Worldcon in a series of scattered thoughts

• Jason Sizemore is right — the best moment of MidAmericon II was Rachel Swirsky reading her Nebula Award winning short story "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love." The story is powerful to read. But to hear those beautiful and moving words in Rachel's voice ... Wow. What more can I say?
   
• At the reading I read "Death Flowers of Never-Forgotten Love," which was inspired by Rachel's story. And the fiction read by Adam-Troy Castro and Kate Kate Elliott was also super awesome and disturbing.
   
• I have nothing more to say on the Dave Truesdale short fiction fiasco. However, if you want a detailed eye-witness summary of what happened, Dave Creek has written the best account I've read. You'll have to log into Facebook to read it.
   
• Read Alyssa Wong's thread on what happened to her at Worldcon. This is unacceptable and should never happen to anyone. Take a stand for the good and work to prevent pain like this from reoccurring.
   
• Lots of great summaries of Worldcon and the Hugo Awards out there. My favorites include ones from Monica Valentinelli, Abigail Nussbaum, and Rich Horton.
   
• Maurice Broaddus. By this time next year you're going to be like damn man, Maurice Broaddus is everywhere. And he deserves to be because he's one of the best people I know in the genre. You go Maurice!
   
• I met too many great people to name them all, so I'm not even going to try (but they know who they are). That's what makes Worldcon and the entire SF/F community so great — the people. Never forget that without the people in our genre our genre would be nothing. Always remember to treat people well and with respect even if you disagree with them. But the flip side to that is to also not tolerate wrong behavior merely because someone is well-known in the genre or a friend of yours. Call out the wrongness but keep to the happiness.
   
• Final thought. This was my first Worldcon and I want to thank everyone who made me feel welcome and came to my panels and took the time to say hello. Again, it's the people who matter.

Year's best SF/F, January to June 2016 edition

I love science fiction and fantasy stories. I love nominating works for the Hugo and Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. But what I don't love is reading tons of works at the end of each year in a desperate bid to fill out my award nominations. After all, cram reading is rarely fun reading.

So this year I promised to get ahead of the curve. Below are my favorite stories and novels from the first half of 2016. I strongly recommend people seek out and read all these stories.

While I feel the list is fairly complete, it's still possible I'll read some works published between January and June 2016 and add them. For example, I'm behind on my reading from Asimov's and Interzone, and may be adding a few stories from those magazines. I'm also fairly certain I'll add a novella or two because I'm just now reading Monstrous Little Voices: New Tales Shakespeare's Fantasy World, which features novellas by five of my favorite fantasy authors (Adrian Tchaikovsky, Emma Newman, Jonathan Barnes, Foz Meadows and Kate Heartfield).

As an FYI, I'm tracking my picks for the year's best SF/F through the SFWA Recommended Reading list. You can access all of my recommended works, including works from the second half of 2016 which I'll add in the coming months, at that link.

January - June 2016 Novels

• All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor)
• City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway Books)
• Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones (William Morrow)
• The Fireman by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
• The Race by Nina Allan (Titan Books. Note: This novel was originally published in the U.K. in 2014 but was released in the U.S. this year in a revised edition, making it eligible for this year's awards.)
• The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar (Small Beer Press)

January to June 2016 Novellas

• Forest of Memory by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor.com)
• The Coward's Option by Adam-Troy Castro (Analog)
• The Liar by John P. Murphy (F&SF)
• Under the Stone by Karoline Georges (Anvil Press. Note: See my review of this excellent novella.)

Janurary to June 2016 Novelettes

• Empty Planets by Rahul Kanakia (Interzone)
• Fifty Shades of Grays by Steven Barnes (Lightspeed)
• Motherboard (A Tale from Somewhere) by Jeffrey Thomas (Interzone)
• Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed)
• The Shores of Being by Dave Creek (Analog)
• The Stone War by Ted Kosmatka (F&SF)
• We Will Wake among the Gods, among the Stars by Caroline Yoachim & Tina Connolly (Analog)
• You'll Surely Drown Here If You Stay by Alyssa Wong (Uncanny Magazine)

January to June 2016 Short Stories

• Between Dragons and Their Wrath by An Owomoyela & Rachel Swirsky (Clarkesworld)
• Laws of Night and Silk by Seth Dickinson (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
• Life in Stone, Glass, and Plastic by José Pablo Iriarte (Strange Horizons)
• Lullaby for a Lost World by Aliette de Bodard (Tor.com)
• Michael Doesn’t Hate His Mother by Marie Vibbert (Lightspeed)
• No Matter Which Way We Turned by Brian Evenson (People Holding ...)
• Sic Semper, Sic Semper, Sic Semper by Douglas F. Warrick (Tor.com)
• Sweet Marrow by Vajra Chandrasekera (Strange Horizons)
• The Red Thread by Sofia Samatar (Lightspeed)
• The Right Sort of Monsters by Kelly Sandoval (Strange Horizons)
• The Secret Mirror of Moriyama House by Yukimi Ogawa (F&SF)
• The Silver Strands of Alpha Crucis-d by N. J. Schrock (F&SF)
• The Unmistakable Smell of Wood Violets by Angélica Gorodischer, translated by Marian Womack (The Big Book of Science Fiction. Note: This story was first published in English this year, making it eligible for 2016 awards.)
• Things With Beards by Sam J. Miller (Clarkesworld)
• Three Points Masculine by An Owomoyela (Lightspeed Magazine)
• Two Small Birds by Han Song, translated by John Chu (The Big Book of Science Fiction. Note: This story was first published in English this year, making it eligible for 2016 awards.)
• Unreeled by Mercurio D. Rivera (Asimov's Science Fiction)
• Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station | Hours Since the Last Patient Death: 0 by Caroline M. Yoachim (Lightspeed)
• White Dust by Nathan Hillstrom (Asimov's)

Review of Under the Stone by Karoline Georges

One of the most exciting novellas I’ve read this year is Under the Stone by Quebec author Karoline Georges. The story focuses on a child born in cell number 804 on the 5969th level of a massive building containing all remaining humans in the world.

The child grows up both mentally and physically trapped by this cell while also learning to survive an abusive father and fearful mother, who are as trapped as the child and take their anger and disgust out on their offspring. The child's only escape — the possible movement of the incalculable amounts of concrete surrounding the cell and a crack which may bring about the ultimate transformation in the child.

This psychological and philosophical novella is beautifully written and reads like a modern-day version of George Orwell's 1984, presenting a claustrophobic view of life where society reduces humans to our most basic instincts and needs.

Originally published in French as Sous Beton in 2010, the novella was released in English a few months ago by Anvil Press, an independent publisher from Vancouver. I highly recommend people check it out. Under the Stone will definitely be on my shortlist of novellas for the major SF awards.

As a side note, I purchased the novella from Bakka Phoenix Books on a recent visit to Toronto. There was a misprint in my book and the staff at Bakka went above and beyond in making sure I received a new copy so I could finish reading the story. Many thanks to them. Be sure to check out their excellent SF/F bookstore if you're in the area.

Novel of the week: The Strange Crimes of Little Africa by Chesya Burke

My new novel of the week is The Strange Crimes of Little Africa by Chesya Burke, an exciting mystery set in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance. The novel follows the adventures of anthropology student Jaz Idawell as she tries to solve a murder alongside her best friend Zora Neale Hurston.

Burke is an amazing writer, creating a 1920s Harlem which crackles with life and energy and pulls the reader into that famous time period. The novel's characters are equally engrossing, with Jaz quickly endearing herself to the reader, who can't help rooting for her as she battles corruption, discrimination, and revelations which threaten to tear apart both her family and society.

While The Strange Crimes of Little Africa is a historical mystery, Burke's writings are well known within the SF/F and horror communities, with her short story collection Let's Play White being one of the best first collections released by a new genre author in recent years. Even though this isn't a SF/F or horror novel, genre fans will likely enjoy Burke's mystery, as will any fan of mysteries and historical novels.

I also hope that Burke will write more stories featuring Jaz Idawell, who is a protagonist who would benefit from an entire series of novels.

Highly recommended.

Novel of the week: Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen

There's magic in the best science fiction. An abiding sensawunda. An intellectual and emotional longing. A deeply human touch embracing the greater universe and the unending possibilities flowing around us.

Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen is one such science fiction novel. Set in a far future populated by anthropomorphic animals uplifted by humanity, Barsk is exciting, intellectually probing, and extremely moving. The novel is also a triumph of world creation, making you love the characters and their universe as if they were your own.

Despite the novel's galaxy-wide setting, the story focuses on a single world, the Barsk of the eponymous title which is the homeworld of two races of elephant-human hybrids. Despised by the rest of the species in the galactic alliance, these races of elephant-humans have walled themselves off on their world, content to live their lives according to their cultural beliefs and ideals.

One of these beliefs is that each elephant-human sets out on a personal journal shortly before their death to the elephant's graveyard. But something is stopping the recent dead from reaching their final resting place. One of the planet's historians, who also has the ability to speak with the dead, sets out to discover what is happening.

I have enjoyed Lawrence Schoen's fiction in recent years, but with Barsk he takes his storytelling to new heights, rivaling the top authors in the SF genre. In addition to the compelling story Schoen created, one of the best things about Barsk is how he weaves in interesting theories of cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics — both fields in which Schoen works — without letting the novel turn either preachy or boring. This depth takes the novel beyond a simple space opera tale into the realm of great genre works like Dune and The Left Hand of Darkness.

I can't remember the last time I finished a SF novel and immediately reread it. I did this with Barsk. This is a novel to cherish and urge others to read. This is a novel to show people who say the science fiction genre is dead and unable to create original stories.

Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard is highly recommended and will likely be on my shortlist of Hugo and Nebula nominees.