A House With Good Bones

A House With Good Bones, T Kingfisher, 2023 novel. Vernon's latest horror, in the line of Twisted Ones or Hollow Places. I still think Twisted Ones has been the best of these, but I've enjoyed them all. Sensible women who more or less have Vernon's voice and interests and sense of humor run into some kind of supernatural bullshit and have to deal with it. I would very gladly read one of these a year for as many decades as Vernon chose to keep producing them. This one stars an entomologist, one of the alternate career paths I did not take, which was extra fun for me.

2022 online SFF - Lightspeed

Apolépisi: A De-Scaling, Suzan Palumbo, Lightspeed. Humanity as a mermaid terminal illness.

In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird, Maria Dong, Lightspeed. Transmigrations. Reminded me of This Is How You Lose the Time War, particularly recommended.

The Noon Witch Goes to Sound Planet, Kristina Ten, Lightspeed. A teen girl trying to reject her magical heritage at Coachella. NOVELETTE.

The CRISPR Cookbook: A Guide to Biohacking Your Own Abortion in a Post-Roe World, MKRNYILGLD, Lightspeed. Some very angry near-future worldbuilding around some very sharp science talk. Damn. Particularly recommended.

Welcome to Oxhead, Julianna Baggott, Lightspeed. An inconclusive but vivid teens-discover-world-is-artificial sort of story.

Picnic, with Monster, Susan Palwick, Lightspeed. A guy who sees monsters, and a monster.

The Cheesemaker and the Undying King, Lina Rather, Lightspeed. Where "cheesemaker" is medieval for "microbiologist", more or less. I really liked this one.

The Fairy Godmother Advice Column, Leah Cypess, Lightspeed. Where "who advises the advisor" has... gone a certain way.

Nine Tails of a Soap Empire, Maria Dong, Lightspeed. Fantasy with a soapmaker and a gumiho.

Plausible Realities, Improbable Dreams, Isabel J. Kim, Lightspeed. A multiverse malfunction.

2022 online SFF - misc

Wrapping up here.

Solidity, Greg Egan, Asimov's. Damn, this one is good. NOVELETTE.

Falling Off the Edge of the World, Suzanne Palmer, Asimov's. Sole survivors of a starship catastrophe. NOVELETTE.

On the Sunlit Side of Venus, Benjamin Parzybok, Apex. More sole survivors, coincidentally.

2022 Novelettes

Ok, here's everything I have tagged as a novelette, of which I have bolded the five of the 18 that I plan to nominate.

To Embody a Wildfire Starting, Iona Datt Sharma, Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Dragon shapeshifters and the aftermath of a revolution. This one is really good. NOVELETTE

Forte, Samuel Chapman, Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Fencers from opposing schools, a romance. NOVELETTE.

The Difference Between Love and Time, Catherynne M. Valente, Tor.com. Reprint from a 2022 anthology. NOVELETTE. This is Valente doing her gonzo thing, which often makes my eyes roll but then gets me in the end - if you liked Space Opera you'll probably like this. Wouldn't be surprised to see this one on the ballot.

Quandary Aminu vs The Butterfly Man, Rich Larson, Tor.com. NOVELETTE. And here's Larson doing his cyberpunk thing. If you've been reading my recs for awhile you probably already know whether you like Larson's cyberpunk thing.

Wanting Things, Cal Ritterhoff, Clarkesworld. I found parts of this annoying but parts were funny. NOVELETTE

Dream Factory, Greg Egan, Clarkesworld. Always interesting to see what Egan is up to. Pet ownership and the ethics of hacking your cat. NOVELETTE

We Built This City, Marie Vibbert, Clarkesworld. Labor relations on a floating Venusian cloud city. Nebula nominee. NOVELETTE.

Carapace, David Goodman, Clarkesworld. MilSF about a suit trying to carry out its pilot's mission. NOVELETTE.

The Sadness Box, Suzanne Palmer, Clarkesworld. A difficult parent, and a particularly bleak war. NOVELETTE.

Sweetbaby, Thomas Ha, Clarkesworld. Cycles of abuse and the will to get someone out of them. NOVELETTE.

Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness, S.L. Huang, Clarkesworld. Cat Pictures Please but the AI is just GPT-4, ish. Nebula nominee. NOVELETTE.

If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You, John Chu, Uncanny. A warm and ultimately hopeful superhero story, more or less what if Superman was real in our racist world today. Nebula nominee. NOVELETTE.

Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold, S.B. Divya, Uncanny. A well-done fairytale retelling. Nebula nominee. NOVELETTE.

The Prince of Salt and the Ocean's Bargain, Natalia Theodoridou, Uncanny. An odd little fairy tale. Nebula nominee. NOVELETTE.

Your Eyes, My Beacon: Being an Account of Several Misadventures and How I Found My Way Home, C.L> Clark, Uncanny. A sailor and a lighthouse keeper. F/F. NOVELETTE.

The Noon Witch Goes to Sound Planet, Kristina Ten, Lightspeed. A teen girl trying to reject her magical heritage at Coachella. NOVELETTE.

Solidity, Greg Egan, Asimov's. Damn, this one is good. NOVELETTE.

Falling Off the Edge of the World, Suzanne Palmer, Asimov's. Sole survivors of a starship catastrophe. NOVELETTE.

2022 Short Stories

Here's my short story shortlist, which is basically everything I marked as "really liked" or "particularly recommended" plus a few others I wanted to consider.

Picking five of these was harder than the novelettes, since these are all already standouts in the short stories-I-would-recommend pool, and then it's like... am I having recency bias? Am I having the opposite bias, for the stuff I read early on that I've now thought about more times/for longer? I might still ditch the Rather and pick up that Gardner story, hmmm.

On the Sunlit Side of Venus, Benjamin Parzybok, Apex. More sole survivors, coincidentally.

The Cheesemaker and the Undying King, Lina Rather, Lightspeed. Where "cheesemaker" is medieval for "microbiologist", more or less. I really liked this one.

The CRISPR Cookbook: A Guide to Biohacking Your Own Abortion in a Post-Roe World, MKRNYILGLD, Lightspeed. Some very angry near-future worldbuilding around some very sharp science talk. Damn. Particularly recommended.

In the Beginning of Me, I Was a Bird, Maria Dong, Lightspeed. Transmigrations. Reminded me of This Is How You Lose the Time War, particularly recommended.

The Goldfish Man, Maureen McHugh, Uncanny. Set in the pandemic. Homelessness, and art, and aliens.

The Transfiguration of the Gardener Irene by the Dead Planet Hipea, Ann LeBlanc, Clarkesworld. The last survivor of a fungal colony organism. I really liked this one.

Company Town, Aimee Ogden, Clarkesworld. Labor relations, and bonus portal fantasy. I really liked this one.

Two Spacesuits, Leonard Richardson, Clarkesworld. Memes and alien possession. I really liked this one.

D.I.Y, John Wiswell, Tor.com. This one absolutely reeks of ballot. A fine little story about not getting into magic school, and monopolies, and collective action. I don't know that I personally am nominating it, but I fully expect to be seeing it.

Clay, Isabel J. Kim, Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Golems, mass production, individuality.

The Crow Husband, Sarah McGill, Strange Horizons. Offbeat and lovely, about different kinds of relationships, and wanting them or not. Le Guin-esque.

You, Me, Her, You, Her, I, Isabel J. Kim, Strange Horizons. Art and memory and temping.

Hush, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Tor.com. A mom trying to help a kid get home in the middle of xenophobic riots.

The Future History of Your Body, Davian Aw, Daily Science Fiction. Flash piece about anthropology and deep time.

Simons, Far and Near, Ana Gardner, Cast of Wonders. Young people picked to go ahead of ships evacuating Earth and prepare.

2022 Pro Artists

Everybody on the spreadsheet is good but I'm nominating Alyssa Winans, Geneva Bowers, Kuri Huang, Paul Lewin, and Sija Hong and calling it a day.