Swords and Spaceships for April 16: Hugo Finalists

Novel finalist. As the city of New York awakens, it embodies itself in six people instead of the more traditional one–one for each borough and one for the city itself. If the city is to survive its metaphysical birth, these people must find each other and defend the city itself from the otherworldly force that would destroy it.

Novel finalist. Piranesi lives in an infinite house filled with thousands of statues, which imprisons an ocean that sometimes floods up through rooms. The Other visits Piranesi twice a week and asks him to help him with his research, but soon Piranesi realizes there might be another person in there with him.

Novel finalist. At the eave of a solstice that coincides with a solar eclipse, the reincarnation of a god travels to the holy city in order to usurp power from the Sun priest.

Novel finalist. Harrow has been drafted by the Emperor to fight an unwinnable war–and as if that’s not bad enough, she has to cooperate with her most detested rival while her own health is failing and her mind threatens to unravel.

Novel finalist. While Elma York is on her way to Mars to begin that step of the plan, her fellow Lady Astronaut Nicole Wargin is hard at work trying to establish humanity’s first and perhaps most important colony on the Moon. The last thing Nicole needs on top of that difficult task is her husband deciding to run for president.

Novel finalist. Murderbot’s human associates have been captured. When someone else who is totally-not-a-friend desperately calls for assistance, Murderbot swings into action. Of course things get shot and blown up.

Novella finalist. With the release of Birth of a Nation in 1915, demons rose, fueled by the darkest thoughts of white people, and swelled the ranks of the KKK across the nation. Only resistance fighters are willing to take them down, with bullet, blade, and bomb, sending the demons of the Klan back to Hell.

Novella finalist. A customer goes missing in a Swedish big box store and it’s up to two minimum wage retail employees to find her in the depths of the infinite retail universe where all stores across all realities are interconnected. (Full disclosure: Nino and I have the same agent.)

Novella finalist. A Black girl with psychic abilities so powerful that she could level a city watches as her younger brother is incarcerated–and must decide what she will and won’t do about it as she watches him suffer through their connection.

Novella finalist. Esther escapes an arranged marriage by hiding in a librarian’s book wagon–a marriage to a man who was engaged to Esther’s best friend, who she was in love with, who just got executed for possession of propaganda. (Full disclosure: Sarah and I have the same agent.)

Novella finalist. In-yo, a young woman of royal birth from a defeated people is sent to make a political marriage with the emperor; she must choose her allies carefully if her people–and she–are to survive. Rabbit is a handmaiden sold into the emperor’s court, who befriends this lonely young woman… and gets far more than she bargained for.

Novella finalist. Jack has taken the body of her sister to the Moors, a place where death definitely isn’t permanent or necessarily a problem. When she returns to the School for Wayward Children, it’s clear something has gone disturbingly wrong in a way only a mad scientist can manage–and she desperately needs her friends’ help.