Aaron's Hugo Recommendations :: Novelette

FIVE FAVORITE NOVELETTES OF 2007:
John Barnes, “Rod Rapid and His Electric Chair” (Helix, Winter ’07)
Ted Chiang, “The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate” (F&SF, Sept. ’07)
Greg Egan, “Glory” (The New Space Opera)
Mike Resnick & Nancy Kress, “Solomon's Choice” (Fast Forward 1)
Rachel Swirsky, “The Debt of the Innocent” (Glorifying Terrorism)

OTHER VERY GOOD NOVELETTES FROM 2007:
Daniel Abraham, “The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics” (Logorrhea)
Keith Brooke, “The Accord” (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction)
Paul Di Filippo, “Wikiworld” (Fast Forward 1)
Hal Duncan, “The Whenever at the City's Heart” (Interzone, April ’07)
Jeffrey Thomas, “In His Sights” (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction)
Harry Turtledove, “News from the Front” (Asimov's, June ’07)
Robert Charles Wilson, “YFL-500” (Fast Forward 1)

NOTES:
As with the short stories, I will update this if I encounter other worthy pieces this month, and I welcome other suggestions.

Unlike the novella and short story categories, there was no single novelette that was a clear favorite for me. Forced to pick one, I would probably go with “Glory” by Greg Egan, far-future SF as only Egan can do it, combining interesting hard science speculations (including a method of interstellar travel I’ve never seen before in the first two pages) with thought-provoking human issues. I have always been a big Greg Egan fan, and of the three stories of his I read last year (I never saw a fourth, from the magazine Foundation), this was my favorite.

Incidentally, anthologies generally don’t identify whether a piece is a short story, novelette, or novella, and it’s not always easy to tell. Apologies if I mislabeled any of these.