The Iron Children

[psocoptera]

The Iron Children, Rebecca Fraimow, 2023 novella. I liked this a lot (although I will note that it didn't make the Locus list and is not likely to be in Hugos contention, for people who haven't just given up on the whole thing and are working on noms). Second-world fantasy where a young officer-in-training ends up in command of her unit of mecha-soldiers and has to make choices while trying to get them safely back to the main army. Really interesting worldbuilding around cyborgs and golems and uploading and freedom and body-sharing and emergency psychic bonds. Fraimow did a great job of making both sides of the war both sympathetic and unsympathetic, and of letting different characters have really different opinions and feelings and relationships to the same basic facts, which is my favorite thing in worldbuilding.

Comments

[isis]

Psst it is Fraimow, not Framrow.

(I enjoyed this novella also!)

[psocoptera]

Ah, thank you! Fixing that!

[oracne]

I enjoyed this one, too.