![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
2020 online short SFF & Locus list
Feb. 4th, 2021 11:39 pmHi! People who follow my SFF reccing and haven't lost all track of the passage of time may be wondering if/when I will start posting about my annual expedition through the online short SFF of the previous year! And the answer is "more or less now"! I was considering skipping this year entirely but then I decided I didn't want to do that. But I am getting a late start and I don't feel like I have as much energy for reading as I have had in some past years. The Locus list is already out - my favorite stories often don't end up on it, but most of what ends up on the awards ballots usually does - and so what I'm thinking I might do this year is to work through the Locus short fiction first and then see what else I have time for. Well, I say "first", but I also read through the first half of Strange Horizons while I was considering, and I have a few miscellaneous recs for things I actually read during 2020. So here are those recs, and then some comments on the Locus list.
Things I Actually Read In 2020 For Whatever Reason
Yo, Rapunzel!, Kyle Kirrin, PodCastle. Cute Rapunzel retelling.
The Legacy, Malka Older, New Decameron Project. A reporter investigating an AI project.
Custom Options Available, Amy Griswold. A robot, making choices.
Legal Salvage, Holli Mintzer, Slate Future Tense. Bots and antiquing.
I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter, Isabel Fall, NOVELETTE. Not trying to call up past hurt for anyone - it was taken down after a controversy - but I thought it was a good story and I didn't want to leave it out of my recs. I found the idea of the military militarizing gender identity fascinating.
Strange Horizons, Jan-Jun
The Pride of Salinkari, Elizabeth Crowe. SFF of the speculative-ethics sort, by which I mean "disturbing as fuck". Heavy warning for suicidality. Josh, don't read this one. Honestly this is not so much a rec as "this story actually stood out as memorable so I'm including it in case I'm thinking about it again later and need to remember what it was."
68:Hazard:Cold, Janelle C. Shane. A droid, a crash-landing, a first-contact. Felt like a fresh take on some familiar tropes. Not exactly a nonhuman POV but like one in the ways I like.
Here is a link to the Locus list. Locus list thoughts behind the cut:
( Read more... )
Things I Actually Read In 2020 For Whatever Reason
Yo, Rapunzel!, Kyle Kirrin, PodCastle. Cute Rapunzel retelling.
The Legacy, Malka Older, New Decameron Project. A reporter investigating an AI project.
Custom Options Available, Amy Griswold. A robot, making choices.
Legal Salvage, Holli Mintzer, Slate Future Tense. Bots and antiquing.
I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter, Isabel Fall, NOVELETTE. Not trying to call up past hurt for anyone - it was taken down after a controversy - but I thought it was a good story and I didn't want to leave it out of my recs. I found the idea of the military militarizing gender identity fascinating.
Strange Horizons, Jan-Jun
The Pride of Salinkari, Elizabeth Crowe. SFF of the speculative-ethics sort, by which I mean "disturbing as fuck". Heavy warning for suicidality. Josh, don't read this one. Honestly this is not so much a rec as "this story actually stood out as memorable so I'm including it in case I'm thinking about it again later and need to remember what it was."
68:Hazard:Cold, Janelle C. Shane. A droid, a crash-landing, a first-contact. Felt like a fresh take on some familiar tropes. Not exactly a nonhuman POV but like one in the ways I like.
Here is a link to the Locus list. Locus list thoughts behind the cut:
( Read more... )
