We saw VERY few nominations for books in December, and I know everyone is very busy with the season. We’ll open nominations for January at the end of the month so be thinking about it.
INSTEAD… we are going to be reading some short stories for those that still want to have something to read together.
Let’s read:
- This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
- The Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
- The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster
If you have other suggestions we can throw them out here too. I’ll create discussion for these three for now.
Feeling dystopian, so here are a couple of short story recommendations::
“The Calorie Man” by Paolo Bacigalupi
“Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” and “I have no mouth but i must scream” by Harlan Ellison
Not short stories, but I’d recommend two quick books by Lauren Buekes:
The Shining Girls
Zoo City
Both lean hard into human scale detective stories, with the scifi elements woven very well into the world at large.
Bacigalupi’s The Alchemist is fantastic as well. It’s an unexpected spin on his usual post apocalyptic material, this one is fantasy flavored. The entire collection (The Tangled Lands, jointly written with Tobias Buckell) is good but this is the best story of the bunch.
Anything by Ted Chiang is a treat but especially that one.
If anyone isn’t aware of Ted Chiang, the magnificent film Arrival is based on one of his short stories.
Are shortform comics on the table? The Machine by Existential Comics is a quick read but remarkably profound.
