SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases discussion

I'm planning to read all the novelette nominees for the Hugos and Nebulas. I'll read one per week until I've read them all. Most of them are available for free online. I'll share links as we go. I haven't been able to find Helicopter Story. (I understand about the drama associated with it.) So please let me know if you know how to get it. I'd really like to read it.

I'm starting with "The Inaccessibility of Heaven" by Aliette de Bodard this week. https://uncannymagazine.com/article/t...

Not sure I'll be able to keep up but I'm in!!

The links are VERY helpful. Thanks Kristenelle!

Yes with the links I might be able to do it! Great idea

I plan to join, Thanks for starting the thread!

That's the one I haven't read yet. I'm in.

Kristenelle wrote: "I haven't been able to find Helicopter Story. (I understand about the drama associated with it.) So please let me know if you know how to get it. I'd really like to read it."

Here is txt file https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pSNy...

Great, I'm so glad you all are joining me! Feel free to drop in and out as you have time/interest.

I started "The Inaccessibility of Heaven" yesterday. I'm not sure how far I got, but it is set in the same world as Dominion of the Fallen which I believe is a trilogy. I read the novella Of Dragons, Feasts and Murders this past year and it is also set in this world. I'm loving the world building. It is making me want to pick up the original trilogy. Have any of you read Dominion of the Fallen?

Oleksandr wrote: "Kristenelle wrote: "I haven't been able to find Helicopter Story. (I understand about the drama associated with it.) So please let me know if you know how to get it. I'd really like to read it."

H..."

Thank you!!

It the Inaccessibility of Heaven a Xuya story?

No, it is part of the same universe as Dominion of the Fallen which is urban fantasy.

I've only read one Dominion of the Fallen story, the novelette Children of Thorns, Children of Water. It was very good, much better than the Xuya stories IMO. I'm looking forward to this; I'll probably read it this weekend.

Just finished The Inaccessibility of Heaven, which was quite a good read, not 5 stars but interesting and unique. I haven't read anything by this author before but I liked her style. I'll add more thoughts once it sinks in a bit more.

Rebecca wrote: "Just finished The Inaccessibility of Heaven, which was quite a good read, not 5 stars but interesting and unique. I haven't read anything by this author before but I liked her style. I'll add more ..."

Yeah, I finished it this afternoon and feel pretty similar, I think. I enjoyed it and enjoy this author. I wonder if I would appreciate this story more if I had read the trilogy first?

Antti wrote: "I've only read one Dominion of the Fallen story, the novelette Children of Thorns, Children of Water. It was very good, much better than the Xuya stories IMO. I'm looking forward to..."

Oh, I hadn't realized that one existed! It seems like this author has worlds she just randomly writes stories in whenever she feels like it. From what I can tell the Xuya Universe is mostly a bunch of random stories and doesn't really have a linear reading order. And it seems this one is similar in some ways.

Kristenelle wrote: "I started "The Inaccessibility of Heaven" yesterday. I'm not sure how far I got, but it is set in the same world as Dominion of the Fallen which I believe is a trilogy."

Well, I cannot tell where "The Inaccessibility of Heaven" falls in the chronology of Dominion of the Fallen. Strangely, it is not listed as part of that series here https://www.goodreads.com/series/1611...

Does anybody know if "The Inaccessibility of Heaven" has spoilers for the rest of the series?

Kate, I don’t know for sure, but my impression is that it is set in that world, but otherwise completely unrelated to any of the other stories.

thanks. I will look at it sometime soon.

Finished today. It reminded me a lot of P. Djèlí Clark's Dead Djinn in Cairo, (view spoiler)[with all the angels and a ritual that goes wrong in the end. (hide spoiler)]

The worldbuilding is very interesting and captivating. De Bodard still isn't the world's greatest storyteller, but she's improved a lot. Compared to early Xuya stories, this is miles ahead in quality.

"It seems like this author has worlds she just randomly writes stories in whenever she feels like it."

It seems so, and I wish other authors would follow her lead. It's the universe I'm often more interested in than specific characters.

Too many writers get enamoured with their characters and follow their story, instead of telling lots of different stories from the same world. That's fine when the characters are good (e.g. the Vorkosigan saga), but if they are nothing especially remarkable, it seems a waste to confine your stories to their points of view.

Antti wrote: "It seems so, and I wish other authors would follow her lead. It's the universe I'm often more interested in than specific characters."

You should try T. Kingfisher's The World of the White Rat, which includes (at least), 5 books, and I think it will end up containing more, or others that are already written could be and we just don't know yet. It reminds me of the series Chalion by Bujold more than anything else I have read

Hey, friends, I'm going to read "Helicopter Story" this week thanks to Oleksandr sharing a link for it. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pSNy...

Well, it's a good thing that I have already read The Helicopter Story (BTW, I loved it) because now I have enough time this week to catch up and read The Inaccessibility of Heaven

Oh good! Glad that worked out. ☺️ If any of you ever have a particular one that you’d like to read next for whatever reason feel free to let me know. I’m picking the order pretty randomly and don’t actually care what order we read in.

Read the de Bodard - and generally agree - interesting and good works building but didn’t care all that much about characters, not 5 stars for me.

Well, I will just let you pick them, Kristenelle. I'm always behind in challenges like these, and I don't want to pick something and then never read it! :-)

I just finished Helicopter Story. I enjoyed the discussion of gender and found it somewhat relatable. I’m not sure I see how it was offensive to some people. Maybe they didn’t feel like it was a safe discussion because they didn’t know the author is trans?

I haven’t read it yet but I understood that maybe some of the reaction was knee jerk to the name?

That is what I heard as well Rachel.

I'll likely miss this weeks challenge but should have more time to read next week.

Kristenelle wrote: "I’m not sure I see how it was offensive to some people"

After the initial growth of trans awareness and things like stating your preferable pronouns, the was (is) a counter-reaction "it's just a show-off", so somewhere in gamedom (fandom of computer games, filled often with young and not very bright males) on requests to add a possibility to add ability to choose some other gender beyond binary made memes, one of which was:

I sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of soaring over the oilfields dropping hot sticky loads on disgusting foreigners. People say to me that a person being a helicopter is Impossible and I'm fucking retarded but I don't care, I'm beautiful. I'm having a plastic surgeon install rotary blades, 30 mm cannons and AMG-114 Hellfire missiles on my body. From now on I want you guys to call me "Apache" and respect my right to kill from above and kill needlessly. If you can't accept me you're a heliphobe and need to check your vehicle privilege. Thank you for being so understanding.

It was in 2014 and since then "i identify as a helicopter" become one of the most popular and offensive anti-trans memes. What the author tried to do it to take back the name, like some gays not proudly call themselves fags or Blacks use n-word. However the community assumed that it was just another insult ad was furious.

I read "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" back in early 2020, to find out what all the fuss was about. I can't remember all the details, but overall I liked the story. It was too essayish to be a good novelette, but the ideas were interesting enough. The weaponization of gender was a novel idea, and for that alone the story deserves some praise. The actual storyline worked well enough.

If it hadn't been all the misdirected outrage and consequent pulling the story from Clarkesworld's website, I doubt this story would ever have been nominated for a Hugo. But as it is, I'm happy that the voters showed solidarity towards Fall - although I am perfectly aware that many of the voters most likely just saw this as an opportunity to "troll the SJW's" or something like that.

I think I have to read it again. I know I read it when the topic came up and Oleksandr kindly provided us with the text - but for the love of it I can't recall any detail what the story was about. So it seems not to have left any kind of impression on me.

Oleksandr wrote: "Kristenelle wrote: "I’m not sure I see how it was offensive to some people"

After the initial growth of trans awareness and things like stating your preferable pronouns, the was (is) a counter-rea..."

Wow, I didn't know that history. Thanks for sharing. It explains a lot.

Hey friends, I'm going to read "Two Truths and a Lie" by Sarah Pinsker this week. You can read it here: https://www.tor.com/2020/06/17/two-tr...

Thanks for doing this, Kristenelle

Just finished Two Truths and a Lie. It was categorized as "dark fantasy" at Tor.com, but I would call this "new weird" or "horror".

Antti wrote: "Just finished Two Truths and a Lie. It was categorized as "dark fantasy" at Tor.com, but I would call this "new weird" or "horror"."

It seems that over time genres mix more and more and of the mix new genres emerge. Say weird is a mix of SF/horror/occult

I finished a couple days ago and forgot to update.... I loved it! I thought it was really well written. It is my favorite so far.

I'm going to be reading "The Pill" by Meg Elison this week. It appears that it is not freely available to read anywhere online. You can purchase the collection it is found in here: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=produ...

Luckily I was able to find it instantly available at my library. Hope you guys have it available too! It is found in Big Girl.

Thanks fir the tip! I found it on my library’s hoopla as well (though I am one behind )

The Pill was available online for some time during the months of the Hugo nominations; therefore, you can use the Wayback Machine to access the archived page and read the story there: https://web.archive.org/web/202102152...

Thanks a lot for this link, Antti! This was the one I hadn't access to.

I tried to read "the Inaccessibility of Heaven", but after some 'pages' I skimmed to the middle and then read the end. I was severly underwhelmed by story and writing.

I am trying to keep up with everything, and these short pieces just keep falling by the wayside! Sorry!

Oh gosh, no need to apologize, Kate! This is just for fun. Join when you want to.

I'm also a bit overwhelmed by other reads right now, but I still hope to join the discussion

Yeah, I'll get to the novelettes eventually, still working my way through the longer nominees.

Oh my gosh, I'm about halfway through The Pill, and its pretty disgusting. Don't let that turn you off, its still interesting, just quite graphic in a way I am not used to.

I finished it last night and thought it was brilliant. It was very readable and immersive. The prose is beautiful in an edgy yet poetic way. I thought it was a really good exploration of fat phobia and the experience of being fat. And also just fascinating speculative fiction.

I just finished The Pill. Pretty good, if not without its flaws. Worst of the flaws was the exaggerated death rate; c'mon, that was just totally unrealistic! I mean, I understand Elison was using satire to make a point how much society hates fatness, but it still broke my immersion. A two-percent death rate would've been just as effective and much more believable.

The end was somewhat of a surprise, but a pleasant one. The house was a pleasant place, yet it was also an escape from real world, and it made a nice parallel to the brother's sad life: both the sister and the brother were in a prison of their own making, after a fashion.

I just finished The Pill, very interesting and I really liked it in the end, gave me a lot to think about. I didn't think about the parallels between the brother and sister, but that's exactly it Antti - both are caught in cages of their own choosing (kinda).

I thought the story would use her filming somehow, like she would make a documentary in the end and it would change how ppl thought about fatness, but that might have been too sunny an ending.

@Rebecca - I'm glad you ended up enjoying it! I was expecting the filming to culminate in a liberating documentary too haha. But yeah, that would have been too perfect.

@Antti - I don't think the death rate was really meant to sound realistic so much as it was to emphasize how much people are willing to risk to be thin. Like, did it challenge your disbelief in any kind of drug being that deadly or your disbelief that people would be willing to bet those odds? Because I feel like the author is right that people would be willing to bet those odds...maybe not everyone, but definitely some...and I could see the peer pressure being really strong.

Just finished the Pill. I'm pretty impressed - it was well done and pulled me in quickly. I like it best so far but haven't done Two truths yet