The Sword and Laser discussion

It's that time of year so I was wondering if anyone had any great SFF recommendations for any of the holidays that occur around this time of year.

My contribution is A War of Gifts, but I was hoping there were a bunch I didn't know.

Happy Holidays.

The Shining takes place in the winter. Holidays are mentioned but I don't think they ever get to them.

There is the classic fantasy Xmas story A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

A bit more modern. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill It does have Christmasland ;-)

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

I read a collection called Christmas Magic edited by David Hartwell a few years ago. I recall that some of the stories were excellent.

Hogfather! Yeah, that was among the best of the routinely-great Discworld books.

I feel I should mention my fave indie author has an entry: Kate Danley's The Spirit of Krampus. It's short and illustrated but only 3 bucks.

I'll also recommend Hogfather. Death as mall-Santa alone makes the book worth reading.

Time and Again by Jack Finney comes to my mind.

Then there is the mind-blowing In The Late December by Greg Van Eekhout which you can read on Strange Horizons at http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/in...

Of course there's the classic Christmas on Ganymede by Isaac Asimov. You can read that in scanned pulpy glory at https://archive.org/stream/Startling_...

As the snow falls I am also reminded of the gentle fall of snow in A Deepness in the Sky... though I think that was nitrogen snow. Still, it makes me feel cozy on a winter's night.

Haaa, Christmas on Ganymede was pretty good! Thanks for the referral. It was cheesy but fun. I enjoyed it. A human reveals the story of Santa to locals on Ganymede, and they want a visit or else they strike, ending the cushy jobs the humans have there. It involves some actual science in the form of low-gravity navigation but really a whole lot of hand waving. Hey, it's a Santa story.

The story has to be taken in historical context. First it uses a trope already a little out of date for publication in the 1940s, which is that other bodies in the Solar System have abundant life and some intelligent locals. Then those locals are a little too close to the actual exploitation of natives during the colonial era. Read the story for the fun it brings and perhaps use the historical context as a lesson in that day's attitudes.

Not a specific holiday, but Katherine Arden's Winternight trilogy is wonderfully wintery. Reading about the Russian winter makes me glad I'm curled up warm in bed!

Assassin's Apprenticewith all its Christ analogies (he is ‘reborn’ in a stable for crying out loud).. :-)