"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." – George R. R. Martin
“Stitched to Skin Like Family Is” by Nghi Vo (4,517 words or 18 minutes to read), published in Uncanny magazine issue #57, March/April 2024.
A Chinese expert seamstress searches for her brother after she stops receiving letters from him. A story of love, dedication, and family.
“Marginalia” by Mary Robinette Kowal (7,488 words or 30 minutes to read), published in Uncanny magazine issue #56, January/February 2024.
The daughter of a former baron’s maid saves his life by killing a giant snail with salt. A tale of class and the vast chasm between different classes.
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars” by Premee Mohamed (8,468 words or 34 minutes to read), published in Strange Horizons magazine, Fund Drive 2024 issue.
An exploration of how it feels to be a wizard who had lost her ability to perform magic.
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea” by Naomi Kritzer (13,673 words or 55 minutes to read), published in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, September/October 2024.
A satisfying emotional tale of overcoming casual misogyny and regaining a career.
In July, my online book club reads historical fiction. This year, we selected this book. I tried to get it from my library, but both the ebook and the physical book had a long wait list. In the end, I broke down and bought myself a copy of the ebook from ebooks.com.
The cover of the book includes a short blurb about the plot. It reads, “Klimt, Freud, and Jung meet the bride of Frankenstein”. Very accurate but without much detail. Klimt finds the bride of Frankenstein, whom he calls Judith, naked and apparently dead on the banks of the river after crossing a bridge on his way home. Upon realizing that she is not dead, he enlists a young paper boy to help him get her to his studio. He hopes to paint her portrait. Klimt is portrayed as a lovable, caring artist who spends his time around young naked models, sleeping with many of them and having many children named Gustave. Judith remembers nothing of her past, not even her name. Klimt gets Freud to take her as a patient. This is how we start to learn about Judith’s past, and the story takes off from there.
If you have read Christopher Moore before, you will not be surprised that there is a lot of humor and downright absurdity in this book. I laughed out loud many times reading it. He has a way with words and with the way he views situations. He also includes a warning in the beginning of the book titled Author’s Note and Trigger Warning. This note warns about sex, nudity, and violence throughout the novel and ends, “Finally, and I can’t stress this enough, if you are listening to this book in audio format in the car, with a kid or your grandma, turn on something else. Now.” The story kept me guessing and turning pages. I love how the author approaches storytelling and thoroughly enjoyed this novel.
My rating: 4/5
The Hugo Awards will presented at the Seattle Worldcon 2025 on Saturday, 16 August. Starting today, I will be highlighting one short fiction nominee each weekday running up to the announcement of winners that day.
“Signs of Life” by Sarah Pinsker (11,996 words or about 48 minutes to read), published in Uncanny magazine issue #59, July/August 2024
Sarah Pinsker is one of my favorite authors! She always combines great storytelling with exploring the most amazing “What if?” questions.
In this touching and endearing story, she tells us of estranged sisters who find their way back to each other after many years. And in the process, the older learns something about her sister that she actively made herself forget.
Alive or dead? You decide.
“Lost You Again” by Ian Rogers (2025) — 6,000 words (about 24 minutes for the average reader)
Published in The Dark magazine issue #116, January 2025.
A feminist portal fantasy.
“Exit Interview” by K.W. Olney (2024) — 6,176 words (about 25 minutes for the average reader)
Published in Strange Horizons magazine, 16 December 2024.
A beautiful story of a community loving someone enough to allow them to find their own way.
“The Moment After the Moment” by Martin Cahill (2023) — 5,639 words (about 23 minutes for the average reader)
Published in Lightspeed magazine issue #162, November 2023.
This book has been on my list to read for a long time. I finally got to reading it because it was selected by my book club to read in June when we read LGBTQ+ fiction or history.
The setting is Egypt in 1912. But this is not exactly the Egypt of our history. In this Egypt, a rift was opened between the world of the djinn and our world. Now djinn live and work side by side with humans. The main character Fatma is a detective in the Egyptian Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities. And she is assigned to investigate a quite unusual murder. An Englishmen and the members of his cult were all killed by a fire that burned only their flesh and not their clothes. On top of this murder, Fatma is assigned a new partner despite the fact that she likes to work alone. And a recent girlfriend shows up unexpectedly, adding to the mix.
The storytelling is immersive. The world comes to life. Unfortunately, the author uses a lot of new (to me) words without defining any of them. These are mostly terms for clothing and foods that were unfamiliar to me. I could tell the type of thing from the context, but the details weren’t there. I found this inhibited my ability to bring the world to mind as vividly as I like. Despite this shortcoming, the story drew me in as did the characters and their relationships. They felt plausible and deeply human. The plot itself was a bit on the simplistic side. Easy to follow but just the right amount of mystery to keep me wanting to find out what happens next. An enjoyable read that would have been made better by a glossary or better descriptions in context.
My rating: 3.5/5