Gav Reads

In the middle of July I set myself two reading challenges

1. Read the British Fantasy Awards 2025 shortlist for Best Anthology
2. Read the World Fantasy Awards 2025 shortlist for Best Novella

The nominees for best anthology have had individual reviews, but I’ve decided to comment on the novellas as a group.

As a reminder the nominees for World Fantasy Awards 2025 Novella are: 

• Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud (Tor Nightfire/Titan Books)
• In the Shadow of Their Dying by Michael F. Fletcher and Anna Smith Spark (Grimdark Magazine)
• Yoke of Stars by R. B. Lemberg (Tachyon Publications)
• The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo (Tordotcom)
• The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed (Tordotcom/Titan Books UK)

Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud (Tor Nightfire/Titan Books)

This is a re-read. I originally read this in November 2024 and enjoyed it. On the second reading, it felt more powerful. I was vaguely anticipating certain events, but I was convinced that I had also misremembered them. I hadn’t. It was more disturbing.

The opening challenges you to suspend your disbelief. A woman is accompanied to the hospital by her husband for treatment of her affliction by hospital staff. So far, this is typical for a late nineteenth or early twentieth-century novel. However, this hospital is on the moon. It is also reported to be situated at the entrance to the burrow of a long-dead spider.

What fascinates me about this story is Ballingrud’s exploration of memory and how reality can be reshaped through misremembering. There are spiders and body horror, but also themes of empowerment, rage, and revenge.

I highly recommend this.

In the Shadow of Their Dying by Michael F. Fletcher and Anna Smith Spark (Grimdark Magazine)

An assignation attempt goes very wrong.

There is no other way of saying this; I Did Not Finish this. I barely made it to the end of the second chapter.

I also checked the ending to see if I’d been unkind or impulsive in my assessment. But I hadn’t.

The opening had me hooked: following the third-best assassin in the city on a mission was quite thrilling. However, the voice, the point-of-view shift, and ultimately the story itself wasn’t for me.

I’m sure it’ll have its fans. I am not one of them.

Yoke of Stars by R. B. Lemberg (Tachyon Publications)

A linguist has an interview with an assassin at the School of Assassins. Stonee Orphan greets the individual with their first assignment. As they try to understand who they are to kill, we gain insight into both the assassin and their client.

Lemberg made me work. Since this was my first Birdverse story, I had to grasp the world being presented—a world of Stars and personified storylines: Song, Stone, Fish, Moss, Feeder, Boater, and Weaver.

I’m curious how that lore is used, if at all, in other Birdverse works.

The interview format allows the characters to swap stories, giving Stone, the assassin, and the reader insight into why Ulín, the linguist, wants someone killed. It also explores why Ulín is coy about stating it outright.

It’s one of those stories that gets under your skin because it feels unfair. Ulín and Stone end up where they are because of what others see in them, not because of what they’ve built for themselves.

Ultimately, it’s an exploration of story, gender, language, and understanding.

Outstanding, and my winner (it was the actual winner too).

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo (Tordotcom)

A nurse volunteers to work in a small rural community in the Appalachian Mountains. There, she discovers she is unwelcome, despite the benefits her work could bring.

This is a tough one. Billed as a blend of historical horror, trans romance and blood-soaked revenge, it certainly delivers all three.

Mandelo handles the fluidity of pronouns used by the main character – a nurse sent to an Appalachian settlement – with ease. The romance becomes spicy, and the sense of dread remains palpable.

Yet Mandelo’s story has some blind spots. At certain points, they create magical (and impossible) safety bubbles and pull back from fully exploring the truly horrific moments. I’m unsure whether this was a conscious or subconscious attempt to protect the characters – or the readers – from additional trauma.

However, by holding back, some awkward moments arise where threats seem to vanish unnaturally. I also felt slightly short-changed by the lore surrounding the forest, which was only hinted at rather than fully explored or utilised.

There is a lot to enjoy here, and it’s worth reading, but you may come away feeling slightly short-changed.

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed (Tordotcom/Titan Books UK)

The children of the Tyrant vanish into a wood—a wood the locals know never to enter. The only person who has ever ventured into those woods and returned is sent in after them.

Perhaps I’ve been reading too many stories set in dangerous, mythological forests—thanks to Heartwood: A Mythago Wood Anthology—but, as with The Woods All Black review above, I felt Mohamed held something back here and didn’t dig quite deep enough.

Veris Thorn enters the woods with a knack (or folk instinct) for knowing the right or wrong way to proceed. There, she encounters tricksters, helpers, monsters, and impossible things. I liked Veris as a character—stoic and stalwart as she marched through the woods.

But the set pieces didn’t add up for me. Should it have been grimmer? More fantastical? Perhaps the children should have been more damaged. Personally, I would have preferred it to be darker, more dangerous, and more unsettling.

Again, as with The Woods All Black, I’m left wondering whether this was a deliberate or subconscious attempt to shield the readers—or perhaps the writer—from the trauma at the heart of the story.

A sequel might well change my view, but for now, it’s a pleasant afternoon read—provided you don’t expect too much.

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The winner, Yoke of Stars by R. B. Lemberg, was announced on Sunday, 2 November, at the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton.