A Fan's Playground

I sure have a wide range of opinions on the nominees for the Astounding award this year!

1. Shelley Parker-Chan

Parker-Chan's debut novel, She Who Became The Sun, is one of the most brilliant books I've read in years, and there is no doubt in my mind that I think both book and author deserve ALL the awards. And I can't wait to see where Parker-Chan goes from here as an author, if this is the level they're starting at!!

2. Everina Maxwell

I thoroughly enjoyed Maxwell's debut novel, Winter's Orbit. It's a delightful queer romance space opera and fully lives into the things it's doing and I'm here for it.

3. Micaiah Johnson

Johnson's only book so far is The Space Between Worlds, which, though it didn't land perfectly for me, was still a thought-provoking and powerful read.

4. Xiran Jay Zhao

I found Zhao's novel, Iron Widow, too dark for me to love it unreservedly, but I found the story and the characters very compelling!

5. Tracy Deonn

Deonn's only book so far is Legendborn, and it's good at being the kind of book it is, and it explores some important themes, but I found all the monster-fighting to be kinda boring, personally.

6. A.K. Larkwood

Larkwood now has two books out, but when I tried reading her debut, The Unspoken Name, I was just so unutterably bored that I couldn't make myself finish reading it. I know many people loved this book and I'm very happy for them but WOW I could not read it.

....huh, I did not expect to be as compelled by this book as I ended up being! I had seen a bunch of hype for it and deliberately decided not to read it because it didn't sound like my kind of thing, but then it ended up on the Hugos list for this year so I read it after all, and. It isn't exactly my thing? But I really liked it regardless!

It's a YA fantasy historical-futuristic reimagining of the story of the chinese empress Wu Zetian, with giant mecha battles.

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