Andrew Kuchling<p>Let's get started on the Hugo Awards with the short story category! <a href="https://dmv.community/tags/TheHugoAwards" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>TheHugoAwards</span></a> <a href="https://dmv.community/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> </p><p>I'm really enjoying Nghi Vo's ongoing sequence of stories about Depression-era magic. In "Stitched to Skin Like Family Is", a young Asian woman is searching for her brother in the western US, using her magical ability to keep herself safe; the search takes her somewhere very dark. (This story feels like a sibling to the movie "Sinners", which I recently saw; it's also fantasy/horror set in the 1930s.) <a href="https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/stitched-to-skin-like-family-is/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">uncannymagazine.com/article/st</span><span class="invisible">itched-to-skin-like-family-is/</span></a></p><p>Marginalia, by Mary Robinette Kowal, is a fantasy story in your basic medieval setting of castles and knights, but with the addition of giant acid-secreting snails that ravage the landscape. A woman is living in a small cottage with her mother and younger brother, and faces unexpected danger when the latest snail comes creeping along. The story is made additionally poignant when you know (from acknowledgements in Kowal's other books) that her mother has Parkinson's -- I hope her mom is doing OK. <a href="https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/marginalia/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">uncannymagazine.com/article/ma</span><span class="invisible">rginalia/</span></a> </p><p>Ursula K. LeGuin's story "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" is a touchstone of socially-oriented SF, and various people have written responses to it. Isabel J. Kim's "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole" is a cuttingly sardonic one. <a href="https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_0</span><span class="invisible">2_24/</span></a></p><p>Five Views of the Planet Tartarus, by Rachael K. Jones, is a tight (only 549 words!) and bleak story of future punishment. <a href="https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/five-views-of-the-planet-tartarus/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction</span><span class="invisible">/five-views-of-the-planet-tartarus/</span></a></p><p>"We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read", by Caroline M. Yoachim, is an experiment in typography, something like concrete poetry. I found it just mildly interesting – too abstract for me. <br><a href="https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/we-will-teach-you-how-to-read-we-will-teach-you-how-to-read/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction</span><span class="invisible">/we-will-teach-you-how-to-read-we-will-teach-you-how-to-read/</span></a></p><p>Arkady Martine's "Three Faces of a Beheading" is slightly less abstract, but I found it a slog even though it's only 4100 words. <a href="https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/three-faces-of-a-beheading/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">uncannymagazine.com/article/th</span><span class="invisible">ree-faces-of-a-beheading/</span></a> </p><p><a href="https://dmv.community/tags/books" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>books</span></a> <a href="https://dmv.community/tags/TheHugoAwards" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>TheHugoAwards</span></a></p>