Sabbath Wine, by Barbara Krasnoff

Sabbath Wine is another one of the Nebula Short Story nominees for 2016.  The story is really all about the setting, which is a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn during prohibition.  The daughter wants her father, a militantly anti-religious Jew, to have a Sabbath meal for her new friend.  For that, he needs kosher wine.

It's sweet and well written, a nice dessert.  3 stars.

Seasons of Glass and Iron, by Amal El-Mohtar

Seasons of Glass and Iron is a fairy tale.  I get this information from the title of the anthology it is in, The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales, and it fits beautifully.  Tabitha walks the earth in iron shoes, trying to wear them down.  Amira sits atop a glass hill that protects her from rabid suitors.  Both are caught in magical traps of their own making.  It's wonderfully well written and a pleasure to read.  It's definitely my favorite of the short stories so far, and I think it will remain so.  4 stars from me

Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies, by Brooke Bolander

So now that I have read my second Brooke Bolander story, I think I am typecasting her--she personifies Angry Woman.  Nothing especially wrong or right with that, it would be better if the stories didn't rely so much on obscenities to generate interest.  Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies is a hint at a story, as most short stories are, and its anger is directed at an entitled male serial killer.  No sympathy there.  But pretty easy as a target.  Red Meat For The Base, as they say in politics.  Though it isn't political.  It took much longer to write this than to read the story--so it goes.  2 stars.

You'll Surely Drown Here If You Stay, by Alyssa Wong

You'll Surely Drown Here If You Stay is a story of wild magic, featuring power to raise the dead but really not anything like a zombie or ghost story.  So I would say I enjoyed it for originality.  The protagonist is Ellis, a young man who is channeling power (his mother's) to raise the dead.  He, his paramour Marisol and several others have been left or orphaned by a mine accident, and the powerful magic in the story is being used to guard the mine.  Then some bad dudes come to town who have some of that power themselves.

The irritating thing with this story is that it's told in the second person.  You, the reader, are Ellis.  But not really, the device doesn't actually work at placing the reader in the story.  It's awfully tough to pull off second person narrative, it's only been done once or twice and I can't remember the title right off.  And the device is not necessary at all, the story would be just fine, and probably nominated for awards, without this.

In any case it's a decent read and I can recommend it.  3 stars.

The Orangery, by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

The Orangery is a very beautiful, literary fantasy story.  It uses advanced literary devices (two points of view that are very different) and gorgeous language to tell the story of Apollo as an erstwhile visitor to a protected garden.  The trees in the garden used to be women, but have chosen to forsake that form for a life in bark.  The Guardian confronts Apollo with his nature.

This is a story to admire, and it's probably a contender, but I like more to happen.  The plot is relatively thin here.  3 stars from me.

Blood Grains Speak Through Memories, by Jason Sanford

Continuing the tour of this year's Nebula awards for novellas, I read Blood Grains Speak Through Memories today.  The title is interesting and unusual in that it is a compact, exact description of the story.  You don't see that every day.

The story itself is on the border between fantasy and technology.  We get hints of a post-apocalypse world, where some desperate means was taken or emerged to survive.  The lands are tended by "anchors", people who acquire a special connection to the land through the title's "grains".  Our protagonist is one such anchor, who is considering carrying out her late husband's plan to rid the world of the grains.  They protect the world, but commit a fair amount of evil in the process.

The world is pretty fully built out for a novella.  We get a good picture of what it's like to be an anchor on the land.  The writing is powerful without getting sappy.  I think this one is a contender, it will be hard to beat.  I like it enough to say four stars.  I haven't read any Jason Sanford in awhile (since 2010), but am glad he's back.

Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea, by Sarah Pinsker

It's Nebula season again, and this year all the available novellas are published in book form, so I'll get to those later.  First up, the novelettes.

Sarah Pinsker has an entry on the short side entitled Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea.  It is standard post-apocalyptic stuff--we have two protagonists, a rock star and a scavenger.  The rock star gets sick of life on the cruise ships that took to the ocean when everything went to pot on land.  She takes a lifeboat and drifts away, washing up on the scavenger's shore.  The rock star is mildly famous--the scavenger knows who she is--but is not wealthy enough to be a passenger on the ships. 

They are each working through the consequences of the end of civilization.  It's OK as a story, I liked it fine, but there's not a lot there.  I guess 3 stars.