The Year in Review 2024 by Arley Sorg
What happened, 2024? Where did we all go wrong?
Even if it was a weird, rocky, stressful year in many ways, it was still another great year for fiction! After closing Fantasy Magazine in late 2023 I became a literary agent at kt literary, which meant that a lot of my reading time went to novel submissions. I retained my post as a reviewer for Lightspeed, among various other roles in genre, which kept me looking at books outside of that literary agent role. Good news! I found plenty of titles folks should know about!
But first: I stand by the caveat I included in last year’s entry, which is that these listings inevitably leave out titles that deserve to be seen. Additionally, when we vote for “Best Novel” we are really saying, “This is the best novel among those I’ve actually read, not to mention actually remember, of the HUNDREDS of novels released, most of which I have not read….”
Like last year, there are also “Books I Didn’t Get To, Which Are Likely VERY Good, And Which You Should Probably Buy!” Del Sandeen’s debut novel This Cursed House (Berkley) immediately comes to mind, as well as debut novel Midnight Rooms by Donyae Coles (Amistad). Traci Chee’s Kindling (HarperCollins) also comes to mind. I’m bummed I didn’t get to Kamilah Cole’s So Let Them Burn (Little, Brown) and I really wish I had read Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Turning Leaves (Morrow) – even more so after being a Guest of Honour with him at Can*Con and speaking with him in person (albeit briefly). I was very curious about Nick Medina’s Indian Burial Ground (Berkley), Karin Lowachee’s The Mountain Crown (Solaris), and Hana Lee’s Road to Ruin (Saga). This list really could go on, but I’ll end it here, noting that we were spoiled for amazing options!
At the top of the list of great books I enjoyed is Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima (Tor). The cool thing about this one is that after reading the book and writing a review, I met Ananda at StokerCon in San Diego and interviewed her for Locus! Some folks call this book a collection, but I think it is more than simply a collection; I called it “a novel in refraction.” The storytelling is excellent, and the way the pieces reframe each other is one of the many things that makes this title truly interesting.
Also in the “not an anthology” category, I really enjoyed Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa (Tordotcom). It’s a well-paced, wonderfully imagined science fiction book set in “The Fingers,” which are towers that have been isolated due to rising ocean levels. Okungbowa demonstrates mastery of character and subtext in a story which readers will devour.
There were so many excellent anthologies in 2024, I’m not even sure where to start! Desiree S. Evans & Saraciea J. Fennell gave us The Black Girl Survives in This One (Flatiron), featuring “Ghost Light” by Erin E. Adams – brilliant tension, fantastically layered; “The Black Strings” by Vincent Tirado – superb character work and palpable pressure; and “Local Color” by horror maven Eden Royce, which compels you to chew through the pages; and more. Then Terry J. Benton-Walker gave us The White Guy Dies First (Tor Teen), featuring Alexis Henderson’s atmospheric, superb story “Gray Grove”, H.E. Edgmon’s perfectly brutal and brilliantly rendered “Best Served Cold”, and other great pieces.
Catalyst Press and Short Story Day Africa, who put out must-read anthology Disruption in 2021, did it again with Captive: New Short Fiction from Africa in 2024. Edited by Rachel Zadok & Helen Moffett, it’s full of standout stories, like Sola Njoku’s heartbreaking and relentless “Section 47”, and Josephine Sokan’s absorbing “Good Things Come”. Xueting Christine Ni followed up her 2021 roundup of science fiction from China, Sinopticon (Solaris), with 2024’s Sinophagia (Solaris), celebrating Chinese horror. Ni included memorable pieces like Hong Niangzi’s twisty reflection on urban legends, “The Girl in the Rain”; and Fan Zhou’s vivid commentary on labor, “The Waking Dream”; as well as Ni’s own helpful notes on context and culture.
Queerness was in abundance, at least in my “to- be-read” pile! Rob Costello’s We Mostly Come Out at Night: 15 Queer Tales of Monsters, Angels & Other Creatures (Running Press Teens) was a welcome addition, especially Alexandra Villasante’s stellar sea-witch story “Other Fish”. Author and publisher dave ring put his editor hat back on for The Crawling Moon: Queer Tales of Inescapable Dread (Neon Hemlock), showing off his often ineffable taste, including M.L. Krishnan’s extraordinary “Measurements Expressed as Units of Separation”, Winifred Burton’s fantastic “Blood Claim”, Donyae Coles’s vibrant “Fenestration”, Suzan Palumbo’s “Jumbie Closet” – which is full of longing, nuance, and fantastic storytelling – and more.
Zoraida Córdova & Natalie C. Parker edited Faeries Never Lie (Feiwel & Friends), latest in the anthology series which began with Vampires Never Get Old and continued with Mermaids Never Drown. Among the great stories on offer are Chloe Gong’s heartwarming and thoughtful “An Eternal Fire” and Ryan La Sala’s “Ask Twice” – which will have readers in tears. Alex Brown (the author, not the Locus reviewer) edited The House Where Death Lives (Page Street). Among many excellent pieces are “Cradle and All” by Kay Costales, a wonderful example of horror used to explore real life crises; and Traci Chee’s deft, compelling “Vanishing Point”, about mother/daughter/grandmother relationships.
Jamal Hodge should be mentioned for editing Bestiary of Blood for Crystal Lake, which features a lot of pieces, many of them very short. “The Cull” by Melanie Stormm is fun and clever, while Kumbali Satori’s “Fool’s Gold” is a quick flicker of literary flair. Rob Cameron’s “The Hyena and the Rhino”, about an aging rhino exerting strict control over his herd, is exceptional, worth the price of the book on its own. Paula Guran put out another “Best Of” anthology: The Year’s Best Fantasy Volume Three (Pyr). As with many of her anthologies, this one is worth your time! Megan Chee’s “The God of Minor Troubles”, about the Forty-Fourth Son of Heaven who shows up late to get his deity duties and has to deal with old warrior Péi, is a lovely exploration of friendship and unlikely heroes; R.S.A. Garcia’s “Mid-Earth Removals Limited” is a joy to read, about a displaced typical fantasy-style evil warrior who meets his match in a real-world single mom; and Isabel J. Kim’s “You can bear anything if you need it enough” uses fairy tale to explore exploitation from multiple angles.
Look. Don’t take my word for it. Go pick these books up, explore them for yourself. These works are a much better way to remember the year than… well, The Year!
ARLEY SORG, Senior Editor, has been part of the Locus crew since 2014. Arley is an associate agent at kt literary. He is a 2022 Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award recipient and a 2023 Space Cowboy Award recipient. He is also a 2021 and 2022 World Fantasy Award finalist and a 2022 and 2023 Locus Award finalist for his work as co-Editor-in-Chief at Fantasy Magazine. Arley is a 2022 Ignyte Award finalist in two categories: for his work as a critic, and for his essay “What You Might Have Missed” in Uncanny Magazine. He is Associate Editor and reviewer at Lightspeed & Nightmare magazines, columnist for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and interviewer at Clarkesworld Magazine. He grew up in England, Hawaii, and Colorado, and lives in the SF Bay Area. A 2014 Odyssey Writing Workshop graduate, Arley has spoken at a range of events and taught for a number of programs, including guest critiquing for Odyssey and being the week five instructor for the six-week Clarion West workshop. He can be found at arleysorg.com – where he ran his own “casual interview” series with authors and editors – as well as Twitter (@arleysorg), Blue Sky, and Facebook.
This review and more like it in the February 2025 issue of Locus.
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