2021 Nerds of a Feather Hugo Awards Recommended Reading, Part 3: Individual Categories

Welcome to the third part of our presentation of the Nerds of a Feather 2021 Hugo Award Longlist. Today we take a look at the categories recognizing individuals for their body of work during 2020:  Editor (Short and Long Form), Professional Artist, Fan Artist, Fan Writer, and the Astounding Award for Best New Writer

As before, we here at 'nerds of a feather, flock together' are presenting a collective longlist of potential Hugo nominees that we think are worthy of your consideration. These selections represent the spectrum of tastes, tendencies, and predilections found among our group of 14 writers.

As a reminder, this list should not at all be considered comprehensive. There are some truly outstanding editors, writers, and artists who will not make our longlist because we couldn't confirm they produced enough qualifying work, because the work they do is not genre-focused, or for the very simple reason that we are not just familiar with what they did during 2020. We encourage you to think of this as a list of candidates to consider alongside works which you are already familiar, nothing more and nothing less. In addition, while we have done our best to check the eligibility of everything here, some of these categories (*cough* pro artist *cough*) have eligibility requirements that can be hard to triangulate from an outside perspective. If you think we've made any errors in our categorisation, please get in touch.

In an effort at brevity (you may scoff) and perhaps at propriety, for these categories we have decided to simply list the individuals we are collectively recommending as part of the longlist, rather than detailing why each person listed below is awesome.

Finally, in the interests of being transparent, while it may worth noting that we, the writers of Nerds of a Feather are individually eligible for the Fan Writer category; because it is a conflict of interest, it would not appropriate to include any of us on our formal longlist (feel free to check out our Awards Eligibility post, though).

Nerds of a Feather 2021 Recommendation List Series:

• Part 1: Fiction Categories (Novel, novella, novelette, short story, series, Lodestar Award for best Young Adult)
• Part 2: Visual Work Categories (graphic story, dramatic presentation, video game)
• Part 3: Individual Categories (editor, fan writer, professional artist, fan artist, Astounding Award for Best New Writer)
• Part 4: Institutional Categories (related work, semiprozine, fanzine, fancast)

Editor, Long
Nobody. But, we recommend that when you put together your final nominating ballot that you also look at who the editors were for your Best Novel selections and consider them for nomination for Editor, Long Form

Editor, Short
Djibril Al-Ayad (The Future Fire)
Ellen Datlow (Tor.com, Best Horror of the Year: Vol 12)
Zelda Knight and Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (The Dominion Anthology)
Michael Matheson (Anathema Magazine)
DaVaun Sanders (FIYAH)
Jonathan Strahan (Tor.com, Made to Order)
Margret Helgadottir (Eurasian Monsters)
Lashawn Wanak (GigaNotoSaurus)

Professional Artist (example of 2020 work)
Tommy Arnold (Harrow the Ninth Cover)
Charlie Bowater (Star Daughter Cover)
Charles Chaisson (Raybearer cover (US edition))
Rovina Cai (Elatsoe Cover and illustrations)
Galen Dara (The Sisters Grimm cover (US edition))
Sija Hong (The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water Cover)
Ronan Le Fur a.k.a. DOFRESH (Phoenix Extravagant Cover)
Maurizio Manzieri (Seven of Infinities Cover (US edition))
Kerri Resnick (Fable Cover Design (US edition))
Chris Sickels (The House in the Cerulean Sea Cover)
Hillary D. Wilson (Legendborn Cover)
Alyssa Winans (Empress of Salt and Fortune Cover)
Henry Sene Yee (Ring Shout Cover)

Fan Artist
Lorna Antoniazzi (Augur Magazine Cover art)
Karen Cheok (examples)
Cyan Daly (examples)
Cindy Fan (Anathema Issue 10 Cover art)
Vic Grey (examples)
Heather Brockman Lee (example)
Laya Rose (examples)

Fan Writer
Alex Acks
Rob Bedford
Cora Buhlert
Rachel Cordasco
forestofglory
Jeannette Ng
Charles Payseur
Jason Sanford
Stitch (Stitch's Media Mix)
Alasdair Stuart

Astounding Award for Best New Writer 
Gautam Bhatia (The Wall)
Echo Brown (Black Girl Unlimited)
Jordan Ifueko (Raybearer)
Simon Jimenez (The Vanished Birds)
Miciah Johnson (The Space Between Worlds)
A.K. Larkwood (The Unspoken Name)
Jenn Lyons (The Ruin of Kings)
Caitlin Starling (The Luminous Dead, Yellow Jessamine)
Emily Tesh (Silver in the Wood)
Aiden Thomas (Cemetery Boys)

2021 Nerds of a Feather Hugo Awards Recommended Reading, Part 2: Visual Work Categories

 

Welcome to our continuing presentation of the Nerds of a Feather 2021 Hugo Award Recommendation List (see part 1 here). Today will look at Graphic Story, the two Dramatic Presentation categories, and the new one time Video Game category.  

As before, we here at 'nerds of a feather, flock together' are presenting a collective longlist of potential Hugo nominees that we think are worthy of your consideration. These selections represent the spectrum of tastes, tendencies, and predilections found among our group of 14 writers.

As a reminder, this list should not at all be considered comprehensive. Some outstanding works will not make our longlist for the simple reason that we have not seen, read, or played it. We encourage you to think of this as a list of candidates to consider alongside works which you are already familiar, nothing more and nothing less.  

Nerds of a Feather 2021 Recommendation List Series:

• Part 1: Fiction Categories (Novel, novella, novelette, short story, series, Lodestar Award for best Young Adult)
• Part 2: Visual Work Categories (graphic story, dramatic presentation, video game)
• Part 3: Individual Categories (editor, fan writer, professional artist, fan artist, Astounding Award for Best New Writer)
• Part 4: Institutional Categories (related work, semiprozine, fanzine, fancast)

Graphic Story
Gideon Falls, Vol 5: Wicked Worlds by Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino and Dave Stewart
Gunnerkrigg Court, Volume 8: Catalysis by Thomas Siddel.
Invisible Kingdom, Vol 2: Edge of Everything by G. Willow Wilson and Christian Ward
The Low, Low Woods by Carmen Maria Machado, DaNi and Tamra Bonvillain
Monstress, Vol 5: War Child by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, by Damian Duffy, Octavia E. Butler and John Jennings
Ghost Spider Vol 1: Dog Days are Over by Seanan McGuire, Takeshi Miyazawa, Rosie Kampe and Ian Herring*
A Thief Among the Trees by Sabaa Tahir, Nicole Andelfinger and Sonia Liao
Undiscovered Country, Vol 1: Destiny by Scott Snyder, Charles Soule and Giuseppe Camuncoli

Dramatic Presentation
Note: we would normally split this list into short and long, reflecting the category boundaries. However, like last year, we felt that there were a number of great TV show seasons which deserve consideration as a whole, although individual episodes for all of these are also eligible in short form. We've therefore split the list into movies and TV, and encourage you to make your own call about standout episodes from the latter.

Movies
Bill and Ted Face the Music
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
Black is King
Color Out of Space
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga
The Invisible Man
The Midnight Sky
The Old Guard
Onward
Over the Moon
Palm Springs
Soul
The Vast of Night
Wolfwalkers

TV Shows
The Good Place: Season 4 (NBC)
Lovecraft Country: Season 1 (HBO)
The Mandalorian: Season 2 (Disney Plus)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Final Arc: Old Friends Not Forgotten / The Phantom Apprentice / Shadowed / Victory and Death (Disney Plus)
Upload: Season 1 (Amazon Prime)

Video Games
Note: Video Game eligibility may be affected depending on whether a game was released in beta/early access and how the Hugo Committee views the release or "publication" of a particular game. We have made our best attempt to recognize games which were either released in 2020 or had significant narrative changes to their 2020 editions, which we believe should make them eligible in the same way works released over multiple years in other categories are eligible in their year of completion.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Civilization 6: New Frontiers Pass
Creaks
Doom Eternal
Final Fantasy VII: Remake
Fire Emblem Three Houses: Cindered Shadows DLC
Hades
In Other Waters
The Last of Us: Part II
LUNA: The Shadow Dust
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Spiritfarer

*NOTE: An earlier version of this list mistakenly included Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider (2019) instead of this first volume of the most recent run. While we were fixing that error (sorry!), we realised there are two volumes of the current Ghost Spider run. The first was released in 2020 but compiles issues all released in 2019, and the second second (Ghost Spider Vol 2: Party People, by Seanan McGuire and Ig Guara) was released in 2021 and compiles issues released in 2020. Both raise some questions about eligibility, but on reflection and after informally consulting with a friendly former Hugo administrator, we would like to specifically recommend this first volume for consideration in the 2020 Hugo Awards.

2021 Nerds of a Feather Hugo Awards Recommended Reading, Part 1: Fiction Categories

Several years ago our founding editor The G asked the flock here at Nerds of a Feather if we would come together to put out a longlist of works we would recommend for Hugo consideration. Flock Together we did.

The rules for inclusion were simple--just: (a) meet the eligibility criteria; and (b) be "award worthy" (i.e. good). Given the subjectivity of the latter, it should come as no surprise that the selections on our longlist reflect the spectrum of tastes, tendencies and predilections found among our group of writers. You'll find selections ranging from the obscure and literary to the unabashedly popular and commercial, and from all corners and subdivisions of the genresphere.

That said, this is not - nor does it intend to be - a comprehensive survey of the field. Some books that are undoubtedly "award worthy," for example, are absent for the simple reason that we haven't read them yet. Thus we encourage you to think of this as a list of candidates to consider--alongside others. Also, while we've done what we can to ensure the recommendations are eligible in their respective categories, it's possible we've made a couple of errors. If you spot something on the list that isn't eligible, please let us know and we'll correct it.

Given the vast number of Hugo categories, we've also made the decision to split the longlist up into multiple posts. Today we look at the fiction categories (Novel, Novella, Novelette and Short Story, Series, and the Not a Hugo Lodestar Award for YA Novel). For fiction that is available free of charge, we've embedded a direct link to the story. For novels and works of short fiction that are not available for free, the embedded link redirects to a review.

In the interest of being transparent, it is worth noting that several of our writers have published fiction in 2020. Because it would be a conflict of interest, we are not including them on our longlist, but would still invite anyone interested to take a look at their work.

Nerds of a Feather 2021 Recommendation List Series:

• Part 1: Fiction Categories (Novel, novella, novelette, short story, series, Lodestar Award for best Young Adult)
• Part 2: Visual Work Categories (graphic story, dramatic presentation, video game)
• Part 3: Individual Categories (editor, fan writer, professional artist, fan artist, Astounding Award for Best New Writer)
• Part 4: Institutional Categories (related work, semiprozine, fanzine, fancast)

Novel
Barry, Max. Providence [Putnam]
Bear, Elizabeth. Machine [Saga]
Campbell, Lisbeth. The Vanished Queen [Saga]
Cooney, C.S.E. "The Twice Drowned Saint" [A Sinister Quartet, Mythic Delirium Press]*
Elliott, Kate. Unconquerable Sun [Tor]
Hairston, Andrea. Master of Poisons [Tor.com Publishing]
Jemisin, N.K. The City We Became [Orbit]
Kowal, Mary Robinette. The Relentless Moon [Tor]
Klune, T.J. The House in the Cerulean Sea [Tor]
Larkwood, A.K. The Unspoken Name [Tor]
Lee, Yoon Ha. Phoenix Extravagant [Solaris]
Mohamed, Premee. Beneath the Rising [Solaris]
Moreno-Garcia, Silvia. Mexican Gothic [Del Rey]
Muir, Tamsyn. Harrow the Ninth [Tor.com Publishing]
Osborne, Karen. Architects of Memory [Tor]
Polk, C.L. The Midnight Bargain [Erewhon]
Robinson, Kim Stanley. The Ministry for the Future [Orbit]
Schwab, V.E. The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue [Tor]
Sriduangkaew, Benjanun. Machine's Last Testament [Prime]
Stewart, Andrea. The Bone Shard Daughter [Orbit]
Tchaikovsky. Adrian. The Doors of Eden [Tor]
Wade, Juliette. Mazes of Power [DAW]
Wagers, K.B. A Pale Light in the Black [Harper Voyager]
Wallace, Matt. Savage Legion [Saga]
Wells, Martha. Network Effect [Tor.com Publishing]

Novella
Cho, Zen. The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water [Tor.com Publishing]
Cipri, Nino. Finna [Tor.com Publishing]
Clark, P. Djeli. Ring Shout [Tor.com Publishing]
de Bodard, Aliette. Of Dragons, Feasts, and Murders [JABberwocky Literary Agency]
Gailey, Sarah. Upright Women Wanted [Tor.com Publishing]
Harlan, Leigh. Queens of Noise [Neon Hemlock Press]
Huang, S.L. Burning Roses [Tor.com Publishing]
Jarboe, Julian K. "Everyone On the Moon is Essential Personnel" [Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel, Lethe Press]
Jennings, Kathleen. Flyaway [Tor.com Publishing]
Lemberg, R.B. The Four Profound Weaves [Tachyon Publications]
McGuire, Seanan. Come Tumbling Down [Tor.com Publishing]
North, Claire. Sweet Harmony [Orbit]
Oghenechovwe, Donald Ekpeki. "Ife-Iyoku, Tale of Imadeyunuagbon" [Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora, Aurelia Leo]
Onyebuchi, Tochi. Riot Baby [Tor.com Publishing]
Ow, Anya. Cradle and Grave [Neon Hemlock Press]
Polansky, Daniel. The Seventh Perfection [Tor.com Publishing]
Tesh, Emily. Drowned Country [Tor.com Publishing]
Vo, Nghi. The Empress of Salt and Fortune [Tor.com Publishing]
Vo, Nghi. When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain [Tor.com Publishing]

Novelette
Claybourne, Z.Z. "The Air in my House Tastes like Sugar" [Giganotosaurus]
De Bodard, Aliette. Tbe Inaccessibility of Heaven [Uncanny Magazine]
Elliott, Kate. "The Long Walk" [The Book of Dragons]
Garfinkle, Gwynne. "A Wild Patience" [Giganotosaurus]
Key, Justin C. "One Hand in the Coffin" [Strange Horizons]
Kritzer, Naomi. "Monster" [Clarkesworld]
Liu, Ken. "Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard" [The Hidden Girl and Other Stories]
Lynch, Scott. "Maybe Just Go Up There and Talk to It" [The Book of Dragons]
Schneider, Rebecca. "A Wild Divinity" [Giganotosaurus]

Short Story
Bryski, K.T. "The Bone-Stag Walks" [Lightspeed]
Clark, C.L. "You Perfect, Broken Thing" [Uncanny Magazine]
Cruz, Vida. "Have your #Hugot harvested at this Diwata-owned cafe" [Strange Horizons]
Datt Sharma, Iona. "Heard, Half Heard, in the Stillness" [Anathema: Spec from the margins]
Datt Sharma, Iona. "St Anselm-by-the-Riverside" [Consolation Songs ed. Iona Datt Sharma]
Dong, Maria. "The Truth at the Bottom of the Ocean" [Augur Magazine]
Fitzwater, A.J. "Cetaceous Secrets of the Jeweled Nadir" [The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper]**
Fraimow, Rebecca. "This is New Gehesran Calling" [Consolation Songs ed. Iona Datt Sharma]
Gonzalez, Aurelia. "The Wasteland Review" [The Future Fire]
Harrow, Alix. E. "The Sycamore and the Sybil" [Uncanny Magazine]
Hudson, Andrew Dana. "Voice of Their Generation" [Lightspeed]
Ilo, Innocent Chizaram. "Rat and Finch are Friends" [Strange Horizons]
Jerée, Tamara. "The Future in Saltwater" [Anathema Magazine]
Kindred, L.P. "Your Rover is Here" [FIYAH Literary Magazine]
Lingen, Marissa. "The Past, Like a River in Flood"
Miles, Jo. "The Longest Season in the Garden of the Tea-Fish" [Strange Horizons]
Nayler, Ray. "Outside of Omaha" [Nightmare]
Nunnally, Errick. "Uniform" [FIYAH Literary Magazine]
Ogundiran, Tobi. "Guardian of the Gods" [FIYAH Literary Magazine]
Onyebuchi, Tochi. "The Hurt Pattern" [Made to Order]
Prasad, Vina Jie-Min. "A Guide for Working Breeds" [Made to Order]
Raines II, Aurelius. "The Last Testament" [FIYAH Literary Magazine]
Rather, Lina. "Thin Red Jellies" [Giganotosaurus]
Tirado, Vincent. "Your Name is Oblivia" [FIYAH Literary Magazine]
Torzs, Emma. "High in the Clean Blue Air" [Uncanny]
Tu, L. "If you Want to Erase Us, You Must be Thorough" [Uncanny Magazine]
Wiswell, John. "Open House on Haunted Hill" [Diabolical Plots]

Series (inc. 2020 Qualifying Work)

Aaronovitch, Ben. Rivers of London (False Value and Tales from the Folly.)
Beaulieu, Bradley P. Song of Shattered Sands, (When Jackals Storm the Walls and The Flight of the Whisper King.)
Black, Holly. Folk of the Air (How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories)
Chakraborty, S.A. Daevabad Trilogy, (The Empire of Gold)
Cogman, Genevieve. The Invisible Library, (The Dark Archive)
de Bodard, Aliette. Dominion of the Fallen, (Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders)
Dickinson, Seth. The Masquerade, (The Tyrant Baru Cormorant)
Kingfisher, T. The Clocktaur Universe, (Paladin's Grace)
Kowal, Mary Robinette. Lady Astronaut (The Relentless Moon)
Kozloff, Sarah. The Nine Realms (A Queen in Hiding, The Queen of Raiders, A Broken Queen and The Cerulean Queen)
Kuang, R.F. The Poppy War (The Burning God)
McGuire, Seanan. October Daye (A Killing Frost and Shine in Pearl)
Scalzi, John. The Interdependency (The Last Emperox)
Wells, Martha. The Murderbot Diaries (Network Effect)
White, Alex. The Salvagers (The Worst of all Possible Worlds)
Yong, Jin (tr Anna Holmwood and Gigi Chang). Legends of the Condor Heroes (A Snake Lies Waiting)

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book
Black, Holly. The Queen of Nothing [Little, Brown] our readers have reminded us that this was a late 2019 release!
Deonn, Tracy. Legendborn [Margaret K. McElderry Books]
Gong, Chloe. These Violent Delights [Hodder & Staughton]
Hernandez, Carlos. Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe [Disney Hyperion]
Ibañez, Isabel. Woven in Moonlight. [Page Street Kids]
Ifueko, Jordan. Raybearer [Amulet Books]
Kingfisher, T. A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking [Argyll Books]
Little Badger, Darcie (author) and Rovina Cai (illustrator). Elatsoe [Levine Querido]
Mbalia, Kwame. Tristan Strong Destroys the World [Disney Hyperion]
McLemore, Anne-Marie. Darkest and Deepest Red [Feiwel & Friends]
Morrow, Bethany C. A Song Below Water [Tor Teen]
Roanhorse, Rebecca. Race to the Sun [Disney Hyperion]
Thomas, Aiden. Cemetery Boys [Swoon Reads]
Young, Adrienne. Fable [Wednesday Books]

*An earlier version of this list recommended "The Twice Drowned Saint" in novella. However, it has been confirmed that the word count puts this at novel length.

**An earlier version of this list recommended "Search for the Heart of the Ocean" from this collection, but it has been confirmed that as a reprint, this story is not eligible. We loved the whole collection and are happy to recommend this alternative, or any of the other four original stories from Cinrak.

Microreview [book]: Queen of None by Natania Barron

Natania Barron’s Queen of None explores a highly underutilized, if not outright forgotten figure in Arthuriana, to create a potent story from a new and fresh perspective. 

The basic lines of the major figures of King Arthur’s court are pretty well known. Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon. His wife, Guinevere. Gawain, the Green Knight. Lancelot, who fell in love with the Queen. Galahad, Lance’s son. Bedevere, Arthur’s closest ally  And of course Morgan Le Fay, Arthur’s half-sister. And Mordred, Arthur’s son, fated to bring the fall of Camelot.

It emerges, if you read the early sources, there are other figures in Arthuriana that did not extend into the later takes on Arthur. Not only the Welsh stuff, but it turns out that Geoffrey of Monmouth, author of the History of the Kings of England, stated that Arthur had another, full sister, Anna. This is a character that disappears from later Arthur texts, or gets melded into characters like Morgause. But what would she have been like if she was a character in full flesh and form, coming back to Camelot after being married to King Lot of the distant Orkney islands, but now returned to Arthur’s Court?

Anna’s story is the heart of Queen of None, by Natania Barron.

Natania has a MA in English with an emphasis on Medieval Literature, so tackling Arthuriana is in the very center of her wheelhouse. I had never heard of Anna before this book, and with such scant text on her as her before she gets dropped, combined with other characters, transmorgified, or plain forgotten, the author’s tack on the character is delightfully metatextual: Anna, you see, is given a prophecy by Merlin that she will be utterly forgotten. And when she comes back from the end of nowhere, the Orkney islands, with her dead husband’s crown to lay at Arthur’s feet, her goal is to avoid that erasure from the world and history. 

This character oriented plotting, a hallmark of Barron’s fiction, gets a full Arthurian workout as we get a unique perspective on Camelot (here, Carelon). Gawain here is Anna’s son, for instance, and the author explores how Anna relates to the other women in Arthur’s court, and those who come to court. This is a novel that makes me think of The White Princess TV series, where we see a story that we know from a strongly female oriented perspective, giving new light, new life and new interpretations of various characters and relationships.

One way in which Barron does that that I want to highlight and talk about briefly, is how the author decidedly queers Camelot. The center of this, is Anna’s realization that, as the novel progresses, is that her brother has her re-married to Lance because he wants to keep Lancelot in his Court, not only because of his sword arm, but because he lusts after him as well. Lanceloch (Lancelot), whose vows of chastity has made his own martial bed with Anna a cold one at best, and is thus caught on the horns. There is other queer eye in the novel, but having the Arthur-Anna-Lanceloch relationship firmly queer is a strong and bold choice that helps drive the character relationships and the plot and fleshes out the world.

And such a world. Carelon straddles lines and boundaries. It’s not the gritty, end of Roman Ages Britain Camelot that is popular nowadays, and it is not the fully romanticized view of those times, turning them into faux Medieval times, either. Magic is strange, dangerous and relatively “low” - very much in the sword and sorcery sort of mold. Anna herself has been using magic, even without her knowing, subtly.. As the novel progresses and her desire to escape the prophecy of Merlin, and her opposition to Merlin, she winds up making a choice to learn even more magic, a magic that will eventually change the face of her, Merlin and Carelon. 

And it is that slow burning campaign and the magic that she weaves of Anna’s that is the real story of the novel. For, you see, Anna realizes that to tangle with Merlin, she needs to become someone else, and so she crafts a magic that allows her to slip into another person, a new person, a person who might get close enough to Merlin in order to exact her retribution.

You already know the name, if you’ve read the Arthurian mythos. Anna creates, and inhabits a young woman named Nimue.

The author relishes in Anna/Nimue’s world and her, THEIR, interactions with the characters and giving us a full and rich picture of her life, but the novel has a slow and building tempo that accelerates as Anna’s goals start to become within reach. But as Anna and Nimue continue their slow approach, the boundaries between the two become blurred and just who really is the real person, the real force at court becomes not at all clear, even for Nimue supposedly being Anna’s servant. The use of point of view, switching between Anna’s first person and Nimue’s third person, is a masterful use of language to their stories as they wind up their plot.

Along that way, intersecting stories of the rest of the Court, come in and out. This feels like the inverse of a typical Arthurian novel, where Arthur and Gwen are a center and side characters’ stories intersect tangentially with theirs. Here, the tangents are elements of the Arthurian mythos that are more typically foregrounded. The novel spans years, decades, even in this under-represented pair of perspectives and Barron makes Carelon and it’s cast of characters seem as new and untrodden as when I first saw the banners of the knights of the  Round Table at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Arms and Armor wing and asked what they were. That is no mean feat.

---

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10

Bonuses: +1 for a unique and amazingly vivid perspective on Arthuriana that rewards readers familiar with the mythos.

+1 for excellent use of language and point of view to immerse the reader into the characters and story.

Penalties: -1 Novel pacing is decidedly draggy in parts. 

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10 well worth your time and attention

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

Reference: Barron, Natania. The Queen of None [Vernacular Books 2021]

Nerds of a Feather 2021 Awards Eligibility

 

2020: So, that happened.

Like most creatives, the flock at Nerds of a Feather have seen the ways in which we engage with media change as a result of living through an ongoing set of crises. Some of us saw our reading habits change or our ability to focus on books diminish in favour of other media, others found solace in revisiting old favourites, still others may have found a reason to sink hundreds of hours into specific soothing video games. For all of us, working on this fanzine has had to take place alongside coping with the often overwhelming disaster that has been the last ten months. It has been, at times, suboptimal.

And yet, with the exception of US public holidays and one lone Tuesday in late October, our flock continued to put out reviews, interviews, commentaries and essays every weekday in 2020 - sometimes twice! Our coverage included writers from Andrea Stewart to Z.Z. Clayborne, and creations from epic spacefaring history retellings to gentle afterlife resource management sims, via international SFF cinema, retro adventure games, gothic horror, Hugo award finalist jewelry and sculpture, weird westerns and much, much more. There's been so much great media to celebrate in 2020 despite it all, and as we look back on all the wonderful stuff we read this year, we once again want to take a moment to shine a light on some of the work that we're personally proud of, for your consideration when it comes to nominating for the Hugo Award and other awards recognising fan contributions in 2021.

As well as our usual host of reviews, last year, we were delighted to expand our interview coverage, thanks to the work of new contributor Andrea Johnson, who got to chat to a whole host of exciting authors about their upcoming books, inspirations and various fun things, as well as our quickfire 6 books posts. We ran regular features like the monthly Thursday Morning Superhero column from Mike Newhouse-Bailey, Joe's New Books Spotlight and Adri's usually-monthly short fiction column, Questing in Shorts. Dean also returned to guide us through the intricacies of Westworld Season Three with Westworld Wednesday.

This year's project was Nerds on Tour, run by Adri Joy, with Andrea Johnson, Vance Kotrla, Paul Weimer and Spacefaring Kitten. Covering books and movies from around the world, it brings together a great collection of works that allowed us to expand our horizons and look outside our English-language comfort zone, even at a time when actual travel was off the cards for almost everyone.

Being nominated for the Hugo Award is a privilege, and we are honoured to have been awarded that privilege in the Best Fanzine category by voters for the past four years. We once again ask for your consideration, particularly in the following Hugo Award categories:

Fanzine
Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together, edited by Joe Sherry, Adri Joy, The G, and Vance Kotrla

Related Work
Nerds on Tour, by Adri Joy, Andrea Johnson, Vance Kotrla, Paul Weimer, and Spacefaring Kitten

Fan Writer
All of our flock are individually eligible for best fan writer for their work on our fanzine, and some of us also write elsewhere. If you're looking to fill out your fan writer ballot, here's our view of the highlights from our talented team this year:

Adri Joy (editor)
Tor.Com Publishing, First Become Ashes and the Pretty Pastel Packaging of Abuse
Diverging Paths and Cinnamon Rolls: Adri plays Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Questing in Shorts: September 2020
Review: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Review: The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
Nerds on Tour: The Route of Ice and Salt by José Luis Zaraté (1996 novella)

(Note: Adri also wrote 2 reviews for Strange Horizons in 2020: All City by Alex DiFrancesco and Incomplete Solutions by Wole Talabi)

Aidan Moher
Beauty, Dragons, and Isometric Horror: Revisiting Breath of Fire IV
The Modern Nostalgia of Dragon Quest XI: A Conversation (with Joe Sherry)
(Note: Aidan has a full eligibility post here)

Andrea Johnson
Andrea's Holiday Gift Guide (mostly books)
Interviews with Hugo nominees for Best Fan Artist and Best Semiprozine
Interview: S.L. Huang
Interview: Devin Madson
Interview: Andrea Hairston

Dean E.S. Richard
Westworld Wednesdays: Other People's Gods

Joe Sherry (editor)
Adri and Joe Talk About Books: 2019 Locus Recommended Reading List
The Dragon Prince Reread: Skybowl
The Hugo Initiative: Blogtable, 1983 Novelette (with Adri and Paul)
The Modern Nostalgia of Dragon Quest XI: A Conversation (with Aidan Moher)
Review: The Relentless Moon

Michael Newhouse-Bailey
Thursday Morning Superhero: Comic Con at Home
Thursday Morning Superhero: Locke and Key

Paul Weimer
Review: The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford
Review: Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott
Review: The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart
Review: Machine by Elizabeth Bear
Review: A Pale Light in the Black by K.B. Wagers
The Hugo Initiative: Blogtable, 1983 Novelette (with Adri and Joe)

(Note: Paul has a full eligibility post here)

Phoebe Wagner
Major and Minor: On Speculative Fiction as Canonical Literature
Imagining Beyond the Climate Crisis
The Final Frontier: A Haunting
Movie Magic: On Appreciating Speculative Film

Sean Dowie
Review: Mexican Gothic
Review: Providence
Review: Sweet Harmony
Review: When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain

Spacefaring Kitten
Review: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Tempest

The G
Review: Dark Matter
Review: In the Black

Review: My Best Friend's Exorcism

Vance Kotrla
Nerds on Tour: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Nerds on Tour: Black Orpheus
Review: The Love Witch

And, last but not least...

Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
2020 Hugo Awards Acceptance Speech That Might Have Been
We didn't win a Hugo Award last year, but if we did, this would have have been our acceptance. Avenge us. 

6 Books with Melinda Snodgrass

 Melinda M. Snodgrass studied opera at the Conservatory of Vienna, graduated from U.N.M. with a degree in history, and went on to Law School. After 3 years as a lawyer she realized she hated lawyers and turned to writing.

In 1988 she accepted a job on Star Trek: The Next Generation and began her Hollywood career where she has worked on staff on numerous shows and has written television pilots and feature films. Most recently working as an executive producer on Wild Cards for Universal Pictures.   

In the prose world she writes for and co-edits the shared world anthology series Wild Cards with George R. R. Martin. She has completed the fifth book in her five book Space Opera series Imperials and is working on a fourth novel in the Carolingian series. All of her books are being released on-line and in print-on-demand. Presently available -- This Case is Gonna Kill Me, The High Ground. In Evil Times and The Hidden World.

For fun she rides her dressage horses, plays video games and spends a lot of time in the gym. (Or she did before there was a pandemic).

Today she tells us about her 6 Books:

1. What book are you currently reading? 

Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott. I love Kate’s books.

2. What upcoming book are you really excited about?

The final volume of the Expanse series from James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Falls.

3. Is there a book you’re currently itching to read again? 

I think Emma Newman’s wonderful Split Worlds series. And right now in these lonely Covid times I rather want to read some Georgette Heyer. Like Have Spacesuit Will Travel by Heinlein, they are comfort reading for me.

4. How about a book you’ve changed your mind about – either positively or negatively?

That doesn’t happen to often, because if I find a book does not engage me I don’t generally finish reading it.

5. What’s one book, which you read as a child or a young adult, that has had a lasting influence on your writing?

That’s a tricky question. I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I suck at description, don’t enjoy writing it at all. A Princess of Mars was the first science fiction book I ever read when I was 7, but he wasn’t a great writer. Oddly, I think it was The Wind in the Willows. Particularly the chapter called The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Every time I read it I get a lump in my throat.

6. And speaking of that, what’s your latest book, and why is it awesome?

My latest book is probably the upcoming book 4, The Currency of War, in my space opera the Imperials Saga. It will be available in February, and I’m really proud of that book. Actually I’m really proud of the entire series. It’s space opera, but with more focus on issues of politics, economics and second class status than it is about big space battles. There are a few of those, but they are of less interest to me then how societies in crises succeed or fail.

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

Reading Octavia E. Butler: Fledgling and Collected Stories

One of my reading goals for 2021 is to read the remainder of Octavia E. Butler's work, as well as revisiting some of the classics that have already earned a place on my favourites shelf. And what better way to stick to a reading goal than to tell you lovely readers about it? With Lilith's Brood, Kindred and the Parable books all read in previous years, I decided my first read would be the initial volume of the Library of America's collection of her works, containing Kindred, Fledgling and Collected Stories. I didn't reread Kindred this time - though I consider it to be as close to essential reading as any single book can be (content warnings for its depictions of chattel slavery in the US South), but I devoured the other two thirds of this bind-up, with excellent results.

Fledgling is Butler's last completed novel, a story which stands well alone but in another world could have been the start of something much longer. It reimagines the vampire myth in a way that plays upon the psychological appeal vampires can exert on their prey, creating the Ina, a symbiont species which gathers a group of humans and forms a mutual bond with them, feeding on them in exchange for increased longevity and healing and a whole lot of mutual pleasure. The protagonist of Fledgling is Shori, a juvenile (though still super old in human terms) Ina who is the result of genetic experimentation by her mothers: unlike the rest of her species, Shori is able to control her sleep cycle and move around relatively freely during the day, rather than going to sleep or being severely burned by sunlight. As part of this genetic enhancement, Shori is Black - a fact we find out relatively far into the novel's own text, although like Kindred before it, the marketing is likely to have given this away before the reader encounters it in the story. She is also, when we encounter her, an amnesiac, and through the novel's opening chapters we piece together the fate of her family and the challenge that now faces her to re-establish her own safety and right to exist against uncertain forces determined to wipe her out.

Like Lilith's Brood, Fledgling immediately engages the reader in a world where humanity encounters a more powerful alien force, one which fundamentally challenges specific biological truths we build our self-identity and social structure around. Complicating that alien interaction is, of course, a big helping of human prejudice, and both race and gender (particularly masculinities) sit at the heart of Shori's experience, and the experiences of her symbionts. In Fledgling's opening scenes, Shori is picked up by Wright, a human man who becomes her first symbiont before she's entirely aware of her own power and what she's doing. Wright is shown as being a decent person with a basically sound moral compass before he comes under Shori's influence, but his relationship to her as a symbiont, and his acceptance of the other symbionts she brings into their "family", is clouded by his conception of his masculinity and the expectation that his sexual relationship with Shori includes an element of ownership, at least where other men are concerned. The powerlessness that comes with being a symbiont, biologically unable to challenge a structure that he's intellectually resistant to, makes for a lot of interesting tension as the novel progresses and Shori's relationships with her humans and other Ina become denser. And then there's the impact of Shori's Blackness, and the challenge it presents to those around her trying to understand the truth of her family's murder. Because the Ina have never previously had races, her extended family strongly resist the explanation that the violence done to her was a result of racism, brushing it off as a human affliction and not something they would entertain. Unsurprisingly, the truth turns out to be rather different, and the challenge which Shori presents just by existing is treated delicately but unflinchingly within the story.

Fledgling is a fairly slow narrative: it has its action sequences, but a lot of its story simply involves exploring the society of the Ina and their symbionts, and Shori's journey to rediscover her heritage and come to terms with what was done to her. It doesn't pack the same level of punch as Kindred or the Parable books - and it didn't make me ache for lost sequels in the same way that Parable of the Trickster does - but for the kind of story it's supposed to be, Fledgling deserves to stand among the best reimaginings of the vampire mythology, one that pushes the psychological elements of the myth to fascinating new levels.

The short fiction in here is an intriguing mix (all of it originally published in the second edition of Bloodchild and Other Stories), and much of it also deals with the subject of humanity pushed beyond its biological "comfort zone" to a point where societies, or even survival, look very different. Sometimes, that's about contact with the alien: "Bloodchild", perhaps Butler's most famous piece of short fiction, is an alien symbiosis story in which humans are offered a home on the planet of the alien T'Lic, in return for carrying their eggs to gestation, while "Amnesty" posits an alien society of "Communities" which gain pleasure from contact with humans, and hold economic sway over earth. Both offer complex pictures of the choices their human protagonists make, though Xuan Hoa, in Bloodchild, is much younger and at a different stage of reckoning to Noah, the older and more resigned protagonist of Amnesty. In other stories - like the post-apocalyptic "Speech Sounds", or the story of a fictional degenerative disease and those who know they carry it that is told in "The Evening and the Morning and the Night" - the challenges are more internal, though no less overwhelming. The latter, in particular, stayed with me long after the curtain fell for its strange hopefulness in the face of the inevitable. Its protagonists, both sufferers of a disease that causes people to disassociate and compulsively self-harm in later life, bond and make plans for their future despite knowing it will end in violent, self-afflicted death; when it is discovered that there might be another alternative (one which relies on a well funded private healthcare institute of the kind unavailable to most sufferers), its a moment that opens doors without diminishing the impact of the disease on their autonomy and self-preservation. It's a weird effect, one which I struggle to put into words, but which really hit home for me and made this probably my favourite story of the collection. And while I had less luck with the non-alien stories, the non fiction pieces here are well worth reading for their insights into the life and challenges of a Black woman trying to push the boundaries of science fiction in a world that couldn't fathom someone like her doing so.

I'm excited to see where my Butler reading takes me from here: next stop, the world of the Patternist, beginning with chronologically-first Wild Seed. See you then!

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