The Long List Anthology Volume 2: More Stories From the Hugo Award…

This is an anthology of all the stories that were nominated for the Hugos but...didn't make the final list? Didn't win? Not sure. Not Hugo winners, anyway. There are some excellent stories in here, particularly the Ursula Vernon one. Seanan McGuire's piece was a non-fiction "letter to Tiptree" that I didn't find particularly interesting - not in a story sense, anyway. And unfortunately the last, and longest, piece was very much not to my taste - it suffered from the opposite of infodump, infodrip. I was half-way through before I had any idea who/what the protagonist was; why he was where he was got explained only very near the end (and was stupid, anyway - twu wuv, or maybe lust). I'm very unclear on their world, too - especially if they were going back in time off the Road, where were the "gods"? It really didn't make sense. It's too bad that was the last story - I thought as I finished Ursula's that I should have saved it for last. If I read more of these anthologies, I'll make sure to save the ones I trust to be good for the end. So I may read some of these stories again, I won't read the whole thing again. One thing - as I look at the titles of the stories, I remember most of them - I often don't, when I read an anthology.
"Damage" by David D. Levine - don't remember.
"Pockets" by Amal El-Mohtar - neat story about stuff appearing in pockets, though there's not much point to it.
"Today I Am Paul" by Martin L. Shoemaker - I've read this before, in the book; good story.
"The Women You Didn't See" by Nicola Griffith (a letter from Letters to Tiptree) - eh, not interesting.
"Tuesdays With Molakesh the Destroyer" by Megan Grey - cool story, fire demon retired (somewhat forcibly) in suburbia.
"Wooden Feathers" by Ursula Vernon - Weird and cool - as expected. If you carve it perfectly, it comes to life.
"Three Cups of Grief, By Starlight" by Aliette de Bodard - something about different kinds of teas, I've forgotten why.
"Madeleine" by Amal El-Mohtar - don't remember.
"Neat Things" by Seanan McGuire (a letter from Letters To Tiptree) - eh again. If I were reading something about why Seanan began to write, this would be interesting - but it's not an SF story.
"Pocosin" by Ursula Vernon - another weird and cool. Possum god.
"Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers" by Alyssa Wong - ew. Cross between a vampire and a drug addict.
"So Much Cooking" by Naomi Kritzer - love this. Blogging the semi-apocalypse, by disease - a cook's blog.
"The Deepwater Bride" by Tamsyn Muir - weird and good. I did _not_ expect the end. I'm not a Lovecraft fan, but this worked for me anyway.
"The Heart's Filthy Lesson" by Elizabeth Bear - Interesting story - Venusian archaeology - but I don't understand the title... I've read this before, I don't know where.
"Grandmother-nai-Leylit's Cloth of Winds" by Rose Lemberg - I would like to read more in this setting. Fascinating cultures.
"Another Word For World" by Ann Leckie - Good story, excellent concepts - errors of translation echo into major problems.
"The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild" by Catherynne M. Valente - yeah, not for me. I could follow the events, but the story as a whole is too surreal.
"Our Lady of the Open Road" by Sarah Pinsker - don't remember.
"The Pauper Prince and the Eucalyptus Jinn" by Usman T. Malik - Unreliable narrator, several times over. Interesting story, but not really to my taste.
"The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps" by Kai Ashante Wilson - yawn. Infodrip - right to the end I didn't know what was going on, or why, and by the middle I didn't care either. ( )