Should ‘Better Living Through Algorithms’ Win the Hugo?

Looks like it’s time for my SECOND short story Hugo Award nominee review of 2024 (the first was How to Raise a Kraken In Your Bathtub by P. Djeli Clark).

This week, we have Better Living Through Algorithms by Naomi Kritzer.

A quick google search has revealed to me that Naomi Kritzer is no stranger to the Hugo circuit with nominations in 2016, 2019, 2020 (I’m counting Lodestars), two in 2021, and now 2024. They took wins in 2016, and 2020 (again counting Lodestars), and have been getting nominated for other awards as early as 2003.

I am . . . hugely impressed.

And a bit embarrassed that my only other coverage of this author on this blog was for Little Free Library back in 2021. Apparently I enjoyed that story but did not think it would take the award.

It would seem that if there was an algorithm for writing award worthy fiction, Kritzer has figured it out. And then gone beyond it.

Better Living Through Algorithms is both a story and not a story. It hardly feels like science fiction because its set so firmly in our modern day reality. We’re already living this premise although it isn’t one app, it’s twelve, or fifteen, or a hundred apps which should add up to something wonderful like Abelique, but — like the fabled “universal” remote — never do.

I say it’s both a story an not a story because while we have a pretty easily identifiable protagonist in Linnea, the story’s antagonist is somewhat harder to pin down. Linnea’s skepticism of Abelique kind of positions the app itself in an antagonistic role, although it never seems to do anything outright nefarious, and indeed the opposite seems to be true. It’s actually be helping people.

Of course when the app is shut down, it is because people are acting badly on the app, and again, not because of anything nefarious that the app is doing.

Of course there is the issue of privacy and the amount of data the app needs to have in order to work as magically as it does. I think there is a lot to consider here. If this data is given freely and with consent is it as big a problem?

There’s an example in which Linnea takes a picture of her closet in order for someone on the app to help her make outfit decisions. In theory she consents by snapping the photo, and could just NOT do that in order to retain privacy. But did the app do enough to allow her to make an informed decision? Abelique does not really disclose where that image is stored and what else it can be used for.

Where I feel this story does resemble a more classic mode of science fiction is the way it evaluates a technology and warns of dangers and misuse. Even more so in that there is a way we can read this in which the tech is neutral, and (inevitably) it is people using the tech which are the bad actors. Big mood right here.

There’s just so much here to consider. So many pertinent questions which we must answer not in ten years, or fifty years time, but today, as we live and breath. I won’t spoil the ending, but I think the author leaves us something of a solution but again something we must ponder and tease out for ourselves . . . as the best stories ask us to do.

Should This One Win The Award?

I’ve only read two stories so far, but this is where I would put my money if I was betting for this category.

Better Living Through Algorithms is in some ways not like any other science fiction stories I’ve read. It’s casual in it’s approach, almost simple, but as we read, we find ourselves questioning seemingly foundational story elements like the role of the antagonist. Can something BE an antagonist if all it does is help people?

Yet for all that it is “not a story” it still manages to do what many great science fiction stories have done, which is to posit potential futures of a technology. Kritzer seems to strike a neutral stance, showcasing both positive and negative side effects of the tech, but what I thought was interesting about the story, was how it was the human element which inevitably caused it to go wrong.

All of this seems extremely relevant to today’s moment, but also to the future, as the decisions we make regarding this type of tech will surely influence generations to come. Ultimately, it is this pertinence to today’s world that I think will set it above the other nominees.

That’s all I have for this week. How’d I do? Did I miss anything? Would you use an app like Abelique? Let me know in the comments!

See you next time?

Fox-Brides and Corporate Djinn: ‘The Fine Print’ by Chinelo Onwualu

I wish I had known about this story back in 2022 so I could have included it in my 9 Stories Featuring Djinn to Get You Hype for A River of Silver. Perhaps I’ll need to do a follow up post sometime soon.

However, the impetus for reading this story did not come from a longing for more Djinn in my life (although its a longing I live with constantly) but instead a desire to participate in #ReadingAfricaWeek. It’s my understanding that all one need do to participate is spotlight African Literature.

The author of “The Fine Print”, Chinelo Onwualu, is Nigerian and though I couldn’t really tell, it seems this story from New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, takes place in a Nigeria as well? So I’m gonna roll with it.

There is a lot to enjoy within the scant 14 pages of this short story. Perhaps what I enjoyed the most was the Onwualu’s unique depiction of Djinn. Most will be familiar with Djinn as ‘Genies’, sort of benevolent spirits that merely grants wishes. Books like Shannon Chakraborty‘s epic Daevabad Series recontextualizes the Djinn as heroes of Islamic mythology, and to a certain extent, P. Djeli Clark’s fantastical mysteries in the A Dead Djinn in Cairo universe does the same in Egypt.

Onwualu’s Djinn are more corporate, producing a yearly catalog which families select wishes from. Of course, as with most things capitalist, there’s really nothing benevolent about these exchanges, and every wish exacts a price.

Watching the main character, Nuhu, attempting to navigate level after level of “customer service” in order to save his son, really just shines a light on how heartless and absurd modern bureaucracy can be.

I was also intrigued by the enigmatic ‘fox-brides’ presented as trophy wives within the story. A quick search did not immediately yield an obvious Nigerian myth or legend which might have inspired these characters, but I’ll admit that I’m probably the least educated person in that area. It did seem that there was more to dig into here, but ultimately I did not try to research it any further.

Finally, I think the story expanded my horizons slightly in that I had never really considered the religious makeup of Nigeria before, but it would seem (according to wikipedia) that about 50% of the country identifies as Muslim.

So any Djinn, corporate or otherwise, should feel right at home.

Give This One a Read?

For sure! I have detailed a few parts of the story I found particularly intriguing — a unique depiction of Djinn, and the enigmatic ‘fox-brides’ which feel like more than they appear — but each of these elements is much better experienced than described.

Plus Onwualu’s writing is incredibly engaging from the first page until the end. Definitely give this one a read! I’m sure there’s even more to find there than what I’ve listed here.

That’s all I have for this week. Has anyone read this one before? What was your favorite part? Anyone up on their fox myths? I’m looking forward to talking about this one!

More than “What if?” for Greek Mythology – A Review of ‘Fit for the Gods’

Welcome to week two of my Greek Mythology Era. Last week I reviewed Madeline Miller‘s Galatea. This week?

Fit for the Gods! edited by Jenn Northington, and S. Zainab Williams.

I’ll admit, that I pretty whole-heartedly misunderstood the assignment on this one. I read the cover slogan, “Greek Mythology Reimagined”, and then preceded to suffer a complete and utter lack of “reimagination”.

Meaning . . . I expected the stories to take place in ancient Greece (one or two may have but I couldn’t be sure). I expected all the familiar characters (Odysseus, Achilles, Zeus), in their familiar shapes (wise old man, invincible warrior, bearded dude who throws lightning bolts). Perhaps we’d get the stories from the point of view of a lesser known character (like in Miller’s Circe) or a retelling which bucked one of our classically held assumptions (like in Song of Achilles).

I was hoping for some twists I didn’t expect, like maybe Helen of Troy dons a bronze cuirass and trounces Achilles, or perhaps Medusa is actually a dinosaur instead of a Gorgon (writes this idea down for eventual ancient Greek Dinosaur novel).

Thinking back, I suppose what I expected was essentially Marvel’s What If series but for Greek mythology.

What I got instead taught me a few things about myself.

The first thing I learned was that I didn’t really know as much about Greek Mythology as I thought I did. I worked through this anthology with about a thousand wikipedia articles open (ok probably only ten max lol), trying to quickly read up on whatever myth it appeared each story would reimagine before plunging into the tale.

The introduction mentions Thomas Bulfinch’s Mythology (1867) and Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths (1962) as the “classics”, seeming to imply that these were the academic and cultural touchstones which we would all be familiar with. The “canonic” Greek myths if you will.

And I’m over here with my edition of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology (1942) scratching my head and wondering who all these people are.

Without having read either of the others it’s hard to say which version of the stories is most inline with the current zeitgeist. Which depictions are most the most ubiquitous and therefore ripest for subversion, homage or deconstruction.

All of the books I’ve mentioned are pretty old. Maybe there’s another version of the myths the kids read these days. Maybe it’s Percy Jackson. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe that’s just fine.

Another thing which I learned, or perhaps just reaffirmed, about myself is just how much I want to be awed and amazed — transported — by the setting of the stories I read. Ancient Greece still holds wonder for me. The far future does too. Modern times? Not as much.

The stories I liked best in this anthology were the ones that were either set in the future (Atlanta Hunts the Boar by Valerie Valdes is essentially pod-racing assassins; Station (Bastion in the Spring) by Alyssa Cole was another winner for me), or in a kind of “mythic” time period (see The Words from the Mountain by Wen Wen Yang and No Gods, No Kings by Maya Deane).

The Eagles at the Edge of the World by Taylor Rae stood out to me as well. Part of me felt that it didn’t really fit into the bounds of the anthology as it chronicles the journey of the last two members of the Kumeyaay nation as they drift through a kind of Waterworld-esque future. With only passing references to ‘Troy’, it is perhaps more accurately described as (an incredible and emotional) piece of climate fiction.

I suppose it has a bit of an Odyssey vibe to it, taking place primarily at sea, but this feels like a bit of a stretch.

Despite its incongruity, it is definitely the story I’ve thought about most after finishing Fit for the Gods. Though it has almost nothing to do with gods or goddesses, it is to my mind, the story that best lived up to the standard proclaimed in the title.

Give This One a Read?

Admittedly, some of these stories, not unlike the Ship of Theseus, have had so many pieces replaced and rebuilt that it can sometimes be a difficult to feel like any of the myth remains in more than name. This is twice as true if you don’t know the original myths to begin with.

So if you approach this anthology expecting Marvel’s What If for Greek Mythology? You will put this one down.

However, if you want some deep cuts into Greek Mythology or to actually broaden your horizons and learn just what these stories can be with a little imagination? You may surprise yourself with what you find.

Unmet Ambitions and Hidden Gems in Strahan’s ‘The Book of Witches’

October may still be around the corner, but IMHO it’s never too early to start talking about the most Halloween-y (Halloween-ish?) of subjects: WITCHES!!

(Side note: I saw Halloween themed Oreos at Wegmans in like the third week of August. Wth?)

I’m by no means an expert on the subject, but also probably not a complete newbie to it either. On the blog, I reviewed a book featuring witches as recently as May with Payback’s a Witch, and The Once and Future Witches was undoubtably one of my favorite contenders for the Hugo Awards back in 2021.

Of course Shadow and Bone, The Witcher, and Winternight trilogy all make references to the most infamous of witches, the Baba Yaga, and while I don’t think I’ve published anything yet featuring that particular witch as a character, it was impossible not to include her in the Zhenya-verse, my Russian Fairytale inspired universe in which the stories At the Edge of Legend and Farewell to Rusalka take place.

And that slew of links is just the witch related content I have personally written about over the years. Their legacy in history is both prominent and prevalent. From their earliest references as gods of ancient Greek (Hekate), Egyptian (Isis), and Norse (Freya) religion, to their reappropriation as icons of feminism in groups like W.I.T.C.H (Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell).

And in fiction, how many famous witches can you name? Who is the first to come to mind? Someone classic such Morgan le Fay from King Arthur’s legend (Le Morte d’Arthur)? Or perhaps more recent like Marvel’s The Scarlet Witch? Maybe someone more nostalgic like Hermione Granger (Harry Potter) or Sabrina (Sabrina the Teenage Witch)?

Are they inherently good like the Wizard of Oz‘s Glinda, or obviously evil like the Wicked Witch of the West (although Schwartz and Holzman’s play Wicked makes these characterizations a little less certain). And what other roles does the witch hold? Mother? Maiden? Crone? It’s not hard to think of an embodiment of each.

No matter which witch (lolz) springs to mind when the subject is broached, it is clear that as a people, we’re seemingly fascinated with “…free, powerful, and unpredictable women” (Hyperallergic: How Witches Have Held Us Under Their Spell for Centuries), on which to project our darkest fears and greatest hopes.

Now this might seem like a bit of a long preamble (cough history lesson cough) for a post that is essentially a book review, and an exceeding amount of context, but I only reference it because it is within this lofty conversation that it seems the anthology’s editor, Jonathan Strahan, would like for us to consider these collected stories.

In the introduction, Strahan even goes so far as to review multiple definitions of the term ‘witch’, before positing his own definition and then giving a similar list of witchy references and allusions for the reader to consider.

All of this, is of course leading up to the acknowledgement that: “Writers from Africa, South Asia, and elsewhere, are making inroads, and more attention is being paid to BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ voices.” and the anthology’s stated goal, that it is a “conscious effort to reflect that, to celebrate all of the many voices from our field, whether they be established, well-known ones or ones at the very start of their career.”

And in this goal, I felt the anthology succeeded wonderfully. There are stories from about as diverse a cast of authors as you could possibly imagine. Many were favorites of mine which I have written about on the blog before including P. Djeli Clark (A Dead Djinn in Cairo universe, and Ring Shout), Tochi Onyebuchi (Riot Baby), and Fonda Lee! (Green Bone Saga).

And of course many others I had never heard of such as Miyuki Jane Pinckard or Saad Z. Hossain.

So in terms of introducing me to a wide array of new authors, from an equally wide array of backgrounds and identities, the anthology was a success.

But there is kind of a second, more implicit goal that this anthology would change (or perhaps expand) our definition of the term “witch”. Here I felt like we were on more tenuous ground. For many stories within the anthology, I was pages in before I could sus out the new definition of “witch” the story was attempting to put forth and sometimes even frustrated that they had tried to connect their story to witchcraft at all.

This failing to live up to its own ambition unfortunately did affect my enjoyment of the anthology overall and felt like a bit of a first strike for me.

The second mark against it, and this is entirely an issue of personal taste, was all the poetry. I’ll be the first to admit that poetry just doesn’t speak to me the same way prose writing does (which would makes sense as it’s a different form), and as a result, I haven’t read much of it, and am completely incompetent at judging its quality.

While I did give the poetry sections an honest try, none effected me with any particular level of feeling good or bad. If they were clever in their form, structure, or in the way they stood up against other poems within the genre, I could not contrive to know that from just reading the text.

All of that to say, I was a bit underwhelmed during the poetry sections, but I’m not much of a poetry person. If you like poetry, there’s some in here, but I can’t really comment more than that.

Despite any frustration, or underwhelm experienced reading the almost 30 stories within The Book of Witches, I did really enjoy and will recommend three stories from the anthology, whether you decide to read the rest I’ll leave up to you, but I definitely think the following worth checking out:

What I Remember of Oresha Moon Dragon Devshrata by P. Djeli Clark

I think this author just has my number. It seems like I’ll come out drooling no matter what he’s written. For me, and for this story, I think what I enjoyed most was a kind of sustained mystery through out the whole story, and how he was able to elevate a simple fishing village into such a tense and dramatic stage for revolution. A giant clockwork statue doesn’t hurt either.

Good Spells by Ken Liu

What I enjoyed most about this story was how prescient it felt and also how close. The imagined future in Good Spells feels like it could be just ten years off, or even less. Maybe just a year away. Maybe we are dealing with these issues now and we don’t even know. For this reason alone, I think it’s worth reading, but of course Liu manages to include more than just warnings and pessimism; the story also feels hopeful and even optimistic. Truly a great read.

John Hollowback and the Witch by Amal El-Mohtar

This piece comes at the end of the anthology, and I felt it was the perfect way to end. It just FEELS like a fairytale. In its structure. In its language. But I would not say the themes presented here are at all simple. And neither are its characters (I think there’s a joke here about writing fully fleshed out characters and John having a literal hole in his back where flesh should go).

Is redemption possible? Who deserves it, and who decides that? What are our obligations for forgiveness if someone changes? Just a few of the questions one might ask reading, or a the end of this story. Definitely one worth looking at.

Give this One a read?

Ultimately, a hard question to answer. I suppose in some ways all anthologies will contain hits as well as misses. For me, this anthology had a lot of misses, but the hits are good enough that I can’t in good conscience fully discourage picking it up.

As exposure to a broad crop of diverse authors, I found the book quite successful though. Perhaps this is reason enough to give it a shot. You’ll have a better idea of which authors you enjoy at the end, and who you should follow with and read more of.

That’s all I have for this week. Has anyone read this book? Which stories did you like? Which didn’t you? Any favorite witchy tales I should read? Leave the answers in the comments!

See you next time!

3 Favs from ‘How long ‘Til Black Future Month’ by N.K. Jemisin

Full disclosure, this will actually be my second time reading How Long ‘Til Black Future Month’. I read it once back in February of 2019 and then again, now, in 2023 when my book club suggested we give it a shot.

I’ve been writing more short fiction lately, and was excited to see what I might be able to learn from an author who’s won three back-to-back Hugo awards, and continues to get nomination after nomination.

Truth be told, I didn’t learn much. Jemisin makes everything look so effortless and easy that it was nearly impossible for me to study, and the stories are so intriguing and rich that all I wanted to do was just read.

So I let myself just do that . . . and it was wonderful.

I would love to talk about each story in this book, but with 22 stories I’ll limit myself to just 3 favorites.

All Time Fav: The Narcomancer

I think my favorite piece is definitely The Narcomancer. Of all the pieces, it feels the most like an epic fantasy, even more than Stone Hunger which Jemisin acknowledges as her testing ground for what eventually became The Broken Earth trilogy.

Of course these kind of fantasy stories are my favorite, and with its faux ancient African setting, and names like Cet, and Mehepi, it was not hard to imagine that the world of these Narcomancers might be something like our Ancient Egypt or Ancient Nubia (which appears to be her intent, from her website: “a secondary world which consciously evokes Ancient Egypt and Nubia”).

We all know that’s my jam.

But even discounting the setting, The Narcomancer stood out to me for the way it displays the failure of simplistic moral codes or ethics (perhaps comparable to religious dogma IRL) to encompass and guide people through the complexity of life. I’m sure I’ll be thinking through it all for quite some time yet.

It seems that perhaps this was another trial ground, as The Narcomancer seems to be set in the same world as the Dreamblood duology. Perhaps there are more answers there . . .

2nd Fav: L’Alchimista

My second favorite was probably L’Alchimista. I thought that because I’ve never watched The Great British Bake Off or lost a weekend to binging Kitchen Nightmares, that I was immune to the power of food as entertainment. Apparently if it’s FANTASY/MAGICAL FOOD then I’m no better than a kid in a (fantasy/magical) candy shop.

In all seriousness, in L’Alchimista, it feels like Jemisin lets her imagination have some fun (as opposed dreaming up soul crushing dystopias). It was both refreshing and delicious. I’m not sure if we get to see Franca (the MC) again in any other stories, but I hope we do!

3rd Fav: The Red Dirt Witch

I was having trouble picking a third favorite, but having more trouble trying to find somewhere in this post to talk about The Red Dirt Witch. So here we are.

This story just pulls on the heart strings. I do not want to spoil what happens but I think I was crying during this one. Sad tears? Happy tears? I think every kind of tears. I’m not really sure.

Honorable Mentions:

All of the stories in this anthology are good so it was really hard to pick favorites. These were perhaps not the stories that resonated with me the most, but were still interesting to me, for various other reasons:

• Stone Hunger – As mentioned earlier, this story was a precursor to The Fifth Season and the rest of the Broken Earth trilogy. A good story on its own, but more interesting after because of its relationship to other titles.
• The City Born Great – Again, and awesome story in its own right, but also cool know that it eventually grew into The City We Became
• The Ones Who Stay and Fight – A pastiche/response to The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.
• Walking Awake – Sort of a clap back at Heinlein, although having read The Puppet Masters, I think she could have been harsher somehow.
• On the Banks of the River Lex – Really interesting in its own right, but a little more resonant with me right now because it also personifies ‘Death’ which I’ve been talking a lot about recently
• The Trojan Girl – Written back in 2011, reading it now seemed eerily prescient because of all the talk happening about AIGC. Specifically the story mentions an AI-type being having trouble forming their hands and I was convinced Jemisin had a time machine.

Give This One a Read?

In short? Yes!! I’ve now read it twice, and like any great book, I’m pulling more from it each time I do. And like any great book, I still have so much more to learn from it.

That’s all I have for this week. What are your thoughts? Have any of you read this one? What was your favorite story? Did you not like any? Leave your answers in the comments. Looking forward to chatting about this one!!

Lolz (only) Two Book Recommendations From Indie Presses

No YOU! have a Jurassic London Altar

Wow, leave it to #SciFiMonth to just keep brining in the gut checks.

After barely cobbling together a list of five international (to me) authors last Friday, I looked ahead to the challenge list and saw this Friday’s challenge was to make recommendations from indie presses or self-published authors.

Pfff. Easy.

No problem at all. I’ve backed tons of kickstarters by small presses (Upside Down (Apex), and Temporally Out of Order (Zombies Need Brains) come to mind immediately). Looking back I was a particularly big fan of Jurassic London back in the day and my book shelves are probably sagging a bit from the weight of all the titles I’ve bought from them: The Builders, Jews Versus Omnibus, Speculative Fiction 2013, Speculative Fiction 2014, Unearthed (digital), The Good Shabti, and my pride and joy The Extinction Event!

This, you may say, is a pretty hardy list, and you would be right. The only issue is that . . . I haven’t actually fully read many of these, and also . . . as seems to be my issue quite often, there’s a lot of Fantasy here.

But this is Sci-Fi month not Fantasy month so let me dig through the Goodreads list and see what I can come up with . . .

Aha!

I’ve found two sci-fi titles which I will heartily recommend. And that will have to be the way of it.

The first title I’ve chosen is Future Tense fiction: Stories of Tomorrow from Unnamed press. It’s a great anthology, which I’m kicking myself for not having reviewed here on the blog. The list of authors featured is quite long, and each one of them brought their A-game to this collection. Authors like Nnedi Okorafor, and Annalee Newitz immediately stood out to me, but others will likely recognize Charlie Jane Anders and Paolo Bacigalupi. The ones I didn’t know shined just as brightly as those I did. I think Newitz’s When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis was my favorite but I also enjoyed Okorafor’s Mother of Invention and Konstantinou’s Burned-Over Territory. I highly recommend this one to any near-future-thinking readers out there.

My second choice was a bit of a surprise, as this author usually publishes through Tor Books, but for Miniatures, it seems like goliath John Scalzi chose indie publisher Subterranean Press to create this fun little book. I won’t claim to know how any of the inner workings of Scalzi’s mind . . . well how they work, but this collection really puts some of his wackier ideas on display. There’s a story in which yogurt becomes sentient and takes over earth (I believe there is an episode of Netflix’s Sex, Love, & Robots that took it’s premise from this). It’s been a long enough time since I’ve read it that I’m having some trouble remembering the details, but I know that I enjoyed it immensely. Thankfully, I reviewed Miniatures back in back in 2017 so you can take a look at that.

Well . . . How’d I do?

Not to be too harsh a critic on myself but I’m gonna say not well. Even if we broaden the prompt to all speculative fiction, my list of indie titles is pretty old, and I didn’t include ANY self-pub’d authors on here, despite having self-pub’d my own work. I guess it seems that I’ve been in Hugo Land for quite a while now, and have not spent much time reading Indie Land.

But there’s always tomorrow! Why not dive in then.

I’m anxious to see what the other #SciFiMonth peeps have been reading that I’ve been neglecting. If you have recommendations for me please post them in the comments (if they’re blog posts that’s cool too just drop the link).

Until Next time!

ICYMI: Narmer and the God Beast Live on Amazon!

Well, the title pretty much says it all, but I’ll still put a little bit of text here because I’d like to reward you for the click.

Monday saw the release of the first story in my ‘Egypt and Dinosaurs’ universe. Narmer and the God Beast tells the tale of a boy and his dragon, only that boy is a young king Narmer, the first Pharaoh of Egypt, and the dragon is a 30 ton dinosaur (paralititan stromeri, the Tidal Giant, to be precise). Together they can unite Egypt, but first they must endure and overcome Narmer’s brother Bahek’s cruelty . . .

I had an amazing cover done by Lee Eschliman, and have been ranting on all month about my influences for the short story and how the idea came to be. You can see the list of posts here:

• Pharaoh: The Boy Who Conquered the Nile (Book Review)
• Who was Narmer IRL?
• Dinotopia: A Remembrance and Review
• Paralititan Stromeri: The Tidal Giant
• Death Dogs: The Jackal Gods of Ancient Egypt (review)
• From the Primordial Ooze: The Gensis of an Idea
• The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt (review)

Finally, if you’ve liked anything you’ve seen on this page so far and are hoping for more of this kind of thing in your life, I recommend signing up for my newsletter. It gives you access to exclusive fiction, special offers, and updates about my general life and nonsense (here’s a sample newsletter). Just for signing up I’ll send you an email with the very first story I ever wrote about a Warlock Doctor.

Anyway, thanks all for reading. This has been something I’ve waited so long to share with everyone, and a bit of a wild ride to get to this moment. I’m so thankful I was able to do this at all, and I’m hopeful there will be so much more where this came from (read as sequels and a novel! Lol).

As always, please let me know your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading all this and I’ll see you next time!

Should ‘Open House on Haunted Hill’ win a Hugo?

This piece is currently my front runner for the short story category. Granted, I’ve only read one other nominee so far (also take a look at the full list of my reviews of Hugo nominated works), but I’m feeling like I generally enjoyed this piece more.

My initial thoughts are that the piece is fun, with a good twist baked right into the premise. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that it’s about a haunted house, and not much of a spoiler to reveal that it’s from the house’s POV that we see the story. What makes this story unique, is that the house is a lonely thing, and just wants to HELP a family recover from the death of a loved one.

I’ve been seeing some comments around that say the kid’s characterization is inconsistent, alternating between too childish in some moments, and too adult in others. I didn’t notice this. Kids are surprisingly mature in the moments you least expect them to be so perhaps Wiswell’s characterization is spot on. Regardless, I felt seen by her stomping around the house pretending to be a dinosaur. According to my parents, this was my true-form at four years old as well. It’s nice to see myself represented in fiction.

My only disappointment in the story, is that even though the story uses a haunted house as its subject, it seems strangely disconnected from the long lineage of haunted house stories it purports to be a part of.

The author references Haunting of Hill House in the piece’s author’s note, and the title seems to allude to a 1959 film named House on Haunted Hill (I believe also a kind of parody), but Wiswell’s story seems to have little to do with either. Aside from some rather standard ‘haunted house’ things like creaking floor boards, rooms that shouldn’t exist, and doors slamming shut when no one is around to do so, there isn’t much of the usual tropes and motives we’re used to.

In that same author’s note, Wiswell says:

“I tend to put Horror-y things back out as humorous stories or heartwarming stories. Off the top of my head I gave them the example that if I wrote a haunted house story, it wouldn’t be like Haunting of Hill House“

https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-64a-open-house-on-haunted-hill-by-john-wiswell/

So perhaps, by the author’s own admission, this piece doesn’t purport to be a haunted house story despite the title and the POV.

In which case, Wiswell nails it in the execution. This house is not a repository for unexpiated sin, or the waning relevance of aristocracy, or even a mirror into the horror we find within ourselves. It’s a friend and comforter instead.

The realtor in this story doesn’t really play a large role even though the title seems to connotate the action of a realtor. But just because of the fact that they are there at all, I couldn’t help thinking of Surreal Estate, a TV show in which a group of realtor’s try to prove or disprove hauntings (often solving whatever causes the haunting in the first place) in order to up the sale price of the home. It looks like Wiswell’s story was released just before the show was announced, but it still makes me wonder how our views on haunted houses have changed that we’ve shaped them into these most recent forms which (to my mind) bear a likeness. Perhaps that’s an essay for another day . . .

So . . . Hugo?

Yep! Right now, this is the one to beat. If you haven’t given it a read, I highly recommend.

If you have read it, what are your thoughts? On the the story? On the name? On any of the other properties I mentioned during this review. What really makes a Haunted House in 2021?

See you next time!

Should ‘Little Free Library’ win the Hugo Award

So it’s been a little while since I’ve posted any reviews related to the 2021 Hugo Awards. I’ve been pretty busy (first two weeks back to work full time! and a bunch of birthdays, mine included) and while I don’t feel like I’ve been slacking, I have not had as much time for reading and writing as I had before August hit (also before #smaugust hit lol).

Anyway, I think the perfect way to remedy that is to add some Hugo nominated short story reviews to my ever-growing list of Hugo related reviews. It’s been quite a while since I reviewed any short stories on this blog (the last one being a Robert Sharp number in 2018), so I’m feeling a little unsure how to proceed, but I supposed it’s just the same as any other review I’ve written . . . and who cares if it isn’t. I’m here for the funzies.

So, should Naomi Kritzer’s Little Free Library win a Hugo award in 2021?

Hot take: Probably not?

Don’t get me wrong, this is a wonderful short story, expertly crafted with much to love in the moment, but seems to crumble under further scrutiny. It does, perhaps, capture the essence of a portal fantasy, not by the literal use of a Little Free Library as a portal within the text, but in the fact that while you read the story, you are transported away from reality briefly and returned more or less able to continue on, refreshed but not really affected (in the times we’ve been having, perhaps this IS award worthy). I feel, especially since we have books like those in the Wayward Children series such as In and Absent Dream, that as a genre this is too simple a way to look at portal fantasies in general.

But I suppose I should try to break it down a little better.

Stuff I enjoyed:

I think one of the main parts of the story which gives it appeal to a wide audience is all the references to other books. Of course, there is the initial hook, Lord of the Rings, which every reader will recognize and kind of lets the reader know that they’ll be reading a fantasy, or at the very least, something fantasy related (interesting that they didn’t pick anything from The Chronicles of Narnia. I mean why not call it what it is haha).

And then we continue to get bread-crumbed through the mystery of who is on the other side of this portal through the other books which they select. The main character, Meigan, kind of thinks of this mystery as a game, and the reader is encouraged to do so as well, which makes it a fun puzzle. Points to everyone all around for fun puzzles.

Perhaps the second portion that I enjoyed, was simply that it was about libraries, and specifically a Little Free Library. I work for a library, so I’m always excited when one is featured (well) in a story and we have tons of these little book boxes all around (although MY neighborhood just took theirs down hmph) and I’ve always had a great experience swapping books through them. I have wondered where the books came from and who gave them up (although I never imagined something as crazy as this).

It’s just a cool concept, and another aspect of the story which lends itself to wide appeal. Even if people don’t know about Little Free Libraries, they have usually had SOME experience with a library and it’s pretty popular in our culture to romanticize them as gateways to other worlds (which for a lot of people they metaphorically are). I liked that in this case those other worlds were real and the gateway was literal.

Stuff I didn’t like:

Stories that rely heavily on allusion to other works, or references to them, are kind of a double-edged sword. If the reader knows them, or can mostly figure them out from context, the author is in the clear, but if not, the reader will be quite helpless to know what’s going on. It’s hard to imagine — especially reading all the Sci-fi and Fantasy blogs, channels, and books that I do — but there ARE people who haven’t read Lord of the Rings, or seen Starwars.

I haven’t read Ready Player One but I’m told it’s an extreme example of this, where the book is highly referential, and for a niche that actually isn’t all that big. I think this story falls into that a little bit. I’ll admit that I actually didn’t recognize too many of the books Meigan gave away. Some of them had titles that were generic enough that I could kinda get what they were about but, who knows? I don’t think this story did it enough to be ostracizing, but it’s a slippery slope.

Plus the whole thing felt vaguely nostalgic which I sort of have a love/hate relationship with. I’ll work this out someday and look back on these times of loathing and hatred with a fondness as I — Dammit stop that! Anyway, moving on . . .

— SORRY, SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT —

What was most interesting about the story to me:

I’ve been feeling that with a lot of stories these days, other people’s reactions are almost more interesting to me than the actual content of the story. For this book, people seem to feel that it’s very hopeful, and cute (which nothing that is ever called cute wants to be called cute lol) which I would have agreed with, immediately after reading, but actually began to think the opposite of as I pondered further.

Why you ask?

Well, the story essentially ends with what’s (assumedly) a dragon egg, sent through the portal with a note that says all has been lost, please take care of this baby for us. I don’t think poor Meigan is at all prepared to take care of a child out of nowhere (Who would be?), and this particular one has the added disadvantage of not even being a human. Whatever hatches from this poor egg is going to have a hell of a time living in a strange place, with strange people, and no others even remotely like itself to relieve any of the pressure of being (essentially) “the last of my kind”

Through this lens, the story is actually pretty bleak . . .

And what of it? What is the purpose of such tragedy? Not all stories need to have a message, or moral, or theme. It’s ok to have stories which are the literary equivalent of popcorn. Which is what this story seems to portend itself to be.

But even popcorn stories, which are not intentionally written with a theme, will usually still have one, even if it’s just the author’s outlook on the vast topics that happen through the story.

Little Free Library does not seem to give us any clue as to what that theme might be, and when we think deeper on the story (and assume the rather bleak outlook I described), it seems to need that theme or message badly but I just wasn’t sure what it was.

So . . . Hugo?

I think the lack of discernable theme, whether intentionally hidden or unintentionally left out is what lowered this story in my esteem. It had a wonderful premise and great execution of that premise, but (for me) did not deliver on the higher level which we typically associate with stories which are “award worthy”.

I can recommend this story to read, but not for the award . . .

What are y’all’s thoughts? DID this story have a theme which I just completely missed (this would not be the first nor last time)? Please let me know what you loved or didn’t love about the story in the comments as well as anything I’m missing here. Thanks so much for stopping by.

See you next time.

Robert Sharp’s 01001001 01000011 01000101 a ‘bit’ deep, a bunch cool

Image credit: Daria Schreiber, you can follow her on twitter @Yefimia 

Way back in March of 2015 I reviewed a book called The Good Shabti by Robert Sharp (feel free to read my review of The Good Shabti) and spoiler alert, I loved it!

I love Ancient Egypt and am always hungry for any stories that take place there. And while reading the story, I was impressed by how much detail the author incorporated and how ‘real’ everything seemed while also telling a meaningful story.  A great first impression no doubt.

Needless to say I was ecstatic when Sharp actually contacted me (all these years later) about his new story called ‘01001001 01000011 01000101’ published over at Pornokitsch.

Just looking at the title, I was pretty confident we wouldn’t be cruising the placid waters of the Nile, but I did not expect that we would be sledging through the permanent snow drift of a post societal collapse where children are sent to scavenge for fuel and have no compunction (or at least very little) at burning books to stay warm.

Spoiler alert, I loved this too.

‘01001001 01000011 01000101’ is a tale of survival, but also a question about the value of information to those who can’t use it. What is the purpose of saving and archiving the past if future generations aren’t able to access that knowledge? What is the value saving something for the future, when an immediate benefit can be gained now? Is all of the knowledge in the world more valuable than a human life? All very serious questions.

How I felt reading this novella. 🙂

I think perhaps my favorite aspect of the story though, is the seemingly random bits of binary code that interrupt the text. I’m a big nerd and just happen to have a binary to text converter in my favorites bar, so an added bit of fun for me was translating the code along the way and attempting to reflect on what it said as I continued reading.

I’m waffling on whether or not I recommend this approach as it was a bit hard to remember what the last part said while reading the newest sequence and also keeping track of the story. I may just advise collecting all of them along the way and translating them all at once at the end. Even so, I very much enjoyed how these interruptions sort of jolt you through the story. You’re kind of reading one part and then you skip ahead a bit. It feels a little like listening to a scratched CD (anybody remember those days?), but in a good way. Neat effect.

Finally, you should all be proud of how many different ways I used the word ‘bit’ just then and didn’t make a joke about it in reference to that word being a portmanteau of binary digit . . . Just be proud ok!

TLDR:

I highly recommend this piece. Sharp continues to bring a tremendous attention to detail and craftsmanship to his work. Where in the past it was focusing on the little details of an ancient civilization which immerse the reader into the story, now it is the small details of the actual form of the piece which again immerse you into a pretty philosophical story. Go read it!

Oh and here’s just a bit (this one I didn’t even mean to do) of fun since we’re talking about binary so much and I just love Flight of the Conchords. Binary solo!