North Continent Ribbon: Stories by Ursula Whitcher. Neon Hemlock, 2024. 9781952086847. 172pp.
This book contains short stories that stand together as a novella. It was shortlisted for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, and my friend Gina recommended it to me during Seattle’s Worldcon back in August.
The stories explore the culture of the planet Nakharat, a slightly futuristic society obsessed with secrets and promises that take the form of ribbons hidden in one’s hair, and that has an AI, which they don’t trust but make extensive use of. It’s worth reading the book without knowing more than that.
The sense of the culture that emerges from the six stories was beguiling, and their characters brought me back over and over. It stands with The Left Hand of Darkness and Ancillary Justice in what it accomplishes in terms of world building, and it’s all the more impressive in that it’s much shorter than either book. Highly recommended.