Second Shift and Simplicity

Realized the other day that rather than sitting around waiting for my intrepid graphic-novel-reading friend to tell me what 2025 graphic novels I should be reading, I could seek some out myself. Unfortunately I did not love either of these for Hugo purposes, and neither had the kind of breakout awesome that might be able to compete with inevitable frontrunners Prestige DC Cape Project, Adaptation of Classic Novel, and Latest Kieron Gillen, but it's still interesting to me to see a little bit of what's up in the adult SF graphic novel space.

Second Shift, Kit Anderson, 2025 graphic from Avery Hill, is about workers on a distant planet and the corporate AI that provides them with perception overlays and entertainments. I have to admit I do not love "but what is really real" plots even while I concede that this is an increasingly relevant theme in the age of bespoke AI slop. Also this book is oblique to the point of not really landing for me. I know from my own writing experience that sometimes I am thinking "surely I don't need to spell this out, that would be boring", but it's always more obvious inside your own head when you already know what you're trying to say, and I feel like this story could have used a little less trailing off and a little more actually saying things.

In the Land of Simplicity: A Novel, Mattie Lubchansky, 2025 graphic from Pantheon Books, is a near-future story about an anthropologist visiting a backwoods commune in post-United-States New York. An interesting contrast to Second Shift in that there is also some "what is real" stuff happening but it turns out to be clearer cut and more explained, and also a contrast in positing a possibility of resistance and escape from the corporation that Second Shift doesn't. And it was interesting to see how they both used the idea of the museum in different ways. Unfortunately, while it was at least clear in this book *what* was happening, I didn't really buy into it in a "this is a satisfying narrative" way. I hate to not love a queer book! I do like the way Lubchansky writes/draws about transness and bodies! And no blame to Lubchansky for not wanting to write a tragedy! But the improbability of the end, especially the bigger story we're asked to believe took place off the page, kind of undermined for me the personal character story the book is mostly about. But, I don't know. I guess it's a tonal fit. Maybe I'm too picky. Enh.

2026 Hugos - my reading/recs so far

I haven't read much short fiction yet. Maybe soon. Here's what is (and isn't) in my likely nominations so far though.

Novel: The Incandescent, Snake-Eater, This Princess Kills Monsters

Also read: The Tomb of Dragons, A Drop of Corruption, Where the Axe Is Buried, Hemlock & Silver, Katabasis, When We Were Real, Harmattan Season, The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses, Motheater, Awake in the Floating City, The Martian Contingency, Honeyeater. (Some of these I liked more or less than others and would be more or less happy to see on the ballot, but The Incandescent is by far the front-runner for me and my nominations will at least somewhat be about gaming that. _This Princess_ is not going to come within ten places of the ballot - it's not even on the Locus list - so why not. I would pick Snake-Eater over Hemlock and would disapprove of getting both, although I kind of suspect we *will* get both unless Vernon declines for one of them.)

Novella: The River Has Roots, Automatic Noodle, Cinder House

Also read: Don't Sleep With the Dead, The Summer War, Murder By Memory, A Mouthful of Dust, What Stalks the Deep. (I am leaning towards not nominating series installments even if they were really good. Standalone supremacy, rah.)

Graphic: Nefarious Nights of Willowweep Manor

Also read: Second Shift, In the Land of Simplicity. (I guess I could nominate both if I don't find anything else I like better just to make a vain stab at getting something interesting on the ballot. Also Nefarious Nights is a sequel, so so much for promoting standalones, but in comics I feel like something more or less has to be a series or franchise or tie-in to get enough traction to get anywhere.)

Lodestar: Among Ghosts

Also read: Starstrike

Dramatic Long: Sinners, KPop Demon Hunters.

Also watched: Leviathan, Superman. (I would like to see Superman on the final ballot so I can give it my third-place vote and also displace something worse but I think it has a good chance of making the ballot without my nomination and thus would rather not dilute my nom for KPDH.)