Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Sword is the second book in the Imperial Radch series, and the first of the Nebula award nominated novels I'm reading this year.

The action picks up immediately after the events of the previous book--a piece of Anaander Mianaai, Lord of the Radch, commissions the single unit left of Justice of Toren as a Fleet Commander and sends her to the system where the sister of her late captain is living.  The book centers on events around how Justice of Toren, now Breq Mianaai, dispenses justice and handles events on the station.  It's a challenging assignment, since all gates have been closed due to the civil war.

The action in the book builds slowly, though it does get there, and we conclude with some interesting plot revelations for how the series will continue.  The real story is in the relationships between the lone ancillary, the AIs instantiated in her ship and the station, and the rest of her crew.  The protagonist, being an ancillary, has a high level of access to each crew member's condition through the Ship.  So she pretty much sees everything coming.  She manages with subtlety.

What's really interesting to me is Leckie's very consistent voice and use of language.  The protagonist is uniquely detached, on account of not being human, but still has deep feelings that are consistently from that non-human perspective. 

Another fascinating aspect of the series is Leckie's ability to tell a story from a point of view where gender simply doesn't matter.  There's no support for it in the Radchaai language, so everyone's a "she", and family relationships always manage to be singular so that the gender is not apparent.  The names are thoroughly ungendered as well.  She throws in places where the gender differences do matter, just enough to make it clear how much they don't matter elsewhere.

For storytelling, this is three stars, but for the achievement in social speculation through use of language, I give her four 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. 

Jackalope Wives, by Ursula Vernon

Jackalope Wives is the first pure fantasy story nominee for the Nebula that I have read this year.  It's a little standard, featuring attractive nubile mythical beasties (the jackalope wives) and brooding young men (Twilight) and wise old grandmas (ubiquitous).  But it's well done and fun to read, so I say have at it.  3 stars.

A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide, by Sarah Pinsker

A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide is one of the better nominees for the Nebula this year.  She made it available for free specifically to attract Hugo nominations, which turned out to be a waste of time.  But it's still a fine story.

Our protagonist is a farmer, son of farmers, and basically content with the life.  He is a young man, farming alongside his parents' place.  Then he has an accident, losing his right arm.  His parents are very much into technology--they "farm from an office"--and have him outfitted with a prototype prosthetic arm. 

The arm believes itself to be a road.  A very specific road.  This plays out through the story, which is very warm and fine to read.  It has a completely real feel, and madnesses have been stranger so it's not that hard to believe.  Read this for an excellent example of storytelling.  It's got a fine enough edge to it that I'm giving it 4 stars.

The Vaporization Enthalphy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family, by Usman T. Malik

The Vaporization Enthalphy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family is another very short nominee.  It's a protest story, which I find is somewhat common to this format.  For me it's OK but does not really hang together very well,and when it ties together it's a bit of a letdown.  The issue is very present in Pakistan, though, so it gets relevance points.  Still, just average, only 2 stars from me.

The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye, by Matthew Kressel

The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye is quite a fun story, a good nominee for a Nebula.  Our characters are the Meeker, so called because it is the meeker of the two, and the All-Seeing Eye, a godlike intelligence that has absorbed pretty much everything in the universe.  They find something new, which really doesn't happen much--the digital form of a preserved human, who seems to have a virus--each time they animate her she dies rather quickly, after imparting cryptic information.  What's going on?  Good stuff.  3 stars.

When It Ends, He Catches Her, by Eugie Foster

When It Ends, He Catches Her is from that category of stories I have a hard time reviewing - the real short ones.  You can't say much about them without giving away the plot.  The rules are all different, and I don't read a lot of short fiction.  Still, for its type this one was pretty good.  We are in post-apocalyptic times, and all theaters are closed (interestingly reminiscent of the closing of theaters in Shakespeare's time).  A dancer dances in a dilapidated theater, alone.  But then her partner, whom she misses so much, appears and they remember old times...3 stars from me, worth 10 minutes.