This is my last post on the Nebula nominees. I read through so much more of the list this year than in previous years which I think speaks to how engaging these reads are.
I couldn’t wait to read Rebecca Roanhorse’s Trail of Lightning. Her short story last year was my pick for the Hugos as well. Maggie Hoskie is a different kind of heroine. An unlikely and unwilling one, who fights the monsters in her community and the monster within her herself. I loved the mythological landscape of this post-apocalyptic world, and the writing was mesmerizing. I literally could not put it down and had a super late read one evening during (gasp) a school night. The pairing of hardcore monster killing Maggie with
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Trail of Lightning
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Storm of Locusts
For a military fiction fan like me, the Poppy War was a lot of fun. Extreme barriers to entry? check. Unfair treatment of cadets? check. Mysterious mentors? check. This Chinese fantasy inspired novel has twists and turns that will be familiar to Chinese film fans. And lucky us, the sequel is coming–The Dragon Republic.
My last entry in this Nebula reading segment is A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies by Alix E. Harrow (Apex 2/6/18). Imagine if Harry Potter did not have Hogwarts but he did have a library. And imagine that the librarian knows that this young man needs an escape. A touching short story and relatable from the perspective of someone who spent countless hours at their own local library.
I hope you enjoyed my five part Nebula tasting sampler. It’s very hard to pick favorites but amongst the Nebula nominees, I think the this one was the one I loved the most – The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections by Tina Connolly (Tor.com 7/11/18).
