Honestly I feel like there’s something wrong with me because everyone has been raving about how amazing the Nebula Awards ballot is this year and I’ll be honest, I couldn’t stand most of it. It’s honestly a miserable ballot. The world is a miserable place right now and instead of centring hope and joy I feel like the SFF world went “Nah, misery is the new Frank’s Red Hot, let’s put that shit on everything.” I’m not a fan.

Reading this year’s ballot was like being back in high school English class. It was a godsdamn chore. I couldn’t read some of the works because of triggering content. I gave up on so many more because of the emotional damage I was taking on. I DNF’d so much of this ballot. And then half the ones I did finish, I wish I hadn’t.

It’s not unusual for me to have to DNF something on a ballot. But to have to do it with more than half the works? That’s a new one.

I don’t know what is going on with people, but I sincerely hope we find a bit more joy for next year’s awards. The Hugos are still up, and there’s not a lot of overlap. I’m hoping I’ll enjoy more of the works on that ballot.

Anyway, here’s the very brief list of things that I did enjoy from this year’s Nebula ballot (with the caveat that I also didn’t have time to read everything):

Translation State by Ann Leckie
Witch King by Martha Wells
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher
“A Year Without Sunshine” by Naomi Kritzer
“Bad Doors” by John Wisell
“Once Upon a Time at the Oakmount” by PA Cornell
“Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer
“Tante Merle and the Farmhand 4200” by RSA Garcia

I really wanted to love this book. I was worried going in that it would be dark and bleak (given that it’s climate fiction) and would end up being something I couldn’t enjoy. And it was dark and bleak. That was only part of the problem I had with it.

Because the setting (Sequoia National Park) is my favourite place on earth, I’m deeply familiar with it (yes, even though I’ve only been 3 times). So every time the author took liberties, I noticed and it threw me out of the story. That’s a me problem, and I got over it. My love for the IRL setting carried me a long way. And the author’s clear love for the setting really shows through as well.

Honestly, I really loved this book for the first third, maybe even the entire first half. But then the MC’s flaws get exhausting. She does more waffling than a Waffle House. I felt like she was just flailing in circles. And she had a disturbingly difficult time denouncing genocide. It made reading the book deeply frustrating, to the point I nearly quit.

While the last few pages picked up a bit and got more hopeful, I did not enjoy the second half of the book at all. The setting wasn’t enough to make up for the frustrating MC and how bleak it was. This book is not about humans overcoming climate change and fixing the world, it’s about how we continue to suck and destroy everything in our paths, to the point that the rest of nature is ready to wipe us off the face of the earth. It’s about how humans are consumed by greed and blinded by capitalism, and how we’re selfish and destructive and refuse to see the simple beauty around us and then fight like hell to protect it. Which… Yeah, that’s largely and frequently true. But it ignores community and all the hard work people are doing to fix things. It ignores the beauty that can be found in humanity. And that was where it really started to lose me. Which says a lot considering how much I tend to hate humans in general, especially these days.

It looks like there’s a sequel coming out later this year. I’d be curious to see where the plot of that one goes, if it looks up at all, if the MC learns to advocate for the good in humanity instead of focusing only on the negative. There was a solution I saw to the main problem for the book (and probably the series) and I wonder if it will get deployed.

It’s interesting, because if I wasn’t so focused on my dragon books and secondary world fantasy, it’s entirely possible I’d have written something similar. The author and I love the park deeply and have clearly read a lot of the same nonfic books (I recognized Suzanne Simard’s theories even before her name gets dropped). But I always hold back from writing real-world settings. I know how getting things wrong can ruin the book for people.

Anyway, people who like big trees and don’t mind a darker look at climate fiction will probably like this book a lot more than I did.

And I’m just going to drop some tree pics here because I want everyone to love this forest the way I do (and the author does).

How much do I love this place? I’m flying across the continent again later this year to visit this place for the 4th time in a decade. These trees are just so cool. My favourite part of this book is how she blends geeking out over trees with the plot. But these trees are unfathomably huge. They evolved to withstand fire. In fact, they can have vast swaths of their trunks burned away and still survive! Fire will burn little caves into the gigantic trunks and the trees just kind of shrug it off, and with time, grow new bark around it (as seen in the last two photos). That bark, by the way, can be 3 feet thick! Pictures well and truly do not do them justice. The second photo is of General Sherman, the largest tree in the world (not tallest, that’s Hyperion up the coast). If you look at the base of the general, you’ll see some colourful little spots. Those are people. No, really! Anyway, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Okay so I’m maybe slightly biased on this one because it’s my friend’s book but also I am just about the opposite of the target audience and I still enjoyed it. Queer teens bonding over D&D with a repaired friendship and budding romance. It’s funny and heartwarming and if you, like me, aren’t really into D&D, it’s a great introduction.

This is the third book in the Sin du Jour series and it was a really nice wrap up to a sort of mini arc across the first three novellas. It’s also, unfortunately, where the audiobooks end. And I am glaring at Tor for not recording the entire series because wtf. I am also glaring at them because the individual novellas are like $25 in paperback!!! (that’s in canuckbucks, but still)

I will resist going on a rant about how utterly fucked up trad pub is! BEHOLD MY RESTRAINT.

Anyway, this book has all kinds of wonderful commentary about Hollywood, as the catering crew is heading to cater a big movie premier. I was cracking up constantly. And then it had a nice ending that brought it full circle with the first book. It was very heartfelt and had me ugly crying. I almost fell off my treadmill (I listen to audiobooks while I walk).

I highly recommend this series! You definitely need to start with Envy of Angels though.

I found the last four books as an ebook omnibus, but I hate reading on my phone so I’m not entirely sure when I’ll actually get to the last four. (So this is me continuing to curse Tor for not doing audio of the complete series and for having absolutely bonkers pricing of their novellas.)

Okay, this is the second book in the Sin du Jour novella series and it’s excellent. Definitely not something you can read without reading the first book. And it’s a fantastic take on goblins. 10/10 no notes.

So the whole series is about a catering company for supernatural elements. The first book was about peace treaty celebration between demon factions. And this one is about a goblin royal wedding. All the Hollywood commentary is excellent.

The end has quite the cliffhanger though, so you’ll want to have book three on hand when you read this one. (I’m almost done that book and it’s also fantastic.) I just highly recommend this series. Dark and hilarious and heartwarming.

This is a YA fantasy set in present day America, but where magic and mythology are real, present and part of daily life for everyone. The indigenous MC has a white best friend descended from Oberon who can use light magic. The MC, Elatsoe (Elly for short), can control ghosts. Elly is on her summer vacation when tragedy strikes—her cousin is murdered. Elly is determined, with her best friend and ghost dog in tow, to solve her beloved cousin’s death.

There’s a lot to like about this book, especially as someone who doesn’t like traditional YA tropes. Elly has the support and assistance of her parents, for a start. There’s no terrible love triangle, in part because Elly is asexual. I deeply appreciated the queer rep in this book. I joke that I didn’t even like teens when I was one, but Elly and her peers are endearing and a lot of fun. I think because there’s a level of petty meanness often found in teen interactions that’s absent here.

Despite the dark subject matter, the book is fun and has a playful tone. There are some really tense moments that made it hard to turn off the audiobook. The ending was absolutely perfect—heartfelt and hilarious while tying the end back to the beginning.

I also appreciated the pauses in the main plot for story-as-lesson, usually in the form of family stories delivered by Elly’s mother. These stories are usually a history lesson but also impart warnings and wisdom and tie into the theme as it relates to individual scenes.

I’ve been reading less work by BIPOC lately because the books are so often about pain, or issue books. This one addresses the issues head on, but uses joy and connection to do so. This is just a fantastic read, easily one of my favourite books in the last year.

This book is hilarious and fun and you should just read it. I especially recommend the audiobook. The narrator is superb!

Need more to go on than that? It’s about a catering company run mostly by humans but with a supernatural clientele. This introduction to the series follows two new hires as they navigate the insanity of catering an event for demons. The main course? An angel.

This book goes several unexpected places, including what angel actually tastes like, with a particularly delightful twist right in the last few pages.

The entire ensemble is fantastic. The banter and humour are perfect with real heart. I’m excited to read the rest of the series.

This book is a lot of fun! The audiobook narrator is fantastic! I just loved everything about this book. There’s some murders but it’s not dark. The tone is upbeat and fun, and the character dynamics were interesting. Great anti-colonial backdrop too!

Famed supernatural investigator Fatma el-Sha’arawi has some grisly murders to solve and an unwanted new partner (who is hilarious) to get used to. She’s also got a mysterious girlfriend with a secret. The mystery elements were quite good and the twist, while not necessarily a shock, was satisfying in how it was executed.

Come for the witty banter, stay for the cool magic, competence porn, and queer ladies kicking lots of ass.

While this book definitely stands alone, check out A Dead Djinn in Cairo, which is also excellent and a shorter introduction to this world.

This is a Legends & Lattes prequel that’s kind of a Viv/Gallina origin story and just really really good. It takes place about twenty years before L&L. On the surface, it’s about young and injured Viv struggling with the boredom of convalescence, but at its heart is about friendship, the value of good book recommendations, and discovering the hidden depths of people through a shared love of reading.

There’s a bit of sweet romance, lots more description of food that will make you very hungry and buy out your local bakery, and a decent bit of action. The stakes are higher in this one, with an entire town and all of Viv’s friends in grave danger. It’s got new characters and one familiar face and the same banter and cozy feel from L&L.

I liked this one better. It’s got a sort of depth to it that the first didn’t quite. It nailed the tension better, and not just because there were slightly higher stakes. Fern, the bookseller, through her impeccable recommendations, brings new depths to characters, bringing out facets of them they didn’t know they had. The surprise poet was my favourite.

If you liked L&L, you’re going to love this one. If you haven’t read L&L yet, this is a fine place to start. It’s cozy and gentle without being boring, got some good action (there’s a necromancer to defeat) without the conflict overshadowing character.

I’ve actually read a lot of books in the month-ish since I reviewed System Collapse (including the entire Murderbot series again) but my mental health has been shit so I just haven’t been updating. I was also sort of meh about everything new I was reading, which I’m not sure if that’s just because my brain was wrecked or if the books themselves were merely fine. At any rate, it passed the time and my brain seems to be (mostly) working properly again so yay?

Shepherd’s Crown
At the risk of drawing the ire of the Discworld stans, this book was underwhelming. It was really sad for the first few chapters and then just sort of there for the rest. And I get why: the author died before he was finished. Like, he wrote a full plot but died in the revision process and so much of the best parts of a book come during revision. There’s only so much friends, assistants and editors can do to make up for it. It was fine. It was a good place for the series to end. I wish Sir Terry had had the time to finish it properly though.

Power Unbound
This is the final book in the series that started with A Marvellous Light and it was a fantastic close to the series. The whole series has a lot of sex scenes and all of it way too spicy for my tastes. I skipped most of them. The plot bits are really great though. It’s a great trilogy for anyone who likes pre-war sexy gay wizards.

Unburnt
This one is a novella about a fireproof firefighter and it had a lot of heart and a lot of fire and it was fun to read. It has some family building that warmed my black little heart.

Queer Windows
A collection of queer fantasy stories, all centred around spring and gardening and nature. Very much my jam. It was a fun collection and I highly recommend checking it out for anyone who likes the idea of magical queers growing stuff and having gentle adventures.

Wayward Children
I reread (via audiobooks) some of my favourite books in this series of novellas about what happens when children go through magical doors (think Alice in Wonderland) and then come home to cope with the real world. I really enjoyed revisiting some of my favourite characters and I’m looking forward to the next book, coming out soon.

White Fragility
This is a book written by a white person for white people who are interested in not being the problem. If that’s you, I highly recommend it! But if you, like me, spent a decade listening to black activists and their white allies on Twitter before the whiny billionaire shitlord destroyed it, you might not actually learn a whole lot. It still an interesting breakdown of how the defensiveness of being called out works (and honestly applies to all kinds of bigotries).

How to Be an Antiracist
A nice complement to White Fragility, this one was written by a black person and probably more for black people looking to confront their own internalized racism. It’s more memoir and personal anecdote than I was expecting, but still a really interesting read, especially for folks interested in the history of race in America. It’s very America-centric so I kind of zoned out on some of the history, but still a great read.

Murderbot again
Okay, so despite all these other books I’ve been reading I also took the time to reread the entire Murderbot Diaries. Listen, my brain is broken and there wasn’t a whole lot else for me to do but read for a while there. It was read or scream. So I read. And I reread my favourite series because it’s comforting. Murderbot is my Sanctuary Moon. Really, though, if you like sci-fi and characters being good to each other despite traumas, I can’t recommend this series highly enough.