C. Alex Smith's Blog

Awards Watch: The Nebula Awards Suggested Reading List is produced through the collaborative efforts of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association's 2500+ members, and provided to the public as a service in finding last year's most noteworthy fantasy and science fiction works. It's a dense list of single-line titles that's six pages long. I'm trying to widdle down the number of novels that voters might choose in August at the Seattle Con to a number that I can actually read. To that end, I'm looking at the buzz each leading novel has generated. I've assigned a rather arbitrary value to each nomination and prize and totaled them in my Best Novels of 2024 spreadsheet. Every Newsletter has a link to this spreadsheet at the bottom.  So far, the top 6 SFF and top 3 Horror novels are: Top Contenders for 2024 Title Author Genre The Ministry of Time Kaliane Bradley Sci-Fi A Sorceress Comes to Call T. Kingfisher Fan...

  Good News. Bad News. Good news . Our first contact with alien life is a microbe that can solve all our energy woes.  Bad news . It’s also a deadly disease. Good news . A nearby star system likely holds the key to unlocking the microbes energy potential without succumbing to the disease. Bad news . Disgraced astro-biologist Ryland Grace is the sole survivor of his crew and he can’t remember his own name, let alone why he was sent to this solar system. Good news . Dr. Grace gets help from a world famous engineer. Bad news . The engineer doesn’t speak English and is trapped on another ship. Good news : The two astronauts become unlikely friends. Bad news . The two have to overcome a vast chasm of cultural differences and communication problems in order to team up and save both their peoples.