Worldcon Reading List

Hello loves!

I'm just back from a nerd pilgrimage to Glasgow for Worldcon 2024, AKA the World Science Fiction Convention, AKA Dorkfest. For those unfamiliar, it's an annual gathering of all your favourite sci-fi, fantasy, and horror authors (and their fans) descending on one city for a weekend of magical unadulterated nerdery. It's also where the Hugo Awards and the Nommo Awards are handed out. This was my first time attending, and it did not disappoint.

One of the most lovable things about Worldcon is how egalitarian it is. Anyone can apply to be on a panel or lead a workshop. This means you have debut authors on the same panels as veterans, which leads to some fascinating conversations. I heard Martha Wells comparing notes about what her debut publishing experience was like in the 1990s with Rosalie Lin, whose first book came out earlier this year, and Nnedi Okorafor discussing her spider phobia with actual entomologist Jonathan Thornton and definitely-seven-thousand-spiders-in-a-trenchcoat Adrian Tchaikovsky. It also means George R. R. Martin attended the festival but wasn't on any panels, because he didn't manage to submit the forms in time (George, we've all been there; 10/10 adorably relatable story).

For authors, conventions and literary festivals are the closest we get to feeling like we have colleagues. It's where we can hang around the bar venting about the weird things about a writing career - as Oscar Wilde once accurately quipped: "When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss art. When artists get together for dinner, they discuss money." It left me feeling re-energised, re-connected, and buzzing with ideas.

The other thing it left me with: a reading list longer than the list of Dwarves in The Hobbit. Here are five new books I'm most hyped about.

UK readers, here's a neat list on Bookshop.org (where you can order them direct from your local indie bookshop instead of giving more money to Jeff Bezos).

Freakslaw - Jane Flett

A travelling circus that's going to TEMPT your small-town teenagers into the evils of QUEER DEVIANCE and WITCHCRAFT? Uh, yes please.

I was sold on this book as soon as I heard Jane reading the opening page out loud in her delicious Scots brogue. Her prose is rich with specificity and weirdness, filled with instantly lovable characters. The cover is a marvel. It's set in the 90s. Also, apparently Jane's in a Riot Grrrl band?? If you liked Girls of Little Hope, I think this will be right up your carnival alley.

It’s the summer of ’97 and the Scottish town of Pitlaw is itching for change.

Enter the Freakslaw – a travelling funfair populated by deviant queers, a contortionist witch, the most powerful fortune teller, and other architects of mayhem. It doesn’t take long for the Freakslaw folk to infiltrate Pitlaw’s grey world, where the town’s teenagers – none more so than Ruth and Derek – are seduced by neon charms and the possibility of escape.

Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon - Wole Talabi

I've been a huge fan of Wole Talabi's short stories for years. It was magical to meet him and discover he's exactly as warm and generous in person, and even more of a delight to discover he's just published his first novel. And yoh, what a novel! It's about a low-ranking Nigerian nightmare god leading a heist to retrieve a sacred artefact from the British Museum. I mean, hi!

This was one of the buzziest books of Worldcon. It won the Nommo Award for best novel and was nominated for a Nebula Award, a Locus Award and a British Science Fiction Association Award. Wole is a member of the Sauuti Collective, a group of people co-creating a shared African-inspired fantasy world, and he publishes a brilliant list every year of the best African SFF short stories (I was honoured to be included on his 2021 list). After winning the Best Novel Nommo, he announced that since he's now won the award in every single category, he's recusing himself from ever being nominated again to give other writers a turn. It was the classiest mic-drop move!

Run, don't walk to read this one.

Shigidi is a disgruntled and demotivated nightmare god in the Orisha spirit company, reluctantly answering prayers of his few remaining believers to maintain his existence long enough to find his next drink. When he meets Nneoma, a sort-of succubus with a long and secretive past, everything changes for him.

Together, they attempt to break free of his obligations and the restrictions that have bound him to his godhood and navigate the parameters of their new relationship in the shadow of her past. But the elder gods that run the Orisha spirit company have other plans for Shigidi, and they are not all aligned--or good.

From the boisterous streets of Lagos to the swanky rooftop bars of Singapore and the secret spaces of London, Shigidi and Nneoma will encounter old acquaintances, rival gods, strange creatures, and manipulative magicians as they are drawn into a web of revenge, spirit business, and a spectacular heist across two worlds that will change Shigidi's understanding of himself forever and determine the fate of the Orisha spirit company.

The Husbands - Holly Gramazio

Another novel with a really fun concept: imagine that every time your husband went into the attic, a different husband came back out. This one's been blurbed by Gabrielle Zevin (of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow) and sounds like a wild romp.

When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years.

As Lauren tries to puzzle out how she could be married to someone she can’t remember meeting, Michael goes to the attic to change a lightbulb and abruptly disappears. In his place, a new man emerges, and a new, slightly altered life re-forms around her. Realizing that her attic is creating an infinite supply of husbands, Lauren confronts the question: If swapping lives is as easy as changing a lightbulb, how do you know you’ve taken the right path? When do you stop trying to do better and start actually living?

So kind of like if dating on Bumble took place via real estate.

I asked Holly if she has a real-life husband and, if so, how he feels about the book. She responded, "Well, we don't have an attic, so he's not too worried."

Extremophile - Ian Green

This one's already getting eager reviews in The Guardian, and it sounds like a breathless split-lip biopunk thriller about the climate apocalypse.

Charlie and Parker are punks by night, biohackers by day, living in the stuttering decay of 2043 climate-collapse London. They pay for the beer they don't steal with the money from ZODIAC CODE, a DNA astrology site, and Charlie makes bio-bespoke augments for criminals, punks, and eco-warriors. They have to deal with disgruntled clients, scene kids who don't dig their band, and navigating a city owned wholly by the violence of corporate interest and criminality. Their world is split into three GREEN – still trying to save the world; BLUE – trying to profit while they can, and BLACK – who see no hope left. When a group of extremist GREEN activists hire them for a series of jobs ranging from robbery to murder, Charlie knows they should walk away. But Parker wants to make a difference, and for Charlie maybe these are the jobs that will make them feel anything other than BLACK. Facing off against faceless corporations, amoral biohackers, and criminally insane cyberpunks in an escalating biological arms race, Charlie will have to choose what she believes in. Is there still hope, and does she have a right to grab it?

Thornhedge - T. Kingfisher

Thornhedge won the Hugo Award for Best Novella, and immediately jumped to the top of my reading list. It's a fairy tale retelling starring a toad.

There's a princess trapped in a tower. This isn't her story.

Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies, but she grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of faerieland. Once an adult though, the fae ask a favor of Toadling: return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Simple, right?

But nothing with fairies is ever simple.

Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He's heard there's a curse here that needs breaking, but it's a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold…

T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon) is just one of the most FUN fantasy writers working today. A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking is about a teenage wizard whose magic only extends to baked goods, so she enchants gingerbread men to do her bidding and her familiar is a sourdough starter. Nettle and Bone was one of my favourite books of 2023, and featured a gravewitch, the world's most lovable skeleton dog, and a chicken possessed by a demon. She's one of the novelists I turn to whenever I'm in a reading slump and want to remember that reading books is supposed to feel like play, not homework. Thornhedge sounds like a tasty treat.

Wishing you carnival rides and Batmobiles,

Sam