I’ve never been a con person. A friend of mine is an artist (Rob Chang’s gorgeous artwork here) and when we were kids, we went to a Comic Con to hang out with other comic book artists. That was over 20 years ago! This year Worldcon is coming to San Jose and so I’m going to go all in for at least a day and attend panels and walk around as a Con Tourist.
Which brings to me to the point of this post. One of the fun things about Worldcon for me is that I get a curated list of the Hugo nominees to read. As an extra bonus, LeVar Burton reads one of the short stories nominated for the Hugo– Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™ by Rebecca Roanhorse on his new podcast. I loved it. LeVar does an amazing job reading it. Just like my kids love having me read Harry Potter to them in the evenings, it’s a total treat for me to have a podcast where someone reads me a story! You can listen here (it’s episode 25).
The author, Roanhorse, has an incredible voice. The short story is told in the second person point of view, which I personally find incredibly challenging to write. The ending to our hero’s narrative is both surprising yet inevitable. Her debut novel Trail of Lightning was pretty much a one-click purchase for me.
Also, having come freshly off reading The Martian (which is on my top 10 list of sci fi reads, ever), I was curious to see what her take on a Martian tale would be. Boy, was I in for a treat. It’s a beautiful and unexpected tale. Our hero is an octagenarian architect on Earth who wants to build an Obelisk on an abandoned Mars colony. She will do anything to give mankind one last beautiful monument as Earth has become decimated by plagues. But there is one thing that might be worth giving up that dream. A great read, and like many short fiction offerings, has been republished for free online.
Who knew there was a Worldcon and with such rich benefits!!!! Thank you for sharing! I love the artistry of this blogpost!