The #sfnovellaofthemonth for May 2022 is Uncommon Charm by Kat Weaver and Emily Bergslien, out now from Neon Hemlock Press. When I started this book, which is labelled on the publisher’s website as a “gothic comedy,” I wondered if there might be such a thing as a truly gothic story with a light and gladsome …
Continue reading SF Novella of the Month, May 2022: Uncommon Charm
The #sfnovellaofthemonth for April 2022 is Naben Ruthnum’s Helpmeet, forthcoming in May 2022 from Undertow Publications. It’s possible that body horror rooted in a mysterious and terrible illness is not the best choice of reading material when the reader is sick in bed with COVID-19. I, however, am not always known for making the best …
Continue reading SF Novella of the Month, April 2022: Helpmeet
The #sfnovellaofthemonth for March 2022 is Rebecca J. Allred and Gordon B. White’s And In Her Smile, the World, published by Trepidatio Publishing in February 2022. Lately I have a weakness for tiny books that pack as much unsettling detail into their brief little worlds as possible. I’ve been aware for some time that Gordon …
Continue reading SF Novella of the Month, March 2022: And In Her Smile, the World
The #sfnovellaofthemonth for February 2022 is Jessica Lévai’s “vampire opera in verse”, The Night Library of Sternendach, published by Lanternfish Press in April 2021. As someone who generally adores most things involving vampires, operas, novellas, and books that aren’t quite like other books, I had a feeling that Sternendach—a book which speaks to each and …
Continue reading SF Novella of the Month, February 2022: The Night Library of Sternendach
The #sfnovellaofthemonth for January 2022 is a double feature: Sisters of the Vast Black (Tordotcom, October 2019) and Sisters of the Forsaken Stars (Tordotcom, February 2022) by Lina Rather. I requested an advance review copy of Sisters of the Forsaken Stars from the publisher via NetGalley on a whim, not realizing until after receiving the …
The #sfnovellaofthemonth for December 2021 is The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed, published in September 2021 by ECW Press. Incredibly, Mohamed published three novellas in 2021 (and a novel, and a novelette, and...). Even more incredibly, all of these novellas are, well, incredible. After I read the second of the three, And What …
Continue reading SF Novella of the Month, December 2021: The Annual Migration of Clouds
The #sfnovellaofthemonth for November 2021 is & This is How to Stay Alive by Shingai Njeri Kagunda, recently published as part of the 2021 novella series from Neon Hemlock Press. Kagunda published a short story of the same name and themes in Fantasy Magazine last year; reading her interview for Fantasy’s Author Spotlight added to …
Continue reading SF Novella of the Month, November 2021: & This is How to Stay Alive
The #sfnovellaofthemonth for October 2021 is Rookfield by Gordon B. White, forthcoming from Journalstone’s Trepidatio Publishing imprint. I’ve never been a big horror reader. I’m too easily frightened to find much pleasure in adding fictional terrors to the real shadows I’m already jumping at every time I move, breathe, or catch a glimpse of something …
Continue reading SF Novella of the Month, October 2021: Rookfield
The #sfnovellaofthemonth for September 2021 is In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu, just out from Tordotcom Publishing. The city of Ora is a place of beauty grown (quite literally) from unbearable trauma. Its luxuriant tangles of vines, structurally integral trees, and streets named for flowers and painted with their namesake floral motifs to …
Continue reading SF Novella of the Month, September 2021: In the Watchful City
I love reading books that feel like something new. I don’t know about you, but, before reading Cynthia Zhang's short novel After the Dragons (out August 19 from the wonderful Stelliform Press), I had never read a story that juxtaposed climate change, alienation, and chronic illness with adorable stray dragons and queer romance. I cannot …
M. A. Blanchard 