Recent Reading Roundup 57
The first recent reading roundup of 2023 comes smack in the middle of the awards-reading period. Two of the novels discussed here have already been nominated for the Nebula (alas, I found both of them rather disappointing). The two novellas I review are ones that I hope to see on awards shortlists in the near future. And then there are a couple of random non-SFF novels, both of which surprised me, albeit in different ways. I'll have more about my Hugo nominations as we get closer to the deadline, but if you've been reading my blog for the last year, I think you probably have a good idea of what I plan to nominate. Babel by R.F. Kuang - one can sense echoes of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell throughout Kuang's new standalone novel—in its early 19th century, English setting; in its copious use of footnotes; in the way its characters, who are mostly academics and scholars, systematize magic and try to render it rational and scientific; most of all, in the way that magic is...