New story at Daily Science Fiction!

It’s up! “Good Night Moon, Good Night Air, Good Night Noises Everywhere“, a little slice of life in the wake of a very quiet sort of apocalypse. (Also a bit of an inside joke for myself revolving around the pun “moonsplaining”.) I hope you enjoy!

2016 awards reading

Holy wah, Hugo nominations are open already! My short fiction reading has fallen off in a pretty severe way the past few months, but I still read a lot of great things that came out last year. Take a look around, and then please point me at all the best things you read from 2016! This list will probably grow as I come across more great work that I didn’t get to in the past year …

Short Stories:

• The Desert Glass-Maker and the Jeweler of Berevyar, Rose Lemberg (Uncanny).
• Smooth Stones & Empty Bones, Bennett North (F&SF Jan/Feb). FULL DISCLOSURE: this is my best writing ladybro. But this is a cool, haunting story that you should read.
• The Godbeard, Lavie Tidhar (Strange Horizons).
• How the God Auzh-Aravik Brought Order to the World Outside the World, Arkady Martine (Strange Horizons). Is this gorgeously-written story with real, grisly bones in its world and its characters my favorite all year? MAYBE.
• When He First Laid Eyes, Rachael K. Jones (Fireside).
• Haunted, Sarah Gailey (Fireside).
• Meltwater, Benjamin Kinney (Strange Horizons).
• You Are Not the Hero of This Story, Caroline Yoachim (Daily Science Fiction). Do you want to feel All the Things in one little flash story? Of course you do.
• Be Not Unequally Yoked, Alexis A. Hunter (Shimmer). This is the best Amish were-horse story you will ever, ever read.
• That Lucky Old Sun, Carrie Cuinn (Apex).
• The Family Ghost, Rati Mehrotra (The Sockdolager). This story is so good and it just makes me feel happy when I think of it, which is often.
• Breathe, Cassandra Khaw (Clarkesworld). Do try to breathe when you read this. It may get tricky.
• This Is a Letter to My Son, KJ Kabza (Strange Horizons).
• More Heat Than Light, Charlotte Ashley (F&SF May/June). Canadian alternate history!
• The Signal Birds, Octavia Cade (Liminal).
• Fish Dance, Eric Schwitzgebel (Clarkesworld). Another top favorite story from this year.
• The Gentleman of Chaos, A. Merc Rustad (Apex).
• Laws of Night and Silk, Seth J Dickinson (Beneath Ceaseless Skies). If you loved being emotionally devastated by Traitor Baru Cormorant as much as I did, you’ll love this one too.
• My Grandmother’s Bones, SL Huant (Daily Science Fiction).
• The Wombly, KL Morris (Shimmer).
• Talking to Dead People, Sarah Pinsker (F&SF Sept/Oct).
• Binaries, SB Divya (Lightspeed).
• After We Walked Away, Erica Satifka (Apex). You had me at “it’s an Omelas story”.

Novelettes (how did I not read more novelette-length fiction last year?! please let me know your recs):

• One Sister, Two Sisters, Three, James Patrick Kelly (Clarkesworld)
• The Long Fall Up, William Ledbetter (F&SF May/June). Another good writing friend and another great story.
• The Jewel and Her Lapidary, Fran Wilde
• You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay; Alyssa Wong; Uncanny

Novellas:

• Every Heart a Doorway, Seanan McGuire
• Hammers on Bone, Cassandra Khaw (CTHULHU MYTHOS HARDBOILED NOIR!!)

Novels:

• The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home, Catherynne Valente. (I’m not ready for this series to be over.) (ALSO I believe this should be eligible for the Best Series award!)
• The Obelisk Gate, N.K. Jemisin. (I’m more than ready to have Book #3 of this series in my grubby little hands, though.)
• Too Like the Lightning, Ada Palmer.
• Ghost Talkers, Mary Robinette Kowal.
• Everfair, Nisi Shawl.
• Cloudbound, Fran Wilde.
• Infomocracy, Malka Older.
• All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders.

Okay bye time to go weep tears of blood over my short story and novel selections.