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2017 Ardis Ardis's Lists Award Winners Books Fantasy Science Fiction

Nebula Award for Best Novel, 2018

written by Ardis

The Nebula awards 2018 will be announced tonight, at the SFWA Nebula Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. Over the past few months, I’ve been working to read and review all of the nominees in the Best Novel category. As theVerge.com describes:

The Nebula Awards are issued annually by SFWA to the best works in genre novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories published in the last year, alongside the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy and the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation. The Nebulas are a sort of industry award, determined by professional authors.

Below, I’ll talk a little bit about each book as a nominee, as well as give you both my vote (which book I think should win) and my prediction (which book I think will win). Also, for each book I will include a link to my full review so you can get all caught up and (if I’ve done my job right) form your own opinions just in time for the award announcement.

May 19, 2018 0 comment

Award Winners Byron Fantasy Reviews

The Black Tides of Heaven: A Flawed Story in a Cool World (A Spoiler-Free Review)

written by Byron

The Nebula Awards will be announced May 19, 2018. The awards are given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. This post is the fifth in a series of reviews of the nominees for this year’s Nebula award for best novella. The Nebula defines a work as a novella if it is between 17,500 and 40,000 words. These are short books.

The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang is…shoot, I’m not sure how to describe it. Others have described it as silkpunk (it’s not), Asian fantasy (kind of but not really), or some sort of epic thingy (that’s not written in the style of an epic at all). I don’t usually like to provide details of an author’s created world in my reviews because authors work really hard to introduce readers to their worlds in their stories. Who am I to short circuit that introduction? At the same time, though, I want to give MY readers, friends, and followers kind of a heads up of what they’re getting into if they were to pick the book up. So, the highlights: it is an entirely fictional world, set in an entirely fictional country that has magic, and the magic fuels technology levels to more-or-less 19th century/early 20th century. There is an “Asian” flavor, but that’s confined to pretty much names and some creature/legend stuff.

Now that the description of the world is out of the way, we come to the real question…is it any good? I don’t know if it’s good or not – I’m not some gatekeeping arbiter of all that is Good and Worthy in the written world – but I do know that it is not a book that I particularly enjoyed reading. People that share my tastes would also probably not enjoy this book too much.

May 18, 2018 0 comment

2017 Ardis Award Winners Fantasy Reviews

Turn to Amberlough for easy pleasures

written by Ardis

The Nebula award will be announced May 19, 2018, at this year’s Nebula Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. Since 1965, the Nebula Awards have been given each year for the best novel, novella, novelette, and short story eligible for that year’s award. This post is the third in a series of reviews of the nominees for this year’s Nebula award for best novel. The other nominees are Jade City by Fonda Lee, Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss, The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin, Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty (which I reviewed for the Philip K. Dick award), and Autonomous by Annalee Newitz.

“Businesses on the banks of the Heyn, where it flowed behind the theatre district, were as likely to cater to pirates as to penniless aristocrats. Wealthy courtesans mingled with starving artists. The men wore jewels and the women suits and everyone else a mixture of both. The place was a magpie’s den of true gems and counterfeits, impeccable taste and outrageous lack thereof.”

Lara Elena Donnelly’s Amberlough is truly a pleasure to read. Within the first 10 pages, I was laughing with the characters, dazzled by the setting, engaged by the story. Most of all I was impressed by how easy it was to read. Despite the alien world, the complicated social and political dynamics, the strange names and stranger characters, Donnelly’s pages just flew by. Getting into this story was effortless.

May 14, 2018 4 comments

Award Winners Byron Fantasy History Reviews

Passing Strange: Not one of my favorites by the author, but still pretty damn good (A spoiler-free review)

written by Byron

The Nebula Awards will be announced May 19, 2018. The awards are given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. This post is the third in a series of reviews of the nominees for this year’s Nebula award for best novella. The Nebula defines a work as a novella if it is between 17,500 and 40,000 words. These are short books.

Passing Strange by Ellen Klages is basically historical literary fiction involving the LBGT scene of early 1940s San Francisco with a little magic thrown in here and there.

May 13, 2018 0 comment

2017 Ardis Award Winners Books Fantasy Reviews

Spoonbenders

written by Ardis

The Nebula award will be announced May 19, 2018, at this year’s Nebula Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. Since 1965, the Nebula Awards have been given each year for the best novel, novella, novelette, and short story eligible for that year’s award. This post is the second in a series of reviews of the nominees for this year’s Nebula award for best novel. The other nominees are Jade City by Fonda Lee, Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss, The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin, Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty (which I reviewed for the Philip K. Dick award), and Autonomous by Annalee Newitz.

“The problem with getting old was that each day had to compete with the thousands of others gone by. How wonderful would a day have to be to win such a beauty contest? To even make it into the finals? Never mind that memory rigged the game, airbrushed the flaws from its contestants, while the present had to shuffle into the spotlight unaided, all pockmarked with mundanities and baggy with annoyances.”

If you like tall tales and depression, this book is for you. Daryl Gregory’s story covers the lives of members of the Telemachus family both in the 1960s, as the family is formed and comes to explore their extraordinary gifts, and in the 1990s, as the grown Telemachus children try to live their lives and raise their own children, struggling to move past the events of the 1960s.

May 10, 2018 3 comments

Award Winners Byron Fantasy Reviews Westerns

River of Teeth: An uneven alternate history of hippo-riding cowboys (A Spoiler-Free Review)

written by Byron

The Nebula Awards will be announced May 19, 2018. The awards are given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. This post is the second in a series of reviews of the nominees for this year’s Nebula award for best novella. The Nebula defines a work as a novella if it is between 17,500 and 40,000 words. These are short books.

It’s not a caper. It’s an operation.

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey should be one of my favorite books of all time. It’s an alternative-history western heist story involving a gathering of diverse, eclectic, violent individuals to accomplish a risky task. With hippos. It is as if the book had been custom designed to check off All the Stuff Byron Likes.

And yet, I don’t love it.

May 5, 2018 2 comments

2017 Ardis Award Winners Books Fantasy Reviews

Jade City introduces a world of magic and power – both familiar and unlike any other

written by Ardis

The Nebula award will be announced May 19, 2018, at this year’s Nebula Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. Since 1965, the Nebula Awards have been given each year for the best novel, novella, novelette, and short story eligible for that year’s award. This post is the first in a series of reviews of the nominees for this year’s Nebula award for best novel. The other nominees are Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory, Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss, The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin, Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty (which I reviewed for the Philip K. Dick award), and Autonomous by Annalee Newitz.

“He might only be a dockworker’s bastard who would never have a martial education at Wie Lon Temple School or Kaul Dushuron Academy, but at least he was Kekonese all the way through. He had guts and nerve; he had what it took to be somebody. Jade made you somebody.”

Fonda Lee is the much-loved author of a number of fantastic novels, and it’s no wonder that her SFF epic Jade City caught the eye of the Nebula award committee. Jade City is eye-catching indeed, with an exciting premise, a fresh new take on magic, gangsters, politics, family, betrayal, and … mining? The back cover promises more than enough to have this book flying off the shelves – and boy does it deliver!

Literally by page three I was already blown away by Lee’s world building. You can read more about her take on world building in SFF in this interview over on the Barnes & Noble SFF blog, and you should – because she is a master. There were a couple of places where I found I was asking questions about “how things worked,” only to find that she answered them 10-20 pages later. The world she’s created for Jade City is wonderful, inspiring, and I’m truly glad it looks like we’re all going to get at least two more books in which to explore it.

April 12, 2018 3 comments

2017 Award Winners Byron Fantasy Horror Science Fiction

Novelettes Nominated for 2018 Nebula Awards

written by Byron

The Nebula Awards will be announced May 19, 2018. The awards are given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. This post is about the novelette category. Nominees in other categories — short stories, novellas, and novels — will be addressed in other posts.

I read all of the novelettes that have been nominated for a Nebula Award. The Nebulas define a work of fiction as a novelette if it is between 7,500 and 17,500 words. Think of them as “long short stories.” Because they are so short (and because our site does not usually review individual short stories, even longer short stories), I have written mini-reviews for each nominee. I’m also going to give you my vote for which story I think should win and my prediction for which story I think will win. I’d encourage you to read them all as they represent a variety of styles in the speculative fiction field.

April 8, 2018 1 comment

2017 Award Winners Byron Fantasy Science Fiction

Short Stories Nominated for 2018 Nebula Awards

written by Byron

The Nebula Awards will be announced May 19, 2018. The awards are given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. This post is about the short story category. Nominees in other categories — novelettes, novellas, and novels — will be addressed in future posts.

I read all of the short stories that have been nominated for a Nebula Award. The Nebulas define a work of fiction as a short story if it is less than 7,500 words. Because they are so short (and because our site does not usually review individual short stories), I have written mini-reviews for each nominee. I’m also going to give you my vote for which story I think should win and my prediction for which story I think will win. I’d encourage you to read all of them. They are very short and each one can easily be knocked out in a brief reading session.

April 1, 2018 0 comment

Byron Fantasy Reviews

The Wonder Engine: A great second part to Clockwork Boys (A Review)

written by Byron

People didn’t usually yell apologies while they were trying to kill you. It made it difficult to know how to retaliate.

The Wonder Engine by T. Kingfisher (a pen name of Ursula Vernon) is the second part and conclusion to Clocktaur War, the story that began in Clockwork Boys about an apparent suicide mission undertaken by a thief, a paladin, an assassin, and a scholar. If you like fantasy, like, at all, you should read these books. I’ve already stated that I’m a big fan of Ursula Vernon’s work, and this book just further reinforces that opinion. She’s great. I haven’t finished reading ALL of her stuff, but I’m going to. You should too.

March 10, 2018 0 comment

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