Review: Paladin's Faith by T. Kingfisher

Come for the plot drama, stay for the intriguing developments in fantasy world theology.

I am, unapologetically, a slightly over the top fan of Ursula Vernon (whether as herself or under her T. Kingfisher pen name), and this series particularly. So believe me when I say that I am coming from a place of love and fondness here... but this one isn't quite up to standard, compared to the rest of the series.

Or... well. That's not quite true. But it all depends exactly what you're reading the series for.

The Saint of Steel is a series of novels following the paladins of a god who died - suddenly, inexplicably - and left them without a holy hand on the wheel of their berserker abilities. Each novel follows one of the seven paladins in trying to pick up the pieces of their life, identity and faith in the wake of this catastrophe, and find how to move on with things. Generally through the medium of finding a romantic partner. Because they are very much romantasy books.

And, for the first three, the romance has been GREAT. They've often gone in different direction - the mutual safety and recovery from trauma in Stephen and Grace's story, or the finding of someone who just Gets how to be the world the same as you like Istvhan and Clara, or just the very intense feelings of Galen and Piper. But if she's anything, Ursula Vernon is a master of writing people being people, and that is exactly what you need to craft these relatable, hopeful and enthralling romantic partnerships.

When we get to Paladin's Faith however... it just isn't quite working out. Our protagonist, Shane, is the most upright, the most po-faced, the most earnestly good boy of the paladins we've met so far (which is saying something), and his love interest is Marguerite, who we know from previous stories to be a spy operating under a false name, gregarious, charming and mysterious... and prone to disappear when her cover seems like it might be blown. This is the setup for an opposites-attract style situation, something which can, and often does, work really well. You can get some fun tension, some great chemistry, some banter, and everyone can have a great time. Here... ehhhhh not so much. And I don't think it's a problem inherent to the characters themselves. There are plenty of moments of potentially wonderful setup for the exact story you expect to see, of Shane surprising Marguerite by solving problems precisely by being a stick in the mud, and for Marguerite to turn out to have a total heart of gold and win him over not just with her confident charm but inherent goodness. It's all right there.

But... but. There's the critical stage that in previous novels Vernon has mastered so well, of the characters really getting to know each other and going from "oh he's pretty" to "oh damn I have actual feelings", and it's a stage that covers a tonne of character work on both sides. It was glorious with Stephen and Grace, full of mutual pining and idiocy and shenanigans, and it made me love them both. And it's been the same - albeit in different circumstances and with different styles of romance/characterisation - in the other two. But here... we get the beginnings of it. We get all the hints, the setup, the "wow he's pretty" and "I should maybe not stare at her" and the beginning glimmers of them each beginning to appreciate the other as a whole person... and then boom, sex, suddenly high stakes and now we're in love apparently? We skipped about five steps in the normal process, and it leaves the romance feeling hollow and weak. And when that's between two very different characters, it means you end the story thinking "well, maybe this won't be happily ever after, maybe just happily for now". Which is really sad, when you know how great the others were, and when you had such hopes for what this might be.

I do wonder slightly if the problem might be that we looped back to an existing character for the love interest, rather than introduce someone new. We already know Marguerite - she was a reasonably prominent character in the first book - and so we don't need to do the same groundwork for her that we did for Grace or for Clara. And while Piper in book 3 was also a repeat, his page time in the previous stories was almost negligible. Whereas Marguerite was a friend, someone with real page time and presence. And so you either have to retread that groundwork and leave the reader going "yes yes I know all this" or move on assuming they do know all that... and risk that it leaves things a bit patchy. There's a balance to strike between the two, and I just don't think it's quite been managed here. She needs more depth than she's given, and clearly has that depth, she's a really strong character concept... but she just doesn't quite bring it all to the page emotionally in the way that the other love interests have. It possibly doesn't help that her spy background means a lot of secrets that aren't and can't be shared with the protagonist, and so there's a tricky thing of trying to work in an honest perspective on her interiority without having too much of an information mismatch between her perspective chapters and Shane's.

But, for me, we end up too much on the side of "no information", and a lot of who she is, where she's come from, is obscured from us. And however understandable the reasons are for this, it makes her just less approachable, less comprehensible as a character. When it's a two person, two perspective romance all the way through, you really need both parties to be pulling their weight and being fully realised vehicles for that romance. And ultimately, I think Marguerite is falling short simply because we cannot fully know her.

Maybe we just needed more time with her, more time for her to share more about herself, even in her thoughts, if not in dialogue. Because we didn't, and her arc, her romance with Shane really did end up feeling less substantial, and far more rushed than the previous three.

But... (and this loops us back to me "not quite" point earlier) there is a reason for all this. Not so much in-plot, but in the meta sense, there is something taking up all that space and time where romance setup might be, something which made me cackle, scream, angrily message friends and make sad noises at my cat in turn. And where the romance may be disappointing... this... this wasn't.

We got some honest to goodness, sexy sexy (in the very metaphorical sense) plot, with a side-helping of some totally A grade world-building. My thoughts about the entire theology of this world have been upended! Shane got a character arc and then some! The bittersweetness of it all! The irony! The joy! The terrible decisions and inevitable consequences and incredibly satisfying deus ex machina! It had everything.

Now before you get excited, at least on her Patreon, Vernon confirmed when this book was released that, no, very sorry, but we're not going to find out more about the Saint of Steel's death in this one. So it's not that. But it is sort of adjacent... or related, I suppose. And more critically, it feels like it's setting up something that may become the series end game. So it is big, big stuff. And it is incredibly well-handled, being at turns both sad and joyful, and really digging into some character themes for Shane specifically and the paladins as we know them in general that ends up being deeply rewarding. In some ways, I'd argue that this part of the story is the best the series has got so far (though in that is has to tangle with the somewhat creepy murder plot that stretches over from the first book into the second and third, which is also really solid). 

And so it comes down to what the reader is reading it for.

If you're reading this series purely for the romance? Well, I can't say it's bad, because it's not. But it won't quite reach the level the others took you to, however well it seems to be setting things up. You may come out disappointed.

But if you have any interest in the wider plot, or the characters of the paladins themselves, and their ongoing healing and growth arcs? Even if the romance is disappointing, the rest of the story may well make up for it and more than. And the ending will have you sending messages to friends that are just a string of exclamation and question marks... at least in my experience.

The only other thing I have to say against it is that the rest of the entries into the series could, theoretically, work as standalones. This one absolutely could not. There's too much digging into the overarching plot, there'd be too many implications missed. But when the rest of the series is as good as this one is, that doesn't feel like awfully much of a downside.

So while it's not the 10/10 some of the other Saint of Steel books have been, there's more than enough substance, drama and foreshadowing here to be going on with, and character development for Shane (and a couple of the others) in absolute spades. Once again, I finish a new installment in the series and find myself desperately waiting for the next one, mere days after release. Ursula Vernon remains the master of this exquisite torture, and I thank her for it.

--

The Math

Highlights: worldbuilding that will make you do a yell then think about fantasy theology for the next three hours (positive), laugh out loud character moments, the shocking and much bemoaned absence of a hundred gallons of horse piss

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Reference: Paladin's Faith, T. Kingfisher, [2023, Red Wombat Studio]

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

Reading the Hugos: Short Story

Welcome back to Reading the Hugos, 2019 Edition! Today we are talking a look at the six finalists in the Short Story category.

Three of the stories here were on my nominating ballot (the Pinsker, Clark, and Gailey) and all of the writers here were familiar to me with the exception of Alix E. Harrow. Harrow was a revelation and now I'll be looking for more of her stories and for her debut novel later this year.

I'll mention this again later, but this is an absolutely stacked category. Wonderful stories. Let's take a look at them, shall we?


“The Court Magician,” by Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed, January 2018)
“The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society,” by T. Kingfisher (Uncanny Magazine 25, November-December 2018)
“The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington,” by P. Djèlí Clark (Fireside Magazine, February 2018)
“STET,” by Sarah Gailey (Fireside Magazine, October 2018)
“The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat,” by Brooke Bolander (Uncanny Magazine 23, July-August 2018)
“A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies,” by Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine, February 2018)


The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society: This is an absolutely delightful and charming story of a group of supernatural males (selkies. faerie, pooka, etc) getting together for their annual meeting to discuss and pine for one Rose MacGregor, a human woman who was supposed to fall for their charms and instead left each of them heartbroken in turn. Stories from T. Kingfisher / Ursula Vernon are consistently excellent and this is no different. Lined up next to the other stories on this ballot, though, "The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society" is comparatively slight.


The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters: One gets the sense that this is a story which could only be written by Brooke Bolander. Fierce, smart, and driven, "The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters, and the Prince Who Was Made of Meat" is a strong story and Bolander captures as much as could be captured about getting into a raptor's perspective.


The Court Magician: Only in a category as stacked as Short Story is this year would it be possible for a Sarah Pinsker story to be this far down my ballot, but this an incredibly strong category filled with stories which could conceivably be a winner in any other year. It is a story of a desire to understand how magic works overpowering wisdom and like every story I've read from Pinsker it is impeccably written.


The Secret Lives of Nine Negro Teeth: I've long heard of George Washington's wooden teeth and for almost as long I've heard that that particular story might not be true. What I didn't learn about was that George Washington had purchased nine teeth from a dentist who took them from enslaved people. There is no evidence whether Washington wore the teeth in his own dentures or if they were used by someone else in his family, but Clark offers up nine stories of where those teeth originally came from.

There is power and pain in "The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington" that is inherent in the story being told and P Djeli Clark leans into that, bringing aspects of the fantastic into what is, at its core, a brutal subject. There's no softening here, nor should there be. Simply excellent.


A Witch's Guide to Escape: In a different year, a year that didn't have "STET", "A Witch's Guide to Escape" would be my pick for the best short story of the year. I also think it is a story that might hold up better in ten to twenty years than "STET", but the question here is what story is the best of 2018 and that is a nearly impossible conversation to have, except that we have it every year and try to figure it out.

"A Witch's Guide to Escape" reminds me a bit of Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series in that it features a boy who desperately doesn't belong and so desperately needs to escape somehow. Except the story here is of a librarian who works to get kids the books they need, but except in those most extreme cases, perhaps not the book they really need.

I've never been the child in desperate need of escape. My life was never that hard. But I'm drawn to those stories because, like so many readers, I can identify with the edges of that child and it's what gives the story that extra bit of punch to really get the heart.


STET: I'm not as much of a historian of the Hugo Award as I think I'd like to be, but I'm not sure there has ever been a finalist on the ballot quite like "STET", one where the form of the story is as much a part of the conversation as the content of the story. Technically, this is a technical document with footnotes, but the story is in the footnotes and the back and forth further comments between the writer and the editor. "STET" is simmering with emotion and bubbling over rage and grief.

The format could be viewed as a gimmick, but there is so much (broken) heart here and while "STET" would likely work as a more conventional narrative, it is so much more vital because of the format. "STET" would be a different story without the format and it is stronger because of how Gailey chose to tell this story. It works. It is wrenching. It is the best thing I read last year.



My Vote
1. STET
2. A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies
3. The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington
4. The Court Magician
5. The Tale of the Three Beautiful Raptor Sisters
6. The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society


Our Previous Coverage
Novel
Novella
Novelette


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

Reading the Hugos: Short Story

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

Even though the skill it takes to write an excellent short story does not necessarily translate exactly for the skill it takes to write an excellent novel, and short stories are by no means training grounds for novel writing, the short story category here is absolutely building a reading list of authors I want to read more from.

I'm already well familiar with Linda Nagata's recent near future military science fiction novels (The Red Trilogy, The Last Good Man), but this might be the first of her shorter works I encountered. Rebecca Roanhorse has received all the nominations for this story, but I'm also excited for her debut novel Trail of Lightning (really). I should really read more Ursula Vernon. You get the picture.

Rather than more babble, let's look at the stories.


“Carnival Nine,” by Caroline M. Yoachim (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May 2017)
“Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand,” by Fran Wilde (Uncanny, September 2017)
“Fandom for Robots,” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Uncanny, September/October 2017)
“The Martian Obelisk,” by Linda Nagata (Tor.com, July 19, 2017)
“Sun, Moon, Dust” by Ursula Vernon, (Uncanny, May/June 2017)
“Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™,” by Rebecca Roanhorse (Apex, August 2017)


"Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand": For some reason, I have bounced off Fran Wilde's Hugo finalist stories. Last year was "The Jewel and Her Lapidary", which took two reads to even appreciate. This year "Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand" is the story I struggled with most. It is a more of an art exhibit than it is a straight up story. You, the reader, are being led through a museum of atrocities but that perhaps the real atrocity is you, the reader.

"Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand" becomes increasingly horrifying as the story goes on, and Wilde is very effective in delivering a disturbing experience for the reader. I appreciate what she is doing, but at the same time, it's not something I really appreciate in fiction, either.


Carnival Nine: More of a straight forward story than "Clearly Lettered", "Carnival Nine" is a story of family and sentient clockwork automatons whose lives are determined by the number of "turns" remaining in their main spring. It's a touching story of the sacrifices parents can make of their dreams for their children and how meaningful those sacrifices can become. Thinking about my own children, it isn't that my dreams are truly sacrificed, it's that my priorities have changed and so have some of my dreams. That's ultimately the story of "Carnival Nine", which is what the last line gets at. "My life had been different from the adventures I imagined as a child, but I made the most of the turns I was given, and that's all any of us can do."

I like what "Carnival Nine" is about, and I certainly appreciated it as a story more than "Clearly Lettered", but it still was not a favorite or something I expect to revisit any time soon.


"Fandom for Robots": So, the original sentient AI discovers fan fiction and gets involved in the fandom for the anime Hyperdimension Warp Record. On its surface, "Fandom for Robots" is exactly what it seems to be - an AI learning about fandom, about shipping characters, about writing fan fiction and commenting on other stories. But, I wonder, is there a point here where Prasad is also talking about how fanfiction gives a greater opportunity to marginalized people to see themselves in stories where they are otherwise excluded? Is Prasad telling a story about how fanfiction can build community and inclusion?

"Fandom for Robots" was a lot of fun to read, but it's a better story when I'm reading a bit deeper into what message may be baked into an otherwise basic story of an AI discovering fanfiction.


“Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience” is a complicated story that seems, on its surface, fairly simplistic. Jesse works for a virtual reality company that sells “authentic Indian experiences” for (generally white) tourists looking for their idea of “authentic Indian” rather than anything that might resemble the real thing, as if there were a singular real experience to be had anyway. So, the experiences are more cinematic and theatrical and pop cultural and anything that smacks too heavily of realism tends not to sell well to the public.

There is an interesting resignation to Jesse’s character. Some of his peers are angry and disgusted (while still accepting this is the job they need to do), but Jesse goes along fairly passively. I suspect there are multiple layers to this story that I’m unlikely to grasp, being a white male on the cusp of middle age, but from what I’m able to see the idea of cultural identity is being addressed in fairly original and important ways. Jesse’s identity seems tied up in the popular tropes of what an Indian is, while his wife recognizes that he is an Indian because he is, in fact, an Indian. Then, there’s the white man who may have some distant heritage seeming to come in and take everything away from Jesse, perhaps for not being “Indian enough”. I’m not sure if that’s a right reading of the story. “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience” gets a bit weird the deeper it goes and Roanhorse examines the difference between Jesse and “White Wolf”.

The story is told in second person perspective, which puts me (if not the generic “reader”) in the position of wondering if maybe we’re also getting Jesse’s “Authentic Indian Experience” as much as we’re being told the story on the surface. “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience” is an excellent story as also is the kind that puts the reader on notice that Rebecca Roanhorse is an author to watch out for.


"Sun, Moon, Dust": I am reminded how much I enjoy Ursula Vernon's short fiction. I should really make a point to reading more of it. "Sun, Moon, Dust" features a farmer given a magical / possessed sword by his warrior grandmother on her deathbed. The story I expected is that the farmer would take up the sword, embark on some quest, learn to be a warrior and standard fantasy tropes. That just seemed to be the set up Vernon was giving us, except everything about "Sun, Moon, Dust" is a subversion of that standard epic fantasy.

Sometimes a farmer just wants to be a farmer. Allpa, the farmer, knows who he is. He's not seduced by the sword's ideas of fame and valor and violence. Rather, it is his gentle humanity that gives a lesson to the spirits bound to the sword about who and what they may want to be. "Sun, Moon, Dust" is an absolute delight.


“The Martian Obelisk” is a bleak, bleak story that is ultimately about and laced with hope. This is what happens after the slow apocalypse, after the climate change and the rising seas and the wars and the viruses without cure. There are small pockets of humanity on Earth living in relative civilization because of proximity to particular cities that came through okay, but the inference is that most everyone else is not. There’s nothing left to do for the people who remain on Earth and the attempted colonies on Mars have all failed. Susannah has spent the last sixteen years of her life gradually (and remotely) building a monument on Mars, the titular obelisk.

What I most appreciate about "The Martian Obelisk" is that the story begins as a massive futile gesture of defiance into the void, but it ends with ultimately the smallest but most important of gestures of hope and kindness. It ends with the reaching out to help another, even at the cost of Susannah's dream of tilting at windmill with her obelisk. Nagata's story is powerful and moving.


My Vote:
1. The Martian Obelisk
2. Sun, Moon, Dust
3. Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience
4. Fandom for Robots
5. Carnival Nine
6. Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand


Our Previous Coverage
Novel 
Novella


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

Summer Reading List 2018: Adri

As has already been pointed out, summer as an adult not in education is generally not the glorious stretch of uninterrupted reading time it might once have been. In fact, this year, I’m expecting to get even busier with work and family during summer, so reading is likely to go down, rather than up - although for the best of reasons! I'm preparing to be strategic with the time I do have, which means making a list that cuts through some of the pressure and “I should be reading this” feelings from the TBR and figuring out what I actually want to get to in the next couple of months.

1. Clockwork Boys, by T Kingfisher

This is the first in a closely-linked duology from the amazing Ursula Vernon who writes her adult novels under the above “vaguely absurd” pseudonym. I understand it’s inspired to some extent by her D&D adventures, which makes me even more excited based on the D&D snippets that cross her Twitter feed – I’m hoping there might be a talking dog wizard? Whatever the plot, I’m sure it’s going to contain the kind of warm, practical adventurers that make Vernon’s work so compelling.


2. Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers

Becky Chambers captured my heart with her Wayfarers universe, where humans have reached the stars and co-exist alongside a range of diverse but sympathetic alien races. One of my favourite aspects of her galaxy is that it’s not the militarised aspects of human society that get to go to space and define who we are, but the pacifists – and, to my great excitement, this looks to be a chronicle of how those original humans got up there.



3. Discount Armageddon, by Seanan McGuire

Seanan McGuire was my big personal discovery last year, after October Daye landed on the Hugo series finalists and I went from sceptical to hooked in the space of three volumes. This year, McGuire’s somewhat shorter (that is, six books within eligibility) InCryptid series is on the ballot, and I’m intrigued to see whether I have the same experience with what is apparently a more lighthearted urban fantasy series with an intriguing premise.



4. Delusions of Gender, by Cordelia Fine


Cordelia Fine’s Testosterone Rex blew me away last year – it’s the kind of pop science that’s completely up my alley, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so very funny. Delusions of Gender is an earlier book of hers, and one that I feel I should have read before now. If it’s the same style, this will be a witty and informative non-fiction read perfect for squeezing between fiction titles.



5. Ship of Magic, by Robin Hobb

Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders trilogy was probably the first adult fantasy I read, 18 years ago (though ironically, I was teased at the time by my friends for reading a book with such a "silly" Enid Blyton-esque title). One mostly-completed transition to adulthood later, I’m slowly rereading the first two trilogies in Hobb’s wider Elderlings universe as part of a LibraryThing group read. This has been a fun experience so far, and I’m particularly interested to see what definitely-too-young-to-be-reading-this me missed in this trilogy the first time around.


6. The Only Harmless Great Thing, by Brooke Bolander

I’ve already got quite a few 2018 novellas to catch up on (Aliette de Bodard, Kelly Robson and Margaret Killjoy are all very close to the top of the TBR), but The Only Harmless Great Thing is the earliest chronologically and also one of the most intriguing. It intertwines the story of the Radium Girls, factory workers who were slowly poisoned by the radioactive elements they worked with, and an early 20th century experiment where an elephant was killed by electrocution. By all accounts, my Twitter feed loved this, and I’m a fan of  Bolander’s shorter work, so I’m excited to finally catch up with this longer piece.

POSTED BY: 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.

Reading the Hugos: Novelette

Welcome to another edition of Reading the Hugos! Today we're going to take a look at the Novelettes, a category which none of the stories I nominated made the final ballot. Of course, this is as good of a time as any to note that I only nominated one story (Matt Wallace's "Small Wars") and the odds were not in my favor.

I'll get a bit more into this when I talk about the specific story in question, but Novelette is the only category this year which includes a finalist from the Rabid Puppy Slate (see here for the slate and the impact) put there with the sole purpose of the slaters being dicks and attempting to embarrass Worldcon and people who care about the Hugo Awards. I almost described this as a "troll job", but the Rabid Puppies, but I didn't want to gild the lily. They're being dicks, and deliberately so. Most of the Rabid Puppy nominations were self serving: Castalia House works, authors, editors, blogs, and friends of the movement. Then, there are some works that could have (and perhaps would have) made the ballot without any help: China Mieville, Neil Gaiman, Deadpool. Finally, there is Alien Stripper Boned From Behind by the T-Rex, by Stix Hiscock - because the Rabid Puppies just can't have enough dinosaur porn when they decide to urinate in someone else's pool because they just can't let some things go.

Anyway, on to the stories!


Alien Stripper Boned From Behind By The T-Rex, by Stix Hiscock (self-published)
“The Art of Space Travel”, by Nina Allan (Tor.com, July 2016)
The Jewel and Her Lapidary, by Fran Wilde (Tor.com, May 2016)
“The Tomato Thief”, by Ursula Vernon (Apex Magazine, January 2016)
“Touring with the Alien”, by Carolyn Ives Gilman (Clarkesworld Magazine, April 2016)
“You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay”, by Alyssa Wong (Uncanny Magazine, May 2016)


Alien Stripper Boned From Behind By The T-Rex: It isn't quite fair to talk about Alien Stripper Bone From Behind by the T-Rex as to how it relates to a story on the Hugo ballot last year, but in this case I think it is pertinent. Last year the Rabid Puppies were were responsible for getting Chuck Tingle's Space Raptor Butt Invasion on the ballot in the Short Story category for no better reason than they wanted to embarrass the folks who care about the Hugo Awards by nominating science fiction dinosaur porn. It mostly backfired due to Chuck Tingle's delightful response and continued trolling of the Rabid Puppies (though the story remaining on the ballot will be a stain on the history of the Hugo Awards). So - they tried again this year with more science fiction dinosaur porn and once again managed to get it on the ballot. This isn't award worthy science fiction by anyone's definition. I could make an argument that in the other categories the Rabid Puppies managed to place a finalist, they do honestly think the work is strong and worthy, but given that they've repeatedly stated they don't care about the Hugo Awards, I know that's not necessarily the case. But this, this is another stain on the Hugo Awards because in twenty years when people who have no idea who the Rabid Puppies were or why they possibly mattered for a blip of time look at the past finalists to see what people thought were some of the best stories of 2016, "Alien Stripped Boned From Behind By The T-Rex" will be there. I don't know that it is bad story for the erotica it is intended to be. I'm not the audience for it, so I can't judge it on its own merits in its intended sphere. But as a science fiction story and a finalist for the Hugo Award? Sigh.

No Award: As a general rule, I use No Award in a very surgical manner. I understand that not every work is to my personal taste and that simply because I do not like something does not mean that it is inherently bad or unworthy of a Hugo Award. I may prefer that something else would win and that a particular work was not on the ballot, but again, that does make the work bad. Unfortunately, there are also instances where my subjective view is that the work is so bad that it is also objectively bad and unworthy of receiving (or being considered for) an award. There may also be examples of a work being so bad it comes out the other side and is somehow entertaining.  In both of these instances No Award will be used.

The Jewel and Her Lapidary: I had previously read The Jewel and Her Lapidary as part of my reading of all everything put out by Tor.com Publishing and, as short as this is, I put the book down after only a few pages. Nothing about the tone and the writing connected and it felt like a complete waste. Had I left it there, this would have been listed behind No Award. Given a second chance, I appreciated the story a whole lot more. I think my failed first attempt was a situation of picking up the book at the wrong time. This time was better, though not nearly on the level of any of the other legitimate finalists on this ballot. I don't quite understand the adulation for The Jewel and Her Lapidary.

Touring with the Alien: Want to take an alien on a road trip? How about an alien that is intelligent, but not conscious? How about with the alien's translator, who is human but is also almost a separate species? There's a lot of cool stuff in this story and it was a near thing whether I was going to place "Touring with the Alien" just above "The Tomato Thief" or just after. What I most appreciated about "Touring with the Alien" is how the alien was treated as something completely "alien", as something completely other an incomprehensible. It also helps that because of this, we are always left wondering if perhaps the aliens really is conscious and making more nefarious plans and is using humanity.

The Tomato Thief: The world needs far more Grandma Harken in it (she was also in "Jackalope Wives". "The Tomato Thief" lives on the voice and the character of Grandma Harken, a woman who has seen and done it all and she's had enough of whoever is stealing her tomatoes - except discovering the culprit opens up an entirely different adventure where Grandma Harken tries to improve someone else's situation. It's a journey through a fascinating mythology. Vernon's writing is so smooth and her command of Harken's voice is so strong that every moment spent with Harken is an absolute delight. I could have happily spent a full novella with Harken.

The Art of Space Travel: This is a story of family and history and one woman finally understanding who her father is. Some thirty years after a failed manned mission to Mars, a second mission is about to launch. Two of the astronauts are staying at the hotel Emily works at. The Mars mission is more of a framing device for the story, but it forms the a push for Emily to think more deeply about her family's past. Her mother was an investigator for the tragedy of the first mission and she wonders if her father might have been one of the astronauts who died. But, perhaps that is just the wish for one's father to be more important and to have had a better reason to have stayed away. "The Art of Space Travel" may be light on speculative elements, but it is a simply excellent story.

You'll Surely Drown Here If You Stay: With only nine published stories to her name I do not hesitate to say that Alyssa Wong is one of the best short story writers working today. "You'll Surely Drown Here If You Stay" puts a stamp on that burgeoning legacy. This is a story of the West, of the desert, of a deep friendship, of identity, of family, and of an intense magic that draws visitors from out of town with questionable intentions. With Wong's note perfect prose and storytelling, the reader is drawn in deep to this raw and tense story. This is the best story in an overall strong category.


My Ballot
1. You'll Surely Drown Here If You Stay
2. The Art of Space Travel
3. The Tomato Thief
4. Touring with the Alien
5. The Jewel and Her Lapidary
6. No Award


Our previous coverage:
Novella 
Short Story
Graphic Story


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