The 2012 Hugo Awards nominations are out, and amongst the typical gritty fantasy and zombie apocalypse novels are Jo Walton's Among Others, which sounds genuinely intriguing.

A stunning speculative fiction debut -- and a refreshing change from spaceships and swords -- is Karen Lord's novel Redemption in Indigo.

One might suspect that Mythopoeic Society awards finalists' works would all be elves and orcs, dwarves and goblins and gnomes and whatnot. But that's not necessarily the case.