2017 short fiction - Clarksworld Jul-Dec

The Bridgegroom, Bo Balder. I'd give it good odds this story evolved typo to title to story, but I liked some of the details. NOVELETTE.

Antarctic Birds, A. Brym. This felt incomplete but what there was of it was interesting.

The Secret Life of Bots, Suzanne Palmer. Charming robot-POV adventure. NOVELETTE.

Pan-Humanism: Hope and Pragmatics, Jess Barber and Sara Saab. Beautiful. NOVELETTE.

The Last Boat-Builder in Ballyvoloon, Finbarr O'Reilly. I don't think I got all of this, but it was interesting.

Intro to Prom, Genevieve Valentine. Oh, man, doomed teens, amazing setting. NOVELETTE.

2017 short fiction - misc, part 1

So at this point, I've read the four magazines I intended to read in their entirety this year (Strange Horizons, Uncanny, Lightspeed, and Clarkesworld) and what's left is a question of how much of Tor.com, Apex, or Giganotosaurus I want to poke through looking for things that catch my eye, or how many authors I like I want to look up by name to see what they put out last year in other venues.

These stories, though, are things that were in my notes file before I started systematically reading 2017 fiction - they're things that were recced somewhere and I read them and wanted to make sure I didn't forget about them.

Sidewalks, Maureen McHugh, Omni. "A speech pathologist evaluates a woman who speaks only gibberish", as it says in the subtitle. This is in fact short fiction but I believe someone linked to it as "an article" and I really enjoyed reading along thinking it was nonfiction and then getting to a point where I was like "waaaait".

Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience(TM), Rebecca Roanhorse, Apex. People were talking about this when it came out, Apex readers voted it the Reader's Choice Winner, and if there is one short story I think is likely to show up in awards consideration this year, it's this one.

Angel of the Blockade, Alex Wells, tor.com. Smuggler, very cool space hijinks. NOVELETTE.

The Dark Birds, Ursula Vernon. Wow, this is dark. But powerful. NOVELETTE

two books my kids and I liked

I don't review everything my kids read, but here's two worth mentioning:

Accident! by Andrea Tsurumi is a picture book about a little armadillo who spills some juice and decides she'd better hide in the library until she's a grownup. On the way to the library she encounters many other animals experiencing DISASTER, MAJOR MESS, WRECK, FIASCO, MAYHEM, CALAMITY, and CATASTROPHE, until a voice of wisdom points out they're all just accidents, and then there's a really beautiful page of things you can do next: offer sympathy, offer help, ask for help, apologize, check in. I got this from the library for Q but I might need to buy it for myself home.

Pashmina by Nidhi Chanani is a YA graphic novel about an Indian-American girl who becomes curious about her mother's homeland and past, while also dealing with some resentful feelings about changes to her family. I'm calling it YA rather than middle grade because the character is a teenager and deals with some mildly heavy topics (like her father having abandoned her mother) but Junie read it and enjoyed it and I would feel comfortable recommending it to other kids Junie's age who like similar things (maybe after a parental check of the abandonment content).