I’ve been making steady progress on my Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards shortlists, thanks in part to traveling a lot this past month. There’s nothing quite like the enforced downtime of flying to motivate me to inhale books I’ve been looking forward to or bull through ones I haven’t. Today I’m looking back at the fantasy novellas in a Wyrd and Wonder cross-over.
Category Archive: Novellas
For our fifth year of the Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards, we have stacked our judging panel – and consequently our shortlists – with excellent folk. I’ll be reading and reviewing in batches, starting today with two novellas that focus on very different takes on time travel.
I have a habit of tearing through the Rivers of London novellas. What Abigail Did That Summer is no exception, foregrounding my favourite unruly relative, a teenaged whirlwind who is determined to learn magic. The summer in question is Foxglove Summer and with Peter out of town, there’s nobody to keep a wary eye on what Abigail is up to…
Generations past, the robots of Panga achieved sentience and were unhappy with their lot. When humanity gave them their freedom, they disappeared into the wilderness. Now, they are ready to make contact again – and a restless young tea monk will be asked the biggest question: what makes humanity happy?
June Vogel has no desire to return to Storm Break, but when her brother remarries she agrees to come home for the summer to care for her wayward niece. As strange events multiply and family tensions heighten, is it Storm Break or June herself that will destroy the Vogels?
When the House’s most prized courtesan is murdered, nobody says a word. When she rises from the dead to seek revenge, her friends must decide whether to stay silent or to secure their own safety by betraying her to the House. How do you decide what’s best when all your choices have been taken away?
Humanity spread out to the stars, abandoning our dying home world in waves. But Earth endured. Now it attracts scholars of ancient history and dilettantes seeking the violent delights only found on toxic backwaters. But the pit fights of the House hold danger for everyone in and out of the ring….
If love does not pin you down, if love is not heavy enough to keep you in place, what on earth could be? If love is not enough then guilt cannot be enough, duty cannot be enough. But what do they weigh?
This year’s Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards had what may be the strongest line-up of novella nominees yet. It’s been an absolute pleasure to read them, and a nightmare to try and choose between them to select our finalists. Today I’m looking back briefly at them all, because hell yes you should read them. All of them.
The month of May is made of good intentions, followed by a cascade of compromises. That is to say: I started Wyrd & Wonder with a stack of outstanding reviews …and I ended it the same way. Time to clear my conscience – let’s take a look at my last 2 Wyrd & Wonder reads and catch up on the third season of BookBurners.
It’s a new chapter for Murderbot! Now a resident of Preservation Station, the snarky SecUnit is half-heartedly looking for contracts and enthusiastically pointing out the inadequacies of Station Security. When a dead body is found, it’s time to show them how this is really done. Just like in the shows, yeah?
Pursued off Milu by GrayCris and their agents, Murderbot realises that its actions may have put Dr Mensah in jeopardy – and it can’t just leave its humans in peril, can it? It’s time to put a stop to the nefarious corporation once and for all, however big the risks.
99.5% of humanity were wiped out in 3 short years after They arrived. 50 years later, a team of researchers sift through the ruins of a siege city to better understand the catastrophe. When Emerson finds a survivor’s journal, it feels like the jackpot. But can Eva’s account be taken at face value?
WANTED FOR FOUL NUMERICAL ACTS
“Mad” Malago Browne has retired with a saddle-bag full of stolen gold, but she can’t resist a cry for help from across the border. Is she right to suspect the West is beginning to turn against the Capitol and its repressive regime?
Full of enthusiasm and conveniently between books, I dived into the pile of novellas I had stacked up for All Systems Read a day early. I kicked off my weekend of SFnal novellas with Sweet Harmony by Claire North, shortlisted for this year’s Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards.
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