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.

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.

Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers, by Alyssa Wong

So I think Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers is my new favorite of this year's Nebula short story crop.  It's kind of like a vampire story but way more inventive.  Our protagonist in this story is an eater of thoughts, and the nastier the better.  Murderers have a particularly good flavor.  The particular trope for this story is the afflicted (or gifted) person thinking she is the only one (in this case, with her mother, but that highlights the point) and then finding out she is not.  Played safe with the lesbian love card (all but one of the stories where there's a romantic interest this year is between women, the one exception being hetero--where are the gay men this year?), but it's overall a good story.  A strong 3 stars.

The Fisher Queen, by Alyssa Wong

One of the easier and often interesting tropes in speculative fiction is to take a situation or being that is in some form quite familiar to us (a fantastic one, like a unicorn or a faraway planet) and redefine it, so that as a reader you have tension between that familiar being and the one described in the story.  Just such a story is The Fisher Queen, Alyssa Wong's first sale and the last short story in the Nebula nominations.

Our protagonist is a crew member on a fishing vessel, very young for that work and a female to boot.  But she is tough and capable, and likes to think she can handle the situation well.  The success of the family fishing venture depends on the capture of mermaids--sort of like the mermaids of fantasy, in that they bear some resemblance to people, but they are considered to be pretty mindless and people eat them.  No kin to us, really.  But maybe closer than she thought...

For a first story it's a pretty darn good one.  As an award nominee it's not one of the stronger ones.  But I agree with the introduction--keep an eye on Alyssa Wong.  3 stars from me, but not a strong 3 stars.

So I have now read all the Nebula nominees for short story.  My favorite?  The Breath of War and The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye were pretty good, but my favorite was A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide.  Pinsker's artful combination of technological oddity with an ordinary life was very interesting to read.