Dust is the space opera/arthurian romance mashup you never knew you needed. Bear takes many of the tropes of the romance and of Paradise Lost and brings them into outer space in a way that makes both genres work seamlessly together and creates a work of science fiction that, in the traditions of Le Guin, leaves you emotionally connected to the characters and philosophically wondering about their choices and their world.
Seriously, can Bear write wonderfully in every genre? It's getting unfair.

Sarah Rees Brennan, I hate you a little bit.I hate you even though I was pretty sure what would happen to whom. Why must you make me care about your characters? Why must you make me love them? Why must they be so delightfully clever and fun and exciting?
Why did it take me so long to get my hands on this book?
Why don't you have another series out for me to devour?

And so on. A fitting end and a great YA series.

I suppose the highest accolade to offer this book is that I didn't remember to be sad that this is the last DWJ book EVER until I finished it.
Also, the nice thing about DWJ (and Ursula it seems) is that she is very consistent in the intricacies of her plot structure, but always manages to take those intricacies to new and exciting settings and people and...I'm going to have to reread the castle books now.

Starting this book was a wrench after the end of the first book - I needed to know what happened and couldn't bear to at the same time.
I find it fascinating how Bear can basically take the same premise (we're wandering around a space ship in search of specific people) and tell such fascinatingly different stories each time. And I loved a chance to get to know the earlier generations of the Conn family. She's moved from religio-medieval space opera into teh realm of space opera fantasy quest and it works wonderfully. Now I want to see what the third book will do.

There are, my lit-crit brain tells me, authors out there who perform startling feats of stylistic excellence or who can turn sparseness into the poetic art of a winter's day.
And there are other authors, my reader brain responds, who tap right into your mind and heart and pull you along into the story with the hook-behind-the-navel feeling of a Portkey.
I love Ursula's art and her children's stories are a delight, but when she writes as T. Kingfisher, its as though she recognizes everything I love about fantasy and fairy tales and turns them into something even better. She's just that good. And this little book was perfect.

So I'd kinda been ignoring short stories for most of my lift, although now that I actually pay attention to the Hugos, I'm learning something I should have known already - they can be really good!

And the stories in Kaleidoscope are no exception. Kaleidoscope is, as the title suggests, a collection of diverse works of young adult fantasy and science fiction. The characters are sometimes disabled, sometimes people of color, sometimes LGBTQ and that's sometimes part of the plot and sometimes it's just who they are. It's a bit of a wrench to return to stories where everyone looks the same regardless of how much sense that makes for the story.

There were no bad stories in the bunch. Having said that, "Cookie Cutter Superhero" by Tansy Rayner Roberts, "The Seventh Day of the Seventh Moon" by Ken Liu, "Signature" by Faith Mudge, "Kiss and Kiss and Kiss and Tell" by E.C. Myers, and "Careful Magic" by Karen Healey were standouts for their brilliance. Also, I'm now building a list of authors who I had vaguely heard of, but now must track down because of the stories they wrote in here.

Worst. Lasagna. Ever.

Yes, I know, not the first to make this joke. It's a beautiful little pretzel book that has nothing to do with the plot of the Kingkiller chronicles and everything to do with the ideas behind it, especially those that focus on the power of words and stories and getting things right.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book, given that it's not quite my usual fare - not that I shy away from dark or dystopic on principle...just sometimes in practice.
But Healey both handles the premise - girl wakes up after 100 years in cryosleep - and the actual evolution of the plot with a seriousness I appreciated. Can a bunch of very talented teenagers fix the world? Well...
And I appreciated her honesty. I found parts of the plot to be overly convenient - everyone has exactly the skills needed to make up the most talented heist team imaginable and they just happen to meet. That did strain some of the credulity for me, but I thought the story overall made up for it.

Even better than the first one in the series - everything I appreciated about the first book and it's handling of real world events in a believable manner was turned up to 11 in this book. And the characters, with their all too believable flaws, grew on me even more. And, of course, the scientific mystery at the heart of the book played out really well. It reminded me of the Vorkosigan Saga, not just because of the cryonics thing, but because of the fast-pace sense of "hurry up and figure out what the least worst thing to do here is" is a crucial part of both stories. I really enjoyed this one.