Did not like (any of these stories) ( )

Twenty-one stories assembled from the 2014 Hugo nomination list, self-published in an anthology with the support of a Kickstarter campaign -- these stories did not all win awards, and many play with themes that others have taken on, but there are some gems of stories and gems of ideas. Among my favorites are:

--

"The Breath of War" (Aliette de Bodard) -- A symbiotic relationship between women and the stonepeople they carve in puberty allows babies to quicken. Unlike most women, our protagonist does not have access to her breath-sibling, so she journeys to the mountains near the due date. This was my first exposure to the idea of stone people (a fascination rekindled with N. K. Jemisin's series this past year), and the tale is a beautifully written one of loss and freedom and coming of age. ★★★★

"Covenant (Elizabeth Bear) -- If we can rehabilitate felons by changing both their brains and bodies into new people, what is the fall-out for individuals? This story approaches a similar premise to Shusterman's Unwind from an adult, post-occurrence, high psychological perspective. ★★★★

"Goodnight Stars" (Annie Bellet) -- When the moon explodes, a group of kids supports one of their own in getting home to her widower father. ★★★½

"The Husband Stitch" (Carmen Maria Machado) -- Macabre, dissociated, and fascinating. A woman wears a green ribbon around her neck, and goes through the stages of life with it there. There are themes of maintaining parts of yourself despite marriage and family, and about loving others enough to give them what they want even when you don't, and bodily autonomy -- beautifully done. ★★★★½

"A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai'i" (Alaya Dawn Johnson) -- Key keeps humans in good quality arrangements in Hawaii for vampires to visit and use. An interesting approach to slavery and issues of consent and reasons people might be traitors to what others perceive as "their kind". ★★★★½

"A Year and a Day in Old Theradane" (Scott Lynch) -- A traditional fantasy trope -- wizards own a town and fight over it, a rag-tag group of misfits crosses one of them and is given an impossible task to complete by a deadline. Cute, easy read. ★★★★

"The Regular" (Ken Liu) -- An escort is murdered, and a woman goes on a personally and professionally driven quest to investigate. This is lovely speculative fiction, with its vision of a "Regulator" for brain chemistry (legally required for police), use of omni-present signals monitoring to catch criminals, and likely near-future technologies that make people feel safer but really just leave them vulnerable in new and different ways. An excellent spec fic story from Ken Liu, and highly recommended. ★★★★★

"Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)" (Rachel Swirsky) -- A Jewish girl with cancer nears the end of her life, and her bereft father creates an automaton and embodies it with all her essence and history and memories and personality. Their identities merge and diverge the last few weeks of Mara's life. Excellently structured, excellently thought through, excellently supported by a real backbone of religiosity. I've never seen the question of "if all your cells are destroyed and recreated somewhere else such that your consciousness persists unchanged, who are you?" handled in such a deft and impressive way. Very highly recommended. ★★★★★ ( )

Very nice collection of short stories: very enjoyable read all the way through. ( )

The Breath of War by Aliette de Bodard

When It Ends, He Catches Her by Eugie Foster

Toad Words by T. Kingfisher

Makeisha in Time by Rachel K. Jones

Covenant by Elizabeth Bear (signed)
The Truth About Owls by Amal El-Mohtar
A Kiss with Teeth by Max Gladstone (signed)
The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family by Usman T. Malik
This Chance Planet by Elizabeth Bear (signed)
Goodnight Stars by Annie Bellet
We Are the Cloud by Sam J. Miller
The Magician and Laplace's Demon by Tom Crosshill
Spring Festival: Happiness, Anger, Love, Sorrow, Joy by Xia Jia (translated by Ken Liu)
The Husband Stitch by Carmen Maria Machado
The Bonedrake's Penance by Yoon Ha Lee
The Devil in America by Kai Ashante Wilson
The Litany of Earth by Ruthana Emrys
A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai'i by Alaya Dawn Johnson
A Year and a Day in Old Theradane by Scott Lynch
The Regular by Ken Liu
Grande Jeté (The Great Leap) by Rachel Swirsky

[More forthcoming] ( )