January 8, 2025

My 2024 Recommended Reading List

 


It's that time of year again when lots of people and publications are sharing their favourite reads from the previous year. Here is a sampling of the short fiction (short stories, novelettes, and novellas) I read and loved in 2024. For a more complete list, you can read all my short fiction roundups from last year: https://maria-is-reading.blogspot.com/search/label/short%20story%20roundups. I will be posting a list of my favourite novels from the past year soon.

First off, as one of the fiction editors of Gamut Magazine, I want to recommend all the original fiction we published last year for any and all awards. I was sad to see the magazine close, but I am also very proud of all the work we published. Thank you to all the authors who trusted us with their words!

You can now read all the stories from all the issues of Gamut for free at the website. Just click on the link for each story in the archive at https://houseofgamut.com/magazine-archive/. I'm obviously biased, but I think Gamut and the stories we published are award-worthy, and I’d be honoured (and pretty damn happy) if others thought so too. For example, you could read:


SHORT STORIES

Rachel Is at a Protest, by Esther Alter in The Deadlands

Within the Seed Lives the Fruit by Leah Andelsmith in Reckoning

A Lithuanian Folktale (Told Backwards and Forwards in Time) by Beston Barnett in Trollbreath Magazine

Mother’s Milk by Annika Barranti Klein in Weird Horror

The Goddess of Loneliness and Misfortune by Anna Bendiy in khōréō

The Museum of Cosmic Retribution by Megan Chee in Nightmare

Swarm X1048 - Ethological Field Report: Canis Lupus Familiaris, “6”, by F.E. Choe in Clarkesworld

Where They Sleep by Heather Clitheroe in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Rhythms of the Resonant Revolution by Rodrigo Culagovski in khōréō

The Last Lucid Day by Dominique Dickey in Lightspeed

Auspicium by Diana Dima in The Deadlands

Underdragon by Diana Dima in Giganotosaurus

doorbell dot mov, by Jennifer R. Donohue in The Deadlands

Heathman Ldg by Brian Evenson in Bourbon Penn

The Cold Inside by Vanessa Fogg in Metaphorosis

Do Not Waver, My Heart by Shanna Germain in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Alabama Circus Punk by Thomas Ha in ergot

Katya Vasilievna and the Second Drowning of Baba Rechka by Christine Hanolsy in Beneath Ceaseless Skies

The Ghost on the Server by Gregory Neil Harris in IZ Digital

A Slightly Different Sunrise from Mercury, Nevada by Íde Hennessy in Strange Horizons

In the Museum of Unseen Places by Marsh Hlavka in Kaleidotrope

The Last Flesh Figure Skaters by Claire Jia-Wen in khōréō

Five Views of the Planet Tartarus by Rachael K. Jones in Lightspeed

The Rerebirth of Slick, by Stephen Kearse in The Deadlands

Our Father by K.J. Khan in Clarkesworld

Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim in Clarkesworld

Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! by TJ Klune in Reactor

The Scientist Does Not Look Back by Kristen Koopman at Escape Pod, narrated by Ant Bacon, Valerie Valdes and Adam Pracht

The V*mpire by PH Lee in Reactor

Here in the Glittering Black, There is Hope by Monte Lin in GigaNotoSaurus

A Botanist’s Guide to Memory and Forgetting by E. M. Linden in Small Wonders

A Cure For Solastalgia by E.M. Linden in Strange Horizons

Those Hitchhiking Kids by Darcie Little Badger in Sunday Morning Transport

The Carcosa Pattern by Conrad Loyer in Fiyah

Mammoth by Manish Melwani in Nightmare Magazine

There’s Always a Dragon by Jac Morris in Kaleidotrope

Colony by Ben Murphy at Many Worlds

The Ghost Tenders of Chornobyl by Nika Murphy in Apex Magazine

Fording the Milky Way by Megan Ng at Cast of Wonders (narrated by Amanda Ching)

Your Sword, Your Trumpet, by Anjali Patel in The Deadlands

Operating Within Normal Parameters by Irette Y. Patterson in Translunar Travelers Lounge

Telling the Soul of Mars by Alina Pete in Augur Magazine

The Spindle of Necessity by B. Pladek in Strange Horizons

In the Tree’s Hollow, a Doe by Lowry Poletti in Lightspeed

In Tandem by Emilee Prado in Diabolical Plots

Another Old Country by Nadia Radovich in Apparition Lit

This Week in Clinical Dance: Urgent Care at the Hastings Center by Lauren Ring in Diabolical Plots

Way Up In De Middle Of De Air By Jamie Roballo in Fiyah #31

Agni by Nibedita Sen in The Sunday Morning Transport

The Empty Ones by Vivian Shaw in The Deadlands

Our Best Selves by Fatima Taqvi in Nightmare

Imago by Steve Rasnic Tem in The Dark

Derail by E. Catherine Tobler in Bourbon Penn

Our Lady of the Clay by Daniela Tomova in Apex  

What He Woke by Jess Whitecroft at PseudoPod, narrated by Kat Day

In Haskins by Carson Winter at PseudoPod, narrated by Jess Lewis

We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read by Caroline M. Yoachim in Lightspeed

 

NOVELETTES

And to Their Shining Palaces Go by Betsy Aoki in Asimov’s September/October 2024

A Stranger Knocks by Tananarive Due in Uncanny Magazine

Fat Kids by Alex Jennings in Bourbon Penn

Joanna’s Bodies by Eugenia Triantafyllou in Psychopomp

What Any Dead Thing Wants by Aimee Ogden in Psychopomp

 

NOVELLAS

A Voice Calling by Christopher Barzak

Lovely Creatures by KT Bryski

Livesuit by James SA Corey

The Pheeworker’s Oath by Adam Gaylord

Small Gods of Calamity by Sam Kyung Yoo

Yoke of Stars by R.B. Lemberg

From These Dark Abodes, by Lyndsie Manusos

Finding Echoes by Foz Meadows

She Who Knows by Nnedi Okorafor

These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein


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