The more I read new releases, the more my “scramble to catch up on new releases” time moves from February to November. Which is not to say that it won’t continue into February, but it’s definitely started. Let’s take a look at what I read this month and what I have to recommend.

Short Fiction

I’ve already posted a review of November’s Clarkesworld and GigaNotoSaurus and another one of assorted stories from Strange Horizons and Podcastle. Today, I’ll be focusing on everything else.

Favorites

But I can’t talk about favorites without mentioning some standouts from my previous reviews. “Mirror Stages” by Claire Jia-Wen was disorienting and challenging, and “Ecdysis” by Samir Sirk Morató is an intriguing fairy tale subversion with fascinating thematic work, and “The Aquarium for Lost Souls” by Natasha King may be my favorite novelette of the year so far. But beyond those, we have an extremely strong pair:

• “Braid Me a Howling Tongue” (2023 novelette) by Maria Dong. Blends some fairy tale worldbuilding with a tight, heartwrenching perspective of a mute woman held in a deadly labor camp that regularly puts her life and bodily autonomy at risk. It’s emotionally intense, and satisfying in the way it uses small magics to change the situation. If I’d read this last year, it would’ve been on my Hugo ballot.
• “Before We Were Born” (2024 short story) by Angela Liu. A short piece that takes the horrifying worldbuilding as given and tells a heartfelt family story within those bounds, including a clever use of multiple perspectives.

Strong Contenders

• “Wikihistory” (2007 flash fiction) by Desmond Warzel. I don’t often like flash pieces, but this one is clever in its plot, delightful in its web forum verisimilitude, and fascinating in the philosophical debates that lurk beneath the surface.
• “Three Drops in the River” (2024 short story) by Marissa Lingen. A short, alchemical problem-solving piece with an entertaining narrative style.
• “The Ones Who Come at Last” (2024 short story) by P.H. Lee. An Omelas story that shifts the focus from the powers-that-be to the immigrants coming into an unethical city with few other places to turn.

Others I Enjoyed in November

• “Help Me Follow My Sister into the Land of the Dead” (2014 short story) by Carmen Maria Machado. A slowly unfolding family tragedy told in the style of a GoFundMe.
• “Autonomy of a Murder” (2024 short story) by Russell Nichols. An out-of-work journalist recounts the story of being set-up by a wealthy entrepreneur in a gripping noir style–even if there are times where the reader wants to grab the lead by the throat and talk sense into him.
• “Our Last Evening in a Moon-Struck City” (2024 short story) by Madeehah Reza. A story of women being ignored and worse, both in the context of family and broader society, with broad-scale tragedy being foretold in the opening lines and only slowly becoming more personal.
• “The Bonfire of the Words” (2024 novelette) by E. Lily Yu. A fable about the modifying of language to serve the ends of the powerful. Sometimes feels a bit too on-the-nose, but the classic prose is engaging, and there are some interesting structural experiments.

Novels and Novellas

Reviews Posted

• A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015-17 series) by Sarah J. Maas. This iconic romantasy trilogy has a pretty rough start but finds its footing to be an easy and entertaining read, though not without its flaws.
• The Wings Upon Her Back (2024 novel) by Samantha Mills. A highly entertaining fantasy debut about shaking free of the psychological hold of a zealous and manipulative leader, that I can’t stop comparing to Some Desperate Glory.
• I Who Have Never Known Men (1995 novel) by Jacqueline Harpman, translated by Ros Schwartz. A post-apocalyptic memoir that’s short on answers but long on exploration and musings on humanity absent the trappings of society.
• Welcome to Forever (2024 novel) by Nathan Tavares. A fascinating and disorienting non-linear tour through a fraught relationship, via pieces of recovered memory after a psychological terrorist attack. It turns into more of a standard technothriller near the end, but it’s worth the read for the first half alone.

Other November Reads

• The Butcher of the Forest (2024 novella) by Premee Mohamed. A wonderfully atmospheric journey through an uncanny forest not known for leaving survivors. Full review to come.
• It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over (2024 novella) by Anne de Marcken. A plotless, strange journey through the grieving of a sentient zombie. Full review to come.
• Ours (2024 novel) by Phillip B. Williams. DNF at 25%. This tells the story of a magical town for freed slaves through a series of vignettes in the lives of its often-traumatized residents. High-quality prose, but I wasn’t engaged enough in the individual stories to stay hooked in the absence of an overarching plot.
• The Ministry of Time (2024 novel) by Kalianne Bradley. What starts as an adorable, quirky time travel romance turns into an espionage thriller that tries to explore plenty of themes that don’t all land. Full review to come.
• The Other Valley (2024 novel) by Scott Alexander Howard. A unique time travel premise underlies a story with all the markers of literary fiction as opposed to genre fiction, though one that engrossed even an inveterate genre reader like me. This may be my book of the year. Full review to come.

SPSFC

I’ve read through my personal allotment for the first round of the fourth annual Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC4), but I’m still working with my team to determine our cuts and quarterfinalists. Keep an eye out for updates in December and January.

Bingo

I finished one card for my favorite annual reading challenge, posting a “Not-So-Hard” themed card.