This is a fun but serious story commenting on worker exploitation as robots. Employers are taking it in the face at the moment since with Covid-19 staff shortages people won't put up with garbage, but automation is progressing and an intelligent but indentured AI might be forced to. Pretty fun relationship story here too.
David Shontz’s review of A Guide For Working Breeds | Goodreads
This is what you would call a "pretty" story--the point of it is not explored through conflict. In fact, everything works out as well as it could, though there is some foreboding. But it's told like a fairy tale, and not one of those Grimm ones that's really a horror story. Hard to pull off, so the award nominations are deserved. This is the first thing by Yoon Ha Lee outside of the Machineries of Empire series that I have read, and I enjoyed it.
There's a lot of this kind of story out there, where someone connects with a fantasy world by way of asynchronous, analog dispatches. They are always fun and need to be sprinkled into the world again sometimes for those who have not stumbled across them in old library collections. This is a solid example and it's time for one of these to come around again.
A good, action packed zombie story. You could pretty much drop this into Seanan McGuire's "Feed" universe, say in the early days, and it would provide a good perspective. The story makes excellent sense in its own space and highlights the incredible fear and reward of childbirth.
David Shontz’s review of Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse | Goodreads
I have to tell you it is a little frightening and intimidating how good a writer Sarah Pinsker is. In "Song for a New Day" she pretty much called our current times and had an incredibly moving and effective story arc. The story arc is just as good here in a shorter form. Our protagonist is a person used to lying about her past--even though these days it is pretty easy to check up on people. But she gets by with it. Then she makes up a lie that ends up being true and leading to a very creepy children's show host. This is told with a backdrop of her helping an old acquaintance (not quite a friend, and that explanation is good too) clean out his brother's hoarder home. It's just absolutely delicious to read, if for some reason you have not go do it now.
A solid, entertaining story. Our protagonist goes to China to bait out someone she knew in high school, a guy that the girls get warned about. Seemingly nice, but with a dark side. He learns biology and starts in on a project to make humans superhuman. Kritzer does a nice job of speculation, and an even better job at the end of the story tying in the layers outside of it. Worth a nomination and a read.
Burn is almost a 4 but not quite. This is a good, pleasant read, bringing superheroes down to earth. Many may remember that this take on superheroes has been very thoroughly explored in George R. R. Martin's Jokers series, which is still going strong, but this is a good one-off. Our protagonist Sam goes through the phases of adjusting to his superpower, which is possibly a useful but not spectacular one. A good reminder that people with extraordinary powers like this would lead a lonely life, but Marvel and DC actually do make that pretty clear already.
