Birthday Review: Stories of Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Today is Nina Kiriki Hoffman's birthday. Much of her impressive body of short fiction appeared before I was reviewing, but here is a selection of my Locus reviews of her short fiction in this century.

Locus, March 2004

The somewhat slipstream-oriented anthology Polyphony has just reached its third issue, this one very thick (21 stories, some quite long). I was most impressed by Nina Kiriki Hoffman's "Wild Talents", a moving story of a girl whose telekinetic abilities drive her single mother to abandon her to a strange man.

Locus, April 2006

Weird Tales returns with a wonderfully thick issue: 82 pages, close to 50,000 words of fiction. ... fine work from Nina Kiriki Hoffman (“To Grandmother’s House”, a snarky little thing about three children who resent spending Christmas with Grandmother) ...

Locus, May 2006 (review of Children of Magic)

Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s “The Weight of Wishes” is a sweet and amusing Christmas story about a daughter who can change people – for example into a Christmas elf.

Locus, April 2007

Lone Star Stories’ February issue includes a gleefully nasty little piece from Nina Kiriki Hoffman, “Neighbors”, in which a woman’s speculations about her odd neighbors end up revealing her own family’s strangeness.

Locus, July 2009

The third in Sharyn November’s series of YA original anthologies is Firebirds Soaring. I thought this a bit more uneven than the two earlier volumes, but the best work is very rewarding, including a long novella from Nina Kiriki Hoffman, “The Ghosts of Strangers”, about a village of people allied with dragons, and a girl who can catch ghosts;

Locus, December 2012

In November Eclipse features ... Nina Kiriki Hoffman's “Firebugs” is a fine story about society of clone families, and a member of such a family who has, much against her will, differences, potentially dangerous ones.

Locus, July 2017

And Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s “Rings” (F&SF, May-June) is a well done look at a culture built on women owning men as slaves. Aris Lifebuilder, who has an unspecified scandal in her past, has just bought a man, a spaceship crewman who had apparently violated a local rule and been enslaved. Hoffman sketches the details of Aris’ society lightly and evocatively, and quite sharply illuminates the structurally fraught relationship she develops with her new man.