Jul 15

Jul 15 Reviewing the 39th Annual Readers' Award Finalists from Asimov's Science Fiction. 2025. Novellas, Novelettes, and Short Stories.

It’s about time! Normally I review these stories upon their immediate release, but this year has been a little crazy. Finding myself in lack of a Time Machine, I’ll have to review them now.

Looking at these stories all together, we find a vintage of Asimov’s dealing with Grief.

Death benefits paid to those who’s loved ones are taken in interstellar war. The realization that your career is over and new generations won’t value what you value. The sadness of having to betray your country. Sacrificing your research career for your partner. Dying alone with only an A.I. as a companion. Haunting the NASA building where you used to work. Questing for one last earth sunrise while your body betrays you. Hoping that the cheap corporate products that killed your spouse maybe also will bring them back.

Asimov’s Science Fiction, formerly Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, is one of the greatest SF magazines in the genre’s history with awards too numerous to mention, an unbeatable roster of published authors, and some of the editorial giants at the helm. Subscribe here.

Previous Reviews: Asimov’s Reader’s Choice Awards

As usual Asimov’s Science Fiction is making the stories free read online temporarily, (here as of July 14, 2025) and you should go and read them. While this is the weakest slate of finalists that I’ve come across from ASF, it contains so much good stuff justifies a subscription.

Here are my reviews and rankings. No Spoilers!

39TH ANNUAL READER'S AWARD FINALISTS FROM ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION

RATED 83% POSITIVE. STORY SCORE: 3.9 OUT OF 5.00

15 STORIES : 5 GREAT / 7 GOOD / 1 AVERAGE / 1 POOR / 1 DNF

BEST NOVELLAS

Death Benefits, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, November/December 2024
Great. It feels like a beautifully written themed short story collection wrapped into novella length … until the pieces merge in the brilliant final moments. With an enormous brutal interstellar war occurring just offscreen, this novella alternates between two types of story. 1) Vignettes about the romantic lives of various people who end up being recieving the death benefits from their loved one killed in the war. 2) A framing story giving off old Film Noir vibes with a detective who verifies the status of people lost in the war for their loved ones who have received their death benefits. This is the best Kristine Kathryn Rusch story that I’ve ever read!
Death and the Gorgon, Greg Egan, January/February 2024
Great. An act of vandalism against a storage cave of cryogenically frozen heads launches an investigation that ends with a terrifying discovery. People willing to die - and kill - for the chance to live forever in a utopian future. Quite a good mystery with plenty of suspense. Also there is a detective-assistant-AI named Sherlock.
Wildest Skies, Sean Monaghan, November/December 2024
Good. This story starts with a bang - literally. The protagonist, Linklater falls to an alien planet in a makeshift survival pod. This is harrowing, brutal, and suspenseful. Then he meets the indigenous race and tries to get to know them. While much slower, this presents and intriguing and truly alien culture. Then there is a the third section and it kinda falls apart as a story. Pretty good through most of it though.
Proof of Concept, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, January/February 2024
Average. A detective on a pleasure cruiser that travels between planets is called to investigate a murder that seems to have a connection to some glitches in the ships computer. Rusch’s prose is very readable, but the story spends too much time with the detective complaining about not getting enough respect and not enough time building a compelling mystery.
Une Time Machine S’il Vous Plait, Peter Wood, March/April 2024
DNF - at 45%. A space launch goes wrong as sends too people back in time to their lives in the 1970s. The man sabotages his sister who will inherit the coffee company. The woman sports gambles and makes a fortune. She buys the “Canadian Star Trek” show she was a cast member of, removes most of the men, and makes it more feminist. Asimov’s rarely publishes this kind of 1-dimensional wish fulfillment.

BEST NOVELETTES

The Rattler, Leonid Kaganov (translated by Alex Shvartsman), May/June 2024
Great. A regional news crew struggles to report on the Rattler, a mysterious alien entity that randomly kills humans at a rate of one person second. As the media spins narratives and society adapts, a dying professor offers a theory that may reveal how to fight back. Intense and cerebral.
This Good Lesson Keep, James Van Pelt, July/August 2024
Good. A teacher in her final year tries to teach Hamlet while dealing with technological changes. Her teaching assistant is using modern data information tools to analyze and critique her methods. Religious exemption laws allow a student to wear contact lenses that shape the world according to his parents religion.
The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea, Naomi Kritzer, September/October 2024
Good. Surprisingly intimate story of a former marine ecologist whose career stalled after she lost her research. She finds solace in a small Massachusetts village where four stones - “The Four Sisters” of the title - stand watch over the bay where seals play. As the woman starts to reengage with the seals, she is drawn to the magic of the place and becomes suspicious of her husband. Very well written, except for a one-dimensional husband character that pulls you out of the story.
Charon’s Final Passenger, Ray Nayler, March/April 2024
Good. In an alternate universe where the USA used crashed alien technology to win World War 2 and then defeat the soviets. In Georgia, a spy must read memories from the head of dead soviet defector and discovers both secrets and philosophical mediations on moral culpability.
After the Winter Solstice, Sean McMullen, January/February 2024
Poor. On a planet with brutal winters, a group of people trek to a hibernating fortress city to make some astrological discovers. A basic idea is lessened by unnecessary contrived drama and YA-level romantic subplots.

BEST SHORT STORIES

Mere Flesh, James Maxey, November/December 2024
Great. A 103-year-old grandpa jumps into a swamp and grabs an alligator. His tech-exec son wonders if something might be glitching with the NuYu tech that regulates his grandfathers life and help him fight aging and Alzheimers. Torn between family and corporate needs, the son slowly discovers that the tech is radical changing who his father is.
A Gray Magic, Ray Nayler, September/October 2024
Great. A slice of the near future. A young woman is dying and doesn’t have anyone who cares. She buys an AI companion that inspires her to get our and do things like go to the aquarium and watch a play.
Sunsets, Lavie Tidhar, March/April 2024
Good. A grief-stricken Martian named Valentina comes to Earth to fulfil her late partner’s dream of seeing a “perfect sunset,” but the planet’s gravity, its riot of cultures, and her own uncontrollable organ-growth virus turn the quest into something far stranger. She teams up with a four-armed street hustler who insists the beauty she’s hunting might be inside her all along.
The Adherence, Jeffrey Ford, January/February 2024
Good. The cheap products of Adherence corp are literally making people - like the protagonist’s wife - dissolve. He puts faith in an Easter Ghost, who might be able to return her to him, but the chances of him being scammed are quite high.
An Unplanned Hold, Zohar Jacobs, September/October 2024
Good. A sentimental story about a Nasa Employee’s ghost and the mission he haunts.