Novelettes are such an awkward length. Just enough more of a time sink than short stories to make it easy to put them off, but still effectively just a short story without the space to go deep the way a novella can. However even just a couple of thousand words extra allows for so much more worldbuilding and character development than the short stories, and these five novelettes use those extra few thousand words to deliver something really special.

〈2181序曲〉再版导言, 顾适

Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition

Written by Gu Shi, Translated by Emily Jin

Originally Published: Clarkesworld Feb 2023

Read it Here

This story was originally published in Gu Shi’s 2020 short story collection Möbius Continuum, but as this 2023 translation is it’s first appearance in English, it is still eligible for the Hugo Award. Introduction to 2181 Overture was written by Gu Shi, a Chinese writer who has won two Galaxy Awards and Three Xingyun Awards. These are two of the most prestigious science fiction awards in China, think of them as comparable to the Hugos and the Nebulas. Having read Introduction to 2181 Overture, I can see why Gu Shi is such a big deal. This is a very impressive story.

That being said, it didn’t grab me that much at the start. It appeared at first to be an exploration of the effects on society that cryosleep technology has. A very interesting exploration, showing consequences of the technology that I’d never thought of, but not really much of a character-driven story. It’s a cool thought experiment… right up until it’s not. A bomb gets dropped after we’ve learnt a bunch of history that suddenly gives us a personal connection to a lot of the names dropped along the way, and that makes us re-evaluate everything we’ve just read with more context. This story, which starts out so scientific, becomes truly heartbreaking.

Not going to say much more, you should read it yourself. This is a wonderful story with interesting science, and a deep look at the way we look at successful women. Also, the translation feels really smooth. I cannot comment on the accuracy, but it reads like it was written in English. Disclaimer, I did have a bit to drink before reading this story and writing this review, but I don’t think that has impacted my judgement. Go read this story.

Ivy, Angelica, Bay

C.L. Polk

Originally Published: Tor.com, Dec 2023

Read it Here

Read the prequel, St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid here

C.L. Polk is no stranger to prestigious awards. They have a number of works that have been nominated for major awards, most notably their debut novel Witchmark, which won the World Fantasy Award in 2018 and kicked off the Hugo nominated Kingston Cycle series. They have also won the Nebula Award for their novella Even Though I knew the End.

This story is a follow up to Polk’s 2020 story St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid, but since I was going into this series blind, I decided to read Ivy, Angelica, Bay first to see if it stands alone, and found that not only can it be read by itself, but it is a very strong story on it’s own, that does not rely on the prequel to establish the world or the characters. That being said, when I read St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid there were a few scenes that provided more context to Miss L’Abielle, and that made me appreciate parts of Ivy, Angelica, Bay a lot more, so while this novelette is a great story on its own, reading the prequel will make it pack a bigger punch.

Back to Ivy, Angelica, Bay, and Polk has written another award worthy story here. It is a charming (hehe) story about a witch trying to protect her home, her community, and a vulnerable child who has come into her care all while grieving the death of her Mama. Every aspect of this story is dripping with character and feeling, and it was very easy to get drawn into this world. The magic system is based on actual witchcraft, with herbs and cards playing a large role. We do not get bogged down in the nitty gritty, but we learn enough to easily grasp the twists and turns of the story.

Both stories are I think set in New York (Miss L’Abielle lives in a Brownstone) and Miss L’Abielle and most other people in the story are African American. I mention this because I get the sense that quite a lot of this story is drawn from the way city redevelopments have often destroyed thriving black communities. If my reading is correct, then Polk has managed to raise a serious social issue, in a rather short piece where the main focus is on Miss L’Abielle’s growth, and her relationship with little Jael. Very well done.

The Year Without Sunshine

Naomi Kritzer

Originally Published: Uncanny Magazine, Nov-Dec 2023

Read it Here

This is the second Naomi Kritzer story on the ballot, with her short story ‘Better Living Through Algorithms’ being my pick of this year’s short stories. In my review of the short stories, I wrote a fair bit about Kritzer’s history with the Hugo Awards in that review, so you can check that out here if you are interested. The most important thing to note though is that this story WON the Nebula Award for best Novelette this year, and in my opinion it is a well deserved winner. This is one of the best pieces of shorter fiction I read last year.

The Year Without Sunshine is a semi-apocalyptic story. There’s still some form of government and law and order, but overall, US society has broken down due to a massive natural disaster. I think the implication was that Yellowstone blew, but the story doesn’t focus too much on how society fell apart, just how this neighbourhood responds to the new normal. I’m giving this story plenty of originality points just because it’s a partial societal collapse. Most post-apoc stories are well, apocalyptic. Especially if they are American. There seems to be no concept of society getting destroyed without it being a full-on end of the world, or at least an utter, complete dystopia.

I’m also impressed that despite depicting a massive collapse, this story is extremely positive and uplifting, and NOT because “Technology Bad, Get Back to Nature”. I really hate that trope. Yes, there are a ton of existential dangers with post industrial society, I sometimes write about them. That being said, a return to subsistence farming will not make things all sunshine and rainbows. It wasn’t in the past, and it isn’t in the present. Despite being a positive story set after ‘disaster destroys civilization’, The Year Without Sunshine does not ignore all the ways people will die without modern technology. In fact, Kritzer sees dangers that I never would have thought of, and builds a beautiful story about a community coming together to overcome them. I cannot recommend this story enough.

On the Fox Roads

Nghi Vo

Originally Published: Tor.com, Oct 2023

Read it Here

Nghi Vo is a previous Hugo Award winner (with the novella The Empress of Salt and Fortune winning its category at the 2021 Hugo Awards) and is on this ballot twice, with this novelette and the novella Mammoths at the Gate. Now, just a little aside, in case I run out of time to review the novellas for this year, I really loved Mammoths at the Gate. I felt like it was the first book in the series to reach the same highs as Empress of Salt and Fortune and I loved that we actually got to know more about Chih for once. Hopefully I can talk more about that later, for now, let’s focus on Fox Roads.

On the Fox Roads is a fun little story, really exciting to read through, and I loved the way gender dysphoria was paired with fox spirits doing well… I don’t want to cause any spoilers. It follows three Asian bank-robbers across 1930s USA, and has plenty of exciting car chases, plenty of sobering reminders about the racism and classism from this period, and a narrator who I just loved watching grow and find their true selves.

This is a good story, but it didn’t grab me as much as other Nghi Vo stuff I’ve read, or even as much as other stories in this review. Also it’s hard to talk about a lot of the things I did like, because I feel this is a good story to go into blind and just enjoy the ride.

One Man’s Treasure

Sarah Pinsker

Originally Published: Uncanny Magazine Jan-Feb 2023

Read it Here

I love Sarah Pinsker stories. And Then There Were (N-One) (2018 Hugo Award finalist for Best Novella) is one of my favourite stories. She has been nominated many times for Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards and has won each one at least once. Her 2019 short story collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea won the Philip K. Dick award, so you can tell that there is something special about most of her short fiction.

One Man’s Treasure is particularly suited to my tastes and I loved this story. It made me incredibly angry, but it was supposed to do that, which is why I love it. It has so many things that appeal to me; working class protagonist, the mundane side of magic, a nice level of humor that doesn’t distract from the seriousness of what’s happening, a lot of implicit worldbuilding, and calls out rich people. Even more importantly, something gets done about the injustices that happen in the story. Can’t say more without spoiling stuff, but I’ll just say I was satisfied with the ending.

This story is about garbage collectors in a modern world full of magical items. It’s bulk pick-up day and turns out that rich people really don’t give a damn about what they throw out or who gets hurt trying to pick up their discarded cauldrons and portals and other cursed junk. It’s a fun set-up that leads to some really rage-inducing, on-point social commentary, and all the while we’re hanging out with some really cool characters. This is another Sarah Pinsker hit for me, and I’d certainly recommend it to anyone, no matter how familiar you are with Pinsker’s work.

I Am Ai

Ai Jiang

Originally Published: Shortwave Publishing June 2023

Not available for Free Online Reading.

I’ve heard Ai Jiang’s name mentioned before, but this is my first time reading her work. Or at least I think it is. There is this nagging at the back of my mind that I’ve read something by her before, but no story titles are jumping out. Someone in the comments please talk about Ai Jiang short stories and we’ll see if any memories are jogged. Back on track though, Ai Jiang is an award-winners writer, whose poetry has won the Ignyte Award and whose Novella Linghun won the Nebula Award this year. I Am Ai is her first Hugo nomination.

I Am Ai is a modern capitalist dystopia story, with a focus on how AI art can never replace human creativity, but it can make life terrible for human artists. Ai is a cyborg (cyborg human, not an AI) who pushes herself to her limits trying to make a living writing whilst not working for the one company that controls everything. She has replaced most of her body with robotic parts that allow her to work at superhuman speed with a superhuman focus. The cost of these upgrades has been added to the debt she inherited off her parents and aunt, and all she wants in life is to work off that debt and be free.

One result of her upgrades is that she needs to charge or she’ll run out of power. The building she lives in has no electricity, so she has to charge up while working at an internet cafe and hope it lasts overnight. There is even a battery level icon as a chapter break and we are constantly reminded what percent her battery is on. This creates so much tension when she’s racing to the cafe in the mornings desperate to get in and on the charger. That’s just one way that Jiang is able to get us invested in Ai’s struggles while building this bleak world, and I loved that detail.

As great as this story is, it’s hard for me to praise it because I’m somewhat burned out on these types of dystopia stories, so I probably didn’t enjoy I Am Ai as much as most people did. There is one line that really knocked this story down for me.

“- But that is nothing compared to our ancestors a thousand years ago, in 2022, when life expectancy hovered around eighty.”

The drastic reduction in life-span is a chilling detail (it’s up from 45 to 50 years, yay) but the confirmation that this story takes place ONE THOUSAND years in the future adds a layer of hopelessness to the setting that to me drowned out all the good, pro-human things that the ending was going for. The idea of the trends leading us to dystopia can continue for such an insane amount of time, without even a civilization collapse or human extinction stopping them is too beak for me.

This is still a good story. I gave it four stars on Goodreads and everything, but due to my own feelings on dystopias and capitalism, and that ‘a thousand years ago’ line, the defiant, hopefully parts of this story didn’t land for me the way they should have.

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There you have it, six outstanding novelettes. Each one is worthy of a win, though the two Uncanny stories, The Year Without Sunshine and One Man’s Treasure are my favourites. The Locus award for this category was won by The Rainbow Bank by Uchechukwu Nwaka, which was not on either the Nebula or Hugo ballots. The Nebula Award however was won by The Year Without Sunshine, and I could see the Hugos doing the same thing. This could be a good year for Naomi Kritzer, since her short story Better Living Through Algorithms also imo has a shot at winning. Of course, it is a very competitive ballot, especially with how topical I Am Ai is, but I don’t think two wins for Kritzer is that unreasonable.

We’ll find out our winners in less than a month. The Hugo Awards will be presented on August 11, and I look forward to talking about that with you all. And of course, we’ve still got the novellas to check out.

~ Jayde