Did you know that Kristine Kathryn Rusch had not one but two stories from 2022 chosen as Asimov’s Readers Choice Award finalists? (Well, actually, it was technically three, but more on that in a minute.)

“Rocket Girls,” which was published in the May/June 2022 issue of Asimov’s, is a finalist for the Best Novelette category. And we can totally see why. It’s one of our favorites, as well. (And, truth be told, one of Kris’ favorites—shhh, don’t tell her other stories.)

WMG published “Rocket Girls” as a standalone ebook in December 2022. Here’s the synopsis:

Angie achieved fame as a spacer. But when some fresh-faced interviewer asks Angie to tell the origin story of the Space Bimbos, the interviewer gets more than she bargained for.

Instead, Angie tells the tale of a group of ambitious and talented girls who, inspired by an old pulp magazine called Rocket Girls, cobbled together a rocket and tried to blast off into space—and then, made history.

With “Rocket Girls,” Kristine Kathryn Rusch puts her own genius female-empowered twist on the build-a-spaceship-in-your-backyard trope from the pulps.

You can read the story for free right now on the Asimov’s site or buy it here.

The second (and third) stories nominated are in the category of Best Novella. It’s for The Court-Martial of the Renegat Renegades, which was originally published in two parts as novellas: the first in the September/October 2022 issue and the second in the November/December issue. Both novellas are finalists.

You can read the separate novellas for free right now on the Asimov’s site.

WMG will be releasing the full novel, which marries the novellas together into one complete story, in June.

Here’s the synopsis:

The Renegat Renegades finally learn their fate in New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s The Court-Martial of the Renegat Renegades, the gripping new novel in her award-winning Diving series and an Asimov’s Readers’ Choice Award finalist.

As the surviving crew of the Renegat face court-martial for mutiny—100 years in their future—the case makes everyone nervous. Prosecutors worry the survivors will prove too sympathetic to convict. The defense worries about the reliability of the defendants. But the survivors worry about what might happen should the truth—the whole truth—finally come to light. Set in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s expansive Diving Universe, The Court-Martial of the Renegat Renegades adds rich new background to this powerfully written series.

With shocking secrets, a deepening mystery, and a surprise witness, this spellbinding sf mystery mixes the best of legal fiction and space opera and proves Rusch’s place as a master of science fiction.

You can preorder the novel here.

So, read them for free now or buy them for later (or both). And read some of the other finalists, as well. Five of those feature authors WMG has published stories from in the past—Jane Yolen in Fiction River, Rick Wilbur in Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, and Geoffrey A. Landis in The Year of the Cat, so maybe we’re a bit biased.

What can I say? We love our authors!

Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.