read more short fiction!

So, some may have noticed that I haven't said anything in regards to the Hugo Awards / nominees this year. Last year, I kicked off my Sunday Shorts feature reading the nominations for short stories - the slate got me interested and excited in the short speculative fiction field in general, and inspired me to start advocating that people read more short fiction!!!

The Hugo Awards were held this past weekend at WorldCon. The whole process this year was sad, but I am not going to get into it (George RR Martin has been a very well spoken voice through the whole process - most is captured with his blog tag puppygate). After the awards were given out (No Award winning in many a category), the full slate of nominations from the first round were released - giving readers an idea of what the nominees could have looked like if a group hadn't decided to nominate a slate for *reasons* and not because they read, loved, and thought them the absolute best the genre could produce last year.

io9 has posted on what the nominees would have looked like and it was oh-so-good . Frankly, it has me sad again and maybe a little bit mad. This list of nominees included stuff I read / recommended last year and a ton of new picks that I would have loved to explore prior to voting. What could have been....

I am hoping I can channel my mad to regularly read / review the shorter selections and post about them on the blog with more regularity. So, look forward to more regular and recent Sunday Shorts (some borrowed from the could-have-been-2015-hugo-nominees list!) to come in the next few months!

This Sunday, I'll be reviewing the Nebula award winning short story, Jackalope Wives by Ursula Vernon published in Apex. 

For anyone interested and wanting to add to their reading list, places I have found to seek out recommendations for short sci-fi/fantasy stories:
Clavis Aurea (Charlotte Ashley's short fiction review in Apex)
Rich and Strange (Amal El-Mohtar's regular feature on short stories)
io9's newstand feature

Sunday Short: Seanan McGuire's The Myth of Rain

Sunday Shorts are back this week with a story published originally in Lightspeed and soon to be released as part of an anthology Loosed Upon The World.



I have been thinking about the future a lot recently. I think it is partly hormones (I'm pregnant with #2, due in January), and partly just a normal part of adulthood. What will my generation's impact be?

So, when I read Seanan McGuire's short story The Myth of Rain this week... it caught me in the gut. Is McGuire's future what my daughters have to look forward to? I have friends who work on climate change issues. I live in southern California, in the midst of the deep drought. I am from the Pacific Northwest and hope my family can make it's way there in the not too distant future. Because I know where I live / how things are going isn't entirely sustainable and may already be too late.

In McGuire's short, we follow a biologist who is helping to capture owls to save before a new development takes over their protected habitat. She is trying to capture one more female spotted owl for an ark. Her musings on the topic of climate change (from a historical perspective versus our in-the-moment perspective) are a bit heart wrenching. I love science fiction for its speculative nature, but sometimes I don't always love what it gets me speculating on.

But overall, this story is crafted in a way I've truly come to appreciate of Seanan McGuire (aka Mira Grant). She tackles interesting science in her fiction (short and long forms) while targeting interesting moral topics. This short story isn't fun nor optimistic, but maybe we need more stories like it to truly do something. I'm definitely planning on picking up the anthology this story will be apart of when it comes available. And maybe lose more than a few nights sleep after reading it.

Naomi Novik's Uprooted

Disclaimer: I received this book as an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

It is probably no surprise to anyone who has seen my reading list that I am a sucker for epics. I can't say no to stories that span hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of pages, where an author can take his/her time to introduce us to the characters and their relationships, construct complex mysteries and politics, and develop interesting and intricate magic / fantasy systems. I can't help but see big books (and the worldbuilding they promise) and sometimes get a little giddy -- hello new world, I want to devour and delight in you! 


But there is something delightful to me about finding a standalone novel that satisfies my epic fantasy hunger. And Novik's latest novel Uprooted does that so well!

Uprooted follows the story of Agnieszka, who has lived her entire life in the shadow of The Wood, a malevolent and corrupted forest miles from her valley home. We meet her just before she is chosen by the Dragon, a wizard who serves as the noble lord for her valley (and protects it as best he is able alone). The Dragon takes a girl from the valley aged 17 every 10 years, and the girls always return changed.

Within Agnieszka's story, Novik develops a complex world of sorcery and magic, with interesting characters and complex mysteries... all in under 500 pages. I couldn't put the book down once I started it; even when pesky things like child rearing and work made me do other activities, I was thinking about this story.

I loved Agnieszka's relationship with Kasia, her childhood friend. I loved the fact that there was a love interest in the story for Agnieszka, but that it wasn't the central facet of her story/development. I just plain loved Agnieszka; she was a bit stubborn but also often right about things despite everyone else's doubts. The pacing of the story was fantastic, and the plot moved unexpectedly enough that I wasn't certain where it was going to end up. 

As much as epic-loving me would love to revisit the world Novik has built here (maybe following a few other characters' tales), the ending was satisfying to me. I am definitely going to recommend this to friends/family/anyone who ever makes the mistake of asking me for an interesting story to read in the coming months! Five out of five stars. 

Erika Johansen's The Queen of the Tearling

I read this book in preparation for the first meeting of a new local sci-fi/fantasy bookclub Cyborg Knights.This Thursday will be the first meet-up (details here), and I am definitely interested to hear what other bookworms thought of this month's pick.

The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

There are many things to love about this book -- the main character Kelsea is introspective and earnestly trying to do her best when there are no good choices, the dystopian medieval/future setting is interesting, the Queen's guard is full of well developed characters. I couldn't put the book down when I started it in the evenings; the pacing (which started at a slow burn that caught along faster as you progressed) worked for me. I am a sucker for stories where magic is an unknown quality that you discover with the characters. I thought the story was brought to a good conclusion, for the first in the series. And I definitely plan to read onward in the land of Tearling.

I just... didn't need the constant reminders that Kelsea was ugly. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and physical beauty is just one aspect of a person. The author discussed her motivation for creating an ugly heroine in this blog post last year, and I can attest for plenty of beautiful / perfect female characters in fantasy/sci-fi and applaud her for trying something different. But by focusing on it so steadily, she hasn't created a character that is ugly; she has created a character that is insecure. As the mom of a daughter (with another one on the way), I think we need examples of heroes/heroines doing awesome regardless of physical appearance. I wanted Kelsea to acknowledge that physical beauty may never be hers... and then recognize that she can be awesome and heroic and even feminine without a perfect body or perfect hair or perfect features. She is tantalizingly close to that realization at times, but then it slips away.

To me, there wasn't much in the way of mystery or romance as the book blurbs touted, either. Kelsea develops a crush and then spends most of her time thinking about the crush in terms of how ugly/unappealing she must be to him. One of the central mysteries is simply Kelsea figuring out what her childhood caregivers were unable / unwilling to tell her about her mom. It was an awkward mystery to me; I cannot see how a good citizen of Tearling would not want to educate the future ruler of the kingdom on recent history for some sense of loyalty. It seemed contrived.

Overall, it was a fast read with a few flaws, but one I'd recommend to fans of the fantasy genre in the mood for coming-of-age. I give it a solid 3.5/5 stars.

Favorite Line: “Even a book can be dangerous in the wrong hands, and when that happens, you blame the hands, but you also read the book.”

If you are in the mood for a fantastic fantasy coming-of-age new-royalty-in-a-hostile-environment story -- I have to recommend wholeheartedly is the Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. It has been nominated for a Hugo this year for best novel and is definitely there by merit. It features the story Maia, a half-goblin heir (and thus, physically not considered attractive to most in his kingdom) to the throne who was previously exiled. Everyone (including Maia) is surprised when all other heirs perish along with his father and he is made emperor. There is plenty of court intrigue -- who can Maia trust, as he was never fully educated / prepared for the role he has been thrust into. Maia tries to be a kind ruler in much the same way as Kelsea tries. Neither succeeds to wholly save or win over all, but I think it makes all the better a story that way.

I'm baaaaack!

So. Hi? Remember me? Yea. It has been awhile. I am sorry about my absence; life sort of took me through a few loops (and twists and squiggly lines) the last six months.

But I think I am ready to get back at it. Missing my own first year blog anniversary at the end of June was a bit of the depressing kick in the pants I needed to start writing again. I am not promising I will be as awesome as I was or have as many posts overall, but I am hoping for at least 2 novel length (plus a few Sunday Shorts) reviews a month. (And someday I will have the courage to write my review on the final book in the Dark Tower series / finish my Weird Western Battle of the Books. I will!)

See, it isn't as if I haven't been reading some spectacularly awesome speculative fiction. Case in point, a screenshot of what I've read this year thus far:

Now, you may spot a few definitively NOT sci-fi/fantasy/horror picks in there (although, a book on parenting toddlers may or may not be defined as horror, parents-amIright?), but I'm still reading and loving myself some speculative fiction. My average star review rating on goodreads this year has been over 4/5 stars. I dare say I have hit a groove in terms of my growing to-read list. And I am getting the recommending itch again -- in the past month I may have bombarded a hapless person or three with why Mira Grant is so much awesome (parasites and brains!) or explained why Harry Dresden is so fun to read (I don't believe in fairies!). And that urge -- to spread the love on why reading sci-fi, fantasy, and horror can be soooo good -- is exactly why I wanted to start this blog in the first place. So it is time. Let the reviews ala Exploring Worlds begin again!

See you soon!