Between illness and travel and more illness, it’s been a weird spring. I hardly read any short fiction in April, so I’m rolling two months of short fiction together into one post. Because nomination deadlines passed in mid-March, I pivoted from catching up on “Best of 2021” lists to reading whatever caught my fancy, and… Continue reading April/May 2022 Round-up and Short Fiction Focus

Awards nomination season is over, so March was a transition away from catching up on everything I could read from “Best of 2021” lists back to reading whatever struck my fancy (and, on the longer work, fit my last few Bingo squares–March 31 is the end of the Bingo year). I did find a gem… Continue reading March 2022 Roundup and Short Fiction Focus

January delivered plenty of “Best of 2021” recommended reading lists, and so February was my heaviest month of short-fiction reading since I jumped back into the form in 2020. I made plenty of additions to my Hugo Nomination Draft, and I had such a good time reading that, even after going back at the end… Continue reading February 2022 Round-up and Short Fiction Focus

Moving into the new year, I’m going to make a small change to how I do my round-up posts. I feel like writing extended short story reviews would be too much, but with the length of my unusual comments, it’s hard to capture why a story might not work for me, and so my entries… Continue reading January 2022 Round-up and Short Fiction Focus

After a month hiatus stemming from SPSFC responsibilities and a truncated lunch break, November has brought me back to sci-fi/fantasy short fiction, and I’ve come across some truly exceptional work. I didn’t read a bad short story all month, with the monthly “other reads” category both shorter and higher in quality than it usually is.… Continue reading November 2021 Round-up and Short Fiction Focus

I circled around to some classic SFF short fiction this month, and some of them are classics for a reason–there are some real gems out there. It was my sparsest month of the year for novel-reading, with just a single novel both started and finished in the month of September. But I also read the… Continue reading September 2021 Round-up and Short Fiction Focus

August in the Tar Vol household was an attack of real life, and I had to consult my spreadsheet to even remember what I read this month. But the whirlwind-hampered memory doesn’t mean there weren’t some excellent reads this month, both short fiction and more extended work. So let’s get right to it. Short Fiction… Continue reading August 2021 Round-up and Short Fiction Focus

After over two months without a five-star rating for a novel or novella, July was a return to excellent reading, with two novellas and two novels that I have rated at 17/20 or higher. I haven’t gotten any of the reviews posted, but there are some glowing reviews coming for August, with sneak previews here… Continue reading July 2021 Round-up and Short Fiction Focus

My long fiction slump continues, with no five-star reviews for a second consecutive month. But I’ve read some absolutely tremendous short stories this year, so let’s take a look at them. Short Stories June Favorites “Mono no aware” (2012) by Ken Liu. Ken Liu writes the most touching stories, and this one, about an attempt… Continue reading June 2021 Round-up and Short Fiction Focus

A new baby this month meant that reading was a bit on the sporadic side (and I think the new baby fatigue may be partially responsible for the dearth of five-star ratings, with apologies to the stories that were on the borderline), but there was still a lot of good in May’s reading, including the… Continue reading May 2021 Round-up and Short Fiction Focus