Spotlight: Nebula Nominees
The Nebula Awards, voted on by members of SFWA, will be announced next month. I got to read most of the sub-novel length works last month, and I thought this would be a good space to mention the ones that stood out to me. The short stories and novelettes are online; the novellas you will have to buy if you want to read them.
Short Story
“Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole,” by Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld). A response to “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” the classic Ursula LeGuin story, updated to modern sensibilities. It’s relevant and thoughtful and you might have already heard of it because it made the rounds when it came out last February. I fully expect it to win all the awards, and deservedly so. It’s great. And it hurts.
“The V*mpire,” by PH Lee (Reactor). “The vampires aren’t even the worst part about being a teenage trans girl on Tumblr,” the blurb for this story reads, and that sets you up for the beginning of it, but then it whisks you into a painful story of friendship, identity, and abuse, and how the first two can be twisted to justify the third. It is deeply emotional, intense, and wonderful.
Novelette
“Katya Vasilievna and the Second Drowning of Baba Rechka,” by Christine Hanolsy (Beneath Ceaseless Skies). The last decade, I’ve studied a lot of fairy tales and I am still attracted to the genre. This is a lovely fairytale-like story from a Russian culture (Baba Yaga does appear in it) with a queer romance at the heart of it.
“What Any Dead Thing Wants,” by Aimee Ogden (Psychopomp). I loved the premise of this one: an expedition sent to clean up after the terraforming of an alien planet by exorcising the ghosts of the native fauna that have stubbornly stuck behind. The story takes it in not-entirely-unexpected but still rewarding directions, and I enjoyed it a great deal.
“Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being,” by A.W. Prihandita (Clarkesworld). An alien visits a doctor complaining of a hole in their heart. The alien’s race, mostly gone, has left behind little to explain how to deal with this, and the doctor needs to upgrade to the premium level of their medical resources to access any notes their society might have made on the alien race. Beautiful discourse on finding meaning (of words and of events), struggling against a capitalist system that is not designed to actually help people, and connections between people that can nonetheless thrive.
Novella
The Butcher of the Forest, Premee Mohamed (tordotcom). Another fairytale-like story, but this one more grim (or Grimm, if you like), set in a secondary world against the backdrop of a conquered country. A young woman must venture into an enchanted forest to rescue the children of the tyrant ruling her country, and the forest is not thrilled about this. Loved the worldbuilding and the prose in this one, and you know how I like endings, right? Great ending.
The Dragonfly Gambit, by A.D. Sui (Neon Hemlock). A disabled former pilot taken prisoner by the Empire that conquered their homeworld must help them defeat the rebellion, and it doesn’t help that the Empress is now sleeping with her (the pilot’s) ex-girlfriend. Science fiction meets spycraft with terrific queer characters and a suspenseful plot.
It was neat to catch up on last year’s science fiction and fantasy. I hope y’all enjoy some of these recommendations as much as I did!