It's Hugo Time! Novelettes

Novelettes are kind of a kludgy category, squished in between short story and novella. It's really a long-ish story (the official definition is between 7500 and 17,500 words). They do have a bit more room for characterization and worldbuilding. All of this year's nominees are available online, with the exception of Ted Chiang's "Omphalos," which is found in his short story collection Exhalation. 

Sorry, No

"The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye," Sarah Pinsker

Normally I like Pinsker's stories, but I didn't care for this one at all. I think it was because of how cavalier the writer's assistant was about her...condition. I mean, she's just been enabling this alien creature inside the writer for who knows how many years, following it when it emerges from the writer's sleeping body and scraping the eggs from the people it kills (only one in five)? Really? That's like being touchy-feely with a facehugger. 

Knocking On the Door

"Omphalos," Ted Chiang

It may be blasphemy to even assign Chiang this rating, as he's been an awards favorite for decades. He's made his stellar reputation entirely on his infrequently-published stories. That said, he strikes me as sometimes caring more about his ideas and thought experiments than his characters. Not that he can't write good characterization: "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" and "The Great Silence" (the latter of which made the room get very dusty when I read it) proves otherwise. This story follows the other pattern: the idea is great, the characters...less so. 

"The Archronology of Love," Caroline M. Yoachim

The first line of this story sums it up: "This is a love story, the last of a series of moments when we meet." It also involves aliens, nanites, and a layered time repository like an archaeological dig. I liked it, but it wasn't outstanding.

We Have a Winnah! 

"Emergency Skin," N.K. Jemisin

This is a story only N.K. Jemisin could write--a post-apocalyptic scenario where the planet improved once the white supremacists/1% abandoned Earth to climate change and stormed off to a colony world in a huff; where the people took back control, destroyed capitalism, and instituted a utopia that restored the planet; and when a descendant of the selfish parasites who left returns to Earth to get the cell cultures needed to keep his society alive, he discovers a thriving society which is a complete antithesis to the one he came from. As she tends to do, Jemisin is playing with point of view in this story. You have to read it more than once to grasp its layers and nuances. 

"Away With the Wolves," Sarah Gailey

I nominated this. It appeared in last year's special edition of Uncanny Magazine, Disabled People Destroy Fantasy. This is the story of a female werewolf who becomes a wolf not because she is unable to control herself or because she is forced to change every month, but because her lupine body frees her from the chronic pain she suffers in her human form. It's a story of choice, of paying a price to live the life you want. 

"For He Can Creep," Siobhan Carroll

If I had read this in time, I would have nominated it too. This is a marvelous story, taking a real-life poet and a poem written in the eighteen century and spinning up an entire world out of it. I would love more stories about these characters, especially the Nighthunter Moppet. 

I said I'm not going to rank anything yet, and I'm not, but this category will be easier to decide than others, I think. 

Review: In an Absent Dream

In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the fourth book in the Wayward Children series, and tells the story of one of the children we met in the first, Every Heart a Doorway: Lundy, the girl aging in reverse. Lundy--first known as Katherine--in the mold of all the children in this series, does not fit in, and one day stumbles across a door to another world, a world where she is at home. In this case, Lundy's world is the Goblin Market, a complicated, cruel place of debts and fair value. Unlike some of the other worlds in the series, children can leave the Goblin Market--until their eighteenth birthday, when they have to make a choice. This is the tale of Lundy's life in and out of the Goblin Market, and the families she has on both sides of the portal, up until the time when she cannot bear to leave either family behind. She makes a bargain that violates the rules of her alternate world, and gets her both magically enchanted to age in reverse and banished from it.

This is a fairy tale with teeth. It's told in omniscient third person--mostly from Lundy's POV, but occasionally the narrative pulls back to the viewpoint of the unnamed writer. This could have been frothy and twee, but since this is not a lighthearted tale to begin with, these authorial asides are suitably weighty. This book also doesn't have a happy ending. It can't; the rules of the Goblin Market don't permit it. Because of this, the story may be too grim and pessimistic for some, but for me, reading Lundy's backstory was quite absorbing. Just keep in mind that this is not a magical happy fairy world, and if you want it, it will cost you.

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Review: Girls of Storm and Shadow

Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Ngan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I looked back at my review of the first book in this series (Girls of Paper and Fire), attempting to understand why I had such a hard time getting into this book. And I did: I started it and set it aside more than once to read something else. This was definitely not un-put-downable, shall we say. Reading that first review crystallized the problem for me--or rather affirmed it, since I already suspected what was up: this story is focusing on the wrong character.

In this book, just as the first, the protagonist Lei is simply not a compelling character. She is bland and unmemorable, despite the author's best efforts. She has golden eyes, she looks for the best in people, she is the Moonchosen, blah blah. None of this makes her stand out. On the other hand, every time her lover Wren Hanno, the white-eyed warrior sorceress, comes on the page, the entire book snaps to attention. Wren, ruthless and conflicted and driven by guilt, indoctrinated from the time she was born by her father's hatred for the Demon King, willing to sacrifice everything, including her friends and any sense of right and wrong, to achieve her goal. She and her father make quite the pair, the former murdering the daughter of an ally to prevent the girl from spoiling a fragile new treaty, the latter faking raids by the King to anger the populace into rebelling. No, she's not a nice and/or noble character, but she's far more interesting than Lei. Once I realized why my attention was flagging, I wished the entire book had been rewritten from Wren's point of view.

(And don't tell me narrating an entire story from the viewpoint of an anti-hero at best, dipping into an outright villain more than half the time, can't work. One of the best examples of this is R.F. Kuang's outstanding novels, The Poppy War and The Dragon Republic. To be sure, Kuang is a better writer than Ngan. But Kuang does not flinch from exploring the depths of her lead character, Rin, in all her grimness and nastiness, and in the process makes Rin's story one you can't turn away from. Perhaps the publishers of Ngan's trilogy aren't willing to offer up what would be a thoroughly grimdark tale, if Wren was let loose in these pages. But I think it would make for a better book.)

Due to all this, the book feels like a sloppily written placeholder, marking time until the final volume of the trilogy. Right now, all that would save this series for me is if the third book turns out to be Wren's story. Otherwise, I'm checking out of it.

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Review: Ship of Smoke and Steel

Ship of Smoke and Steel by Django Wexler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the first book of Django Wexler's I've read, and his first foray into YA, according to the author's afterward. It impressed me enough that I'll probably start looking for his other books, at least when I finish with this series.

The main thing that impressed me about this book is the worldbuilding. The magic system--nine separate Wells of magical power, each with its distinct abilities and limitations--is interesting and well thought out. In a lot of ways, this seems to be a partially rebuilt post-apocalyptic world. There are stories of the ancients, an abandoned island dubbed the Vile Rot (which also spawned the society's curse word of choice; their "rot" and "rotting" is the equivalent of our "fuck" and "fucking") which seems to engender genetic mutations (although I'm not at all sure the beings called the "angels" aren't some sort of robots or cyborgs), and the most fascinating artifact of all, an enormous, spirit-magic-powered ship called the Soliton. The more I read about this ship, with its endless levels and ecosystems and habitats, the more I thought it sounded like an ancient generation ship that was somehow brought to the planet's surface. Which probably won't turn out to be the case; this world seems to be fully on the fantasy rather than the SF side. But it's the sort of rigid, rules-based fantasy that is just my jam.

The characters, particularly our cunning, ruthless protagonist Isoka who gains a bit of a conscience over the course of the story, are also well thought out. Isoka's love interest, the princess Meroe, has a fully-fleshed-out backstory that makes the reader see why she and Isoka would fall for each other. Most of the secondary characters are memorable. The only reason I'm giving this four stars instead of five is that the first few chapters, opening in Isoka's home town of Kahnzoka, are a bit predictable and cliched. The older sibling sacrificing and doing all sorts of not-so-good things to give the innocent younger sister a sheltered, privileged upbringing is not, shall we say, a fresh plot point. But once Isoka is aboard the Soliton, the story hits its stride and doesn't let up.

To me, the worldbuilding alone makes this book worth the read. But the characters are close behind (once you get past the first few chapters). I've already bought the second book--waiting patiently on my ever-expanding TBR pile--and I will seek out the third when it arrives.

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It's Hugo Time! Short Stories

I've decided on three classifications to use as I read through the nominees. These will be as follows: 1) Sorry, No; 2) Knocking On the Door; and 3) We Have a Winnah! I'm not going to provide rankings at this time. Most years, unless I think there's a single standout, whatever gets slotted into #3 changes its ranking daily. That will be especially true of Best Novel this year, I think.

(I'm starting now because I just received word that my state might not end its lockdown till the first week of June, which means the library may not open up till then. I don't know about y'all, but I personally cannot read 15 books in four weeks [the number I have on hold]. I'm hoping we'll receive the Voters' Packet before then, which will help.)

All of these stories are available to read online.

Sorry, No

"Blood Is Another Word for Hunger," Rivers Solomon

I don't know if I didn't really understand this story or couldn't relate to the characters, but it pretty much left me cold. I'm also not fond of the idea that murder = birth.

"A Catalog of Storms," Fran Wilde 

This was more "meh" than anything else. I tried to read it before, stopped halfway through, and remembered nothing. The second, complete read didn't leave any deeper impression. 

Knocking On the Door

"Ten Excerpts From an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island," Nibedita Sen

It took a couple of reads for me to realize what this story was doing. When I finally got it, I thought the concept was clever (if a bit gory). I prefer an actual plot and characters though, not footnotes.

We Have a Winnah! 

"As the Last I May Know," S.L. Huang

In one way, this story is the most idea-centered of the six: the central idea being if a leader will sacrifice a single life--the young girl whose body is implanted with the launch codes--to use the horrifying weapons he thinks are needed to save his country in a war (called "sere" in the story, but of course that's a synonym for "nukes"). But the idea would be useless without characters to bring it to life, and the characters in this story are spot-on. There are also hard ethical questions here, questions with no easy answers or indeed any answers at all, and the story does not flinch when it tackles them. 

"Do Not Look Back, My Lion," Alix E. Harrow 

I read this again, and damn. This is another story of war, fantasy rather than science fiction, and a different society where the women ride to war and the men wait at home. But the themes are similar, with the healer rebelling against the yoke of "the great wolf of war padding through the streets, howling its glee," and the healer's wife, the revered Lion of the city of Xot, finally realizing that her Emperor will feed the wolf of war "until there is no good thing left." The prose is simple and beautiful.

"And Now His Lordship is Laughing," Shiv Ramdas

This is a story of colonization, magic and revenge, set in India during World War II, when the natives were starved by their British colonizers taking their rice to give to the war effort. It's stark and brutal, with a violent ending that is earned. (I sometimes wonder how English people live with their country's history of conquest and colonization. It's just as bad as the US history of slavery and genocide.)

Looking at these stories as a group, I see that overall, they're pretty grim. This does not surprise me, given the state of the world. All we can do is hope next year will be better (and in the States, work to defeat the orange monster). 

Review: The Last Emperox

The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the final book in the Interdependency Saga, and I think it's the best. All the storylines are wrapped up and Scalzi took the characters in a direction I didn't expect. As is typical for this author, this is a breezy, fast-paced book. His usual authorial meta-snarkiness is present, especially in the first few chapters (although it's not as bad as the first book, The Collapsing Empire, where for the life of me I could not figure out why he dragged the prologue to a sudden awkward halt to explain this universe's faster-than-light transportation system called the Flow, only to do it again in a better and more natural manner in one of the subsequent chapters), but that thankfully mutes itself as the story progresses. Scalzi's trademark humor is still here, especially in Kiva Lagos' chapters, and several times I laughed out loud. Kiva's best chapter was chapter 18, where by just being her blunt, foul-mouthed self, she talked an entire ship's crew into mutinying for her.

I think all the characters were treated better this time around. John Scalzi has never struck me as being outstanding in his characterizations--they're relatable, certainly, and adequate for the story's purpose, but he doesn't go for the depth of character that, say, an N.K. Jemisin does. But this book has several surprising and poignant moments for the three main characters, and a couple of the supporting ones as well. I did not expect one character in particular to end up where she did, and her storyline was an effective exploration of the book's themes of sacrifice and the weight of leadership.

Plot-wise, all the threads laid down in the first two books were resolved, and there were a couple of revelations that, looking back, seem inevitable. This trilogy is done, and satisfyingly so, but the universe in general would be fun to re-visit if the author ever chooses to.

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Review: Finna

Finna by Nino Cipri
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some stories just aren't novel length. This is why I've been so pleased with the recent resurgence of the novella, as it allows for better worldbuilding and characterization than a short story, but isn't a doorstopper that takes a few days to finish. This story seems just right for a novella, and though it ends in a way that allows for a sequel, it does have a sense of completion to it. The immediate problem has been solved, the characters have grown, and the indicated (and hopefully forthcoming) sequel will take both characters and storyline in a new direction.

This is the story of Ava and Jules, two former lovers who work at a big box store called LitenVarld, which is Sweden's (fictional?) equivalent to Walmart. One morning just a week after they broke up, Ava arrives at work and is roped into looking for a customer's grandmother, who seems to have vanished amid the endless showrooms. She's paired up (rather unwillingly) with Jules. During their search they discover the grandmother has stepped through one of the wormholes that spontaneously open up in LitenVarld's stores, and is lost in an alternate world...and both Ava and Jules are ordered to go after her, or lose their jobs.

(In fact, LitenVarld has a corporate video dedicated to this phenomenon, and a machine called FINNA that will track and find the errant customer--or an alt-universe replacement if said customer is dead. This is presented with such a dry matter-of-factness that it becomes believable. If you've ever worked at a Walmart or some other giant soul-sucking establishment, you know they would be quite capable of sending their employees into danger, without any overtime or hazard pay unless they stay in the multiverse longer than eighty hours, because, as Ava's boss says, "Customers always come first.")

So Ava and Jules set off, and while the three alternate universes they journey through are interesting in and of themselves, the real meat of the story is their characterization. They're finding their way back from bruised and broken lovers to being friends. Jules is a restless wanderer, and they decide to stay in one of the alternate worlds, fighting retail zombie clones who have followed them from one world to another and give Ava and the replacement grandmother a chance to escape. Ava is an anxious, confused young woman who works through the tangle of emotions over Jules following their breakup, and at the end returns to the world where she was forced to leave Jules behind, looking for them. (She also has the courage to quit LitenVarld, where she didn't before.)

This is a quiet, thoughtful sort of story, but it makes its points well, and it definitely grew on me. I hope there's a sequel, as I would love to see what Ava and Jules do next.

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Today's Poem

This is a sneakily SF poem. If you read down, you’ll see the whale is a steampunk-ish clockwork sort.

Also highly apropos for our times, needless to say.

Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale

Dan Albergotti

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.
Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires
with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals.
Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.
Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way
for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review
each of your life’s ten million choices. Endure moments
of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you.
Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound
of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart.
Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope,
where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all
the things you did and could have done. Remember
treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes
pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.

From the April-Is Tumblr.

Review: Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland

Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland by Jonathan M. Metzl
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Whenever I read a non-fiction book, I look first and foremost for (a) expertise on the subject; and (b) facts and figures to back up the assertions in the book. This is a given, obviously. However, next in line is (c) writing style, because with non-fiction, if the author isn't careful, they will wander into the weeds of their facts and figures and never come out again. It's good to be careful and meticulous about your subject, but you also need a clear, accessible writing style, and a sense of humor never hurts. One of my favorite non-fiction books is Dinosaurs Without Bones: Dinosaur Lives as Revealed By Their Trace Fossils, by Anthony J. Martin, which takes a complex and odd subset of dinosaur study (trace fossils, which includes such things as fossilized feces, urine and vomit) and makes it funny.

In one way, I suppose, that's comparing apples and oranges. Martin's book dealt with the far distant past, and Metzl's book deals with the here and now; and more importantly, with the white Americans who are, as he says, literally killing themselves with their racial resentment. Metzl certainly does his subject justice, breaking it down into three categories with accompanying examples: Missouri for gun injuries and deaths, Tennessee for health care, and Kansas for schools and a disastrous conservative-fueled economic "experiment." These larger categories have overlapping and interlocking subsets, and many of those, as Metzl demonstrates, trace back to "particular histories of race and place in America." From page 14:

For nearly two centuries, gun ownership was a privilege afforded mainly to white citizens in states such as Missouri, and guns became particular symbols as a result. Health insurance similarly represented a privilege afforded only to whites in many Southern states: through the antebellum period, insurers covered black bodies as property. Kansas became a national flashpoint for the limits of "separate but equal" public education, leading to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court decision in 1954.

(As with so many things in this country, peel away the thin, hard-won veneer of civilization and the original sin of white supremacy is right there, clamoring to be heard once again.)

The author lays out his research and conclusions in great detail, including many graphs and charts to make his points. All well and good, and no doubt necessary, given the conservatives who will inevitably pooh-pooh his conclusions. Still, I wish he could have taken a little bit lighter tone in the overall writing. Not to make fun of the subject or the people he's talking about--and I grant it would be a perilous tightrope to walk, trying to introduce a bit of humor without coming across as condescending--but the serious, almost stodgy writing style made for some hard going at times.

(Also, I don't know how the author kept his mouth shut during some of the interviews. He must have been biting his tongue the entire time. In a couple of them, I wanted to jump up and yell, "Are you even LISTENING to yourself?" My eyes would surely have popped out of my head, I would have been rolling them so hard. Especially the quote on page 264, from a Kansas City parent [after acknowledging that Trump's proposed policies were the very things this person called Kansas governor Sam Brownback a "total disaster" for implementing]: "My husband and his brother, and my nephew and all of his friends, are gonna support Trump no matter what he does. It's not all that much about his policies or anything. They just feel like, as white men in America, their voice wasn't being heard. Trump gave them their voice back." Gawd Almighty.)

This is an important book, no doubt. And given its subject matter, it had to be impeccably researched and documented. I just prefer a bit of lightness to my non-fiction, and while I can't blame the author for taking the tone he did, that lightness was nowhere to be found here.

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Today's Poem, for National Poetry Month

A great many things happening in today's world didn't have to happen. 🤬 Here are a few of them.

Day Beginning with Seeing the International Space Station And a Full Moon Over the Gulf of Mexico and All its Invisible Fishes

Jane Hirshfield

None of this had to happen.
Not Florida. Not the ibis’s beak. Not water.
Not the horseshoe crab’s empty body and not the living starfish.
Evolution might have turned left at the corner and gone down another street entirely.
The asteroid might have missed.
The seams of limestone need not have been susceptible to sand and mangroves.
The radio might have found a different music.
The hips of one man and the hips of another might have stood beside
each other on a bus in Aleppo and recognized themselves as long-lost brothers.
The key could have broken off in the lock and the nail-can refused its lid.
I might have been the fish the brown pelican swallowed.
You might have been the way the moon kept not setting long after we thought it would,
long after the sun was catching inside the low wave curls coming in
at a certain angle. The light might not have been eaten again by its moving.
If the unbearable were not weightless we might yet buckle under the grief
of what hasn’t changed yet. Across the world a man pulls a woman from the water
from which the leapt-from overfilled boat has entirely vanished.
From the water pulls one child, another. Both are living and both will continue to live.
This did not have to happen. No part of this had to happen.

From the April-Is Tumblr.

It's Hugo Time!

Yes, most of us are hunkered down at home, but in varying degrees the world goes on. CoNZealand, the home of this year's Worldcon, just announced the nominees for the 2020 Hugos.

I was surprised to find I've already read and watched a goodly percentage of this ballot. This is a good thing, as my library is closed and I've no idea when it will reopen. As it is, I went on the website and put 15 books on hold, so when it opens--I'm crossing my fingers at the end of this month--I can take my wheelbarrow down there, load up, and get started. I'm guessing the voting deadline will probably be around the first or second week of July, which will give me just enough time to squeeze it all in.

(Yes, I could borrow ebooks of all these. However, I don't have a portable e-reader, and I cannot see myself sitting at my desk and reading 15 books on my desktop. And please no, I'm not about to attempt reading a 600-page behemoth like one of the Expanse novels on my phone.)

At any rate, here are the nominees, with my initial impressions and comments. Asterisks indicate those I've already read/seen.

Best Novel

*The City in the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor; Titan)
Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing)
*The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley (Saga; Angry Robot UK)
*A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine (Tor; Tor UK)
Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)
*The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow (Redhook; Orbit UK)

(Three of these were on my own ballot, albeit I put the Harrow in the Lodestar slot, as I personally thought it felt more like a YA novel. I know the author disagrees. So I've read four out of the six, with the Anders the only one I didn't like.)

Best Novella

*“Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom”, by Ted Chiang (Exhalation (Borzoi/Alfred A. Knopf; Picador)
*The Deep, by Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes (Saga Press/Gallery)
*The Haunting of Tram Car 015, by P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com Publishing)
In an Absent Dream, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)
*This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (Saga Press; Jo Fletcher Books)
To Be Taught, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager; Hodder & Stoughton)

(Again, I've read four of the six, although the Solomon was the only one on my ballot. I have the McGuire, but I just didn't get around to reading it. The Chiang and Clark I liked but didn't love, and I wasn't overly fond of the El-Mohtar/Gladstone. I haven't been swept away by Chambers' work to date either, so this is one category I'm not too enthused about.)

Best Novelette

“The Archronology of Love”, by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed, April 2019)
*“Away With the Wolves”, by Sarah Gailey (Uncanny Magazine: Disabled People Destroy Fantasy Special Issue, September/October 2019)
*“The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye”, by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny Magazine, July-August 2019)
*"Emergency Skin," by N.K. Jemisin (Forward Collection (Amazon))
“For He Can Creep”, by Siobhan Carroll (Tor.com, 10 July 2019)
*“Omphalos”, by Ted Chiang (Exhalation (Borzoi/Alfred A. Knopf; Picador)

(Read four of these, and nominated the Gailey. I remember nothing of the Pinsker, so evidently it didn't impress me. I liked this story of Ted Chiang's better than the novella.)

Best Short Story

*“And Now His Lordship Is Laughing”, by Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons, 9 September 2019)
“As the Last I May Know”, by S.L. Huang (Tor.com, 23 October 2019)
“Blood Is Another Word for Hunger”, by Rivers Solomon (Tor.com, 24 July 2019)
“A Catalog of Storms”, by Fran Wilde (Uncanny Magazine, January/February 2019)
*“Do Not Look Back, My Lion”, by Alix E. Harrow (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, January 2019)
*“Ten Excerpts from an Annotated Bibliography on the Cannibal Women of Ratnabar Island”, by Nibedita Sen (Nightmare Magazine, May 2019)

(Read three of these and nominated two. I didn't care for the Wilde--started to read it and didn't finish. The Sen story, for me, didn't quite measure up to a couple of the others, but I can see why she made the Astounding ballot.)

Best Series

The Expanse, by James S. A. Corey (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
*InCryptid, by Seanan McGuire (DAW)
Luna, by Ian McDonald (Tor; Gollancz)
*Planetfall series, by Emma Newman (Ace; Gollancz)
*Winternight Trilogy, by Katherine Arden (Del Rey; Del Rey UK)
The Wormwood Trilogy, by Tade Thompson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

(Ooo, here's the doorstoppers. Three of them were on my ballot. I've read the early Expanse novels, but not the latest. And I rather wish it hadn't made the ballot this time around anyway, as the final book will come out--later this year, I believe?--and it won't be eligible for next year.)

Best Related Work

*Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood, by J. Michael Straczynski (Harper Voyager US)
Joanna Russ, by Gwyneth Jones (University of Illinois Press (Modern Masters of Science Fiction))
*The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick, by Mallory O’Meara (Hanover Square)
The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein, by Farah Mendlesohn (Unbound)
*“2019 John W. Campbell Award Acceptance Speech”, by Jeannette Ng
*Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, produced and directed by Arwen Curry

(Three of these were on my ballot. I hope the Worldcon committee can get some good excerpts of the other two books, as they're nowhere to be found in my library. I watched Jeannette Ng's acceptance speech, of course, and while it brought about some much-needed change, it's a pretty odd duck to wind up on the ballot. I mean, I'm not going to argue with the will of the nominators, but I don't think it really belongs here.)

Best Graphic Story or Comic

Die, Volume 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker, by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans, letters by Clayton Cowles (Image)
LaGuardia, written by Nnedi Okorafor, art by Tana Ford, colours by James Devlin (Berger Books; Dark Horse)
*Monstress, Volume 4: The Chosen, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda (Image)
Mooncakes, by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker, letters by Joamette Gil (Oni Press; Lion Forge)
*Paper Girls, Volume 6, written by Brian K. Vaughan, drawn by Cliff Chiang, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Jared K. Fletcher (Image)
The Wicked + The Divine, Volume 9: “Okay”, by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Clayton Cowles (Image)

(Two of these were on my ballot. Some of the rest I've never heard of, although I did manage to score "Mooncakes" from my library. Somewhat of a surprise that nothing from DC or Marvel made it.)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

*Avengers: Endgame, screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo (Marvel Studios)
*Captain Marvel, screenplay by Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Walt Disney Pictures/Marvel Studios/Animal Logic (Australia))
*Good Omens, written by Neil Gaiman, directed by Douglas Mackinnon (Amazon Studios/BBC Studios/Narrativia/The Blank Corporation)
Russian Doll (Season One), created by Natasha Lyonne, Leslye Headland and Amy Poehler, directed by Leslye Headland, Jamie Babbit and Natasha Lyonne (3 Arts Entertainment/Jax Media/Netflix/Paper Kite Productions/Universal Television)
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, screenplay by Chris Terrio and J.J. Abrams, directed by J.J. Abrams (Walt Disney Pictures/Lucasfilm/Bad Robot)
*Us, written and directed by Jordan Peele (Monkeypaw Productions/Universal Pictures)

(Three of these were on my ballot, although I only nominated an episode of Good Omens as opposed to the whole thing. I skipped seeing The Rise of Skywalker because I read how much JJ Abrams walked back/undermined what Rian Johnson did in The Last Jedi, which I really liked. I suppose I'll have to watch it now. I already know I'm not going to rank Endgame highly; it had its moments, but it was mainly an overstuffed mess, and I hated what they did to Natasha. I've heard various things about Russian Doll, but I somehow missed watching any of it.)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

The Good Place: “The Answer”, written by Daniel Schofield, directed by Valeria Migliassi Collins (Fremulon/3 Arts Entertainment/Universal Television)
*The Expanse: “Cibola Burn”, written by Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck and Naren Shankar, directed by Breck Eisner (Amazon Prime Video)
*Watchmen: “A God Walks into Abar”, written by Jeff Jensen and Damon Lindelof, directed by Nicole Kassell (HBO)
*The Mandalorian: “Redemption”, written by Jon Favreau, directed by Taika Waititi (Disney+)
Doctor Who: “Resolution”, written by Chris Chibnall, directed by Wayne Yip (BBC)
*Watchmen: “This Extraordinary Being”, written by Damon Lindelof and Cord Jefferson, directed by Stephen Williams (HBO)

(Two and a half of these were on my ballot: I nominated episode 9 of The Expanse, "Saeculum," which I thought was a stronger episode than the finale. And ugh, I guess I'm going to have to force myself to sit through another episode of The Good Place. I'm sorry, but I cannot understand my fellow nominators' endless fascination with that mess.)

Best Editor, Short Form

Neil Clarke
Ellen Datlow
C.C. Finlay
Jonathan Strahan
Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas
Sheila Williams

Best Editor, Long Form

Sheila E. Gilbert
Brit Hvide
Diana M. Pho
Devi Pillai
Miriam Weinberg
Navah Wolfe

Best Professional Artist

Tommy Arnold
Rovina Cai
Galen Dara
John Picacio
Yuko Shimizu
Alyssa Winans

Best Semiprozine

Beneath Ceaseless Skies, editor Scott H. Andrews
Escape Pod, editors Mur Lafferty and S.B. Divya, assistant editor Benjamin C. Kinney, audio producers Adam Pracht and Summer Brooks, hosts Tina Connolly and Alasdair Stuart
*Fireside Magazine, editor Julia Rios, managing editor Elsa Sjunneson, copyeditor Chelle Parker, social coordinator Meg Frank, publisher & art director Pablo Defendini, founding editor Brian White
FIYAH Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, executive editor Troy L. Wiggins, editors Eboni Dunbar, Brent Lambert, L.D. Lewis, Danny Lore, Brandon O’Brien and Kaleb Russell
*Strange Horizons, Vanessa Rose Phin, Catherine Krahe, AJ Odasso, Dan Hartland, Joyce Chng, Dante Luiz and the Strange Horizons staff
*Uncanny Magazine, editors-in-chief Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, nonfiction/managing editor Michi Trota, managing editor Chimedum Ohaegbu, podcast producers Erika Ensign and Steven Schapansky

(I subscribe to three of these magazines, and two of them were on my ballot. I didn't nominate the obvious juggernaut in the category, because I wanted to honor some smaller, less heralded semiprozines. Y'know, occasionally when people have won a lot, they recuse themselves from nominations for a year or two? Just sayin'.)

Best Fanzine

*The Book Smugglers, editors Ana Grilo and Thea James
Galactic Journey, founder Gideon Marcus, editor Janice Marcus, senior writers Rosemary Benton, Lorelei Marcus and Victoria Silverwolf
Journey Planet, editors James Bacon, Christopher J Garcia, Alissa McKersie, Ann Gry, Chuck Serface, John Coxon and Steven H Silver
*nerds of a feather, flock together, editors Adri Joy, Joe Sherry, Vance Kotrla, and The G
Quick Sip Reviews, editor Charles Payseur
The Rec Center, editors Elizabeth Minkel and Gavia Baker-Whitelaw

(One of these was on my ballot. The Rec Center is a completely new name to me. It's nice to see a bit of a break from the usual suspects.)

Best Fancast

Be The Serpent, presented by Alexandra Rowland, Freya Marske and Jennifer Mace
Claire Rousseau’s YouTube channel, produced & presented by Claire Rousseau
The Coode Street Podcast, presented by Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
Galactic Suburbia, presented by Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce and Tansy Rayner Roberts, producer Andrew Finch
Our Opinions Are Correct, presented by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders
The Skiffy and Fanty Show, presented by Jen Zink and Shaun Duke

(Not much into podcasts, unfortunately, although I will check the YouTube channel out.)

Best Fan Writer

*Cora Buhlert
*James Davis Nicoll
Alasdair Stuart
Bogi Takács
*Paul Weimer
Adam Whitehead

(In this list, I'm really happy for Cora and Paul. I'd never heard of Adam Whitehead, but now I've subscribed to his blog.)

Best Fan Artist

Iain Clark
Sara Felix
Grace P. Fong
Meg Frank
Ariela Housman
Elise Matthesen

Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book (not a Hugo)

*Catfishing on CatNet, by Naomi Kritzer (Tor Teen)
Deeplight, by Frances Hardinge (Macmillan)
*Dragon Pearl, by Yoon Ha Lee (Disney/Hyperion)
Minor Mage, by T. Kingfisher (Argyll)
Riverland, by Fran Wilde (Amulet)
The Wicked King, by Holly Black (Little, Brown; Hot Key)

(I flat made a mistake with this category, as I forgot to include the Lee until it was too late. Fortunately, it showed up anyway.)

Astounding Award for Best New Writer, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo)

Sam Hawke (2nd year of eligibility)
*R.F. Kuang (2nd year of eligibility)
Jenn Lyons (1st year of eligibility)
*Nibedita Sen (2nd year of eligibility)
Tasha Suri (2nd year of eligibility)
Emily Tesh (1st year of eligibility)

(R.F. Kuang's second novel, The Dragon Republic, made my Best Novel list, and I also nominated her here. To me, she stands head and shoulders above the rest.)

So since I can't get to my library holds just yet, I plan to start reading and ranking the shorter stuff. I'm wondering if the voters' packet might be late this year, understandably, with the con committee dealing with both the New Zealand lockdown and the fact that they're going to hold a virtual con instead of a physical one. I'm sure they will do their best, and I think when they announce their virtual attending fees, I will upgrade. They're taking on a monumental task, and they deserve our help.

At any rate, this will give me plenty to write about, with the side effect of thinking about something other than what's going on in the world. (I'm actually still working my regular job--VA personnel are considered "essential," and I'm fortunate enough to be in an isolated building where only the relatively small number of regular employees/supervisors are allowed in. We all disinfect our desks and wash our hands constantly. So far, cross my fingers, I'm not sick. I'm very aware of how privileged I am, and how much other people and places are hurting.) We will get through this, folks, and good books and better people are one way everyone will stay sane.

Review: The Unkindest Tide

The Unkindest Tide by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the thirteenth book in the October Daye series, and it is still going strong. One thing that stands out to me is McGuire's trademark of playing the long game--plot threads laid down in the earlier books are still coming to fruition. One in particular, forming the story of this book, is the long-delayed promise by the Luidaeg to call in the debts of the Selkies, a debt from long ago when their ancestors killed her children. She has delayed that promise as long as she can, the debt has come due, and she requires Toby's help.

This is something of a detective story, as Toby has to hunt down the person who tries to stand in the way of her fulfilling this promise. It's also a bit of a thriller, as she has to find a way to carry out what is expected of her that doesn't involve the sacrifice of the Selkies, which now include her own daughter, Gilly. Along the way, we get more insight into the Luidaeg, who is one of my favorite characters in the October Daye universe. We also get a glimpse of another facet of Faerie. I did get more than a bit perturbed at Gilly; she should know by now that the Fae, with rare exceptions, are not all that nice, and expecting them to be other than they are is an exercise in futility. She needs to grow up.

This story is not quite as bloody as many October Daye adventures, but it is still intense. The ending is another gamechanger for the series, perhaps not as monumental as a few books back, but still important. It's going to be interesting to see what the author does with the series going forward.

View all my reviews

Streamin' Meemies: Star Trek: Picard Season 1 Ep 10, "Et in Arcadia Ego Part 2"

And so we are at the end. I will start by saying that while I think the first season was (mostly) successful, the final episode was definitely a mixed bag. I think this episode laid bare showrunner Michael Chabon's flaws: while he is good with characterization and dialogue, he came up short on the plot end of the stick, at least for me. There were too many dropped and/or glossed over plot threads to make this conclusion successful. I hope some of these things will be dealt with in the second season. We shall see.

This episode foregoes the usual flashback and plunges right into the action: the downed Borg cube, sitting at the edge of a lake on Coppelius. (The bloody thing must weigh millions of tons--it's a wonder it didn't just punch a hole in the planet's crust.) We are given a sweet little scene of Elnor talking to Seven of Nine, asking her if the Ex-Borgs would be better off dead, given how the Romulans and the rest of the galaxy feels about them. Seven responds by asking him if she would be better off dead, if she should just put a phaser to her head and end it. Elnor says no, in his typical absolute candor-iffic fashion: "I'd miss you."

(And this is the first of my list of frustrations with the season as a whole. Elnor is a fascinating character, and they did almost nothing with him! Argh.)

We then switch between two scenes of Narek finding Narissa onboard the cube (I guess she didn't beam out to one of her ships when the Ex-B's piled on her in episode 8, "Broken Pieces," after all), and Soji coming to see Picard in house arrest. It occurred to me, watching this, that this is another hallmark of the series--intercutting two talky, exposition-heavy scenes with each other so the audience doesn't get bored. This editing trick has varying degrees of success--its best use was in the series' second episode, "Maps and Legends," with two scenes of Picard and the sorely missed Laris and Zhaban. In this case, we cut between the darkness of the downed cube and Narek and Narissa, and Picard in house arrest seeing the engineered Coppelian butterflies (which will be referenced later). Picard is still attempting to talk Soji out of activating the (apparently nanotech-based, self-building) beacon, and Narek is gathering some high-falutin', technobabbly grenades to use on the synth settlement. He also argues with Narissa, calling himself "the Zhat Vash washout who found Seb Cheneb" [the Destroyer]. He takes the grenades and leaves, followed by Elnor, and Agnes stands at the base of the beacon, watching as it goes up.

Aboard La Sirena, Rios and Raffi use the Magic Synthian Thingamajig given them in Part 1 to fix the broken intermix reactor and restore power, after which they are interrupted by Narek throwing rocks at the ship. He has had a change of heart after realizing Sutra intends to call down the Synthzillas on the galaxy's organic life. In all seriousness, actor Harry Treadaway gives a better performance in this episode than he has in all the episodes preceding, especially when the four of them (including Elnor, who has caught up with the rest), sit around the campfire and Narek relates the myth of Ganmadan, the Romulan equivalent of Ragnarok. If you remember, Narek and Narissa were raised by their aunt Ramdha, whose grasp on sanity after experiencing the psychic transmission of the Admonition was....tentative, to say the least. This last episode did a lot to expand Narek as a character, which is why (2nd on my list of frustrations), he simply vanishes during the climax, and Picard and Co. take off without a word said about him.

The four of them cook up a scheme to return to the settlement on the pretext of bringing in the Romulan traitor and turning him over to the synths. They hide one of Narek's grenades inside Rios' soccer ball. In the meantime, Agnes, who has been pretending to work with Altan Soong, distracts him while he is preparing to download the dead synth's memories and yank out one of the body's eyeballs, to use to scan at Picard's cell and gain entrance. (I swear, this series and eyes....) They make their way to La Sirena and Picard demonstrates how well he was watching Rios (apparently Rios and Raffi didn't get the Emergency Navigator up and running, which is my 3rd plot hole--a single line of dialogue would have taken care of this) when he manages to fire up the ship and get it on its way, in an attempt to stall the incoming Romulan fleet until the Federation gets there and/or he manages to talk Soji down. He's aided a bit in the "stalling" part when Altan Soong finishes downloading the dead synth's memories and realizes Sutra was the one that killed her, not Narek. This is enough to convince him that maybe, possibly, that beacon/portal shouldn't be activated after all, since his synths are no better than organics (apparently the idea of the Synthzillas destroying all organic life wasn't quite enough to change his mind), and he confronts Sutra and waves another Advanced Synthian Thingummy at her, shutting her off. (While Soji continues with her activation, but since she's a more advanced model than the golden-skinned, yellow-eyed Sutra, the Thingummy won't work on her, evidently. Though--#4--it would have been nice to have a quick aside of dialogue explaining this.) In the confusion, Rios charges forward, opens up his soccer ball, and hurls the activated grenade at the tower, and Soji catches it and throws it into the sky where it explodes.

Above the planet, the Romulan fleet pops in, and General Oh prepares to execute "Planetary Sterilization Pattern #5." Soji sends the giant orchids up, and there is a extremely CGI'd space battle with La Sirena swooping in and out of the orchids while they're being ripped to shreds. The orchids don't last too long, and Picard and Agnes cook up Stalling Tactic #2, which is a ripoff of the "Picard maneuver"--the one with the Stargazer, not the Captain's pulling down his tunic--mated with the Advanced Synthian Thingamajig, which projects an illusion of hundreds of La Sirenas, complete with warp signatures. (Apparently the disguised Commodore Oh missed reading about this maneuver during her Starfleet Security studies? #5 on my list.)

(Oh, and in another somewhat jarring intercut sequence, Narissa is attempting to get the downed cube's weapons systems on line, and Seven finds her. They fight, and Seven, with a magnificent snarl, says "This is for Hugh," as she drop-kicks Narissa down one of those endless, guard-rail-lacking Artifact chasms. Though we don't see Narissa hitting the bottom or a body, just in case they want to bring her back later.)

Back in space, the Synthian Thingamajig fakeout lasts just long enough for the Federation fleet to pop in, led by none other than Will Riker, who requested temporary reassignment once he learned of Picard's distress call. He tries to talk Oh down, but seeing as right at that moment Soji succeeds in opening the portal and some gigantic black metal Lovecraftian tentacles begin to slither through, Oh is preparing to fire anyway. Of course, this sets things up for one final stirring Picard-ian speech, of the type Sir Patrick Stewart does so well (and it's final in more ways than one, as Picard's brain abnormality has flared up and Agnes has to give him a shot of something to even enable him to talk). He manages to convince Soji to stand down and she closes the portal (#6--the mighty Synthzillas, responding to the call for help they encouraged fellow synths in peril to make, can't keep it open on their end?). At this Oh decides to beat a strategic retreat and Riker escorts the Romulans away, leaving the planet "in your [Picard's] capable hands," not knowing Picard is dying, as neither Picard nor Agnes says anything. (#7--Riker doesn't leave a few ships behind just in case the Romulans, notorious for being sneaky after all, don't double back? He doesn't even leave a ship to initiate First Contact and open diplomatic discussions?)

Soji disables the settlement's transporter block and beams Picard and Agnes directly down, but it's too late. Sir Patrick Stewart gets to do a death scene, which apparently actors love to do. Only he comes to sitting in a quiet library--and Data is there, or the remnant of Data from his downloaded memories into B4 and his one preserved positronic neuron, where he has been in stasis ever since the events of the final Next Generation film, Nemesis.

Thus Star Trek: Picard comes full circle from the first scene, as we have seen that Picard has been haunted by the android's death for twenty years. This was evidently done to give Data the sendoff he was denied in Nemesis. Data reveals that he is residing in a "sophisticated quantum simulation," and while everything around him is simulated, Picard is not--before his final brain death, Soji, Agnes and Altan Soong succeeded in downloading Picard's neural map into Altan's golem, and his new body is awaiting him. Data just has one favor to ask before Picard goes: he requests Picard turn off the simulation so he can experience the final step in his quest to become human, a human death.

#8 plot hole: This is a beautifully acted scene, but it's a bit of a crock. They can't create another golem and give Data another synth body, like they're doing with Picard? True, many of his memories would be missing, but what is remaining wouldn't be enough for him to function? Also, I'm sorry, I don't agree with the lovely philosophical bullshit Data is spouting--"Mortality gives meaning to human life," and (remember the synthetic butterflies) "A butterfly that lives forever is really not a butterfly at all." Brent Spiner certainly sells it, and of course he is too old to keep playing Data anyway. Still, the Data I remember from Next Gen (and it's certainly possible my memories are being viewed through rose-colored spectacles) would want to return and continue his journey, even if he had to relearn many things.

Anyway, Picard wakes up in his brand-new synthetic body, conveniently programmed to look just like his previous 94-year-old self, except that it's minus the brain abnormality. We find out Agnes tweaked it to age in line with what Picard's old body would have done, which presumably means she and Soong now know how long he will live. Picard fulfills his promise, turning off Data's quantum simulation while "Blue Skies" plays in the background and Sir Patrick Stewart gets to oversee another death scene, complete with Shakespearean quote: "We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep." The song continues playing as Data visibly ages and his simulation fragments and falls away, and into the final scene: everyone gathered on La Sirena. Agnes is kissing Rios, Seven and Raffi are holding hands (Elnor has two mommies!), and Soji is coming along with them. Then Rios brings the ship's engines online, and Picard gets to utter his trademark "Engage!" as the credits roll.

All well and good, and Data's second death was incredibly poignant. However.

#9 plot hole on my list: What the hell happened to the cube, and all the remaining Ex-Borgs, and why is Seven just running off and leaving them? What happened to Narek?

Finally, #10, the last and biggest: what will happen in Starfleet and the rest of the galaxy going forward, given the fact that OH HAI Y'ALL JUST INVENTED IMMORTALITY?? I mean, think about it. Altan Soong and Agnes Jurati have now successfully integrated a dying human mind into an android body, with apparent full transfer of memories and consciousness, evidently accomplished on the quantum level. Picard specifically asked if they had made him immortal, and they said no--which means they could have. If this ever gets out, can you imagine the immediate stampede to that planet? People suffering from terminal illnesses, parents trying to rescue their dying children, old people looking for a new (young) body, politicians and crime bosses seeking to extend their power, and just about every other mortal sentient being who doesn't want to say goodbye just yet? Talk about opening a Pandora's box of galaxy-wide proportions.

Furthermore, in a related aside: We find out the ban on synths is repealed in a throwaway comment by Soji? Really? After fourteen years of an isolated, xenophobic Federation that Picard ended up quitting Starfleet over?

Sorry. Nope nope nope. I loved what Michael Chabon did with the characters, and the cast is excellent, but in terms of plot threads, he crashed nearly all of his desperately spinning plates in this final episode. I really hope they tackle some of these things in Season 2, or I will be a wee bit ticked off. Maybe Guinan's return (confirmed for Season 2 by Stewart himself) will screw Picard's synthetic head on straight.

Best episodes of Season 1: Ep 6, "The Impossible Box," Ep 8, "Broken Pieces," and Ep 2, "Maps and Legends."

Worst: Ep 10, "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2."

May You Live In....

The ancient Chinese 20th century Western curse is definitely the theme of this year's National Poetry Month.

April 4, 2020: Interesting Times, Mark Jarman

Interesting Times

Mark Jarman

Everything’s happening on the cusp of tragedy, the tip of comedy, the pivot of event.

You want a placid life, find another planet. This one is occupied with the story’s arc:

About to happen, on the verge, horizontal. You want another planet, try the moon.

Try any of the eight, try Planet X. It’s out there somewhere, black with serenity.

How interesting will our times become? How much more interesting can they become?

A crow with something dangling from its beak flaps onto a telephone pole top, daintily,

And croaks its victory to other crows and tries to keep its morsel to itself.

A limp shape, leggy, stunned, drops from the black beak’s scissors like a rag.

We drive past, commenting, and looking upward. A sunny morning, too cold to be nesting,

Unless that is a nest the crow has seized, against the coming spring.

We’ve been at this historical site before, but not in any history we remember.

The present has been cloaked in cloud before, and not on any holy mountaintop.

To know the stars will one day fly apart so far they can’t be seen

Is almost a relief. For the future flies in one direction—toward us.

And the only way to sidestep it—the only way—is headed this way, too.

So, look. That woman’s got a child by the hand. She’s dragging him across the street.

He’s crying and she’s shouting, but we see only dumbshow. Their breath is smoke.

Will she give in and comfort him? Will he concede at last? We do not know.

Their words are smoke. In a minute they’ll be somewhere else entirely.

Everyone in a minute will be somewhere else entirely. As the crow flies.

From the April-Is Tumblr.

Corona Parodies

You gotta laugh so you won't cry, right? So here's a couple of Covid parodies to (hopefully) tickle your funny bone.

With this one, one of my co-workers was singing this (not the same thing, but the chorus) more than a week ago, so it's no surprise to me that someone made a video of it.

(And by the way, I did manage to score some effing toilet paper not long ago! Go me!)

Review: Paper Girls, Vol. 6

Paper Girls, Vol. 6 by Brian K. Vaughan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the final volume of the time-traveling Paper Girls, four tweens from 1988 who inadvertently get involved in a time war that stretches from tens of thousands of years in the past to thousands of years in the future.

It's been a pretty wild ride, but this volume wraps thing up pretty well, with a final poignant little coda that leaves the reader knowing there is a future for these four, as friends (or, in the case of Mac and KJ, girlfriends). As has been the case throughout, Mac is the most interesting character, and the narrative leaves her (and the rest of the Paper Girls) in a good place. They've forgotten everything that happened--all their adventures have been wiped from their memories by the future time travelers, which in some cases included their older selves--but the basic sense of connection is still there.

Visually, the art is quite good, especially in Issue #3 where we have four storylines running at once across the width of the page. This is one of the better series of recent years, and I for one am glad the creators knew when to wind it up.

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A Poem for Our Times

April 2, 2020: The Conditional, Ada Limón

The Conditional

Ada Limón

Say tomorrow doesn’t come.

Say the moon becomes an icy pit.

Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified.

Say the sun’s a foul black tire fire.

Say the owl’s eyes are pinpricks.

Say the raccoon’s a hot tar stain.

Say the shirt’s plastic ditch-litter.

Say the kitchen’s a cow’s corpse.

Say we never get to see it: bright

future, stuck like a bum star, never

coming close, never dazzling.

Say we never meet her. Never him.

Say we spend our last moments staring

at each other, hands knotted together,

clutching the dog, watching the sky burn.

Say, It doesn’t matter. Say, That would be

enough. Say you’d still want this: us alive,

right here, feeling lucky.

From the "April Is" Tumblr.