Jun 14 2026
True to form, two of this year’s finalists in the category of Best Short Story are listicle stories. I guess by now they’re just another variation in the form, rather than an innovation. The strength in the variation is that it allows an author to show numerous different perspectives or aspects of a situation within …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/14/hugo-awards-2026-best-short-story/
Jun 09 2026
Getting a much earlier start with this year’s slate of Hugo nominees than I did last year’s, go me! And, as with last year’s short story slate, my favorite comes from Isabel J Kim, with her diabolical Wire Mother. Perhaps diabolical isn’t the best description, but after reading the bland obviousness of most of the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/06/09/hugo-awards-2026-best-short-story-nominees/
May 20 2026
I’m gonna be so for real with y’all, idk if I would have picked this up had I known it was a reprint from 1994. Which I also only realized after riffling through the Contributor’s Notes at the back of the book and finding that the authors here are, as far as I could tell, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/05/20/shadows-over-innsmouth-edited-by-stephen-jones/
Mar 25 2026
Alright, I’m going to straight up admit that I haven’t read any of Rebecca Roanhorse’s Sixth World novels, so I was definitely not as invested in what is likely to be the biggest draw of this book for fans of hers: the novella that closes the collection and gives it its name. River Of Bones …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/25/river-of-bones-and-other-stories-by-rebecca-roanhorse/
Mar 09 2026
God bless short stories for how easily digestible they are, having stripped away so much extraneous matter to properly capture a mood and make a point, at least, tho not exclusively, in the literary genre. Oliver Munday’s new collection of ten short stories exemplify this, almost to the point where I wanted more from several …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/03/09/head-of-household-by-oliver-munday/
Jan 22 2026
I tend to read a lot more female authors than male, which apparently puts me in the minority of readers worldwide. It’s especially unusual for me to read “serious” fiction by men, and while there’s a touch of the supernatural in each story collected here, this is still very much the kind of literary writing …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2026/01/22/wandering-souls-and-other-stories-by-philip-caputo/
Nov 28 2025
And now for a little counter-programming… (she says, having already bought a huge stack of gifts online.) Subtitled Fantasy and Science Fiction from a Powerful African Voice (and with a foreword by Eugen Bacon,) this collection definitely functions as both a critique of capitalism and other exploitative systems, as well as a celebration of Ghana …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/11/28/black-friday-short-stories-from-africa-by-cheryl-s-ntumy/
Sep 08 2025
I have recently remarked on how my reading brain seems to have pivoted away from classic/cozy murder mysteries to punchy short horror stories as a sort of mental palate cleanser between books, likely due to the shift of my literary consumption to a minimum of three mystery novels per week. So Eric LaRocca’s This Skin …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/09/08/this-skin-was-once-mine-and-other-disturbances-by-eric-larocca/
Jul 20 2025
Officially, I’m taking a break from reading for the Hugo Awards this year. I’ve found participating in the Hugo process as a reader and voter wonderfully rewarding, not least because it has introduced me to authors I would have completely missed otherwise, but I’m also a conscientious voter, and that means I try to read …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/07/20/hugo-awards-2025-best-short-story/
Jul 16 2025
I have become even more time blind than usual lately, and am woefully behind on any emails that may be reminding me of voting deadlines. Nevertheless, I’m glad that I’m finally getting a chance to look at this year’s Hugo nominees, beginning, as is tradition, with Best Short Story! And, as is tradition, let’s start …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/07/16/hugo-awards-2025-best-short-story-nominees/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire