Fiction

Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross
Part One: Chapters 3-5

Every time this threatened to get interesting, it slipped into a history or economics lesson about this fictional far-future -- ugh. I was on the verge of giving up... then decided to give it to a fifth of the way through, the end of chapter 4, and it suddenly got interesting, with a chapter-ending cliffhanger and everything. By the end of chapter 5, it's almost downright exciting.

Unfortunately, this is where the free extract provided for Hugo voters runs out. Now I'm debating whether to bank on this new-found good-ness continuing and read more, or assume it will fall back on its old ways and give up anyway.



If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love by Rachel Swirsky

Selkie Stories Are for Losers by Sofia Samatar

The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere by John Chu

Three of the four Hugo nominees for Best Short Story. All are about real-world things with an SF/F twist. If You Were a Dinosaur is clearly the best, The Water That Falls is good but perhaps ends before the end (though perhaps not), and I have no idea what Selkie Stories Are for Losers is really meant to be about.

You can read them all online for free at the links above.