This review is just for the Hugo and Nebula award-nominated short story “A Catalog of Storms” by Fran Wilde. It's free to read online here at Uncanny Magazine. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:“Weatherman” means something very different in Sila’s town. Some years ago, eerie magical storms began striking the town, attacking people, destroying homes, and wreaking all sorts of havoc. Sila, who narrates this story, lists several different types of storms for the reader. ("A Glare: a storm o...

This review is for the Hugo and Nebula nominated short story “A Catalog of Storms” by Fran Wilde. “They used to be people. They’re weathermen now.” Once upon the time the sky used to be blue. Now it’s an enemy, with magical storms threatening people. But people are scrappy, and found the way to fight back. There are weathermen now - those who can name the storms and yell them away and thus make them disperse. But it’s perilous, and eventually those who fight the storms are lost to them, themse...

***A Catalog of Storms by Fran Wilde***A fantasy-take on climate change.When a blue sky is just a remembrance of our past, people are turning into weathermen to fight back the storms. But there's a sacrifice to make. Our adversary is strong. And mothers are crying for their daughters, as they try to save us all.Very nice idea. But I think the message is a lot stronger than the actual story.2.5 starsA Nebula 2019 and Hugo 2020 nominee for Best Short Story.You can read it for free here: https://un...

Delilah S. Dawson’s new novelette “The Willows” gives Algernon Blackwood’s famous 1907 novella of the same name a modern-day makeover. Rather than a journey down the Danube beset by a supernatural menace, in Dawson’s redux The Willows is an old family estate where its inhabitants journey back through its troubled family history. April and O’Leary are music stars who sojourn at O’Leary’s remote family home to record their new album. Steeped in generations of O’Leary ancestors, the property and it...

Review of A Catalog of Storms by FRAN WILDEClimate fic. About storms, wind, sisters and mothers. It went right over my head, couldn‘t get into it.Can be read for free here:https://uncannymagazine.com/article/a...————2020 Hugo Award FinalistBest Short Story* “And Now His Lordship Is Laughing”, by Shiv Ramdas (Strange Horizons, 9 September 2019) ★★★☆☆* “As the Last I May Know”, by S.L. Huang (Tor.com, 23 October 2019)* “Blood Is Another Word for Hunger”, by Rivers Solomon (Tor.com, 24 July 2019)*

I'm definitely on a poetry kick. There are some seriously wonderful poems published by Uncanny! I read all four and definitely recommend giving them all a chance. I do find there's not enough poetry these days. Which is such a shame. Poetry's so fantastic. #poetrystan'Steeped in Stars' by Hal Y. Zhang was beautiful. Some great turns of phrase! but the ghostof the old stone wall stillstreams your meteor shower Read it for yourself here.Jennifer Crow's 'Red Berries' was also wonderful. Tell m...

A so-so issue, with two standouts: "The Thing, With Feathers" by Marissa Lingen (I love the themes of her stories, and this one was noticeably better at balancing description and feelings with action)...and then a reprint of "The Duke of Riverside" by Ellen Kushner, which I devoured. It's a Riverside story of how Alec and St. Vier met, up through the events of the novel Swordspoint. A great read if you love Riverside and prickly Alec."Dustdaughter" by Inda Lauryn was also pretty intriguing.

Review is for "Catalog of Storms" only.The premise of the story is the society in which storms are sentient forces that actively try to hurt humans. Some people have the ability to understand them and fight back.The whole story felt like one big metaphor that just about eluded me. Even though it was short, it seemed to drag on forever, so I didn't have any desire to dwell on it and try to unpack the deeper meaning.

Read for the 2020 Hugos. I don't think this one quite clicked with me in the way the other stories did. A lovely and fantastical tale, but didn't hit me in the expected way.

Listened (in February 2019) to podcast reading of “A Catalog of Storms” by Fran Wilde https://uncannymagazine.com/article/a...Read "The Willows" by Delilah S. Dawson (2-2.5 stars) in December 2019. https://uncannymagazine.com/article/t...

This issue's got 7 stories (6 original, 1 reprint), 4 poems, 4 essays, and 2 interviews.A bit more mixed than the last issue for me, partly because of the general tone of post-apocalyptic darkness. I'd say the primary standout story for me was Natalia Theodoridou's "Poems Written While"--I didn't think I'd like it at first, but wow, it really worked for me. I also enjoyed the reprinted story from Kushner, as I don't think I've ever read anything by her before, and this was a fun taste of her Riv...

A melancholic story taking place in what I took to be a dystopian future where we have broken the weather, but the weather is also braking us. At the center of the story are a mother and her three daughters, facing questions of duty, purpose, and loss. It’s a sci-fi/fantasy story with storms having a mental impact and people communicating with the storms, but it was the human storms of emotions that touched me the most.

I'm reading "A Catalog of Storms" by Fran Wilde in the Hugo readers' packet. The story is amusing enough and I like the idea of "weathermen," but the sort of neo-fairy tale style isn't really my thing.

Catalogue of Storms By Fran WildeAnother short story from the very start of the year that should get some attention come Hugo time if it is not overlooked due to being so early in the year.

My review is only for the story “The Catalog of Storms” by Fran Wilde.Interesting as well as confusing, the writing in this story was beautiful but I wish I had understood it properly too. But I won’t deny that I truly felt the grief of the family on seeing their child fight the weather and give the ultimate sacrifice.

Ratings and super short reviews for two stories1) Dustdaughter by Inda Lauryn. Snoozefest.This kind of story is just not for me.2) A Catalog of Storms by Fran Wilde. Another Nebula short story nominee that I found bland. Then again, I never clicked with the author's work. *shrugs

This issue took on a decidedly dreamy, poetic tone that tilted toward surreal at times. My favorites included “A Catalog of Storms” by Fran Wilde, “The Duke of Riverside,” and really, all of the essays and poems. Each glowed with strength and wisdom.

A village by the sea, with a steep cliff overlooking it, contends with dangerous and peculiar weather. They have terrible storms, and storms not seen elsewhere, and all they can do is hunker down. Even when there is no storm at the moment, the sky is always gray; blue skies are a memory passed down from past generations.Then some of the village's young people start fighting the storms. They become "weathermen." One tool in the fight is naming the kinds of storms, which makes it possible to fight...

This was a really creative story, in the concept, the construction, and the way it was written. I enjoyed the relationship between people, weather, and emotions, and the actual catalogs of storms were clever.

I really didn’t get it. I logically understand that the storms and weathermen make for a rather blunt metaphor for emotional storms and how to deal with them, but i sincerely find this to be a (poetic — for lack of anything nice to say) waste of my time.