Continuing our reviews of the 2020 Hugo Awards finalists in the Short Stories category, we move on to “Blood is Another Word for Hunger” by Rivers Solomon and “As the Last I May Know” by S. K. Huang.
2020 Hugo Awards Reviews: Short Stories – Part 1
The pandemic may have led to conventions around the world being cancelled, but many of their events have managed to survive in virtual form – Worldcon’s annual Hugo Awards for science fiction and fantasy being one example. The awards are scheduled to be presented in August, under different circumstances but retaining the same spirit as…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Vampires in Reflection
Mihail Baranga, teenage son to a family of circus acrobats, is surrounded by glamour and extravagance. But he yearns for a darker existence: he wants to become a vampire.
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Monsters of the Psyche
Charlee Jacob’s 1998 story “The Border in Zen” is set after a nuclear war and takes place in a village named Persephone’s Pity. Here, the people lead a peaceful, ecological, egalitarian existence, eager to avoid the atrocities of the past. But this post-apocalyptic culture has a darker side: a preoccupation with the sullying of innocence….
Our Darkest Dreams Described: Horror Fiction in the 20th Century by Jess Nevins
Horror fiction has a history problem. While its cousin, the science fiction genre, has been eagerly mapped by decades’ worth of enthusiasts, much of horror’s heritage has been documented in comparatively little detail. Perhaps this is due to the genre’s aura of disreputability; or maybe we can point to so many of horror’s finest specimens…
Four-Color Faves: Wendy Browne on the Legend that Is Dejah Thoris
Warrior. Princess. Scientist. Dejah Thoris has worn many hats — as has WWAC’s fearless publisher, Wendy Browne! Dejah and Wendy are two peas in a pod so it’s no surprise that Dejah is Wendy’s four-color fave. Dejah’s origins precede her appearances in the world of comics — she was created by Edgar Rice Burroughs (the…
Network Effect Catapults Murderbot into the Wider Universe: Spoiler-free Review
Network Effect is the fifth and as-yet longest installment in the adventures of Murderbot by Martha Wells, introduced in the multiple award-winning novella All Systems Red in 2017. The novel is a great addition to the series, giving readers exactly more of what we love from the Murderbot books: a beloved and sarcastic unreliable narrator,…
Portrait of an Artist: Georgia O’Keeffe Is a Lush Account of the Mother of American Modernism
Portrait of An Artist: Georgia O’Keeffe, written by Lucy Brownridge and lavishly illustrated by Alice Wietzel, broadly depicts an iconic artist whose life was vast and encompassing. O’Keeffe is widely known as the mother of American modernism; her art is powerful and potent, and her association to the sprawling Arizona desert synonymous with her name.
Stellar Streaming Storytimes for When You Are Stuck at Home
Now that my husband and I are the chief facilitators of our kid’s remote kindergarten experience, in addition to both working from home at our full time jobs, I find weekday lunches to be a pretty exhausted time for me. Thus, I’ve instituted a lunchtime storytime practice, where some professional reads my kid picture books…
Virtual Book Clubs for Readers Who Want to Connect
Whether you call it social distancing, shelter in place, or hashtag Stay Home, your book club is probably not meeting at the coffee shop this month. There are, however, a number of virtual book club options, some well-established already and some cropping up now to meet the recent demand of people who wish to discuss…
Remembering Charlee Jacob: Cities and Guises
Charlee Jacob’s novella “Up, Out of Cities that Blow Hot and Cold” – which debuted in the 2000 collection of the same name before being reissued as a standalone book – is a story that takes the concept of urban decay literally. All around the world, cities are being hit by disasters: the Eiffel Tower…
Weary of Being a Woman: Dark Agnes — from Pulp to Comics
Conan the Barbarian is the best-known of the characters created by Robert E. Howard, but he is far from the only one. Prior to his early death in 1936, Howard conceived an entire pantheon of pulp heroes including the likes of Solomon Kane, Kull of Atlantis and Bran Mak Morn, many of whom had afterlives…