CLARKESWORLD 2024 READERS AWARD FINALISTS:

NOVELLAS, NOVELETTES & SHORT STORIES

RATED 88% POSITIVE. STORY SCORE 4.0 OF 5

12 STORIES: 3 GREAT / 7 GOOD / 1 AVERAGE / 1 POOR / 0 DNF

Clarkesworld Magazine is one of the most important science fiction magazines of the 21st Century. Under the editorial leadership of Neil Clarke, the online magazine has won numerous awards. I counted 146 major award nominations and 56 award wins. You can count for yourself here with the comprehensive listing. A combination of great fiction and posting stories free to read online, Clarkesworld is shaping the field.

Each year they post the finalists from their Annual Readers Award. And this year I read them all and reviewed them as if they are an anthology. As I do for the Hugo Finalists and the Asimov’s Science Fiction Readers’ Award Finalists, I rank them in order of my preference.

You can read them all at this link.

BEST NOVELLA:

“Fractal Karma” by Arula Ratnakar (novella)
Great. I really loved this one. Propulsive like a snowball that grows in intensity to the end.
Starts with a girl in the drug scene that sees a way to steal a device that allows human minds to link. She leverages it join a sketchy - but well paid - science experiment where peoples minds are linked in larger and larger combinations. Out of that, a new being is created and the participants have to decide to whether or not they want to fight it - or even if they can.
This is one of the most ambitious science fiction stories I've read in a vary long time, alternating between ways that people connect (human and science fictional). The science is very hard and very complex and the characters are flawed but human.
“The Indomitable Captain Holli” by Rich Larson (novella)
Good. A foul-mouthed young girl living in a giant dilapidated apartment complex is led on a dangerous adventure by her manipulative, goretoon A.I. friend from the inside to the roof through interior heating vents. She is then menaced by a ninja-bot sent to abduct her in order to harvest her unique DNA, only to discover that there are ninja-bots and invaders from the mysterious, "Bad Block," all while her street-smart big sister and her boyfriend are doing everything they can to find her.

BEST NOVELETTES:

“Stars Don’t Dream” by Chi Hui, translated by John Chu (novelette)
Great. Almost all of mankind lives in the metaverse of dream towers. A small group of people engage in an innovative Deep Time project to terraform Venus. It glories in its poetic language. Human and inhuman characters that are intriguing: A retired military general, a caretaker of exoskeleton bodies, an A.I. designed for a failed terraforming project. Superb stuff.
“Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being” by A. W. Prihandita (novelette)
Good. An alien comes to a medical practitioner who holds the license to a database of alien medical care. Unfortunately, this alien doesn’t appear in the database.
“Lucie Loves Neutrons and the Good Samarium” by Thoraiya Dyer (novelette)
Good. A lesbian couple moves to France in the middle of a tactical nuclear in Europe. They struggle with their relationship and attempt to fight despair through science and having a child.
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video” by Thomas Ha (novelette)
Average. The discover of a “dead Book” leads to obsession and danger in a world where society is obsessed with altering and revising texts to make them “Perfect.”

BEST SHORT STORIES:

“The Sort” by Thomas Ha
Great. In a future where genetic modification of humans was legal and then banned later, a father and his son travel to a small town and have various interactions with residents. They are at turns heartbreaking, kindly, and terrifying. Thoughtful about the painful cost of humanities first steps into self-modification.
“Swarm X1048 - Ethological Field Report: Canis Lupus Familiaris, “6”” by F.E. Choe
Good. An ultimately touching story of a swarm of (bees?) doing research on a dog as the Earth’s ecosystem collapses.
“Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim
Good. I hate stories that rework Omelas. (The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas • (1973) • short story by Ursula K. Le Guin.) They are often self righteous and too proud of their own morality - something Le Guin managed to avoid in the original. This has that, but also an evil sense of humor that makes it rise above.
“An Intergalactic Smugglers Guide to Homecoming” by Tia Tashiro
Good. Fun story of a young smugglers mission to bring 700 tiny aquatic sentient refugees to a planet where they aren’t allowed. Never gets going to the level of fun that would have put it over the edge.
I suspect this was a story damaged by beta readers or participants of a writers circle. There is everything needed for a fun adventure romp through a simple and fun scifi setting. A cool alien race of refugees that need protection. A likeable heroine. A sketchy bad guy.
Then somebody said, "what if she had a sister and family drama" and it all got screwed up. The sister subplot should have be saved for the second novel in the series.
“Hello! Hello! Hello!” by Fiona Jones
Good. First contact in deep space from the perspective of the alien. Tried and true scifi, but enough strangeness in the writing to keep interest.
“The Coffee Machine” by Celia Corral-Vázquez, translated by Sue Burke
Poor. One note banged on far too long. A coffee machine achieves sentience, but it isn’t written like a story but like internal messages inside the machine.