Tag Archives: novelette

Flash review: The Sisters of Saint Nicola of The Almost Perpetual Motion vs the Lurch by Garth Nix

Highly energetic, outrageously ridiculous, and compellingly weird. This novelette, whose full name I will not repeat lest be accused of padding the word count of this review, hit me in all the right spots. It is easy flowing, features very … Continue reading

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Flash review: Burning Books for Pleasure and Profit by K. J. Parker

This fast-paced, amusing story is a pleasure to read. It combines an inventive world, a moral quandary that the author very efficiently and plausibly resolves, and characters that have a certain charm, be they the heroes or antagonists. The story … Continue reading

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Flash review: Even If Such Ways Are Bad by Rich Larson

Rich Larson first popped up on my radar with Quandary Aminu vs The Butterfly Man, a fast-paced biopunk story. I really enjoyed that story’s inventiveness, theme and the pacing. Unfortunately, his latest story lacks some of these elements and adds … Continue reading

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Flash review: Quandary Aminu vs The Butterfly Man by Rich Larson

Sometimes I don’t even realize I need a change of pace until it happens. After months of science fiction that was either slow and ponderous, or fast on a galactic scale (where everything is slow anyway), a story that takes … Continue reading

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Hugos 2022 – Novelettes

This year’s nominated novelettes are thematically all over the place, from mythology, through vampires, to spaceships and robot swarms.  Stylistically, however, they are quite similar: most of them are very eloquently written, subtle, and with hidden meanings.  It was very … Continue reading

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Hugos 2021 – Best Novelette

Similar to previous years, the 2021 novelette ballot is very strong.  I’ve found all six stories interesting, and really enjoyed four of them, all of which I consider Hugo contenders.  All six stories feature superb writing, and it’s mainly the … Continue reading

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Mini review: Berlin Is Never Berlin by Marko Kloos

In all honesty, the Wild Cards universe is not my favorite urban fantasy setting.  It is a distant second to Larry Correia’s Grimnoir Chronicles, but it does have its charm.  The different writers add variety, and in particular the early … Continue reading

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Hugos 2020 – Novelettes

This year, the selection of novelettes did not reach the quality of the previous years.  Back in 2018 and 2019, I was hard-pressed to find my favorite story, and even to select the top three was difficult.  In 2020, only … Continue reading

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Hugos 2019 – Novelettes

The novelettes category for the 2019 Hugo Awards is amazingly well stacked.  It will be the only one where I’d rank all the nominated works, and with a good reason: I liked all stories.  Many of these works were deeply … Continue reading

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Hugos 2018 – Novelettes

Unlike short stories, novelettes often feature fully contained tales.  They may still fit into a larger universe, but the author has the freedom to expand the world in the story, and still leave the reader happy with character development.  And … Continue reading

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