Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 306

Writing advice

Via a link from File 770, we have from Chrostopher Shultz at LitReactor, 22 of the Best Single Sentences on Writing

I disregard all writing advice on principal, more or less, which is to say I think all writing advice is wrong. Or it can be right, under very limited circumstances, for exactly the right person, which is the same thing as being mostly wrong.

On the other hand, I sometimes enjoy reading writing advice anyway. And 22 pithy sentences from 22 different authors is a particularly fun presentation.

I like a lot of these. When I’m working to a deadline, I appreciate Henry Miller’s advice: Work according to the program and not according to mood.

The truest statement, not really advice, comes from Joe Hill: Just about everything I learned about writing a good book I learned from reading lots and lots of good books.

My favorite is from GK Chesterton: I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

Poetry Sunday

This is by far the longest poem I ever memorized. I used to be able to recite practically the whole thing. I only remember little snippets of it now, of course.

I loved the sounds of this poem so much when I was in high school, especially the iron bells rolling on the human heart a stone — you know how macabre teenagers can be. Also, for a kid who enjoys the sound of words and learning new words, well. Euphony and voluminous and pæan, lots to like in this poem.

The Bells

I.

Hear the sledges with the bells–

Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!

While the stars that oversprinkle

All the heavens, seem to twinkle

With a crystalline delight;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells–

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II.

Hear the mellow wedding bells

Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

Through the balmy air of night

How they ring out their delight!

From the molten-golden notes,

And all in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

On the moon!

Oh, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

How it swells!

How it dwells

On the Future! how it tells

Of the rapture that impels

To the swinging and the ringing

Of the bells, bells, bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells–

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III.

Hear the loud alarum bells–

Brazen bells!

What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!

In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!

Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,

Out of tune,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,

Leaping higher, higher, higher,

With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavor

Now–now to sit or never,

By the side of the pale-faced moon.

Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

What a tale their terror tells

Of Despair!

How they clang, and clash, and roar!

What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!

Yet the ear, it fully knows,

By the twanging,

And the clanging,

How the danger ebbs and flows ;

Yet, the ear distinctly tells,

In the jangling,

And the wrangling,

How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells–

Of the bells–

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells–

In the clamour and the clangour of the bells!

IV.

Hear the tolling of the bells–

Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy meaning of their tone!

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats

Is a groan.

And the people–ah, the people–

They that dwell up in the steeple,

All alone,

And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,

In that muffled monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone–

They are neither man nor woman–

They are neither brute nor human–

They are Ghouls:–

And their king it is who tolls ;

And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,

Rolls

A pæan from the bells!

And his merry bosom swells

With the pæan of the bells!

And he dances, and he yells ;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the pæan of the bells–

Of the bells :

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells–

Of the bells, bells, bells–

To the sobbing of the bells ;

Keeping time, time, time,

As he knells, knells, knells,

In a happy Runic rhyme,

To the rolling of the bells–

Of the bells, bells, bells–

To the tolling of the bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells–

Bells, bells, bells–

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

–Edgar Allan Poe

Beginnings: Beauty and the Beast edition

Okay, you remember I recently got samples of a whole lot of Beauty and the Beast retellings, right? Well, I thought it would be interesting to just glance at the opening lines of all of them, one after the other, and see if any stand out. Turns out there are thirteen stories here. Let’s take a look:

1. The Eye of the Beholder (Nicole Ciacchella)

My earliest remembrance was that of issuing my first order. I was a lad of perhaps four, and I had tossed my ball across the courtyard, and decided that I did not wish to pursue it. I turned, looked at my nursemaid, and decided that I wished for her to get it so that I would not have to be troubled. Of course, this meant that my nursemaid was to be troubled, but that did not matter to me. What child of four ever worries about the troubles of others.

“Pick it up,” I told her, frowning and pointing at the ball.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she did as she was told.

What do you think? I’m all Eh, well, maybe. What a little snot this child is going to be, obviously. I wonder how long it will be until he gets cursed and gets over himself? There’s only so much ultra-brattiness I want to put up with, so hopefully it’ll happen soon.

2. The Merchant’s Daughter (Melanie Dickerson)

Annabel sat in the kitchen shelling peas into a kettle at her feet. A bead of sweat tickled her hairline while only the barest puff of warm air came through the open door.

“Annabel!” her brother called from the main house.

As she hurried to finish shelling the pea pod in her hand and see what Edward wanted, the pot of the fire began to boil over. She jumped up, banging her shin on the iron kettle on the floor.

A more realistic setting, a more familiar type of protagonist — actually rather Cinderella-ish. Hard to judge from this little tidbit.

3. Belle (Cameron Dokey)

I’ve heard it said – and my guess is you have too – that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But I’ve never been certain it’s true.

Think about it for a moment.

It sounds nice. I’ll give you that. A way for every face to be beautiful, if only you wait for the right pair of eyes. If only you wait long enough. I’ll even grant you that beauty isn’t universal. A girl who is considered drop-dead gorgeous in a town by the sea may find herself completely overlooked in a village the next county over.

Even so, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” doesn’t quite work, does it?

Not sure about this. Maybe yes, maybe no. Not super-keen on being lectured to by the protagonist right off the bat, and I feel like she’s going to possibly be all angsty and sorry for herself because she’s not pretty enough. I’d turn the page, though, and see where this is going.

4. The Shadow of the Bear (Regina Doman)

The two girls were alone in their house that night.

Inside was safe enough – the living room crammed full of the books and comfortable worn chair from their old country home. But right beyond the window was New York City, vast and dirty and dangerous. And a howling January snowstorm was wreaking its fury upon it.

A contemporary setting! Hmm. What is the enchanted castle going to be if this is set in New York? Or is this story going to go off in its own direction and not really stick too closely to the original?

5. Entreat Me (Grace Draven)

From the highest window in the keep, Ballard looked out upon the forests and fields of his family’s demesne and waited for his wife to die. A westerly breeze blew in the green scent of clover, along with the peppery musk of pine and ask that heralded the coming spring and the summer soon to follow. Summer had been Isabeau’s favorite season, but she wouldn’t live long enough to see this one or the bloom of her beloved roses.

The title is kind of a turn-of for me. But I really like the pathos of this beginning. I don’t see anything of Beauty and the Beast in it yet, but I like it.

6. Masque (WR Gingell)

Ambassadors’ Grand Parties are usually huge, glittering, boring affairs at best. One daren’t do anything untoward (comment upon how fat a grandee of state is getting, for example, even—especially—if he is). Despite this tacit prohibition, the hosting ambassador usually spends the evening in a red, sweaty lather, madly running here and there in a desperate bid to be sure that all his distinguished guests are comfortable and sufficiently flattered. Ambassadors’ wives, on the other hand, tend to watch the proceedings with an amused eye, and pat their husbands affectionately upon the head every time a harried dash brings them sufficiently close to do so.

Maybe? There’s a little bit of a snide tone here — how awful those grandees are, letting themselves go like that, and those poor silly ambassadors. Not sure I am all that sympathetic to the narrator.

7. Depravity (MJ Haag)

I wrapped my hands around the cold bars of the massive, black iron gate and glared after the smith’s sons, Tennen and Splane Coalre. The pair cast nervous glances back at me as they scurried away from the beast’s shadowy garden. They had locked me inside because of misdirected spite. It wasn’t my fault I’d seen what I had.

“This is what you get, Benella,” Tennen had said as he had pushed me into the beast’s lair.

Tennen thought his treatment just. However, the current situation was anything but just.

Horrible title. But a promising beginning. The writing doesn’t seem all that wonderful, but I do like the situation.

8. Of Beast and Beauty (Stacy Jay)

In the beginning was the darkness, and in the darkness was a girl, and in the girl was a secret. The secret was as old as the cracked cobblestone streets of Yuan, as peculiar as the roses that bloom eternally within the domed city’s walls, as poisonous as forgotten history and the stories told in its place.

By the time the girl was born, the secret was all but lost. The stories had become scripture, and only the very brave – or very mad – dared to doubt them. The girl was raised on the stories, and never questioned their truth, until the day her mother took her walking beyond the city walls.

Oh, really nice writing here. I like this a lot. This is the first one where I find it hard *not* to go on with the story right now.

9. The Fire Rose (Mercedes Lackey)

Golden as sunlight, white-hot, the Salamander danced and twisted sinuously above a plat sculpted of Mexican obsidian, ebony glass born in the heart of a volcano and shaped into a form created exactly to receive the magic of a creature who bathed in the fires of the volcano with delight. It swayed and postured to a music only it could hear, the only source of light in the otherwise stygian darkness of the rom. At times a manikin of light, at times in the shape of the mundane salamander that bore the same name, this was the eyes and ears of the mage who had conjured it.

Intriguing.

10. A Court of Thorns and Roses (Sarah Maas)

The forest had become a labyrinth of snow and ice.

I’d been monitoring the parameters of the thicket for an hour, and my vantage point in the crook of a tree branch had turned useless. The gusting wind blew thick flurries to sweep away my tracks, but buried along with them any signs of potential quarry.

Hunger had brought me farther from home than I usually risked, but winter was the hard time The animals had pulled in, going deeper into the woods than I could follow, leaving me to pick off stragglers one by one, praying they’d last until spring.

They hadn’t.

I don’t find the writing all that strong here. Where and when are we? “Monitoring” and “parameters” are such modern words; is this supposed to be a modern setting? And is “parameters” exactly the right word? Could the narrator mean “perimeter?” Though that wouldn’t be plural; a thicket only has one perimeter.

Also, what animals? Wouldn’t this be stronger and more visual if the author mentioned bears that have disappeared into dens, deer that have tucked themselves away in thick woods where the firs break the force of the wind, etc? *Would* there be “stragglers”? I mean, it’s not like a couple of bears or whatever might not have noticed that it’s the middle of winter. They all hibernate at about the same time.

So, offhand, not super keen on going on with this one.

11. Roses (GR Mannering)

She panted into the chilled air. Snowflakes fluttered around her like ashen butterflies, clinging to her lashes and to the hood of her thick cloak. Champ, her warhorse, tore through the night’s darkness with clouds of warm breath, and his flanks heaved after the rush of the ride.

Before them in the enchanted quiet stood a castle. It was just as it had been described to her, and she grimaced slightly, for she had hoped that it was not real. The snowflakes whirled around its façade without settling, brushing against the latticed windows and marble arches. It was vast and rich with numerous turrets of coppery brick that appeared to rise higher and higher until they were lost in the white of the snowstorm. Its outline flickered against the magenta sky and shifted under her gaze as if it almost were not there.

“Champ”? Oh, please. At least when Beauty named her horse Greatheart, she was like eight years old.

On the other hand, I like the idea of this girl hoping the castle wasn’t real and that she wouldn’t find it. I don’t think I’d have balked at the magenta sky if I hadn’t just read the beginning of #10, which primed me to be picky and irritable. Besides, maybe the sky really is magenta, though that seems a little unlikely.

12. Heart’s Blood (Juliet Marillier)

At a place where two tracks met, the carter brought his horse to a sudden stop.

“This is where you get down,” he said.

Dusk was falling, and mist was closing in over a landscape curiously devoid of features. Apart from low clumps of grass, all I could see nearby was an ancient marker stone whose inscription was obscured by a coat of creeping mosses. Every part of me ached with weariness. “This is not even a settlement!” I protested. “It’s – it’s nowhere!”

“This is as far west as your money takes you,” the man said flatly. “Wasn’t that the agreement? It’s late. I won’t linger in these parts after nightfall.”

Poor kid! Sure, I’d go on with this.

13. Beast (Donna Jo Napoli)

The lion-ape lunges from the tree a moment too late; Bahram Chubina’s arrow has already sealed its fate.

I gasp roughly. Beast and warrior glow white, burning, against the gold ground. The sun glints off the illuminated pages as it glints off the metal mar – snake – that twists around and around from my wrist to my elbow. My fists clench; I am aghast at dying, aghast at killing.

“Orasmyn?”

I turn, startled.

Mother comes in, her face unveiled – she has not yet left the palace this morning. The pleasure of seeing the dark silver moons under her eyes, her full cheeks, pulls me at once from the violence on the page to the sweet calm of our lives.

What a sensitive flower, so aghast at killing and dying that he can’t handle an adventure story. I am rolling my eyes at this twit already and it hasn’t even been a full page.

Okay, so! The CLEAR, OBVIOUS winner here is #8, Stacy Jay’s Of Beast and Beauty. Yes? Anybody disagree?

After that, I would be most inclined to go on with #5, #7, or #12. I grant you, I’m biased toward #12 because I already think Marillier is a great writer.

For me, just based on these little tidbits, #10 — A Court of Thorns and Roses — is at the bottom. Popular sucker, though. 11,000 reviews on Goodreads, overall rating over 4.0. Well, I’m not persuaded it’d work for me. Have any of you read it? What did you think?

And I must say that #13 is just about tied for the bottom spot. The narrator just seems so precious. If anybody has read Napoli’s Beast, Yes/No for Orasmyn being a bit of a twit?

Stories where anyone can fly

There are two kinds of people who can fly: the kind that are born with wings and the kind that gets a pair of wings and then learns to fly.

Although I like stories about both, isn’t it sort of cool to read a story where basically anyone might in theory learn to fly? You, for example, if you happened to walk through the correct portal.

And I don’t mean like in an airplane, even in a world like the one in the Elemental Blessings series by Sharon Shinn.

No fair if you need to become a test pilot in order to fly.

Wings, not airplanes.

Here are the SFF stories I can think of where people — basically ordinary people — learn to fly.

Windhaven by Lisa Tuttle and George RR Martin. I first read this ages ago, way before GRR Martin was famous, or at least way before I knew his name. I sort of liked it? Or to be more accurate, I liked the part about flying a lot and the part about gritty politics not so much.

Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. I didn’t really care for the first book, Red Mars. I disliked most of the characters and reading about a failed rebellion, well, not really a lot of fun there. I liked Green Mars the best because I liked the main pov characters much better, the terraforming was all very fascinating, and a successful rebellion yields a far more appealing plot arc. But it’s Blue Mars where the technology for flight develops and is used. It’s not a major element of the book, don’t get me wrong, but it is one of my favorite bits. KSR is really good at description and I can close my eyes and visualize flight.

The Green Sky trilogy by Zipha Keatley Snyder. These were so lovely. Not flawless, but I really enjoyed them when I was a kid. Also, the cover on Goodreads is pretty bad, but the original cover no doubt led me to pick this book up in the first place, because it is also lovely.

Such beautiful images . . . giant trees, a gentle pastoral life, gliding . . . of course that isn’t quite flying, but close enough, close enough.

The computer game for the Commodor 64 that was based on this trilogy was also deeply charming. First computer game I ever spent a significant amount of time playing. Still the one I think of wistfully. Too bad there doesn’t seem to be a modern version.

Okay, here’s one I haven’t read that I hear is reminiscent of Snyder’s trilogy:

Updraft by Fran Wilde. From the cover, I guess this is a hang glider rather than wings?

Someday I will read this and enjoy the flight involved, even if people don’t actually have wings.

Okay, and of course one more:

I never really thought about what other stories involving flight might have helped inspire this book. But, yeah, I’m pretty sure Winghaven and The Green Sky trilogy were in there somewhere.

Stories where people can fly, or at least glide: got any I missed?

The All-New Dragon Award

Via File 770, I see that DragonCon is initiating its very own award. I think this is great! They have such a huge base to draw on, unlike WorldCon, so I think it makes perfect sense for them to establish their own award.

Here are the categories:

Best science fiction novel

Best fantasy novel (including paranormal)

Best young adult/middle grade novel

Best military science fiction or fantasy novel

Best alternate history novel

Best apocalyptic novel

Best horror novel

Best comic book

Best graphic novel

Best episode in a continuing science fiction or fantasy series, TV or internet

Best science fiction or fantasy movie

Best science fiction or fantasy PC / console game

Best science fiction or fantasy mobile game

Best science fiction or fantasy board game

Best science fiction or fantasy miniatures / collectible card / role-playing game

Dragon Con is very sensibly defining a novel as a work over 70,000 words, except for YA/MG, which can be as little as 40,000 words. That seems fair.

Less sensibly, rather than defining the eligibility period as an easy-to-remember released-during-2015, Dragon Con is setting the eligibility period thus: To be eligible for the 2016 Dragon Awards the book, comic, game, movie, or at least one episode of any series has to have been released between April 1, 2015, and the close of nominations, July 25, 2016.

Except they also declare a different eligibility period for novels, thus: has been first released in print or ebook format between 1/1/2015 and 3/1/2016

Okay, whatever. It’s their award and if they want to define their eligibility period(s) in some screwy way, I guess they can. However, I expect they will clarify eligibility shortly so people know whether they mean “Released after January 2015” or “Released after April 2015.”

Other stuff to know: You only get to nominate one (1) work per category. Ouch! It was hard enough to narrow it down to five for the Hugo.

Okay, final thoughts: I think they should split paranormal/UF away from other fantasy; I think they should limit YA/MG to SFF, which they apparently don’t at the moment; I think they will have many details to iron out; I’m sure things will go wrong this year; I am still happy they’re trying to get a new award to take off and I hope lots of people participate. The link to register to vote is here.

Links you may enjoy. No, really, click through.

Here is a post that is not really relevant to writing or dogs or whatever else i normally post about, but is funny: Chuck Wendig’s reaction the the show Tiny House Hunters.

And here’s a short story from Marie Brennan at tor.com: From the Editorial Page of the Falchester Weekly Review (A Lady Trent Story)

And here’s a unique question someone asked Janet Reid about the use of singular “they.” Of course the legitimacy of the singular “they” does come up a fair bit these days. Personally I’m not a fan, and besides I don’t want to mislead students since the English faculty here are not on board. Yet I find this proposed use oddly intriguing. It reminds me a bit of the formal plurals used in The Goblin Emperor.

Here is an excerpt from The Edge of Worlds, Martha Wells’ new Raksura novel, which just fyi ends on a something of a cliffhanger, though not the most dire cliffhanger of all time or anything. But more of a cliffhanger than we’ve seen before in the Raksura books.

Most dire cliffhanger ever goes to Barbara Hambly’s The Silent Tower, btw. I remember that vividly, since I didn’t have the next book available. Waiting to find out what happened just about killed me.

I guess The Two Towers is like that, too, come to think about it. But at least I didn’t have to wait to read The Return of the King.

Is there something about books with “tower” in the title?

Anyway.

Last, here’s an article about reader responses to covers and how finding out some details about those responses can guide publishers in marketing.

The digital book jacket did not call out to the kind of reader who was looking for edge-of-the seat suspense drama. A cat on the cover, no matter how viciously the feline stares at you, just does not hold the promise of an edge-of-the-seat psychological thriller. It was a case of great content let down by its packaging. In other words, it was the cover, stupid!

I’d have to see it, but I have to agree that a cat on the cover does not really suggest “psychological thriller” to me, either.

Titles Are Hard: update

Thank you all for your feedback! Especially Matthew, the ONLY PERSON to agree with me that “iron hinge” is evocative rather than dull.

Pete, *I* like your suggestion, but it’s pretty clear that “hinge” is not working for most people.

Given all your comments, I will definitely at least suggest The Winter Dragon as a title. Maybe my editor will agree with all of you.

So right now I guess I’m thinking of sending her this list on the “title page”, such as it is:

The Dark Turn of Winter (thanks, Allen, I like this variation on your suggestion)

The Wolf Duke (there’s the protagonist. One of them. And this is actually the secondary protagonist, not the primary.)

Wolf and Falcon (that refers to both protagonists)

The Winter Dragon (because I agree with all of you that this is a good title)

Thumbs up and thumbs down on the top three possibilities?

Titles are hard

My agent doesn’t like the title The Winter Dragon for my current manuscript. I mean, she likes the title, but feels it sounds too noble and so on for what it applies to in the actual book — it is kind of the symbol of the bad guy, not the good guy. Or was. I shifted that around a bit, too, during this hopefully more-or-less-final revision.

So, new title. I know the publisher (this one is for Saga) may not keep my title, but it’s always nice to come up with a good one. So what do you all think about the following choices:

A) Iron Hinge Winter

B) The Iron Hinge of Winter

C) Both sound stupid, go in a different direction

I like the first, the second is perhaps a tiny bit more accurate given the usage in the book, I’m not sure either *sounds* good. Comment, please!

Poetry Sunday

I’ve always liked this one — perhaps for personal reasons: it could be my oldest Cavalier’s theme song. She firmly believes the world is perfect. I mean, *her* world is pretty perfect. Except when I take some other dogs out and leave her at home, but today is her day to go to the park, so, you know, all’s right with the world.

Plus, it’s appropriate for the season.

The Year’s at the Spring

The year’s at the spring,

And day’s at the morn;

Morning’s at seven;

The hillside’s dew-pearled;

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn;

God’s in his Heaven —

All’s right with the world!

— from Pippa Passes, by Robert Browning

I hear it snowed Chicago yesterday. Nope, not here. Here’s it’s a beautiful spring.

Time to go to the park!

Hugo nominations for novels: And the final nomination list will be ….

Chaos Horizon is my go-to site to see what’s actually going on with awards. He’s got a very interesting series of posts about the Hugo and how the nominations might fall out — filled with bold assumptions, which is inevitable, but interesting all the same. Here’s what’s on Chaos Horizon’s list of predicted nominees for this year, in this order:

Seveneves, Neal Stephenson

Uprooted, Naomi Novik

The Aeronaut’s Windlass, Jim Butcher

Somewhither, John C Wright

Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie

With these titles (among others) included as contenders that might appear:

Golden Son, Pierce Brown

The Fifth Season, NK Jemisin

Aurora, Sim Stanley Robinson

That leaves off the following titles, all of which I’ve seen talked about and most of which I actually wouldn’t be surprised to see appear on the final ballot:

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho

The Just City, Jo Walton

Karen Memory, Elizabeth Bear

The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson

Archivist Wasp, Nicole Kornher-Stace

The Grace of Kings, Ken Liu

Luna: New Moon, Ian McDonald

Radiance, Catherynne Valente

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, Kai Ashante Wilson, which I kind of think might appear on the Novella list instead of the novel list

Meanwhile, at File 770, many commenters are sharing their nominations lists. From this, with patience, one can determine that yep, lots of people are going for Ancillary Mercy. The top picks from the first 40 or so commenters included:

Ancillary Mercy — ten commenters had it on their list

Uprooted — six

The Fifth Season — five

The Just City — five, and splitting nominations between The Just City and Philosopher Kings may mean neither pick up enough votes.

Sorcerer to the Crown — four

Seveneves — three

Radiance — three

And I noticed Archivist Wasp on one list other than mine.

So you see that Chaos Horizon appears to be drawing from sources similar to commenters on File 770.

My personal nominations wandered off in an almost completely different direction from the above. I wound up leaving off Uprooted and Ancillary Mercy. I loved them both, but I figured they would both almost certainly get nominated, so I left them to other people. From the above, I’d guess that I was right. Anyway that let me nominate personal favorites even though they might not, based on the above, have much of a chance.

So, my picks for the novel category:

Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman

Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace

The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

and, a very last minute addition that I actually only finished the night of March 31st and thus nominated without quiiite having read the ending:

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

This was recommended to me by Linda S, who was right — I loved it. I was trusting her when I didn’t quite have time to finish the book before nominations closed, which worked out fine because I liked the resolution quite a bit. But I notice one File 770 commenter said it might not be eligible. I don’t know why, but if not, too bad! I guess I should have nominated Bryony and Roses instead. Well, at least Ursula Vernon’s story “Wooden Feathers” was on a lot of lists; I was glad to see that.

Anyway, I have not had time to write a review of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, obviously, but I nominated it because it is a really fun SF space opera with a cluttered Star-Trek-Federation type of setting — I haven’t seen anybody tackle a setting like that for a long time. Actually, the closest background I can think of in recent SFF is in Tanya Huff’s Valor series.

I had quibbles here and there with the worldbuilding and story, but OMG did I ever love Kizzy, one of the Best! Characters! Ever! Chambers must have had so much fun writing her, seriously. I have a new ambition: to write a wild impulsive uninhibited extrovert who is as much fun as Kizzy. Wonderful character building through dialogue. I wound up becoming quite attached to all the characters, including the ones who were thoroughly unsympathetic at the beginning. I also liked the rather intimate feel of the story against the very wide-scale background, which Chambers pulled off despite frequently switching the pov. And as I say, I liked the resolution. There are sad things about the ending, but it is not a downer.

Well, in a few weeks I suppose we’ll see what the actual nominee list looks like. Other than the ones on my personal list, here are the ones I would personally most like to see make the cut:

The Fifth Season. I would like to read it, and I may never have the nerve unless it’s nominated. I tried a sample, but I wasn’t sufficiently emotionally involved with the protagonist to endure the horrible tragedy that befalls her right in the first pages. But I suspect I might wind up loving the book if I kept going.

Sorcerer to the Crown. I wasn’t blown away by the sample, but so many other people were that I would like to have a reason to move it to the top of my TRB pile.

The Just City. It looks like it might be too dry for me, and I’m not sure I know enough about Greek philosophy to get the most out of it, but I’d like to have reason to read it anyway.

Aurora. I don’t generally go out of my way to read KSR, but I would probably admire this book if I actually read it, so I’d like to have a reason to tackle it.

And, no offense to its many fans, but the book up there on those lists that I would actually least like to read? Seveneves. In the past, I have had something of an intellectual appreciation for Stevenson, but I haven’t found his books particularly engaging and I have no special desire to read this one. But I suppose I will probably wind up at least trying it, because it sure looks likely to make the list.