Eye candy for fans of Spot the Cat

I’ve got a blank spot in the queue, so thought this might be a good time to feature Spot again.

Besides this, remember to check out my books (see front page of site). Of course, a few sales always help. 🙂

Review of The Physicians of Vilnoc by Lois McMaster Bujold

This is a Penric and Desdemona novella set in the World of the Five Gods, also billed as Penric & Desdemona Book 8. It was published May 7, 2020, by Spectrum Literary Agency and runs 127 pages. This review contains spoilers.

Penric is at home with his wife and new baby daughter in Vilnoc. Answering a hasty summons to the fort, he finds a mysterious and terrifying plague has broken out. Penric’s brother-in-law General Arisaydia calls on him for help, so Penric and Des move into the fort to assist the medical staff. The sickness starts to get out of control, moving into the city and infecting a nearby encampment of political prisoners. The plague is a riddle, as they’ve never seen anything like it before and have no idea how it’s transmitted. The uphill magic to heal the sick is exhausting to both Penric and Des, and it looks like help from anywhere else will be slow in coming. Is there any way Penric can figure out where the sickness comes from and stop the plague?

This is one of those things that turns out to be very timely. Certainly Bujold couldn’t have known this would be year of a pandemic when she started writing. It features the usual strong characters and established world-building, and a an entertaining wit. Penric is his usual earnest, mild-mannered, responsible self, and he’s reminded that an inability to control his own need to help was the reason he dropped out of the temple’s medical program years ago. This is something of a medical mystery, as Penric and the fort’s head physician Rede search for clues and discard various methods of transmission for the disease. In the end, Penric resorts to prayer, and his god answers him in in typical Bastard fashion.

On the less positive side, this installment of the story is a little short on action and events. It moves along fairly well because Penric is tracking the mystery of the plague origins, but it ends up feeling a little empty. He spends most of his time repeating visits to plague hotspots, and there’s somehow very little panic among the population. Like most of the series, this could have used a little more darkness. There are hints and possibilities here and there. For example, Penric’s magic is constrained by the gods’ control over his demon Desdemona. Presumably if he uses her to kill a person, she will die, but Penric is pushing the limits here. Because of all the uphill magic, the two of them accumulate a lot of dangerous chaos energy, and have to discharge it somewhere. Normally Penric kills vermin, but in this case he stops by the local abattoir and kills larger animals like cattle and hogs, much to the dismay of the workers. It makes the two of them wonder about getting around the prohibition against killing people. Just hypothetically, of course.

Four stars.

Review of The Orphans of Raspay by Lois McMaster Bujold

This is a Penric and Desdemona novella set in the World of the Five Gods, also billed as Penric & Desdemona Book 7. It was published July 17, 2019, by Spectrum Literary Agency and runs 127 pages. This review contains spoilers.

Penric is on an errand for the Duke of Orbas and misses the boat he meant to take home, meaning he has to book passage on a later ship. This one runs into a nasty storm and is then attacked by pirates. Penric is taken as part of the plunder and thrown into a hold with two little girls, Lencia and Seuka Corva, from Raspay. It turns out the pirates are based on the island of Lantihera. Penric claims he’s a scribe and that the girls are his nieces. He tries to arrange for a ransom, but the pirates refuse this and sell the three of them into slavery. Is there a way they can escape from the island and evade this fate?

This is a well-established series by now, mildly witty in tone, and the characters and world-building are strongly developed. This installment is also strongly plotted and the action moves along smartly, without anything much in the way of lags or sidetracks. There are some interesting touches that make the story very personal, like the girls wanting to touch Penric’s blond hair, and the fact that he’s viewed as a sex object by various interested slavers. However, this turns out to be a god-touched errand, so Penric and his resident demon Des persist, and eventually wreak the sort of havoc on the pirate and slaver installations that you’d expect.

On the less positive side, Penric is, as usual, just a little too nice—though it’s not as bad in this novella as some in the series. Considering the sexual content, these novellas can’t be aimed at children, so a little more angst and darkness in the main protagonist wouldn’t be out of line. We’re also left with a couple of loose ends: First, the temple where Penric and the children take refuge is being tended by one of the temple servants, and Penric leaves him to whatever fate. Considering Penric’s rank as a Sorcerer and a Divine, it seems he could arrange for a little help there. The story also included some musing about dolphins that I thought might come to something, but it didn’t, at least not in this installment of the story.

Four and a half stars.

Review of Walking to Aldebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky

This is a novella published by Solaris in May of 2019. It’s science fiction/horror and runs 95 pages. This review contains spoilers.

A probe exploring the Oort Cloud finds a strange object that at first looks like just another rock, but on closer observation is clearly some kind of alien installation. Earth puts together an international team of scientist-astronauts to go investigate, including Gary Rendell. He is also chosen for the first expedition into the tunnels of the artifact, where the team is attacked and scattered. Lost and wandering, he scavenges for things that look edible and finds doors that apparently open onto other worlds. However, there’s something horrible at the heart of the maze. Is there any way he can escape and find his team again?

This narrative is written in first person, and Tchaikovsky spins a future fantasy for us. We get Rendell’s experiences, plus his reminiscences about politics and events on Earth as he wanders through the tunnels of the artifact. He encounters other alien species, also apparently either exploring or else lost and wandering. There are a few dead corpses, too. Most of this is reasonable, interesting and entertaining, but as the story progresses, Rendell becomes less and less of a reliable narrator. It’s clear something has gone wrong with him, and then we lurch into horror.

On the less positive side, I ended up feeling cheated by the ending. This is dark from the beginning, as Rendell is clearly in serious trouble in a dim and dangerous alien maze. However, the story could have gone a number of different ways. There are opportunities for alien contact and cooperation, exploration of other worlds, uplifting epiphanies, etc., but instead Tchaikovsky opts for a scenario where Rendell is warped and changed by the alien installation. There wasn’t any reason for this that seems logical, and it feels like lazy writing. Maybe he was just in a bad mood.

Best enjoyed by horror fans. Three stars.

Review of Finna by Nino Cipri

This science fiction novella was released by Tor.com on 25 February 2020. It has a slightly young adult feel and runs 144 pages. This review contains spoilers.

Ava and Jules work for LitenVärld, a Swedish big box furniture store, and their romantic relationship is currently on the rocks. While they’re trying to avoid one another, an elderly store customer slips through a portal in the Bachelor Cube showroom into another dimension. Of course, minimum-wage employees Ava and Jules are equipped with a guide box and sent after her. On the other side of the portal, the two find the customer has been eaten by carnivorous furniture, but they locate a reasonable facsimile. What will it take to successfully retrieve her into their own reality?

This is humor, of course, and very creative. Nothing hugely momentous happens, but it’s an entertaining ride. Ava and the non-binary Jules struggle with their relationship and end up somewhat finding themselves on the journey. They manage to make life better for their facsimile of Ursula Nouri and her anxious granddaughter, and also gain the courage to explore new worlds themselves.

On the less positive side, most of the emphasis is on the dry humor and the narrative. Character development and world-building is adequate, but not spectacular, and imagery seemed a little skimpy. I didn’t end up with much of a vision of anything but LitenVärld as a typical big-box furniture store with a maze of different showrooms. Finally, this is something of a cliffhanger, and I’m wondering if we’ll see more adventures from the daring duo.

Three and a half stars.

Review of “Defending Elysium” by Brandon Sanderson

This novelette is in the same universe as Skyward and Starsight and lays the groundwork for both. The story was originally published by Asimov’s in 2008, and is now available on Sanderson’s website here. This review contains spoilers.

Jason Write is an agent for the Phone Company (PC). In the past, the United World Governments made an embarrassing first contact by shooting down an ambassadorial Tanasi ship, and the PC stepped in to broker relations. Now they have a monopoly on dealing with aliens and are suspected of having the secret to faster than light (FTL) space travel. Jason is blind, but has a well-developed cytonic Sense that gives him transhuman powers. He arrives on the space platform Evensong, expecting to escort Denise Carson, a strangely afflicted scientist, to Jupiter 14 for treatment. But, he finds the situation is more complicated than he expected. The remains of a missing Varvax ambassador have been found in a burner, and Jason takes over the investigation. He finds his communications are being tapped by Coln Abrams, a rogue agent for the United Intelligence Bureau. Jason confronts Abrams and allows him to join the investigation, then rescues him from an assassination attempt with cytonic mindblades. Abrams has followed Jason to Evensong in the hopes of stealing info on what he thinks is a FTL apparatus, and he thinks Jason has arranged for the attempted assassination. Jason picks up Carlson and comes to a conclusion about what’s wrong with her, then asks Abrams to escort her to Jupiter 14 so he can continue his investigations alone. Abrams demands to know about the FTL technology, but before Jason can respond, the three of them are gassed by another agent. Jason wakes with his cytonic Sense disabled and the enemy agent demanding answers. He contacts Abrams, held in a different room, and asks him to disable the power. Abrams complies and Jason explodes the room he’s being held in, along with the cytonic suppressor, and then engages in a mind battle with Edmund, an enemy agent from his past. Jason kills him, but before he dies, Edmund explains what’s going on. The Varvax are infiltrating human populations to steal their technology. Is there anything Jason can do about this?

On the positive side, this features a strong plot, mysterious powers and layers of competing agents moving through the shadows. Sanderson skims over the world-building, as the details of how the space platforms, cytonic suppressors, alien societies and the United World Governments work remains vague. His characters are fairly well-developed and believable, with the cytonic ability introduced matter-of-factly and the matter of apparent Varvax transmigration into human bodies left understated.

On the not so positive side, the story has a lot of moving parts, and the plot seems a little underdeveloped. Maybe it would have worked a little better for a novella or a full length novel. The main thing I’m missing here is conflict. The tale is complex and moves right along, but there should have been more conflict between Jason and Abrams, for example. Abrams is way out of line, and Jason just accepts him as harmless. It seems like the ambassador’s remains should have caused a bigger stir. I would have also expected Lanna, Jason’s wife and com contact, to check in with more opinions as this gets into increasingly more dangerous territory. One possible inconsistency: when Jason is being held prisoner, why can he contact Abrams and not Lanna?

Four stars.

When does bullying become totalitarianism?

I’ve been complaining for a while about the kind of author bullying that comes from cancel culture. By now, everybody should know how this goes: An author, often a young person-of-color who isn’t well established, offers a novel, and a mob on Twitter piles on with charges of racism, insensitivity and cultural appropriation. The mob keeps screaming until the author or publisher pulls the book. It may be quietly released later on, but the campaign has damaged the marketing buzz and reduces the sales and acclaim for the book. This activity recently spread to publishing when a mob incited by romance author Courtney Milan attacked a small publisher and a free-lance editor. The tactic generally works better on fairly powerless nobodies, as well-established authors can just ignore the whole thing. The question has been hanging there about whether this is just a “mean girls” sort of action where little jealousies lead to pulling people down, or whether it’s actually about something bigger.

A couple or three things have hit the news recently that are making me think this is something bigger, in fact, a symptom of larger and more dangerous social trends. The first of these is a revolutionary strain of anarcho-communist ideology running through the summer “protests against systemic racism.” In case anyone is still in the dark about this movement, it is a type of utopian communism that calls for the abolition of the state, capitalism, wage labor and private property. Supposed to “free” people from laws and government control, its goal is actually totalitarianism, where the prescribed beliefs become entrenched and are enforced by members of society as a requirement. Because of its proscriptions against capitalism, wage labor and private property, this movement means to destroy the usual avenues of success in Western societies like education, opportunity and rewards for individual hard work. That means if you’re a young person who has written a promising book, you need to be bullied into withdrawing it to keep you a nobody, and if you have a budding editing or publishing business, you need to lose it if you don’t toe the line on ideology. In case anyone is wondering what totalitarianism is about, it’s a dictatorial society that requires complete subservience to a list of stated beliefs.

So, what other evidence on totalitarianism do I have this week? I’ve just run across a proposal from academic Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, most recently noted for the 2019 book How to Be an Antiracist, where his main thesis is that antiracists should “dismantle” racist systems. Since publishing the book, Kendi has proposed a Constitutional amendment in the US to establish and fund the Department of Anti-racism (DOA). This department would be responsible for “preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity, monitor those policies, investigate and be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.” This is a huge amount of power. It sounds like embedding cancel culture as an official government function. And the big question is, what is going to constitute “racism?”

And my last bit of troubling evidence: I’ve been noting for a while the results of SFF awards that seem to trend toward particular favored groups and strongly discriminate against others. This seems to be an unwritten rule about what’s acceptable to win, however the results are managed. You’d think from the huge outcry about racism in recent years that this would promote persons-of-color, but it doesn’t look to be doing that. Instead, it has shown to benefit mostly white women. Now the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (a.k.a. the Oscars) has actually published their award requirements, setting quotas for minority inclusion and limits on theme, storyline and narrative for writers:

A3. Main storyline/subject matter
The main storyline(s), theme or narrative of the film is centered on an underrepresented group(s).
• Women
• Racial or ethnic group
• LGBTQ+
• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing

At first glance this might not seem to be that much of a problem. More minorities are employed, yah! But the damage to intellectual freedom is something else. This is a movement toward dictating what’s acceptable for people to write about and what’s acceptable for official recognition. During the Cold War, we used roll our eyes at the USSR and Maoist ideology-controlled books and films. Do we really want to go there?

Review of Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

This dark fantasy/science fiction novel is also billed as The Locked Tomb Trilogy #2, released by Tor.com on August 4, 2020. It runs 512 pages. Number 1 in the series is Gideon the Ninth and #3 Alecto the Ninth will be released in 2021. This review contains major spoilers.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus has not submitted well to Lyctorhood. Instead of absorbing the essence of her dead cavalier Gideon Nav as expected, she has partitioned her brain, leaving Gideon Nav her own space. The alterations leave Harrow sick and hallucinating, barely in touch with reality. As new Lyctors, she and Ianthe Tridentarius have been accepted into training in the Necrolord Prime’s (a.k.a. God’s) company. In self-defense, the two of them form a fragile alliance. Harrow replaces Ianthe’s foreign arm with one of bone, allowing her to achieve the skill with a rapier that she needs, and Ianthe keeps letters for Harrow that she wrote before damaging her own brain. Harrow’s mentor, the Saint of Duty, tortures her as a means of training, trying to get her to integrate her caviler, and Harrow fights back with all her talents as a necromancer and bone magician. Meanwhile God, who has ignited the sun Dominicus and placed the space habitat Nine Houses in its orbit, is being pursued by Resurrection Beasts, the ghosts of dead planets he has left in his wake. Even in her altered state, Harrow is realizing things are not as they should be. A Resurrection Beast attacks God’s space station, preceded by heralds, and in the defense Harrow is lost in the River (of dead souls). Gideon has to take over Harrow’s body on the station, and her sudden appearance sets a plot against God into motion. Who’s going to live and who’s going to their final rest in Hell?  

On the positive side, this whole series is amazingly well plotted. The first installment ran like a murder mystery, where candidates for Lyctorhood began dropping like flies. This one is heavily surreal, but the overall plot eventually emerges that ties the Locked Tomb of the Ninth House to what God and his little band of Lyctors have been doing. The narrative includes sharp imagery and the characters are very well drawn, with clear differences between the Houses. God and his Lyctors are very down-to-earth, and God especially comes across as a nice person, but evil in deed and really hard to assassinate. Most of the state of things emerges from their arguments. The theme here is apparently from “Anabel Lee”: how love transcends death.  

On the less positive side, there is a serious readability problem with this installment, meaning it was a really hard slog. The timeline of event is jumbled and much of the 512 pages is questionable because of Harrow’s brain damage. She has cut Gideon out of her memory and constructs a different version of the events in the first book and how actions are proceeding on the station. Things come together for a while when the level-headed Gideon takes over and Harrow’s consciousness goes away to set up a reality bubble in the River, but then after various revelations and the hit against God, things fall into a muddle again.  

Major spoiler alert: I’m sure people will be looking for reviews that explain the ending. Here’s what I make of it: God has escaped with his single remaining Lyctor, Ianthe Tridentarius. Everyone else is either crippled or dead. Harrow is rescued from the River by rebels and revived; however, she is still brain damaged. Gideon, revealed to be God’s daughter, is still narrating, so is presumably around somewhere. I’m expecting that Alecto the Ninth will be the eventual synthesis of Gideon and Harrowhark, who may challenge God for his place in the universe. But maybe not.

Minor niggles: As I understand it, Gideon is God’s clone or partial clone, so why isn’t she male? We’re given to believe that the cavaliers are all destructively absorbed by their necromancers, but this is clearly not the case with God, and not apparently with the Saint of Duty, either, as death of his necromancer leaves the cavalier present and still completely functional. And last, how did Harrow know to write the letters for herself? Is she prescient somehow?

I’m tempted to give this a low score because of the readability mess, but it’s still a pretty decent book. Four stars.

Congrats to the 2020 Dragon Award Winners/Finalists

There’s never enough time between the release of the ballot and the final result to read all the Dragon Finalists, but I’ll review the winners, and maybe a couple or three others that have caught my eye. Stay tuned!

Best Science Fiction Novel

• The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
• The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
• The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz
• The Rosewater Redemption by Tade Thompson
• Network Effect by Martha Wells
• Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal)

• The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
• Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
• Jade War by Fonda Lee
• Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer
• The Burning White by Brent Weeks

Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel

• Finch Merlin and the Fount of Youth by Bella Forrest
• Catfishing on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer
• The Grace Year by Kim Liggett
• Force Collector by Kevin Shinick
• The Poison Jungle by Tui T. Sutherland
• Cog by Greg van Eekhout

Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel

• Savage Wars by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole
• Edge of Valor by Josh Hayes
• Aftershocks by Marko Kloos
• Defiance by Bear Ross
• Howling Dark by Christopher Ruocchio
• System Failure by Joe Zieja

Best Alternate History Novel

• Witchy Kingdom by D. J. Butler
• The Girl with No Face by M. H. Boroson
• Revolution by W. L. Goodwater
• As Our World Ends by Jack Hunt
• Up-time Pride and Down-time Prejudice by Mark H. Huston
• A Nation Interrupted by Kevin McDonald

Best Media Tie-In Novel

• Firefly – The Ghost Machine by James Lovegrove
• Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack
• Star Trek: Discovery: The Enterprise War by John Jackson Miller
• Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse
• Aliens: Phalanx by Scott Sigler

Best Horror Novel

• The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
• Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky
• Scavenger Hunt by Michaelbrent Collings
• The Pursuit of William Abbey by Claire North
• The Toll by Cherie Priest

Best Comic Book

• Avengers by Jason Aaron, Ed McGuinness
• Bitter Root by David F. Walker, Chuck Brown, Sanford Greene
• Immortal Hulk by Al Ewing, Joe Bennett
• Monstress by Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda
• Spider-Woman by Karla Pacheco, Pere Perez, Paulo Siqueira
• Undiscovered Country by Charles Soule, Scott Snyder, Daniele Orlandini, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Matt D. Wilson

Best Graphic Novel

• Battlestar Galactica Counterstrike by John Jackson Miller, Daniel HDR
• Batman Universe by Brian Michael Bendis, Nick Derington
• Black Bolt by Christian Ward, Frazier Irving, Stephanie Hans
• Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang
• Mister Miracle by Tom King, Mitch Gerads
• Something is Killing the Children Vol. 1 by James Tynion IV, Werther Dell’Edera

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series

• The Mandalorian– Disney+
• Altered Carbon– Netflix
• Lost In Space– Netflix Originals
• Star Trek: Picard– CBS All Access
• The Expanse– Amazon Prime
• The Witcher– Netflix
• Watchmen– HBO

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie

• Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker by J. J. Abrams
• Ad Astra by James Gray
• Fast Colo rby Julia Hart
• Joker by Todd Phillips
• Terminator: Dark Fate by Tim Miller
• The Lion King by Jon Favreau

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game

• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order– Respawn Entertainment & Electronic Arts
• Borderlands 3– Gearbox Software & 2k Games
• Control– Remedy Entertainment & 505 Games
• Death Stranding– Kojima Productions & Sony Interactive
• Gears 5– The Coalition & Xbox Game Studios
• Half-Life: Alyx– Valve
• The Outer Worlds– Obsidian Entertainment & Private Division

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game

• Minecraft Earth– Mojang Studios & Xbox Game Studios
• Arknights– Hypergryph, Yostar
• Call of Duty: Mobile– TiMi Studios & Activision Games
• Grindstone – Capybara Games Inc.
• Manifold Garden– William Chyr Studio
• Mutazione– Die Gute Fabrik & Akupara Games

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game

• Tapestry– Stonemaier Games
• Forgotten Waters– Plaid Hat Games
• Jaws of the Lion– Cephalofair Games
• Power Rangers: Heroes of the Grid– Renegade Game Studios
• The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine– Kosmos
• The King’s Dilemma– Horrible Guild Game Studio

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game

• Magic: The Gathering: Throne of Eldraine– Wizards of the Coast
• Alien RPG– Free League Publishing
• Battlestar Galactica – Starship Battles: Viper Mk. VII– Ares Games
• Pathfinder Second Edition– Paizo Publishing
• Spectaculars Core Game– Scratchpad Publishing
• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Warcry– Games Workshop

Wrap up of the 2020 World Fantasy Reviews

That finishes up the main fiction finalists, as I’ve already reviewed the others as part of the Nebula and Hugo Award finalists. The World Fantasy Award is juried, and this year’s judges include: Gwenda Bond, Galen Dara, Michael Kelly, Victor LaValle and Adam Roberts. Because it’s a juried award, the results rely to a certain extent on what was submitted by publishers for review by the judges.

First, the diversity count. As usual, this is based on what I can find online. Apologies if I miss anybody.

Best Novel: 5 women, 0 men, 1 black, 1 Asian, 1 Jewish, 3 white, 3 LGBTQ
Best Novella: 3 women, 4 men, 1 non-binary, 2 black, 1 Jewish, 6 white, 2 LGBTQ
Best Short Fiction: 4 women, 1 man, 1 non-binary, 1 Jewish, 1 black, 5 white, 3 LGBTQ

There are 15 finalists and 19 authors because of the multiple credits for The Deep, which also ups the count for men by 3. Diggs, Huston and Snipes are all members of the Hugo-nominated band clippings that wrote the song Solomon based their story on. The whole list of authors works out to be 5/19 men (26%), 13/19 women (68%), 2/19 non-binary (11%), 1/19 Asian (5%), 4/19 black (21%), 3/19 Jewish (16%), 14/19 white (74%), 8/19 LGBTQ (42%). In contrast to the other major awards I’ve reviewed, this list of finalists does feature 1/19 gay male author (5%).

This means the results skew heavily to LGBTQ women writers–even with the three male co-writers for The Deep, the authors are about 70% female. If you take those 3 co-writing credits and the non-binary Solomon out, there are only 2/13 men nominated (15%), leaving the women at 85%. The count for LGBTQ writers (42%) is well above the US demographic of 5%. The count for Asian writers (5%) pretty much matches the US demographic of 5%. The count for Jewish writers (16%) is above the US demographic of about 2%. The count for black writers (21%) is somewhat above the US demographic of 13%. That leaves whites (74%) at slightly above their US demographic of 72%. The list of finalists included some extra diversity this year with a translation from Japanese and a couple or three international writers, but it loses some by artificially upping the count of black, male and non-binary authors with the nomination of Solomon’s work in two categories. Along that line, it’s good to see black children’s book writer Callender emerging as a serious contender in the adult novels this year.

When you look at the works, 11/14 had female lead characters (79%), 5/15 had prominent black characters (33%), 7/14 had prominent LGBTQ characters (50%), and 4/15 had prominent gay male characters (27%). This last is a standout, as most of the major literary awards seem to ignore gay men. This also follows on last year’s WFA win of Witchmark by C. L. Polk, which was very much a gay romance. Note the popularity of female lead characters, which seems to be a trend in recent years. “For He Can Creep” by Siobhan Carroll features a cat and a mentally ill poet as the main characters, a nice addition to the diversity.

As I mentioned in the intro, there was quite a bit of cross-over between all the major awards this year. I had to read 9/15 works for the WFA reviews or 60%, which means 40% were already nominated for either the Nebula or the Hugo Award. Two of the novels (The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow and Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir), one of the novellas (The Deep by Rivers Solomon) and two of the short fiction (“For He Can Creep” by Siobhan Carroll and “The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye” by Sarah Pinsker) were also nominated for the Nebula, or a total of 5. Two of the novels (The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow and Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir), two of the novellas (In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire and The Deep by Rivers Solomon), and three of the short fiction (“For He Can Creep” by Siobhan Carroll, “The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye” by Sarah Pinsker and “Blood Is Another Word for Hunger” by Rivers Solomon) were nominated for Hugo Awards, or a total of 7. The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow and Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir) are also finalists for the Dragon Award. This suggests there’s fair agreement on which works are the most important releases of the year. Interestingly, none of these cross-overs won either the Nebula or the Hugo Awards. However, I notice The Deep has won the 2020 Lambda Award for LGBTQ Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror.

Two publishers dominate the list: 6/15 were released by Tor (40%), 3/15 were released by Orbit (20%), and 3 came from anthologies or collections (20%). F&SF got an entry with “Postlude to the Afternoon of a Faun,” a rare feat for a print magazine these days (7%). Tor tends to dominate in the novella category because of its support for this format, but Tor also made inroads in the novel and short fiction categories.

As far as themes go, both black and white authors scored well with angry, activist works that addressed social injustice, racism, colonialism and slavery. Four works featured the popular “killing people and taking their stuff” theme, two included/followed revolutions, and seven included romances, both LGBTQ and straight—though a couple of these were pretty warped. Absurdist/surrealist styles remained popular this year, but the most subtle and artistic work is probably Ogawa with her theme of fading memories.