Gav Reads

A Web Log of Reading

Tag: British Fantasy Award 2025

  • Sunday Summary: 12th Oct 25 Edition

    Womble from Runalong The Shelves has been doing a weekly “Wombling Along” and highlighting reviews and other articles that caught their attention over the past week.

    Sunday Summary is mostly going to be my personal log of books and bookish things that have caught my attention — and may also serve as a public memory prompt/bookmarking system.

    Halloween is Not Far Away

    And this means that both the British Fantasy Awards and the World Fantasy Awards are soon to be announced.

    The British Fantasy Awards will be presented on Saturday 1st November, in the evening, at the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton.

    And

    The World Fantasy Awards will be presented on Sunday 2nd November, in the afternoon following the banquet, also at the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton.

    I’ve just realised I have three weeks to finish reading my selected shortlists from each!

    I’m confident I’ll manage the novellas — I’ve read three and have two to go. I’m about halfway through the anthology reading. I’m planning to read the novels as a group and continue reviewing the anthologies individually.

    I am reading them in the order in which they are presented in the shortlists, and as a reminder, here they are:

    British Fantasy Awards 2025: Best Anthology

    • Nova Scotia 2, edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew J Wilson – Luna Press Publishing
    • I Want That Twink Obliterated!, edited by Trip Galey, C.L. McCartney, and Robert Berg – Bona Books
    • Fight Like A Girl 2, edited by Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall – Wizard’s Tower Press
    • Heartwood: A Mythago Wood Anthology, edited by Dan Coxon- PS Publishing
    • The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction (2023), edited by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Chinaza Eziaghighala – Caezik SF & Fantasy
    • Bury Your Gays – An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror, edited Sofia Ajram – Ghoulish Books

    World Fantasy Awards 2025: Best Novella

    • 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)

    I’m taking longer to read Heartwood than I expected. The themes explore similar emotional and mythic territory, though from completely different angles. Despite their varied perspectives, they overlap in meaningful ways, which is slowing my reading pace. That might also be due to the weight of the stories — they demand attention.

    I think it’s going to be my winner. Not because the other anthologies aren’t excellent, but because this is a unique collection, rooted in a powerful myth.

    I thought Crypt of the Moon Spider was going to be my novella winner before reading Yoke of Stars, and now I’m not so sure. Let’s see what the two tree-related stories do for me, as Ryhope Wood has entrances everywhere.

    Back to anthologies — they’ve put me in the mood to read more. I’ve already started The Crawling Moon: Queer Tales of Inescapable Dread, and I’ll have read Heartwood: A Mythago Wood Anthology. So, after the winner has been announced, do I read the other nominees in the World Fantasy Awards Best Anthology category? They are:

    • Heartwood: A Mythago Wood Anthology, ed. Dan Coxon (Drugstore Indian Press)
    • Discontinue If Death Ensues: Tales from the Tipping Point eds. Carol Gyzander & Anna Taborska (Flame Tree Press)
    • Northern Nights ed. Michael Kelly (Undertow Publications)
    • The Dagon Collection, ed. Nate Pedersen (PS Publishing)
    • The Crawling Moon: Queer Tales of Inescapable Dread ed. Dave Ring (Neon Hemlock Press)

    Newsy Things

    Ebooks – Now Available from Bookshop.org

    There is more in the press release, but these are the highlights:

    • For the first time ever, UK indies will be able to sell ebooks to their customers
    • The launch marks Bookshop.org’s fifth anniversary
    • Bookshops will make 100% profit on every ebook they sell
    • A much-awaited alternative to Amazon to buy ebooks, at no extra cost
    • Bookshop.org to launch audiobook sales next year

    I use an iPhone and a Boox Palma (which uses Google Play), and I’ve bought a couple of books to test it out. The whole process was slick and easy—especially with Apple Pay.

    The app offers lots of control over the reading experience, but there are two things you should know. By default, it:

    • looks terrible
    • overrides the publisher’s settings

    But don’t worry—there’s an easy fix if you have the patience. Try turning on the publisher settings or fiddling with the options until you get it looking the way you want. The initial appearance actually encourages you to change it, and once you do, the text looks stunning.

    So don’t let that put you off. It’s great to have more big-company options for buying ebooks, and I’m sure they’ll improve the app to make it a better out-of-the-box experience.

    Kickstarter #1: I want to see Welsh Heroes Return

    They are Still Here (Maen Nhw Yma O Hyd) will be an anthology of contemporary fantasy tales of resistance and resilience. The threats will be very modern, but the resolution will contain a hint or more of the fantastic.

    This one is live but the all or nothing deadline is:

    Thursday, November 6, 2025 at 9:47 AM GMT (UK local time)

    Back it here.

    Kickstarter #2: A New Trip Galey Novel

    This one is coming in 2026. I loved A Market of Dreams and Destiny, and while I’m waiting on a sequel —which Trip has just confirmed is written and likely out in 2027—I’m excited to get a new novel‑length work in 2026 to fill the gap!

    The Fall of the House of Valenziaga is a high-stakes, science-fantasy family epic. If you love lushly imagined settings, strange magics and impossible sciences, and queer characters that are both smart and sexy, you’ll live for this latest tale from Trip Galey!

    Click here to be notified when the Kickstarter launches.

    THE IGNYTE AWARDS 2025

    The Ignytes seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy, and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts toward inclusivity of the genre.

    Hot off the presss is the winners to this year’s awards:

    OUTSTANDING NOVEL: ADULT – For novel-length work (40,000+ words) intended for an adult audience
    Winner: The Sentence – Gautam Bhatia

    OUTSTANDING NOVEL: YOUNG ADULT – For novel-length (40,000+ words) works intended for the young adult audience
    Winner: Heir – Sabaa Tahir

    OUTSTANDING MIDDLE GRADE – For works intended for the middle grade audience
    Winner: The Last Rhee Witch – Jenna Lee-Yun

    OUTSTANDING NOVELLA – For speculative works ranging from 17,500–39,999 words
    Winner: Lost Ark Dreaming – Suyi Okungbowa Davies

    OUTSTANDING NOVELETTE – For speculative works ranging from 7,500–17,499 words
    Winner: We Who Will Not Die – Shingai Njeri Kagunda

    OUTSTANDING SHORT STORY – For speculative works ranging from 2,000–7,499 words
    Winner: We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read – Caroline M. Yoachim

    OUTSTANDING SPECULATIVE POETRY – For excellence in speculative poetry
    Winner: Reliving: Post Trauma of the Lekki Tollgate Massacre – Fasasi Ridwan

    CRITICS AWARD – For reviews and analysis of the field of speculative literature
    Winner: Maya Gittelman

    OUTSTANDING FICTION PODCAST – For excellence in audio performance and production for speculative fiction
    Winner: Podcastle

    OUTSTANDING ARTIST – For contributions in visual speculative storytelling
    Winner: Tran Nguyen

    OUTSTANDING COMICS TEAM – For comics, graphic novels, and sequential storytelling
    Winner: Lunar Boy – Jes and Cin Wibowo

    OUTSTANDING ANTHOLOGY/COLLECTED WORKS – For excellence in curated speculative fiction collections
    Winner: Thyme Travellers: An Anthology of Palestinian Speculative Fiction – Sonia Sulaiman

    OUTSTANDING CREATIVE NONFICTION – For works related to the field of speculative fiction
    Winner: Afro-Centered Futurisms in Our Speculative Fiction – Eugen Bacon, ed.

    THE EMBER AWARD – For unsung contributions to genre
    Winner: Sonia Sulaiman

    THE COMMUNITY AWARD – For outstanding efforts in service of inclusion and equitable practice in genre
    Winner: Authors Against Book Bans

    Out This Week in the UK – ish

    (I need to do better at this as this is a last minute list category)

    • Itch! by Gemma Amor
    • Good Boy by Neil McRobert
    • The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas
    • The Night That Finds Us All by John Hornor Jacobs
    • All of Us Murderers by KJ Charles
    • You’ve Found Oliver by Dustin Thao

    Books That Others have Tempted Me With:

    I List My Favourites Reads Since 2022

    Do you ever get the feeling that you don’t read enough? I had that earlier in the week, so I wrote up a list of my favourites going back to 2022. It turned out to be a longer list than I expected:

    1. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones
    2. Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis trans. by Anne Milano Appel
    3. Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
    4. ‘salem’s Lot by Stephen King
    5. The Old Woman With the Knife by Gu Byeong-mo trans. Chi-Young Kim –
    6. The Salvagers Trilogy by Alex White
    7. Magic For Liars by Sarah Gailey
    8. Alien: The Cold Forge by Alex White
    9. Siblings by Brigitte Reimann trans. Lucy Jones
    10. Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater
    11. Broken Light by Joanne Harris
    12. What Abigail Did That Summer (Rivers of London #5.3) by Ben Aaronovitch
    13. The Indranan War by K.B. Wagers
    14. What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier #1) by T. Kingfisher
    15. What Feasts at Night (Sworn Soldier #2) by T. Kingfisher
    16. The Living and the Rest by José Eduardo Agualusa
    17. The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff
    18. A Market of Dreams and Destiny by Trip Galey
    19. The Colony by Audrey Magee
    20. When Among Crows by Veronica Roth
    21. Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
    22. Calypso by Oliver K.
    23. Lake of Darkness by Adam Roberts
    24. The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones
    25. Rubicon by J.S. Dewes
    26. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto tr. Megan Backus
    27. The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle
    28. August Kitko and the Mechas from Space (The Starmetal Symphony #1) by Alex White
    29. The Undetectables (The Undetectables Series #1) by Courtney Smyth –
    30. The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton
    31. Goodnight Tokyo by Atsuhiro Yoshida tr. Haydn Trowell –
    32. Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne –
    33. The Last Hour Between Worlds (The Echo Archives #1) by Melissa Caruso
    34. The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association by Caitlin Rozakis
    35. Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud
    36. All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells
    37. Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) by Martha Wells

    I feel better about myself after seeing this, I’m not gonna lie.

    Outro

    Well, that turned out to be a much longer post than I expected.

    Maybe, next week, I’ll get back to my bookmarks.

    Until then — happy reading!

  • BFA25 Review: Fight Like A Girl 2 edited by Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall

    This is the third review from my challenge to read the 2025 British Fantasy Award Best Anthology category.

    In the introduction, Charlotte Bond writes:

    Whatever your taste, whatever you’re looking for, in these pages, you will learn one thing: how to fight like a girl.

    And I did — though I also found a few stories that weren’t to my taste, which is a shame. With fewer stories than the other anthologies I’ve read so far, the weaker ones stand out a little more — but never mind, there are still some standout tales here.

    K T Davies’s The Seamstress, the Hound, the Cook, and her Brother surprised me the most using a triptych to follow a crime through different eyes. Having seen the situation build from competing viewpoints, the shifting perspectives give the reader deeper insight into the final scene.

    Shifts in perspective are definitely a theme.

    One perspective I enjoyed — though I felt a little cheated by — was in A Human Response by Dolly Garland. Here a women’s body is replaced, and she finds herself trapped. Slowly, she pieces together what happens to her. The character is supposed to be without emotion, yet she has emotional reactions, which feels jarring. It also fades to black at a key moment in the ending, which I think robbed the character of the agency Garland had built up.

    In In More Trouble Than She’s Worth? by Cheryl Morgan, the narrator lacks agency, but her perspective offers some great observations. For example:

    I like the chrome in the sick bay, but am not convinced by the white. My crew have odd taste at times. I, by the way, am Sagaris, an Artemis Class cruiser of the Queen’s Amazon Navy, General Thomys commanding.

    And

    I got him though, didn’t I?, I thought proudly to myself. You can’t scrag a target without wobbling a few crew stomachs. A little non-fatal discomfort does the little ones good.

    In this tale, the crew picks up some very precious cargo. Morgan uses the situation to explore how women can be both mothers and fighters — and how that differs from their enemies. This one made me cry.

    The arrogance of men was explored by directly and successfully by both Gaie Sebold and Juliet E. McKenna.

    In Ambition’s Engine, Sebold takes us to high society, where a newly appointed Chief Defender of the Dominion’s Transport hatches a plan to get more from a train ride than he was commissioned for. Sebold packs in commentary about war, colonialism, and the arrogance of powerful men.

    With Civil War, McKenna examines the impact of a change in monarch when the King has no male heir. She explores the options available to the court and the guilds. This was a like watching a royal game of chess and I didn’t see final the move until it was too late. Very cleverly done.

    In the introduction Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall suggest:

    ‘…perhaps now we can look beyond a direct kick back against the idea that women can’t fight, and start to reintegrate more traditionally acceptable forms of feminine power with that warrior archetype.’

    And they’ve proved with this collection that fighting and feminine power take many forms — from the bloody, to the subtle, to the fearless — with motivations that defy the ‘warrior archetype’.

    If you don’t need convincing that women can fight, this collection is for you. There are some excellent stories here.

    And if you do need some persuasion, this collection is also for you — though you might end up a little more paranoid than before, as not all fights are direct confrontations or fairly fought.

    Anthology Details

    Title: Fight Like a Girl – Volume 2
    Editors: Roz Clarke, Joanne Hall
    Publisher: Wizard’s Tower Press
    Publication Date: Autumn 2024
    ISBN (Paperback): 9781913892845
    ISBN (EPUB): 9781913892852
    ISBN (MOBI): 9781913892869
    Format: Paperback, EPUB, MOBI

  • BFA25 Review: I Want That Twink OBLITERATED! edited by Berg, McCartney & Galey

    This is the second review from my challenge to read the 2025 British Fantasy Award Best Anthology category.

    The title of I Want That Twink OBLITERATED! is provocative. It came from a comment made in jest, which sparked a train of thought that led to an anthology of…

    …stories that reclaim the idea of pulp for a queer audience, centre masculinities in a new light, and take [the reader] on a damn fun ride. Pulp parody, pulp pastiche, and pulp deconstruction.

    And unlike Death Becomes Her, I’m going to give you a warning before you drink the Queer-Aid:

    The stories in this volume run the gamut(s!) between funny, horny, heartbreaking, thrilling, horrific, explicit, and more.

    The opening story, In the Garden of the Serpent King by James Bennett, jumps right in, presenting the promised themes of humour, horror, and eroticism.

    The tone is set by exploring the question: “How do you subvert the ‘Englishman in Congo’ trope?”

    The answer is: you hammer home how of-its-time it was—in the gayest way possible. And the hammer keeps hitting home, tale after tale. This is not a subtle collection, but it contains lots of subtleties as themes emerge and intertwine.

    An overarching one is age and beauty, but the stories also explore narcissism turned into cannibalism, perfection as slavery, and—more importantly—love and legacy.

    These stories are best approached with a camp sense of fun, because there are a couple that are so silly they might be annoying—yes, Tea, Shade, and Drag Crusades by Bailey Maybray, I am thinking about you. It takes the “lip sync for your life” idea off into space. Where I feel Bailey fell short is that there are bits in the story that fail its own internal logic.

    Just as silly, but more successful, is Dotch Masher and the Planet ‘MM’ by William C. Tracy. This time, there’s a race across space to stop a villain—but are they rivals, or are they lovers? Now that’s a question that rears its head a lot.

    The conflict between internal and external is explored in Plezure by Rand Webber, which is reminiscent of The Stepford Wives—at least at the start—but evolves as the spell starts to crumble, thanks to love.

    Love is powerful. These authors have drawn on it and utilised it. The love can be familial (found or blood), friendly, or romantic. And it’s strong.

    I can now say I’ve read Aliette de Bodard. In The Tutelary, the Assassin, and the Healer, we encounter love in its negative and positive forms—grief and anger alongside romantic bonds—as it asks the question: What would you do for those you love? Taking a journey on a potentially insane ship seems to be one of them.

    In Yesterday’s Heroes by Charlie Winter, a warrior comes out of retirement to find someone he loves—but I’ll let you figure out what type of love the Boy in the tale represents.

    And despite the title’s request, not all twinks are obliterated. They are celebrated. And in some cases, they need to continue to be heard.

    Like the Tharsis Courier in Dusk and Dawn in the Grand Bazaar by John Berkeley, and the acquisition specialist in Hazard Pay by Malcolm Schmitz.

    I can’t leave this review without mentioning two of my favourites, as I’ve not had a way of slipping them in thus far—but I hope we get to see the twinks in these:

    • Narcissus Munro, Thief for Hire by Kieran Craft
    • In Sheep’s Clothing by Caleb Roehrig

    Before I go, it’s clear that despite some clumsiness in a few stories, I found them emotionally resonant. That might not be the case for every reader, but I think the editors hit their goal of reclaiming the idea of pulp, with stories that centred masculinities in a new light—and took this reader on a damn fun ride.

    Anthology Details

    • Title: I Want That Twink OBLITERATED!: A Radical Anthology of Queer SFF
    • Editors: Trip Galey, C.L. McCartney, Robert Berg
    • Publisher: Bona Books
    • Publication Date: November 1, 2024
    • ISBN: 9781068731112
    • Format: Paperback

  • BFA25 Review: Nova Scotia Vol 2 edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew J Wilson [2024]

    This is the first review from my challenge to read the 2025 British Fantasy Award Best Anthology category.

    Nova Scotia 2 Cover Art

    An anthology, to me, is a little bit like a selection box—mostly treats you’ve never tried before. There might be an author or two you’ve read previously, but for the most part, they’re new experiences. And I can say that’s true of this anthology.

    Jon Courtenay Grimwood and Ken MacLeod are authors I’ve read and enjoyed before. The others—apart from Grant Morrison—were unknown to me.

    The editors, Neil Williamson and Andrew J. Wilson, in their introduction to this collection of new speculative fiction from Scotland, ask and answer the question: What is speculative fiction?

    “It’s writing that challenges consensus reality. Speculative fiction includes science fiction, fantasy, horror, and all the variants and subgenres of these imaginative approaches to storytelling. What does it have to do with Scotland? Everything!”

    They also explain how they see the contributors’ connection to Scotland:

    “The contributors are all Scots. They’re Scottish in the broadest sense: some were native-born while others have chosen to make their home here; some are Highlanders and islanders, others urbanites; and this gives us an extraordinary range of perspectives. We wanted this collection to be inclusive, not exclusive, and we wanted not only the tight focus of introspection, but also the ability to see ourselves, as Burns had it, as others see us.”

    Did every story give me a sense of connection to Scotland? Not quite. There were definitely some stories that didn’t evoke that feeling, despite the editorial postscript often trying to explain the link. That sense of connection swings from strong to weak, and in a couple of cases, I felt their inclusion was tentative at best.

    The opening story by Ken MacLeod threw me slightly. It resurrects two folk singers from an earlier story (Newton’s Wake)—I’ve no idea how significant they were, as I’ve never met them before. Ken places them on a future Mars where AIs have not been a gift to humanity. But what niggled me was the use of “Joint Chiefs” in a military context. It felt like an odd Americanism in a story that should centre Scotland.

    Not understanding the importance of political and protest songs to Scotland reflects my own ignorance. And opening with what ends up being a very clever story, with multiple layers, set me up for the whiplash that followed.

    The whiplash effect comes from jumping between strong voices—at least at the beginning. There’s a TV star whose family traditions lie in curses, a homecoming that could lead to confrontation, a detective who gets too nosy about a specialist investigation team, and a good old-fashioned locked-room murder.

    A story that’s exceptional but felt out of place is Lise and Otto by Pippa Goldschmidt. It describes the rise of the Nazis but doesn’t, as hinted in the introduction, lean into the idea of “as others see us.”

    Another story I enjoyed was Broderie Écossaise by Eris Young. Again, it lacked a grounding in Scotland, though I’m glad I read such a clever story about embroidery and desire.

    We slip into body horror with Grimaldo the Weeping, as Ali Maloney explores the power of stories—and how often they’re closer to reality than we’d like.

    Junior by Lindz McLeod floored me. You’ll see why when you read it.

    There were also a few skips—sorry, Grant, I just couldn’t get into it.

    There’s environmental exploration in a couple of stories, volunteering that goes wrong, and the cutest—but saddest—dodo story.

    I need Doug Johnstone to write another story set in the world of Under the Hagstone—ideally with the same characters.

    There were more skips, and a few misses, but overall I’d say there’s enough variety and story strength to justify reading this all the way through—skipping where appropriate.

    Anthology Details

    • Title: Nova Scotia Vol 2: New Speculative Fiction from Scotland
    • Editors: Neil Williamson, Andrew J. Wilson
    • Publisher: Luna Press Publishing
    • Publication Date: July 30, 2024
    • ISBN: 978-1915556431
    • Format: Paperback