Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station | Hours Since the Last Patient Death: 0, by Caroline M. Yoachim

Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station is what short fiction can do pretty well--humor.  You don't want a joke to take forever.  There is no hope for actual help, but the path to non-help is pretty funny.  It's written like a choose-your-own-adventure book, but not really.  Which was fun, because I used to like to try to read those things straight through and try to keep the plots straight.  A good 3 stars.

This one was indeed a contender, but my favorite for the Nebula is Seasons of Glass and Iron, by Amal El-Mohtar.  Go check that one out.

A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers, by Alyssa Wong

Now this one, A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers, is pretty good.  A very intense relationship between sisters, sisters with weather working powers, and one of them suicides in pretty spectacular fashion.  The other tries to work through alternate timelines to bring her back.  Pretty darn cool and enjoyable, I would recommend it.  Strong 3 stars.

This Is Not a Wardrobe Door, by A.Merc Rustad

This Is Not a Wardrobe Door is another entry for the Nebula Award for Short Stories in 2016.  Rustad fully embraces the children's fairy tale, which is kind of cute.  It's a story of imaginary doors to imaginary friends that are actually real.  So far our relationship score is 4 gay, 1 cis, 1 trans.  It is good to explore a new space but I like stories that do more with it.  A weak 3 stars.

Things With Beards, by Sam J. Miller

Continuing the Nebula Awards Short Story reviews: Things With Beards is a good strong entry.  The Things in the title is a reference to the movie The Thing, based on the John W. Campbell story Who Goes There?  It's basically a followup to the story, with MacReady and Childs surviving but having carried the Thing out with them.  Figuring out the tie-in is fun, but we also get a message with MacReady becoming involved in violent activism as the AIDS epidemic gets under way.  Pretty interesting, I give it a strong 3 stars.

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.