This year I (Laura) am a judge in the Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship as part of Team “Booked Solid.” I read 8 novellas from our allotment during round 1 and here are my thoughts on 4 of them:

Yestermorrow: A Prelude to New Yesterday by Frasier Armitage

When his teenage daughter, Alicia, is in a boating accident that results in her complex medical condition, Dr. Luca Weiss throws himself into research and finding a cure. Weiss literally battles time and will risk it all to save his daughter.

Yestermorrow is a unique sci-fi story that handles some of my favorite topics in books: time and grief. How do we move forward from devastation? What will we do to shape the time we have? When have we exhausted our options? I appreciated the way that Armitage depicted Luca’s desperation as a parent and really related to the need to heal those you love while simultaneously, and inadvertently, causing greater difficulties for yourself and those around you. Throughout the novella, Luca struggles to grieve the loss of the life he imagined for himself and his family. Instead of addressing that grief, Luca attempts to change time and his decisions have an impact on the world as a whole. This was great character development in my opinion. 

While the cast of characters is fairly large for such a short book, I found them to all be pretty quirky and fun to read, especially real estate agent Andy Whitman. Whitman takes on a much larger role in the novella, which surprised me quite a bit and left me curious about the series going forward.

The first part of the book was a lot of build up and a little slow, but once I hit the 20% mark, the plot really quickened. The book starts to shift between timelines and becomes reminiscent of the television show, Loki. Although this change of pace was welcomed, it did lead to me questioning some of the events that were happening and had me confused at times.

Overall, a fun novella with a main character whose motivations and desperation were really effectively written.

Blackburn Station by Karen Lucia

After escaping an attack on her home of Blackburn Station, Jane finds herself held on the main E Station. There she is met with great prejudice and has to face the reality of her home’s destruction. In order to discover the motives behind the attack and further the research of her people, Jane must return to Blackburn Station and learn to trust others, and herself, along the way.

I am, in fact, the exact target audience for this book. What an excellent novella! Blackburn Station is a science fiction story that is so rich and deftly handles trauma, prejudice, and building confidence in oneself and others. I felt that the world building was incredibly well done, yet not over the top. I also loved that the author gave us Jane’s perspective as she started to understand her situation and began to move forward. Jane was a fascinating character and I would love to get back into this world in another book. Lucia did a wonderful job creating a deep, epic story in a small number of pages. I will be looking forward to reading more of her work.

The Nameless Restaurant by Tao Wong

The first book of Wong’s Hidden Dishes series introduces readers to a magical restaurant in Toronto that mysteriously appears and whose menu changes as much as the location of the restaurant itself. The owner and guests are not exactly friendly and the prices can be ridiculous. However, the food is divine.

The Nameless Restaurant is full of wonderful descriptions of food/food preparation that will leave readers drooling. I thought that the setting and characters were incredibly charming, and especially liked Moo Meng. The novella is low-stakes and I found myself getting drawn into the story easily, but hope that in future additions to the series that the author adds some more depth.

I’m really a sucker for cozy books, so unsurprisingly, I enjoyed this one. My husband and I read it together and we are planning on continuing the series. If you’re a “foodie” I’m sure you will like The Nameless Restaurant, too!

The Garden Maze by Isaac Anderson

When a knight and his squire get the opportunity to enter a cursed maze, they bravely enter to gain the riches within. But with every turn new monsters and tricks appear. The duo find themselves in a race to exit the maze or become part of it.

The Garden Maze is a story that has a classic fairytale feel and gets darker as you continue reading. The book includes interesting characters and plenty of twists. I really liked how the author blended horror elements into the story and I thought that the novella as a whole was extremely creative.

While not a huge problem, the writing in The Garden Maze sometimes felt a bit disjointed and left me a little confused. I think if the story was longer the author would have had a little more wiggle room to work with the pacing and this story as a whole may actually benefit from being longer because there is so much happening within the pages.

All in all, Anderson has written a highly creative novella that will keep readers on their toes. Fans of Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz will definitely want to check this one out.

Be sure to check out these and all the other novellas in the SFINCS competition!
Laura