[Hugo Award for Best Novella nominee] More like 3.75 but I'm feeling generous lol. Actually quite surprised and pleased by how charming (ha ha ha) I found this. I wasn't expecting very much of it, perhaps unfairly? I'm always mean about Cinderella retellings in the same way I'm mean about Greek myth retellings, but this was fresh and clever and interesting. I don't think I'd honestly call it gothic (I don't think it had any elements of horror, dread, etc which would really sell it as gothic), I think that's a misstep on the part of whoever wrote the cover for this, and I also think it's more of a queered narrative in it's theming and approach to the story than it really is a Queer Romance. But it's a really well done analogy for disability and accessibility through a fairytale lens, extremely somatic, and the way the romance dynamic was resolved amused me with it's boldness, I felt it really worked lol. Marske packs loads into a short page count, truly impressed by how dense this felt for something that simply wasn't long. I might need to go and read Marske's novels? Always been on the fence but now... Hm.

[hugo award for best novella nominee] eek I do see the vision for this... but said vision was NOT executed very well, sadly. the writing is decent (except for some bits at the end I found very clunky) and the character sketches fairly compelling (waite evidently loves a '20s femme fatale kinda vibe), and the sort of space miss marple conceit is very fun. I totally get why people like this. but the worldbuilding isn't super well thought out; I don't think the ethics and implications of it all really fit into a novella like this which also has to make a compelling mystery plot fit. (I do not think the resolution to this mystery was particularly good, either) waite does patch some of the holes interestingly, but the bigger picture remains a bit gappy. it's also quite twee, and sometimes I like twee but often I don't... and sadly this was the sort of twee that I didn't really like. it's like naive camp vs camping; naive twee is charming, sort of, but deliberate twee grates. I didn't really hate it but I thought it was pretty patchy and thin in crucial places.