Best short stories of the year (so far)

As 2014 edges into its last few months, I want to highlight those short stories which have impressed me this year and which will be on my shortlist for next year's award nominations.

Here's my first group of must-read stories:

• "Steppin' Razor" by Maurice Broaddus from Asimov's Science Fiction, Feb. 2014.
  This impressive steampunk novelette is a great introduction to Maurice's fiction. The story is set in an alternate-history Jamaica, where competing factions and beliefs compete for dominance and power.
   
• "When it Ends, He Catches Her" by Eugie Foster, Daily Science Fiction.
  This story is both touching and disturbing, and an beautiful elegy on life and death. I was blown away by this story when I read it and immediately knew it'd be on my year's best list, with this story ranking in my mind with Eugie's Nebula Award winning "Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast." I only wish I'd been able to tell Eugie how much I loved this story before she passed away.
   
• "Marielena" by Nina Allan, Interzone 254
  I've long been a fan of Nina Allan's beautiful stories, and "Marielena" must surely rank among her best. The story is the tale of a refugee in near-future Britain who is both haunted by a literally demon from his past who lives alongside the demons of the present and future.

In the coming weeks I'll highlight other stories on my emerging year's best list. I also suggest checking out K. Tempest Bradford's weekly io9 columns, which are essential reading for anyone who loves genre short stories.

The Mirror Empire is an epic fantasy for people who hate epic fantasies

When I finished The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley, one word kept screaming through my mind: Epic! Epic! Epic! I wanted to shout to the world that this is what a truly epic fantasy should be.

And I say that as someone who has grown to hate epic fantasies.

Confused? Then understand this: In recent decades the term epic fantasy has become cemented to rather non-epic ideas of what constitutes fantasy, namely endless variations on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Epic fantasy has come to mean European-style castles and magic and dragons and quests, usually populated by European-styled people living European-styled lives with European-styled beliefs.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with fantasies like these, and obviously many people love them. But I for one am sick of them.

I've always believed the term epic fantasy meant more than Tolkien and endless knockoffs of his work. To me, fantasies are truly epic when they take you to worlds you never previously imagined and introduce you to people and events and magic you couldn't have dreamed up yourself.

I don't want my epic fantasies to be more of the same old. And that's one reason I absolutely fell in love with Hurley's The Mirror Empire.

Hurley's novel is set on a world I can barely attempt to describe, where shifting satellites power magical abilities and open doors to other dimensions. Now this world is approaching a critical alignment of these satellites, an alignment which allows people from other worlds to invade every two thousand years. 

The setting is actually far more complicated than that, but to tell more would reveal some truly epic spoilers. All that matters is that Hurley has invested her time in creating a powerful world and you can't help but believe in this setting. Add in a story dealing with powerful themes like identity and slavery and genocide, and characters you'll love even when they reveal themselves as having oh-so-human failings, and the result is a great novel which will pull you through a literary wringer and leave you wishing immediately for the next book in the series.

The Mirror Empire is the best fantasy I've read this year and one of the best of recent years. This is also an epic fantasy for people who have grown to hate what passes for epic fantasies in today's marketplace.

The Mirror Empire is highly recommended and will be on my award shortlists. I suggest people check it out.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie for the Hugo Award for Best Novel

My picks for this year's Hugo Awards continue with the Best Novel category. My vote for Best Novel, and my suggestion to others, is Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.

The novel is one of the best SF stories I've read in years and a perfect rejuvenation of the space opera subgenre, which has long needed a strong reset. Ancillary Justice is also wondrously well-written, and presents a fresh look at both human culture and gender issues. Leckie has expertly crafted an exciting glimpse into humanity's potential instead of dwelling in the continual nostalgia which haunts so much of genre literature. For all of these reasons, this novel should win the Hugo Award.

When I recommended Interzone the other day for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine, I mentioned that the other finalists for the award also deserved being on the final ballot. I can't say the same for the novel category.

First off is the 800 pound doorstop, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. Due to a quirk in the Hugo rules, all 14 novels in the series were allowed on the ballot. I have never been a fan of this series because it simply rehashes every previous epic fantasy novel in existence into a nearly endless series. Since the series is so popular with readers there's a good chance it will win, but this doesn't change the fact that The Wheel of Time doesn't deserve being on the ballot or winning. 

Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross is a follow-up to his previous novel Saturn’s Children, set in a universe where humanity's androids have outlived humans. It's a good novel but not as good as Saturn’s Children.  Parasite by Mira Grant is another good novel but doesn't reach the power of Ancillary Justice. While both of these novels are well worth reading, they simply are beaten in this category by Ann Leckie's novel.

The final novel on the ballot is Warbound, Book III of the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia, who waged a vote campaign on behalf of himself and others to become a Hugo finalist. I knew very little about Correia and his writing prior to his campaign. Putting aside his in-your-face political screaming and desire to promote one of the worst haters in the SF/F genre, I tried reading Warbound but found it to be simply cranked out and predictable, one of the numerous genre novels which are read for a while then forgotten. While I can't say if this novel is typical of his writing, if you're going to urge people to vote for a book make damn sure they vote for a good one. 

So again, the clear choice for the Hugo Award for Best Novel is Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.

As a final note, it is irritating that Orbit only included samples of Ancillary Justice, Neptune's Brood and Parasite in the Hugo voting packet. But I urge voters not to hold this against the authors or their books.