A Spindle Splintered

[psocoptera]

I'm still chugging along in Iron Widow (about halfway) but the library was like "here, maybe you want everything all at once!" and I was like "oh hey novellas are fast" so I took a little side-jaunt into Alix Harrow's A Spindle Splintered, thus officially checking the first thing off my list of Hugo reading I hadn't already done yet. This is an extremely meta story about a terminally-ill folktale scholar who discovers the ability to travel the folktale metaverse and attempts to help a Sleeping Beauty in a fairytale world. I thought it was fine - very readable, and I'm always a sucker for best friends as the central emotional relationship (might appeal to people who liked that aspect of Team Human) - but, I don't know, not that memorable or anything. We were so rich in novellas last year, but I've been repeatedly underwhelmed this year. (Maybe I'm just not picking the right ones...)