Voice, Revisited

Okay, as with the previous post about voice, the question is, do these excerpts demonstrate the quality of “voice” – the feeling that the protagonist is a real person rather than a cardboard façade propped up by the author, going through the motions of being the protagonist. Based on comments regarding the previous post and thoughts about the samples here, I’m going to add to that definition of voice.

Voice: The feeling that the protagonist and other characters are real people, not façades. What’s another way to put that? Okay, the feeling that the protagonist and other characters are real characters, not Everyprotagonist and Everysidekick. The first requirement is dialogue that could not be recited by puppets programed to say Good morning and have a banal conversation about nothing. The second requirement is evidence that they have unique internal experiences; that they have unique and coherent reactions to the world and events.

But also –

Voice: The feeling that the author is a real person with a real style, not a souped-up autopredict AI setting words in order according to probability algorithms. This means details are surprising or cute or interesting or something other than predictable; wordchoice, phrasing, and punctuation is at least somewhat interesting rather than cliched; dialogue tags are not super-cliched or “trying too hard, getting silly,” as is characteristic of a lot of AI-generated fiction (and also some bad human-generated fiction); similes are not weird in the specific nonsensical way that seems fairly typical of generated fiction.

And maybe—

Voice: is it reasonable to suggest that a sense of setting also contributes to voice? That if the voice is strong, part of that comes from making the setting a real place, not a totally generic Everysetting? I’m starting to think this could be part of voice. Everysetting could be “every space opera” as well as “every contemporary small town,” so just writing an SF novel doesn’t mean the setting has anything much going for it. But even if it’s a small town, it should really seem like a specific small town, not Everysmalltown.

Besides voice –

Setting aside voice, are these excerpts good? Catchy? Both? Because they’re so short and always taken from the top of chapter two, an excerpt can wind up heavy on description, and then it’s hard to judge voice, especially if you’re thinking more about the characters being real people and less about voice including the author’s style and the setting. But no matter how you define voice, it’s still relatively easy to judge quality.

Catchiness is even easier because it’s so personal. By “catchy,” I mean are you engaged, would you turn the page. Or actually, for these excerpts, would you go back to the beginning and start the story properly. That’s not wholly independent of quality, but it’s pretty much orthogonal because a lot of catchiness has to do with tone.

I think that readers who skim through a novel without really noticing much about the writing, the style, the cliches, the characters, or anything else probably find a much larger proportion of all books catchy than, say, I do. These are the readers who may put more into the story than the author did. I think most commenters here are going to notice style and tone. Some of you are even more picky than I am, at least in some dimensions.

Anyway, what else, if anything, is notable about these selections? Comments below.

Once again, I’m going to put these in order from best to worst. And again, one of these excerpts is a generated fake. Which one? Can you tell? My personal guess is: You aren’t going to get it right. I can see things that give it away, but I still think it’s going to be hard to spot, even if you recognize a few of these and can therefore eliminate them as potential fakes. You might get it just because I’m indicating so clearly that it’s hard to spot. I’m going to do my very best not to give it away by the way I treat it in the comments.

I got all of these (except the fake, of course) from my Samples folder on my Kindle. A couple, some of you might recognize. I deleted about half as soon as I typed in the excerpt, so in that sense this was a useful exercise, because thinning the TBR pile is always useful. However, this does mean a fair number of these didn’t work for me, for one reason or another. You can see what you think …

***

1.

Tennal didn’t go back to his new room that night. The noise of the party swallowed him, and later, the drones moved across the windows like stars. His head was mercifully quiet for a few hours.

The next day, Tennal found himself waking up in a mostly deserted penthouse with a hangover and an architect. Again.

The bed moved as the architect from last night climbed out. Tennal made a wordless noise and unstuck his eyelids. The man didn’t say anything to him but started to pull on a set of clothes folded beside the bed: expensive cuts and fabrics, plus and encrypted pod comm on a flashy lace-gold chain. Tennal should probably have memorized his name.

“You look like shit, sweetie,” the boss said. “I’ve got a call to take care of. You go have a shower.” He put an architect’s command behind shower, a mental flare of light, but it brushed past Tennal light a breeze sliding against glass.

A familiar disappointment settled over Tennal. He’d popped some neuro-enhancer tablets last night to bring down his defenses, but the effect had worn off. “Yeah, yeah. You going to bring me breakfast first?”

The boss chuckled. “Y’know, most readers who do jobs for me have more tact. I wouldn’t even believe you were one if I hadn’t seen you party. Later.”

Tennal levered himself up on his elbows as the architect disappeared.

Voice: Tons. Heaps. Oodles.

Quality: Good, but I have to admit I’m a little confused. On the other hand, that kinda goes with picking up at the top of chapter two, without reading chapter one, so I can’t blame anyone but myself. So, good.

Catchiness: High. I would definitely go back to the beginning and read this properly.

***

2.

Isaveth had finished boiling the potatoes for supper and was doggedly mashing them when the front door creaked and she heard Annagail’s step in the hall.

Oh no. Was it that late already? Isaveth had spent only a few minutes talking to Morra, but she’d gone on writing for a good while after that, even while the dinner was cooking. Isaveth shot a guilty glance at Anna, about to ask if she minded fetching the other girls from Aunt Sal’s. Then Lilet and Mimmi burst in, squabbling and jostling each other, and she let out a thankful sigh.

“You were supposed to get us half an hour ago,” said Lilet accusingly. “It’s a good thing we spotted Anna before Aunt Sal started moaning. Ugh, potatoes again?”

“There’s plenty of air if you’d rather eat that,” Isaveth retorted, moving quickly to stop Mimmi from poking at the basket of spell-tablets she’d left by the back door. “Don’t touch those. I’m going to sell them.”

“They look like candies,” said Mimmi with a wistful glance at the basket. Isaveth had torn up some old tissue to wrap the tablets in, hoping it would protect them from crumbling. “What are they?”

“Spells,” said Isaveth. She almost added, “Like Mama used to make,” but Mimmi stilled teared up when anyone spoke of their mother. “Now come and help set the table.”

Voice: Yes, clear.

Quality: Good lord, all those names! Names piled on top of names! The author is very confident or very misguided to try to handle a family with this many people. Quality is good.

Catchiness: Good.

Other comments: Again, I like this. I would read it.

***

3.

The morning after the funeral, I awoke with that peculiar weight behind the eyes that follows too much thinking and not enough sleep. Outside, the Georgia sky had turned the color of old tin, low and expressionless. The air was thick with the early onset of June heat, and somewhere beyond the back porch, a mourning dove called out like it had something important to say and no one left to say it to.

I moved through the house barefoot, the pine floors cool against my soles. Mama’s house—mine now, I supposed, though the thought still landed strange in my mouth—was quiet except for the rhythmic tick of the old Seth Thomas clock on the mantel. It ticked the same way it had my entire childhood, steady as judgment. The smell of coffee had not yet touched the air. That was telling.

It had been three days since they pulled Robert’s body from the Oconee, his skin gone blue as river stone, and still no one had come forward with anything worth believing. Sheriff Cade had asked his questions, clipped and perfunctory, like he already knew the answers and didn’t care for the details. I knew better. Cade never did like details; they had a way of unraveling his version of things.

I stood at the kitchen sink and looked out over the back field, now nothing but scorched weeds and bent fence posts. In the distance, a figure moved—a slow gait, almost hesitant, like he was waiting for someone to wave him off. I squinted against the light and caught the glint of a badge.

“Morning, Ms. Bell,” he called when I stepped onto the porch. Deputy Langley. Too polite by half and not half as simple as he pretended to be. He removed his hat, the way Southern men still did when death hung in the air.

I crossed my arms. “You here official, Deputy?”

He gave me a look that wasn’t quite sorrow and wasn’t quite curiosity. “Depends how you answer what I’m about to ask.”

That’s how it always starts in this town—not with a body, not with blood. With a question you don’t expect, from someone you thought you could trust.

Voice: Good. I like this.

Quality: Some quibbles, but also good.

Catchiness: Still good. This isn’t an author I’m familiar with, but I’d be inclined to go back to the beginning and start it properly.

Other comments: The tone seems possibly a bit dark for my taste.

***

4.

With a hiss of displaced air Esther reappeared miles away from where she had started. She stood in a graveled parking area in front of the living quarters of the Keep.

The humble plantation-style cottage was raised up off the ground on a post-and-pier foundation with a lanai – a covered porch – in front and back. The lot was tucked away out of sight off a paved road ascending a leeward slope in the Ko’olau Mountains. Even in daylight she would barely have been able to identify the grassy lane that led through forest and bamboo past the main part of the extended family compound and on to the road. At night a heavy darkness swallowed the surroundings like an inky black cloak. Much of that weight was the magic that concealed the Keep from curious hikers who might wander down an unofficial trail looking for a route to the falls. The rest belonged to the Keep itself, whose footprint was pressed partly into Earth’s soil and partly into the Beyond in a way that made it easy to overlook, as if it wasn’t quite fully present.

The front door of the cottage was cracked ajar. She listened for signs of trespassers or intruders. The work-shed to her right was padlocked. One of the swings in the swing set creaked as if pushed by an invisible set of hands. Otherwise she heard nothing from the clearing that wrapped around to the back of the house except the delicate tremor of a spider’s web stirring in the breeze and the respiration of leaves. The dogs hadn’t come to investigate. That was definitely concerning.

Voice: Yes, but not much.

Quality: Decent.

Catchiness: Decent.

Other comments: This strikes me as okay, but not super engaging. The most engaging details by a mile is that the protagonist hears the tremor of a spider’s web and the respiration of leaves. ?!???

***

5.

Madeleine d’Aubin, alchemist of House Silverspires, had seen more than her share of prone bodies brought in at the dead of the night: she slept little these days in any case, spending her nights in her laboratory, remembering the past and what it had cost her.

She arrived in one of the largest rooms of the admissions wing of Hôtel-Dieu, the House’s hospital: row after row of metal beds, all unoccupied save two. Two doctors in white blouses hovered by the new arrivals’ side, and her assistant, Oris, was waiting for her, leaning against the wall and trying to appear casual; though his face was sallow in the dim light.

She nodded at Oris and went to his side, pulling a chair so she could sit. Madeleine dropped her heavy shoulder bag onto the floor and settled to wait in silence.

The room was dusty and the air dry, and her wasted lungs wouldn’t take it: a cough welled up. She desperately tried to quench the trickle that was going to become a cough, but it was never enough. The bout that followed racked her from head to toe – she was going to choke to death, never finding fresh, wholesome air again.

At last she sat back, wrung out, enjoying the sweetness of uninterrupted breath. One of the doctors – Aragon, surely – was looking straight at her with disapproval. Madeleine waved a hand, letting him know it was nothing. She’d lied about it; told him it was too much breathing the Paris air, of the areas around the blackened flow of the Seine – he’d seen so many combatants with the same problems that he’d been all too ready to believe her. She was not proud, but she was safe. The last thing that’d occur to him, prim and proper as he was, would be to question her; to realize how wasted her lungs were, and the true cause of such extensive and fast-progressing damage.

Voice: Pretty strong.

Quality: I could quibble, but probably the actual quality is better than the one above.

Catchiness: This one is the reason I wanted to separate quality from catchiness. I think this is good, with a caveat or two, but I don’t like it. The tone seems possibly too gritty for me.

Other comments: I would bet this rings a bell for some of you. It’s been on my radar for quite a while. I think I may take it off my radar based on the tone, but your comments could change my mind.

***

From here on, the samples seem less good, and this is true whether or not they also seem possibly generated. This raises a series of questions:

What makes the samples above better than those below? Not just voice, although these samples have fair to great voice.

I would say: Smoothness, with nothing or not much pushing the reader away from the story. Smoothness of sentences and phrases. Style, too. Just nice sentences. Smoothness of dialogue tags. Also, clever details that evoke surprise or amusement or some other reaction that contributes to engagement. If there’s dialogue, also liveliness; the dialogue evokes surprise, amusement, sympathy, interest.

All five of those above seem a lot better than any of those below, however. This has to do with voice, style, smoothness, details, liveliness.

What makes a sample seem less good, but not generated? What makes a sample seem bad in the way generated text generally seems bad? Have you figured out what cues you’re using to decide whether something seems generated? I know some of the cues I’m using, but I bet there are other things I’m also using, but haven’t consciously noticed.

***

6.

I was hoping to get out of town by noon, but by the time I packed everything, fielded another half-dozen phone calls from each of the brides, and ran all the resulting last-minute errands, it was well into the evening rush hour. Needless to say I was late arriving at Steven and Eileen’s. Eileen, bless her heart, didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she didn’t even seem to notice.

“Guess who’s here,” Eileen said as she met me at the door wearing a dress of purple tie-dyed velvet, spattered here and there with flour. “Barry!”

“Really,” I said, with considerably less enthusiasm. Ever since December, when I’d broken up with my boyfriend, Jeffrey, various friends and relatives had been trying to set me up with their idea of eligible men. Steven and Eileen’s candidate was Steven’s younger brother, Barry. Barry had taken to the idea immediately. I had not.

“The minute we told him you were coming, he came right up,” Eileen burbled. “Isn’t that sweet?”

“I really wish you hadn’t done that.”

“Why, Meg?” Eileen said, wide-eyed.

“Eileen, we’ve been over this half a dozen times already. You and Steven may think Barry and I are made for each other. I don’t.”

“He’s crazy about you.”

“So what? I don’t happen to like him.”

“I don’t see why not,” Eileen said. “He’s so sensitive. And such a deep thinker, too.”

Voice: Maybe? But I think the protagonist seems kind of like she’s a jerk?

Quality: Okay. The sentence that rescues this for me is the last line. I think that’s funny.

Catchiness: Okay. I’m not super in the mood for a cozy mystery, which is what this looks like to me. I think Jennifer Crusie might have spoiled other mystery-adjacent stories for me.

Other comments: I think every line of dialogue is boring except the last line, which is not boring.

***

7.

Detective Aaron Remalla studied his phone, wondering where to take the next turn. The farther he drove, the worse his cell phone connection became, and he cursed his partner. The woods were thick and the roads were narrow, and despite his ability to handle the most violent of criminals, at the moment, nature seemed far more dangerous. He’d take a cabin within a thirty-minute drive of a decent restaurant any day, but this was different. He’d driven through a small town about twenty minutes earlier that he’d almost missed entirely if not for the gas station on the corner. He’d stopped to fill his tank but had only filled it halfway when the creepy attendant with long, uncombed hair, dirty clothes, and stubbled face started to stare at him from the door of the station.

His partner had told him the place was rustic, but Rem would obviously have to explain to him the definition of rustic. There was civilization rustic and there was the movie Deliverance rustic, and this was borderline Deliverance.

Coming to a fork in the road, he cursed again and pulled over to the side. He shook his cell phone, hoping for reception. He thought he was supposed to go right, but he couldn’t be sure. The house had to be close, but he had no desire to get lost. He’d rather face a gang of armed street thugs. Visions of being stranded and spending the night in his car made him break out in a cold sweat.

He hit a button on his phone, hoping it would connect. He heard a click, and then nothing, and almost hung up, when he heard a static-filled “Hello?”

Rem didn’t mince words. “What the hell have you gotten me into? Do you know I am driving through wilderness right now? A Bigfoot probably has me in his sights and he’s anticipating dinner. I thought you said this place was near humans?”

Voice: Maybe?

Quality: I mean, kind of okay?

Catchiness: Not high for me. Lines like this – The woods were thick and the roads were narrow, and despite his ability to handle the most violent of criminals, at the moment, nature seemed far more dangerous. – strike me as stupid. He’d rather face a gang of armed street thugs than get lost, seriously? That’s just silly. The line about Deliverance is funny, though.

Other Comments: Are we sure this is chapter two? Why are we introducing the pov character by full name and title here? Is this the first time we’ve seen him? If so, this is fine. If not, it’s strange.

“Near humans” suggests a surprising twist as we find out this is an SF novel instead of a mystery novel. Do normal people say, “Located near humans” when they mean “Near people” or “Near civilization”? I’m voting no, and I think this usage instantly reduces catchiness to a don’t-bother level.

***

8.

The Gabriella’s systems shut down forty-four minutes later.

Throttle floated near the conference table, holding the edge to keep from drifting away. All six crew members were in the room with her. All war the black chime suits like the one Throttle now wore. Chime suits, nicknamed that because of their variety of warning alarms that tended to go off at random intervals, were advanced spacesuits. They could provide full life-support features through batteries that recharged from kinetic energy as well as from power stations. Newer suits also had solar absorbers in the fabric to recharge the batteries, but none of Throttle’s crew had those.

Most of her crew currently had their magnetized gravity boots on and “stood” on the floor or walls – or in Eddy’s case, the ceiling. Throttle found herself as comfortable, if not more so, in zero g. There, here useless legs weren’t nearly as much of a detriment as they were in gravity.

Portable lanterns, clipped on the walls, cast shadows over the crew’s faces. They all had the good sense to know what they faced, and therefore, all bore the same expression she felt within herself.

Dread.

Over the past fifteen years, she’d played out this scenario a thousand times in her head, with a thousand different ways of dealing with it, but every time had led to the same outcome. There was no way to save the eight hundred and sixty-two colonists in cryosleep on board her ship without outside help.

“Usually something big, like space debris or solar flares, cases cat fails. Any idea what caused this one?” Birk, Throttle’s right hand and co-leader of the mission, asked while he slowly treaded air.

Voice: Nonexistent.

Quality: Not great.

Catchiness: Downright low.

Other comments: Do not name your protagonist Throttle. Even if you think you’ve got a clever reason for it, don’t do that. Ugh. I can’t be the only reader who is seriously turned off by stupid names.

Also, don’t explain why chime suits are called chime suits. If you must explain that, slip that detail into the story, don’t just announce the explanation to the reader. Ditto for all the technical details. Dave Weber can get away with this, but I don’t suggest this aspect of his writing as a model to emulate.

***

9.

The Velvet Lounge was a somewhat more upmarket affair than Randall’s. For one thing, the spirits came out of branded bottles and didn’t taste like more than two glasses would send you blind for a week. For another, it had actual upholstery instead of bare boards, although you’d need a thing for velvet to consider it tasteful. For a third, instead of being buried deep in the warren of tunnels beneath the crust of Caarmella II, it was on the surface, actual stars visible in the sky alongside the winking lights of the atmo-scrapers that towered around them like some sort of glittering fungal growths. Jenna McIlroy kept finding her eyes drawn to them as they flashed in her peripheral vision, occasionally mixed with the running lights of some cargo freighter or passenger liner. She tried to stop herself from wondering what the ships were, where they came from, what their purpose was. There was too much galaxy for her guesses to be anything but wild, and it was a good way to make herself paranoid.

“You’da thought they’da made the atmo safe by now,” Apirana Wahawaha opined, nursing his solitary beer and scratching the dark whorls of the ta moko on his cheek. “Big A” was without doubt the most immediately intimidating member of the crew of Keiko, the jack-of-all-trades interstellar ship that had been Jenna’s home for the last four Standard months; he was huge in many ways, from build to voice to personality, and the tribal tattoos that covered much of his skin lent him an alien air, even out in this galaxy of wonders. However, he rarely drank alcohol and never had more than one even when he did, so he sipped quietly and slowly. “Seen’ stars is all well an’ good, but I like to take a walk outside every now an’ then, know what I mean?”

Voice: Yes. “You’d need a thing for velvet to consider it tasteful” strikes me as a line with personality. Pushing back against paranoia, ditto.

Quality: Okay.

Catchiness: Lowish.

Other comments: For me, a little of that you’da, they’da stuff goes a long way. Put this into the mouth of a character with ta moko tribal tattoos and it becomes off-putting.

In the literary world, there are just a lot of comic relief sidekicks and Wise Sages who get weird speech patterns, and a lot of readers are probably going to be put off the second they see this kind of self-consciously exotified speech.

As far as I’m concerned, this is a good time to remember that accents are hard to do well and that toning that way down and indicating speech differences with syntax, vocabulary, and overall style – not including apostrophes – might be something to consider.

***

10.

A bright sun crept over the Everstone Mountains, the peaks of Endin Keep casting long shadows over the Alchean city streets. Winding walkways crisscrossed between home and shop with the exception of Beryl Boulevard, a wide, well-groomed street leading from the western borders of Alchea proper directly to the archway of Endin Keep. A straight fixture amidst a city filled with unplanned growth.

The view from the highest tower of Endin Keep was breathtaking, with sweeping, panoramic views of the landscape. Yet Chrys sat staring into a book. He’d been there for hours, a melted candle flickering in the dim light of morning. Hundreds of notes written down meticulously onto dozens of parchment papers, stacked in ordered groups, surrounded him. Charts and diagrams and sketches. His eyes were filled with exhausted passion, but he was driven by a profound thirst for knowledge. Never again.

“Good morning, General.”

Chrys started. He hadn’t noticed the Great Lord Malachus Endin entering the briefing room. “Good morning, sir.” He gathered his notes, arranging each of them meticulously, and placed them in the sleeve of the leather book.

Malachus approached him. “How long have you been awake?”

“A while, sir.” Chris sat up straight. He adjusted the book so that it was lined up with the edge of the table.

“Is this about Iriel? I hear she is recovering well.”

“She is, sir. We were very fortunate.” Chrys looked up and met eyes with Malachus. The bichromatic gaze of the Great Lord never ceased to unnerve. One deep cerulean blue eye and the other a bright minty green. The colors were accentuated by the long, black hair falling on both sides of his bronze face. Light rays brushed carelessly across a well-trimmed beard. Malachus reveled in eye contact, knowing well how it reminded people of his dual threadweaver nature, and he respected those who were willing to keep his gaze when he spoke.

Voice: Amazingly low considering how much dialogue there is here. The problem is, it’s boring dialogue without personality. This, to me, is a good example of the author setting façades of characters into the story and pretending they’re real characters.

Quality: Low. I actually like the first paragraph here, but boring dialogue is a specific problem for me. Good morning, how long have you been awake, a while, when is someone going to say something worth saying?

Catchiness: Low.

Other comments: I don’t like this at all, and there are lots of reasons why not. I dislike the names. I think there are word choice and phrasing problems. His eyes were filled with exhausted passion, but he was driven by a profound thirst for knowledge doesn’t work for me. Never ceased to unnerve doesn’t either. Light rays brushed carelessly doesn’t either. A lot of people might be willing to hold his gaze, but unable to do it, so is willing the right word here? Keep isn’t.

*********

***

********

Here’s where those selections came from:

1. Everina Maxwell, Ocean’s Echo. That stuff about architects is delightful. There was zero chance anybody would pick this as generated. There are plot elements that have pushed me away from this book so far, but I do want to read it.

2. RJ Anderson, A Pocket Full of Murder. I think RJ Anderson is a fine author. I’ve liked others of her books, and I should read this one.

3. THIS is ChatGPT. Anybody guess that? I told ChatGPT: Generate the beginning of chapter two of a murder mystery set in Georgia. This is not the opening scene; the story is underway. Use first person AND A LITERARY STYLE. This is what I got. This is the first time I ever told a text generator to use a specific style, such as a literary style. I think it did an (appallingly) great job! Look at this line:

Outside, the Georgia sky had turned the color of old tin, low and expressionless. The air was thick with the early onset of June heat, and somewhere beyond the back porch, a mourning dove called out like it had something important to say and no one left to say it to.

This is really good!

What gives this away, if anything?

though the thought still landed strange in my mouth –> The normal line would be “tasted” strange in my mouth.

I crossed my arms. “You here official, Deputy?” –> This is the only dialogue plus tag that looks generated to me. Also, it should have been “officially,” not official — and an author writing in a literary style wouldn’t get that wrong.

With a question you don’t expect, from someone you thought you could trust. –> A good line, but the question hasn’t been asked yet! You can’t think the question is unexpected until the question has been asked! This, to me, is possibly the biggest tell in this excerpt.

Overall, though, it’s amazingly good on the sentence and paragraph level. I can now honestly believe someone could use ChatGPT to generate sentences and paragraphs, even if text generators can’t stick to the topic or remember what kind of story they’re telling. If the human person editing the fake text doesn’t have the skill to realize that “official” is wrong, that it should be “officially” — that it should be “tasted,” not “landed” — that crossing the arms looks a bit cliched and silly here — then the person isn’t going to be able to turn this into a decent story. But if they DO have that skill, I think they could.

MOVING ON

4. Kate Elliot, Keeper’s Six

Kate Elliot is a fine author, but this doesn’t especially grab me. Did the word “respiration” pull anybody toward thinking this was the fake? I thought that might happen. However, respiration is a perfectly fine term for stuff going on within a leaf. Gas exchange happens through the stomata; most importantly, CO2 diffuses into the leaves so photosynthesis can occur. Water evaporates through the stomata too, thus pulling more water up through the plant from the roots and for that matter into the roots from the soil. Cellular respiration is also taking place in the leaf, in the mitochondria, as glucose is broken down to make carbon dioxide and (the actual point) ATP. The process requires oxygen, hence calling the process cellular respiration. Same exact process is why we inhale to get oxygen and exhale to get rid of carbon dioxide.

5. Aliette de Bodard, The House of Shattered Wings

6. Donna Andrews, Murder with Peacocks

7. JT Bishop, Haunted River

8. Rachel Aukes, Black Sheep

9. Mike Brooks, Dark Run

10. Jack Argyle, Voice of War

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