Wait for Night, by Stephen Graham Jones

Horror stories are not my thing but I do like to read the Locus nominees. And I have to say I liked the action in this one. If Jones goes more toward action SF I'm thinking I would pick up some of his work, the writing is great.

My Goodreads Review

Dresses Like White Elephants, by Meg Elison

This is an excellent story on many levels--am surprised it didn't contend for winning the Locus.  The setting is unique--a market where used wedding dresses are sold by the owners.  A drag queen comes there to find a unique look for the Hymen Cup, a wedding drag competition.  The price to be paid for a dress is the absorption of the pain that went toward the decision to put it up for sale.  The characters in the story are powerful.  I can highly recommend reading Dresses Like White Elephants. 

The Girlfriend's Guide to Gods, by Maria Dahvana Headley

This is mainstream feminist writing--men are disappointing. Many of us guys actually know that. I second the reviewer below that recommended it for teenage girls--it is a good antidote to overly romantic thinking, but I think many would outgrow this quickly. It is written with skill, and I think we will see more of this author.

My Goodreads Review

The Sycamore and the Sibil, by Alix E. Harrow

The Sycamore and the Sibil is an exploration in feminism and what it's like to be pursued by a powerful and unpleasant man, which is familiar territory by now but the take on the magic in the story is really interesting.  I've read several stories from a tree perspective, but it's always worth thinking about how life would be that slow, and the price that would be paid to achieve that slowness.  Enjoyed it.

50 Things Every AI Working With Humans Should Know, by Ken Liu

It seems like the other reviewers did not connect to this story but I really did. I think it may not be clear how much you have to know about AI development in order to write this story the way he did. The segment about including weird "spice" that looks like garbage in a training dataset is, well, Uncanny. And for me many of those 50 things an AI needs to know approach profundity. I compare it with work from Ted Chiang, and in my mind that is a high compliment.

My Goodreads Review

City of Red Midnight: A Hikayat, by Usman T. Malik

I am not alone in not knowing what a hikayat was, but the Google tells me it's a story.  There might be more to it than that, but this is a fun story to read.  It's a nested story and is self-consciously a story, in that the setting is a storyteller entertaining tourists in Lahore.  But there's much more to it than that.  The way it weaves in and out is pretty cool, but some things come out of nowhere--the extremely gory sequences (content alert) are unexpected and almost like a jump scare.  It's also an interesting take on how feminism works for a Pakistani author describing a male-dominated culture.  In some places not very feminist at all.  Overall I liked it though.

A Stick of Clay, in the Hands of God, is Infinite Potential, by JY Neon Yang

This story is a kind of classic short space opera, with a serious twist in characters.  Stick steals the show as a made being who identifies as a thing--"it" is its pronoun.  Which the others on the team won't use because it just bothers them too much to apply it to a human, or humanoid.  The plot is a solid frame to hang this exploration of identity on--a battle against others dehumanized, and the nearly victorious soldiers realizing their exploitation.  Good stuff, Stick is a fine piece of work.

 A Stick of Clay, in the Hands of God, is Infinite Potential

Color, Heat and the Wreck of the Argo, by Catherynne M. Valente

I've read a fair amount of Catherynne M. Valente over the years, and a lot of it is kind of goofy.  Not really in a bad way.  But in this story she's digging deep.  The protagonist is a kind of hard-luck woman with an interest in videography, and knowledge about Betamax recorders.  She finds one at a yard sale, gets it working, and starts seeing visions of other parts of the subjects' lives.

It's a fully mature story in that the relationships described are powerful and central to the story.  The protagonist is mourning her ex's departure, and they have to come back together to hand over the remains of the dog they had together.  You really feel for everyone involved, and the Betamax technology is certainly obscure enough to carry fantasy.  Color, Heat and the Wreck of the Argo is definitely worth reading.

The Pill, by Meg Elison

The Pill was in Meg Elison's Big Girl collection and later anthologized.  It's a real hard hitter, working through our desperation to be thin, to the point of endangering our lives.  For Elison, it's a pill that causes you to crap out your excess fat in the space of a few days, killing about 10 percent of those who try it.  The protagonist holds out against it and it throws a clear light on fat shaming.  It is no secret that we will do dangerous things to be thin--the story reminds me of a subplot in one of Cory Doctorow's early novels, I think it was Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom.  Or Makers.  In any case, the collection and this story showcase Meg Elison's ability and activism.  Definitely worth reading for its clarity of purpose.

Fairy Tales for Robots, by Sofia Samatar

This story consists of 13 or so individual tales woven together as a set of subversive stories for a robot to remember her creator by.  Some of them are retellings of classic fairy tales, some are original, all kind of bump along as well told stories with complicated morals--not much like the original fairy tales at all, as the narrator points out.  It hangs together as a plot but really the point is those individual tales with their unique path and uncertain resolutions.  Entertaining to read and appreciate.

If You Take My Meaning, by Charlie Jane Anders

I read this story and only after I was finished did I realize that it was in fact a sequel to The City In the Middle of the Night. That helped some. Sophie has gone further down her road of transformation, taking on a sensory organ from the night-dwelling Gelet. Her revolutionary friend Alyssa is considering the same path. Alyssa is a hard soul and we get to see more of her here. The focus is more completely on the Gelet, and as it goes on we see more of their relationship with humanity. There are also indications that the series is open for continuation, so you'll want to read this if you want to be ready for more about the Gelet.

My Goodreads Review

A Whisper of Blue by Ken Liu

This is a fun story in The Book of Dragons.  Dragons are a regular part of the fauna of the world, and humanity becomes dependent upon them for energy.  It seems this is as much for fascination with dragons as for practicality, since the dragons have to be both fed and coaxed to produce that energy.  In fact the cost of that energy is very high.  The story is fully fleshed out around this, with characters that hate what has happened and others that are enchanted.  It feels both practical and magical throughout, with very interesting reveals along the way.  One of my favorites this year.

The Inaccessibility of Heaven, by Aliette de Bodard

This novelette is kind of in the same universe as de Bodard's Dominion of the Fallen series, but it's not part of the sequence and is meant to stand alone. It has a lot in common with that series--fallen angels and all--but with different characters. Our protagonist is a mortal dedicated to helping those fallen angels, and is enmeshed in their politics but trying to be authentic in it.

This is a somewhat less breathless tale than those in Dominion of the Fallen, though not a lot. It comes from a somewhat different place than the main series, and I'd say I liked it better. We actually got a little taste of motivation--of how the angels fell. I'd like to know more about that in the main series.

My Goodreads Review

The House of Binding Thorns, by Aliette de Bodard

I'm at 2.5 stars on this one. Like the first entry in Dominion of the Fallen, the dialog in this book is heavy with melodrama. Every single line is breathless. This has its place, but if it never lets up it gets hard to enjoy the plot or understand the characters. Everyone is overwrought and overwhelmed, all the time, except Asmodeus who is equally melodramatic in being above it all (though he has character building moments at the end). I think this gets better in the later stories.

In some ways this style conveys the inhuman nature of the Fallen, so it has that going for it. But we get no contrast with humans--they are all in with the melodrama as well. Including dramatically stating all their intentions, and responses. "You'll find I'm no easy prey"--anyone or thing that has to say this is, in fact, easy prey.

This reading experience obviously appeals more to some than others. Not so much for me.

My Goodreads Review

My Country Is a Ghost, by Eugenia Triantafyllou

The setup for My Country Is a Ghost is interesting, but kind of a stretch. People's ancestors routinely stick around as ghosts and can accompany a person and even talk to them. But the US (maybe, the country isn't specifically mentioned but it sounds like the US) doesn't allow immigrants to bring their ghosts with them. Without the ghosts, our protagonist feels in constant danger of losing her heritage. It's an interesting try at making that heritage loss tangible.

My Goodreads Review

The Eight-Thousanders, by Jason Sanford

The Eight-Thousanders is a specific exposition on the Founders Syndrome--the egos of men (and a few women) who found tech startups run mostly on brazenness.  The setting here is an ascent of Everest.  The author well captures both the banal parade to the top and the extreme danger of the climb.  Our protagonist is following his boss, Ronnie, on the expedition.  Ronnie is doing the ascent without assistive oxygen.  They get caught in a whiteout (Ronnie's fault).  The speculative element comes from a being something like a vampire that comes to the mountain to feed on doomed climbers.  She has taken one from another group and then accompanies the protagonist and Ronnie as their situation worsens.

It's a decent allegory and will tell the story of our times.

Advanced Word Problems in Portal Math, by Aimee Picchi

The story makes its point and I thought the word problems were kind of interesting. The first couple, anyway. No good deed goes unpunished, particularly for those whose survival interest is in doing good deeds. Makes one sigh.

My Goodreads Review

Interlibrary Loan, by Gene Wolfe

 Gene Wolfe was an amazing literary talent. I will never forget the Book of the New Sun. But I think these later works began to get lost, and Interlibrary Loan is definitely incomplete. We revisit the smaller but rougher "A Borrowed Man" world where authors are cloned as library resources and are not treated as human. One mildly refreshing thing about this work is that it is one where the library is not painted in gushing terms. It starts out as a somewhat meandering mystery, mostly there to showcase Ern A. Smithe's thoughts on his life and not-really-human status. Then it takes a turn for the weird as alternate universes kind of sneak into the story. Then the book ends.

I think it was worth publishing, but not really worth consideration for awards. But I will miss Gene Wolfe for sure.

My Goodreads Review