, white men, but I struggle to find a thoughtful examination of these moments. 

In the spirit of Barthes, the title asks the reader to separate the author’s biography from the text and reader’s interpretation (or not, if we are to interpret this novel as refuting Barthes, which there is evidence for in how closely Zelu’s life mirrors the Hume Ankara). It is important to note that Okorafor does not agree with Barthes’ theorizing and told The Bookseller: “You can’t separate the author from the work. You can’t separate it and that’s okay.” To not separate this book from the author creates a strange dissonance around the economic politics of the book, upon which much of the plot hinges. Zelu’s economic success changes her life, and she has fantastical experience after fantastical experience because she is rich. While the book gestures at the occasional critical comment of the wealthy characters, ultimately the rich white guys are good. Only in science fiction is such a world possible.

The cover of Death of the Author promises “the future of storytelling is here.” While the novel does not quite live up to the idea, this book demonstrates Okorafor’s range as an artist. The economic plotline of the novel leaves something to be desired in our current moment, but this layered text will leave interested readers with much to discuss.

Reference: Okorafor, Nnedi. Death of the Author [William Morrow, 2025].

Posted by: Phoebe Wagner is an author, editor, and academic writing and living at the intersection of speculative fiction and climate change.

Review: Out There Screaming

A clever take on the greatest horror of all: reality

As coldness creeps into the air and night arrives earlier, the days are perfect for ghost stories, monsters, and things out of the ordinary. Out There Screaming, An Anthology of New Black Horror is a collection of short stories edited by Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams. The nineteen tales are penned by a selection of talented storytellers, including Hugo Award winning and popular favorites N.K. Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor, and Nalo Hopkinson. Each of the stories offers a clever take on the greatest horror of all: reality.

Out There Screaming opens with an introduction from Jordan Peele discussing a medieval torture device designed to make people feel forgotten and degraded. Centuries later, the real horror is the way society still does this to us. As expected from a story collection associated with Jordan Peele, the tales in Out There Screaming have abundant and clever social commentary, as well as thoughtful insights into the human condition in general.

As several of the narratives remind us, reality can be particularly horrific when you are a person of color—even without the fantastical elements. This is a recurring theme in many of the stories, but not in the way we are used to seeing such narratives play out in our media. From a Reconstruction era Black town to a modern-day motorist police stop, we see real-life horror entangled with supernatural forces. But the anthology also includes stories dealing, in a twisted way, with other topics such as grief, jealousy, addiction, self-identity, and belonging. In every adventure, it is clear that we have crossed over into an existence where things are more than they seem, with storytelling in the style of The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, and, of course, Get Out.

This is an anthology where every story delivers—some better than others, but all are memorable and powerful. A standout story in the collection is Eye & Tooth, about a pair of brother and sister monster hunters who meet their match during a job in Texas. The story hits many appealing elements, including sibling bonding, dramatic fight scenes, and even a bit of found family. A poignant entry is The Aesthete, a science fiction story that follows a day in the life of an artificially created young man who is constantly scrutinized on social media as a condition of his existence. It is a timely allegory for the constant pressure that young people face, in particular young Black men, and it is a story readers will think about long after finishing the collection. The book ends with a discussion in the form of a play that uses the script format to come full circle on the themes that started the collection.

Out There Screaming benefits from both the provocative style of storytelling and the fact that most of the tales have a very satisfying ending. Although some of the endings are also poignant, sad, or fully tragic, they all avoid traditional tropes of the martyred Black person or racism winning. The stories are primarily mind-bending and insightful rather than overtly slash and gore, although there is some slashing and gore, especially in The Norwood Trouble and A Grief of the Dead.

The anthology includes the following tales:

Reckless Eyeballing by N. K. Jemisin – A racist cop sees car headlights as eyes watching him.

Eye & Tooth by Rebecca Roanhorse – Monster-hunting brother and sister meet their match.

Wandering Devil by Cadwell Turnbull – A man with abandonment issues tries to avoid commitment.

Invasion of the Baby Snatchers by Lesley Nneka Arimah – A government agent fights against shapeshifting aliens who use humans to breed destructive creatures.

The Other One by Violet Allen – Things take a macabre turn after a couple breaks up.

Lasirèn by Erin E. Adams – The hunt for her lost sister leads a girl to a confrontation with a water creature.

The Rider by Tananarive Due – In the 1960s, a pair of confident female freedom riders cross paths with a different kind of monster on their bus.

The Aesthete by Justin C. Key – An artificial human tries to find peace in a world of constant online observation and prejudice.

Pressure by Ezra Claytan Daniels – A man deals with the pressure of returning home to his family as another kind of pressure grows around them.

Dark Home by Nnedi Okorafor – After burying her father in his home country of Nigeria, a grieving daughter brings back more than she expects to her quiet New Mexico neighborhood.

Flicker by L. D. Lewis – A young woman watching the world collapse around her has a startling revelation.

The Most Strongest Obeah Woman in the World by Nalo Hopkinson – A Jamaican girl’s encounter with a monster leaves her changed.

The Norwood Trouble by Maurice Broaddus – When a peaceful thriving Black town is attacked by violent racists, the town leaders come up with a solution.

A Grief of the Dead by Rion Amilcar Scott – A man struggles with grief after the death of his twin brother.

A Bird Sings by the Etching Tree by Nicole D. Sconiers – Two dead young women from different decades haunt a dangerous stretch of highway.

An American Fable by Chesya Burke – A Black WWII soldier returning to his racist hometown encounters a strange little girl on the train.

Your Happy Place by Terence Taylor – A prison worker investigates the disappearances of inmates who are part of a special reprogramming project.

Hide & Seek by P. Djèlí Clark – Two brothers in a family of magic wielders try to survive the backlash of their mother’s erratic behavior.

Origin Story by Tochi Onyebuchi – A play about children understanding the role of race unfolds through the characters’ voices.

Despite the description of Out There Screaming as A New Anthology of Black Horror, the stories will appeal to non-horror fans who want twisty, clever analyses of our bizarre existence as humans in the current era. It is sometimes said that art will save the world. These stories might not save the world, but they might help you see it through a new lens, and hopefully feel more empowered.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

Highlights

· Clever social commentary

· Memorable stories

· Moderate, but present, horror violence

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

The Novella Files: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Subject: Okorafor, Nnedi. Binti [Tor.com Publishing, 2015]

Accolades: Winner - Hugo Award (2016), Nebula Award (2016); Nominee - Locus Award (2016) 

Genre: science fiction

Executive Summary: Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.

Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.

If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself -- but first she has to make it there, alive. (From Goodreads).

Assessment: Binti embodies the promise of the novella as a narrative form. It is a compressed novel, featuring all the plot, character and thematic development you look for in a novel, but hyper-economical in its delivery. We are thrust into a world where few of our current assumptions hold. It is afro-centric, in the sense that both Binti herself and the two named human peoples come from Africa and are rooted in African cultures, though only the Himba correspond to a named human people on our Earth. It is futuristic, in the sense that there are technologies far more advanced than our own, including star travel and mysterious devices like the ubiquitous astrolabe (which made Binti's people, and in particular her family, famous throughout the galaxy) and an ancient relic whose properties only Binti can unlock. But we are given no lengthy exposition on how these technologies work - or even, in some cases, what they are used for. The alien Meduse, for that matter, are suitably alien - in physical terms, they are nothing at all like humans. 

Readers used to the techno-fetishism of "hard" SF will likely recoil at this approach, but as far as I'm concerned it's exciting. The air of mystery is enveloping and engrossing. We are treated like adults in this world, hearing a story delivered with all the assumptions someone would make if they were telling a mimetic story in our world. The focus is squarely on the characters and dramatic events, and Okorafor's prose is elegant yet unobtrusive. Binti is truly a standout among novellas, and worthy of all the accolades it has received. 

Score: 10/10. 

Nanoreviews: The Queen of Raiders, Across the Green Grass Fields, Remote Control

Kozloff, Sarah. The Queen of Raiders [Tor]

When I wrote about A Queen in Hiding almost a year ago, I wrote about how expectations set by publicity can be markedly different than the actual novel between the covers. I was wrong about my initial impressions of the novel (and thus the series), though O should have let that first novel take me more fully on the ride the author intended rather than allowing my expectations be set by the novel's promotion. In some ways that was unfair, but it's difficult to overcome incorrectly set expectations.

Now, with expectations set a bit more in line with what this series is (and is shaping up to be) I returned to the Nine Realms with The Queen of Raiders. This is a very different book, much more accomplished and confident, and possibly more thoughtful. It expands the scope of the world and while Cerulia does not get much closer to regaining her crown the threat to Weirandale and other nations is so much more fully realized.

The Queen of Raiders remains a bit of a throwback fantasy novel to Kate Elliott's A Crown of Stars and Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince, but it absolutely works and succeeds in what it is trying to do and in the story Sarah Kozloff is trying to tell. Just wonderful.
Score: 7/10

McGuire, Seanan. Across the Green Grass Fields [Tor.com Publishing]

Despite very little in her novels being actually “comfortable”, Seanan McGuire has been something of a comfort read for me the past few years as I have practically devoured nearly everything she has written. I’m still catching up on a few things (Boneyards, Indexing, her short stories), but I have straight up mainlined her longer fiction. It’s just that I feel better having read one of McGuire’s novels, which is something that I can say about any number of writers, but reading most of those other writers does not often create in me the desire to read ten more of their books in a row - but that's exactly how I feel about Seanan McGuire.

There is a certain expectation of style and - if we’re talking October Daye or Incryptid - blood, mysteries, and the expansion of her worldbuilding. McGuire's books are damned delights. Heartbreak is not uncommon (often mine), especially in her Wayward Children series, of which Across the Green Grass Fields is the sixth.

Across the Green Grass Fields is a story of found family, which is not unusual for Seanan McGuire. Despite having loving and accepting parents, which is somewhat unusual for this series, Regan still finds herself estranged from her life. Regan is intersex, and disclosing that to someone she thought of as a friend caused everything to fall apart. When Regan goes through the door she is sure, and that brings her to the hooflands, a world of equines and destiny. There Regan finds abiding friendship and, naturally, threats to her wellbeing. Across the Green Grass Fields is not a softer story, but it is an often quieter one. Beautiful and haunting and heartbreaking as always.
Score: 7/10

Okorafor, Nnedi. Remote Control [Tor.com Publishing]

The presumed conceit of Remote Control was that Fatima was the adopted daughter of death, which is a pretty kick ass idea. That's not quite the story Okorafor is telling here, which caused a small amount of adjustment because while Fatima (later known as Sankofa) becomes a walking avatar of death - it's just not as formal as the novella's description might lead readers to believe.

Sankofa wields great accidental powers, but being Death is isolating. She is a creature to be feared and as much of Remote Control is sad as it is adventurous (though this is a bit of a road novella). Remote Control reads as a folk tale - not in the sense that the narrative doesn't feel quite real, but more in that it feels larger than life and unmoored from a particular time - it's set in a future with a robotic city, but Remote Control could almost be anywhen.
Score: 7/10



POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 4x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. He / Him.

Nerds on Tour: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

Dossier: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor (2011)

Location: Nigeria

Package Type: Book

Itinerary:  “Harry Potter in Nigeria” is the high concept here, as a Nigerian raised in America living in Nigeria again Sunny, an albino and the titular Akata Witch, finds out that she is a “Free Agent”, someone capable of magic but not raised by magic-using parents. By means of new friends far more versed in the magical world, Sunny learns what it means to have magical ability, and starts to learn about her power and abilities, while at the same time a serial killer is killing children. A serial killer that has ties to the Leopard People magical community that Sunny has herself just become a part of.

Travel Log: I don’t read a lot of YA, and so for the Nerds on Tour, I decided I would challenge myself by going for a YA novel, to further expand my horizons and my reading experience with this part of the Project. And I was very glad that I did. I was absorbed from the beginning, even before Sunny discovers that she has magical powers, by the strength of the writing to bring the reader into the protagonist’s Nigerian world. 

For all of the “Harry Potter in Nigeria” vibe that the novel gives off as mentioned above, especially in the second half of the novel, where the novel really resonated with me, and will likely resonate with other Western readers is the mundane world Nigerian setting. Sunny is a quasi-outsider to this world, having moved to Nigeria in the past, and the character of Sasha provides an even more Western, American character to allow for explanation, explication and exploration of what life is like in this part of West Africa. Okorafor does this in the large and the small, showing the reader a world that is not theirs, right from the first paragraph (where the author explains the unreliability of the power supply). 

Languages, cuisine, culture, family interactions, sports, Sunny brings the reader into her world, and there is just enough explanation and internal monologue to allow a reader to make connections, correlations and understand the world she is in. Okorafor keeps a careful balance between explanation and immersion, allowing readers to come into a world she knows very well and wants to very much introduce her readers to. I could see how things were slightly simplified and focused for a YA audience, but for a novel set in an unfamiliar place, people and culture, that results for me a better experience in getting myself familiar with Sunny’s world. 

The author uses those skills and techniques, in turn, on Sunny and with Sunny as we the reader go on her journey into the magical world of the Leopard People. And what a world. The author provides a culture-centered built from the ground up that resonates with the Harry Potter experience in some of its structure and building elements, (a small group of students drawn together, a magical sub-world hidden from the mundane world, magical competitions, dread secrets and history coming to the fore). And for all of that, this feels like it is a response and a retooling of some parts of Harry Potter that always annoyed me--Sunny and the others are expected to go to regular school, learn mundane subjects as well learn magic from the Leopard People. The pedagogic style of how Sunny and her friends learn magic is vastly different than the boarding school experience we get in Harry Potter. All in all, it feels a lot more plausible as a secret world that could actually work, that feels real and complete. 

This dossier would not be complete without a discussion of Sunny and her friends, our entry into this world. Reflecting the reader’s own disorientation with the world being presented, Okorafor has made Sunny an albino, meaning that she is an outside already, giving readers who are an outsider to the culture, society and world presented someone they can really identify and connect with, and that goes, I think for adult readers as well as the YA reader audience the book is. Add in Orlu, Chichi and the American Sasha, and you have a fast friend quartet of young protagonists who are learning, growing, making mistakes and providing excellent character beats and development in this unfamiliar world. I also appreciate they are messier, more well rounded, and more complicated than more archetypally drawn characters often found in YA fiction. 

Overall, I can strongly recommend Akata Witch not only to readers of YA, but readers of fantasy who want to learn more about West Africa, its world, people and culture.

Analytics

The Adventure: 4/5

The Scenery:  5/5.

NerdTrip Rating: 9/10 Outstanding in its category, a trip relevant to the interests of many in SFF. Even if YA may not necessarily be your bag, this is a trip that you will likely love.

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

Reading the Hugos: Graphic Story

Welcome back for another edition of Reading the Hugos, our ongoing and long running feature looking at the Hugo Awards. Today we're going to look at the six finalists for Graphic Story.

This year, not a single comic I nominated made the final ballot. The one I most feel the loss of is Ed Piskor's X-Men: Grand Design, which I thought was a novel reimagining and retelling of of the earliest X-Men stories (see SFK's review). As a general rule, mainline Marvel comics don't make the Hugo Awards ballot (meaning, Avengers / X-Men stuff that doesn't have strong genre ties or are written by well known / regarded writers like Nnedi Okorafor or Saladin Ahmed) and it would have been nice to see Piskor breaking through here.

Regardless. On to the finalists.


Abbott, written by Saladin Ahmed, art by Sami Kivelä, colours by Jason Wordie, letters by Jim Campbell (BOOM! Studios)
Black Panther: Long Live the King, written by Nnedi Okorafor and Aaron Covington, art by André Lima Araújo, Mario Del Pennino and Tana Ford (Marvel)
Monstress, Volume 3: Haven, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda (Image Comics)
On a Sunbeam, by Tillie Walden (First Second)
Paper Girls, Volume 4, written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Cliff Chiang, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Jared K. Fletcher (Image Comics)
Saga, Volume 9, written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)

Monstress: I find myself increasingly in the minority regarding Monstress. There's no questioning the raw excellence of Sana Takeda's art, but I'm not sure I'm really following the story anymore and I'm not interested in going back and re-reading each preceding volume before jumping into the new one, just in the hopes that I'll be able to piece it all together. There's some cool (and badass) stuff in this book - perhaps more here than in "The Blood", but I'm reading Monstress more out of some sense of genre obligation and a vague hope that this will all come together for me in the next book. We'll see.

Paper Girls: Similar to Monstress, I'm not really sure what the overarching story is over Paper Girls or what Vaughan is building to. Unlike Monstress, I'm all in for this ride. I dig the time travel and being of a certain age, dropping the girls into the year 2000 and the fear of Y2K hits a particular emotional nostalgia that I remember so well - but what makes Paper Girls work so well for me is the interactions between the four girls, how they interact with the points in time they're dropped, and the gradual reveals of a war to change or preserve time itself. Maybe even moreso than Saga, I hope this is an ending that Vaughan is going to be able to stick and that he has a plan to bring it all together. But, for now, Vaughan is firing on all cylinders.

Black Panther: Okorafor brings Black Panther back from global threats and wide scale battle, and even from major events threatening Wakanda to tighter stories focused more on the "people on the ground", the citizens of Wakanda through the eyes of T'Challa. I appreciate that these aren't big stories, but rather are trying to reach the heart of what Wakanda is and can be and if it really is or can be as utopian as possible for all of its citizens.

On a Sunbeam: On a Sunbeam is a love story, a friendship story, a space adventure, a story of rebellion at a boarding school, and a bit of an action movie all rolled into one. It’s a beautiful piece of quiet storytelling. With absolutely wild visuals of architecture and space travel that probably would make no sense in a more conventional science fiction story, On a Sunbeam is grounded into the relationships between Mia and Grace and with Mia and the crewmembers of a spaceship shaped like a fish who become a family to her. The two narrative paths of the story are set five years apart, and one part of the “present” storyline is wondering how Mia got from the school to the ship and just what happened? I’ve never read anything quite like this, though it feels familiar at the same time.

The other finalists for Graphic Story are what I think of as more “traditional” comic books, collections of 4 to 5 issues published individually then gathered together for a trade paperback collection often around 120 pages. They are usually a story arc that may or may not hang together as a singular volume. On a Sunbeam was originally a webcomic and when published in book form clocks in over 500 pages. In some ways, On a Sunbeam feels like the sort of work the Graphic Story was created to honor, though looking at the history of the category shows a reasonable cross section between works that make the ballot for 3-5 years in a row and others that are much more of a one off tale or just represent good storytelling that year. However you consider On a Sunbeam, it is wonderful.

Saga: Saga has been a difficult book to talk about because the events of any given volume are just so batshit insane, even nine volumes into to the series - but the core of the story has been the star crossed love story between Marko and Alana and their perpetual attempts to keep their daughter safe even though it seems everything in the galaxy want them dead. The core is there, as are the hints of heartbreak permeating the series through their daughter Hazel's narration.

Volume 9 is the midpoint for the series and it marks the point Vaughan and Staples are taking a year long hiatus. They're leaving us with shock, awe, and pain. Every time it seems the series has hit a new high point, they reach back and let loose another fastball thrown harder than the last one. I'm not sure a baseball analogy works here, but there are some seriously shocking and series altering events in this book that I'm not sure how else to talk about them in vague terms. Listen, Volume 9 collects issues 49 through 54 and this isn't the place to begin if you're new to Saga - go back. It's one story and it's a great one.

Abbott: Saladin Ahmed comes hard with Abbott and he doesn't relent for a moment. This is a bad ass comic book and it is everything I didn't know that I wanted until I read it. Elena Abbott is a reporter covering some nasty, nasty crimes ignored by the police. She's better than good at her job, but then she'd have to be as a black woman in 1972 Detroit. Racism. Sexism. Some evil magical shit. Ahmed has packed Abbott with top notch storytelling and a tight narrative that you don't want to look away from, but maybe not late at night.

Abbott is a revelation. There are secrets and lies and this is a stunning, great piece of writing matched to near perfect art. Don't miss this.


My Vote
1. Abbott
2. Saga
3. On a Sunbeam
4. Black Panther
5. Paper Girls
6. Monstress


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Related Work

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

Reading the Hugos: Novella

Welcome back to Reading the Hugos: 2019 Edition! Today we're going to take a look at the stories up for Best Novella.

For those keeping score at home, three of the finalists were on my nominating ballot (Beneath the Sugar Sky, The Black God's Drums, Gods Monsters and the Lucky Peach).

It is also worth noting that once again this category is packed full of stories from Tor.com Publishing, which is both fine if taken in the abstract and troubling when considered as part of a trend. This year, like last year, five of the six finalists published by Tor.com Publishing. Two years ago Tor.com had four of the six finalists. It is only three years ago, in 2016, that Tor.com only managed two of the five finalists, but they had also only just launched their novella line the previous fall and had fewer eligible titles.

The good news is that Tor.com Publishing puts out a LOT of excellent fiction with their dedicated novella line (with the occasional novel and novelette thrown in) and because of Tor's prominence in the field, their reach, and their reputation - the work is easy to discover. The bad news is that I can't see how this sort of publisher dominance is a good thing for the health of the category or the field. We are beginning to see the same category dominance with the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. There are other publishers putting out high quality novellas (Subterranean, Tachyon, and PS are three significant publishers that come to mind), but it's a harder length of story to place. I've said this before, but I'd like to see a wider variety of publishers make the short list in coming years. Of course, I'm guilty of the same because I read most of what Tor.com Publishing puts out each year because it is easy to get and the quality is high.

On to the finalists!


Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)
Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)
Binti: The Night Masquerade, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing)
The Black God’s Drums, by P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com Publishing)
Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, by Kelly Robson (Tor.com Publishing)
The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean Press / JABberwocky Literary Agency)

The Tea Master and the Detective: It's funny how memory works compared against what I've actually written about a particular story. In this case, my memory says that The Tea Master and the Detective was not that remarkable and I was continually surprised at the praise I saw lobbed at this novella. Then, I check to see if anyone wrote about The Tea Master and the Detective for Nerds of a Feather and I find out that I did, and that I liked it.

My review: "The Mindships of de Bodard's Xuya universe remind me somewhat of Anne McCaffrey's Brain ships, which is not so much a point as a random observation. The Tea Master and the Detective is a murder mystery with a sentient ship and a prickly detective uneasily working together to figure out how a body abandoned in deep space was killed. The novella is far better than my description. The excellence here is in the interplay between The Shadow Child and Long Chau and their characterization, development, and backgrounds."

The scoring on the review did not suggest The Tea Master and the Detective was among the best of the best, but it did tell me that the experience of reading Aliette de Bodard's story was stronger than how it subsequently lived in my memory. Regardless of which is more true, it is not the strongest of this year's finalists for Best Novella. (my review)

Artificial Condition: I do occasionally wonder about the occasional tendency to not love subsequent volumes in a series as much as the first. It's not something that fully holds up as a concept, Seanan McGuire in this very categories puts the lie to the concept - as does any number of other series. But it feels more common to build all the excitement about the first book and then merely appreciate and enjoy the second, third, and fourth books.

That's my not-a-problem with Artificial Condition, which is simply that it isn't All Systems Red (winner of the Hugo and Nebula Award) and while I thoroughly enjoyed Artificial Condition, it didn't reach the heights in my imagination as All Systems Red did and in that way, it suffers a bit in comparison. That's not fair, and a four star reaction is only a disappointment when compared to a five star response.

I do expect to see The Murderbot Diaries on the Hugo ballot in 2021 following the publication of a full length novel next year, and perhaps that is where Murderbot truly shines - not in the discrete entry of a single story but as the wider arc of Muderbot's story. I do also recommend Adri's essay on the first three Murderbot novellas as a stronger bit of counterpoint to how the overall journey is so affecting.

Binti: The Night Masquerade: At the point I am writing this, I could easily flip the placement of Binti: The Night Masquerade with that of Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach. The Night Masquerade is the conclusion of the Binti trilogy, with Binti back home in Namibia and trying to rescue her family and stop a war.

It is difficult for me to discuss The Night Masquerade without looking at the Binti trilogy as a whole because its success here is more than in part in how good of a job Nnedi Okorafor did in wrapping up Binti's story arc. That it was never quite the story I expected after the first book did not lessen the excellence and the raw emotion of The Night Masquerade. It's a damn good story with heart.

Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach: Everything I had to say about Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach last year still stands. This is a spectacular story: "This story is cool as hell. It's set in an ecologically wrecked future where humanity is only just beginning to emerge and re-terraform our planet back into something hospitable. That by itself would be enough to get me interested, but add in some time travel and fantastic characters and ooh, damn, Kelly Robson tells one hell of a story. It's a novella that feels far bigger than it is and even then, I wished for at least one hundred more pages despite the story ending perfectly. I wanted to spend more time in the past. Time travel could be used for amazing things, but is often used for tourism rather than research (though, the travel in this novella is a research trip). The historical detail is fantastic, the interpersonal and interhistorical drama is on point, and I wanted more of every bit of this story." (my review)

The Black Gods Drums: In his review, Paul Weimer wrote that "The real richness of the novella is it is delight in invention, with an eye for creating a world that is rich for the potential for story and adventure. From the palpable existence of very active orishas, to an alternate history with a Confederacy, Haiti as a Caribbean power, and, naturally, airships, the world that Clark has created is a fascinating one that we only get a small short-novella taste of, but I want to read more of. The vision of New Orleans as a freeport where the Union, the Confederacy, Haiti and other powers all meet and trade, complete with extensive airship facilities is a compelling and fascinating one."

I was blown away by The Black God's Drums, by the characterizations and action and worldbuilding, by Clark's storytelling. As good of a novella as I thought it was when I first read it, The Black God's Drums has only increased in my estimation the more time has passed. (Paul's review)

Beneath the Sugar Sky: This third novella in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series offers some of the sense of nostalgia of Every Heart a Doorway, but with a far greater sense of adventure. Beneath the Sugar Sky offers a feeling of homecoming for the reader, laced with the complete nonsense of the world of Confection.

From my review: "Beneath the Sugar Sky is filled with wit and biting commentary on how children are perceived and all too often squeezed into boxes they don't belong in order to fit the ideas and dreams of their parents and other adults, and how pervasive that can be. It's also a delightful adventure story filled with charm and wonder and it's a book I did not quite want to end because I wasn't ready to say goodbye." I adored Beneath the Sugar Sky. (my review)


My Vote
1. Beneath the Sugar Sky
2. The Black God's Drums
3. Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach
4. Binti: The Night Masquerade
5. Artificial Condition
6. The Tea Master and the Detective


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

Reading the Hugos: Novella

Welcome back to Reading the Hugos: 2018 Edition! Today we're going to take a look at the stories up for Best Novella.

For those keeping score at home, two of the short listed stories were on my nominating ballot (Down Among the Sticks and Bones, "And Then There Were (N-One)"), though similar to the finalists for Best Novel, this is an outstanding category from top to bottom. It's a damn shame that something needs to be ranked last, but that's how the voting works. They can't all win, but there are no weak stories here.

It is also worth noting this category is incredibly heavy with Tor.com Publishing stories, even more so than last year (which only had four out of six from Tor.com Publishing). The good news is that they put out a LOT of excellent fiction with a focus on the novella length and they're making those novellas very affordable and accessible. The bad news is that this sort of publisher dominance is probably not a good thing for the health of the category or the field. There are other publishers putting out high quality novellas (Subterranean, Tachyon, and PS are three book publishers that come to mind), but it's a harder length of story to place. I'd like to see a wider variety of publishers make the short list in coming years.

On to the finalists!


All Systems Red, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)
“And Then There Were (N-One),” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny, March/April 2017)
Binti: Home, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing)
The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing)
Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.Com Publishing)
River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com Publishing)

River of Teeth: From my review: "Um, did you know there was a serious plan to bring hippopotamuses to America to alleviate a meat shortage? I didn't either, but Sarah Gailey did. I'm so happy that she knew this because it grew into this insanity of a novella that delivers a fantastic story that feels like the wild west as seen from hippoback. River of Teeth is glorious, but it is more than just the wonderful idea of using hippos as beasts of burden and transit (and oh, this idea is so well excuted) - it is also filled with striking characters like Winslow Remington Houndstooth and Regina Archambault, but the whole cast, really. It's great." The fact that this is my least favorite of the finalists does not denigrate River of Teeth at all, but rather it shows just how high the bar is in this category.

Binti: Home: It's not entirely fair to set one's expectations for what the story was going to be against what it actually is. My expectation was that after Binti left Earth to study at Oomza University, more time would be spent there and that perhaps the "Home" in the title would be Binti finding a new home. That is not the case. Rather, Binti returns home fairly quickly to visit and go on a pilgrimage. Okorafor digs deeper into Binti's family, the cultural reactions to her bringing back her alien friend, Okwu (this is a gross oversimplification, but go read the first novella, Binti, for context and nuance). In the end, the story that we get is absolutely fantastic, but it is also so clearly incomplete. That's not too much of a surprise since it is setting up a third volume, but where Binti (the first novella) told a complete story, Binti: Home tells the first part of a larger story and it calls for the payoff in Binti: The Night Masquerade. As a bit of advance spoiler, that has no bearing in how Home stands on its own, The Night Masquerade is outstanding and is the best of the trilogy.

All Systems Red: The lead character calls itself "Murderbot" and it is a partly organic artificial intelligence security unit murder machine. Which, if I stick with that description, makes me think of a deadpan witty Terminator. That's not exactly accurate, because Murderbot would rather watch what passes for television that interact with a human. There is action and drama a plenty here, but the real joy of All Systems Red is the characterization and personality of Murderbot. The novella entirely hangs on how successful Martha Wells is in pulling off the character of Murderbot. She nails it and the novella is an absolute delight to read.

“And Then There Were (N-One)”: What a cool concept for a story. Sarah Pinsker wrote a story where Sarah Pinsker was invited to Sarah-Con, a convention of Sarah Pinskers from across the multi-verse. Pinsker (the author) is incredibly effective at getting across the disorientation of arriving at a hotel where everyone looks like you, just subtly different (and, in some cases, substantively different). You all have (mostly) the same mannerisms, it’s just that everyone took subtly different paths in life. The points of divergence in the lives of the Sarahs Pinsker are another fascinating aspect to the story. The most poignant moment getting that point across is at a conventional panel where a story is told about a particular horse and when Sarah helped save a young girl. Protagonist Sarah is following along, remembering, hearing the other Sarahs snap their fingers in agreement that this was also their story – until the story changed. It’s still a story about a horse, but it wasn’t Protagonist Sarah’s anymore. And other members of the audience diverged at an earlier part in the story. It was moving as hell.

That’s not really the story of “And Then There Were (N-One)”, though. That’s just the cool stuff that gives shape to the story. The story here is that one of the Sarahs is found murdered and Protagonist Sarah, who is an insurance investigator, is half-tasked to help find the murderer / solve the crime. Essentially, “And Then There Were (N-One)” is a giant locked room mystery in a really big room (the hotel is on an island, but police and EMS services can’t arrive for another day). On its own, the murder investigation aspect to the story is just kind of there – but Author Sarah Pinsker’s storytelling is absolutely top notch when combined with the hook of the story (a multiverse of Sarah Pinskers). That’s where “And Then There Were (N-One)” really shines, the idea that Sarahs who couldn’t imagine having committed a murder must have committed a murder – and how all of the interactions come together. It’s really good, as is everything Author Sarah Pinsker writes.

Two last cool things: the murder weapon may well have been Author Sarah Pinsker’s actual Nebula Award, and one of the other Sarahs at the convention has a well worn paperback of Parable of the Trickster, which is (presumably) the famously unfinished novel from Octavia Butler. I love that there may have been a universe in which Butler lived to finish that novel.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones: As I wrote in my review,

"Down Among the Sticks and Bones is soaked with blood and science and alienation and brutal acceptance. The novella turns into a starker, darker, and more painful story once Jacqueline and Jillian travel down those stairs and step through a doorway with a sign stating "Be Sure".

The only ones actually sure are the readers that yes, this is absolutely a door we want to enter and a journey we want to embark on.  Down Among the Sticks and Bones is not soaked with that same nostalgia as Every Heart a Doorway. It's not supposed to be, though I admit it is difficult to talk at all about this novella without also thinking about the one. Every Heart a Doorway tells the story of what happens when the fairy tale is over. Down Among the Sticks and Bones tells the story of the fairy tale itself. Like the truest fairy tales, it's not for children. It's for all of us."

This is a standout piece of fiction that could be at the top of any ballot and would be here, except for just how incredible The Black Tides of Heaven is.

The Black Tides of Heaven: JY Yang's exceptional novella is the benchmark is an incredibly strong category featuring no disappointments. I'll just quote my full review from mid April:

"Have you ever read a book and midway through you're actively angry at yourself for not reading it sooner? That was me after maybe twenty pages of The Black Tides of Heaven. By the end of the book my jaw was on the floor in amazement at just how spectacular this novella is. Told over the course of more than thirty years, The Black Tides of Heaven is not quite the story of revolution, but it is more a story of politics, of family, of personal choice, with a bit of revolution in the mix. All of that, and more, is woven together to something that is far superior than any facile description I could possibly give. I'm not sure I am up to the task of properly reviewing thie novella. I can only give The Black Tides of Heaven my highest possible recommendation."


My Vote
1. The Black Tides of Heaven
2. Down Among the Sticks and Bones
3. "And Then There Were (N-One)
4. All Systems Red
5. Binti: Home
6. River of Teeth


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POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 & 2018 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan.