lightningbug

Novellas were the next-shortest choice, so novella nominees I read.

“Loneliness Universe”, Eugenia Triantafyllou, podcast reading by Matt Peters: epistolary sequence. A woman slips out of consensus reality, then everyone slips out of consensus reality. Look everyone, accidental horror story! Or perhaps deliberate horror story.

I get caught up in how that would even work, since humans are highly interdependent. Is this a response to the pandemic? Maybe. A response to atomized modern life? Also maybe. And yet. If we're all drifting apart, how do the lights stay on?

“Signs of Life”, Sarah Pinsker, podcast reading by Erika Ensign: First person past tense, sisters reconnect after a long, long separation.

I was wildly distracted by the Maryland vibes. I remain happily committed to California, but I did grow up in Maryland, and I do have thoughts on how much the entire experience of Veronica and Violet's summer reunion would feel, at a sweaty, dusty, sticky level.

Also, Violet has sometimes wished people into existence, and has a request for her sister related to that.

I wasn't close paying attention during the intro, so missed this was a Pinsker story. I think I enjoyed it more because of that. The pacing is on the slower side, but I liked that, too; it worked for the reunion component of the story.

“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”, Thomas Ha: First person past tense. The protagonist, while settling his mother's estate, finds a "dead" library book and becomes drawn into a conflict around the book.

There's vibes? Post-cyberpunk vibes? There's a girlfriend who isn't all that committed to a shared emotional life, and the Brotherhood of physical stuff, and Caliper John, who wants the book so he can either control it or destroy it, jury's out on that question.

It's a story, but it's very "yep, that happened, I wonder if there's some Dark Tower in the DNA of the novel-within-a-story."

“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”, Premee Mohamed: Third person past tense. Firion the wizard has an apprentice, Cane, and a secret: she's lost her magic. The story covers Cane's apprenticeship under Firion, and his final test: repelling the monstrous raiding Bouldus.

A perfectly acceptable story, very workmanlike. Points for lack of twee.

“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”, Naomi Kritzer: First person past tense. Lightning has struck and someone wrote a selkie story I didn't hate. Probably because there was less pining and more active mayhem.

Anyway. Protagonist Morgan, husband Stuart, and daughter Cordie (short for Cordelia) move to Finstowne, MA, for Stuart's sabbatical year. The plot builds up to the fairly predictable revelation that Stuart stole and hid Morgan's field research raw materials, which prevented her from finishing her doctorate. This comes out when he and Morgan are on a beach in a town alleged to have been founded by four selkie sisters, so that's it for Stuart, end story, Morgan and Cordie last seen settling comfortably into the local social fabric.

None of the novelette is earth-shattering, even the Wrath of Ocean instead of Moping For Ocean, but I liked it a lot.

“Lake of Souls”, Ann Leckie: Alien coming of age road trip, in third person past, and a little exobiology plus murder plot involving a human anthropologist, in first person past, as a treat. Interesting alien biology articulated by the human; the lived experience from the coming-of-age PoV is also interesting; definitely cleared the "not actively annoying me" bar, and also, the "I liked read this" bar.

Off the cuff ranking: Leckie, Kritzer, Mohamed, Pinsker, Ha, Triantafyllou. Most of these could shuffle quickly; there's a lot of solid work in this year's novelette category, but not too many instant standouts to my mind.