“The Speculative Fiction Indie Novella Championship (SFINCS, pronounced “sphinx”) is a yearly competition to recognize, honor, and celebrate the talent and creativity present in the indie community. We are a sister competition to both SPFBO and SPSFC, and we highlight greatness in the novella format in all areas of speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc.).” – From the official SFINCS website.
Note: The following review contains only my personal thoughts as a judge and does not reflect the views of the team as a whole.
REVIEW
Lauren C. Teffeau’s A Hunger With No Name drew my attention right away with its gorgeous cover and intriguing title. A post-apocalyptic Young Adult sci-fi, it’s also within the realm of the kind of work I’ve often looked at as part of my academic career. With its environmentalist and anti-AI themes, it feels sadly topical in the present moment, but offers hope rather than doom-and-gloom–a call to action rather than a death knell. Although it should certainly appeal to fans of dystopian and post-apocalyptic in general, I would recommend it in particular to fans of Nikky Lee’s SFINCS2 finalist, Once We Flew.
Thurava is a herder in the rugged desert scrubland that remains in the wake of a long-ago environmental catastrophe. Her people, the Astravans, live a semi-nomadic life, while other local groups subsist according to their own cultural and resource-based norms. One of these other groups–the people of the Glass City–live in a community very similar to our own, with more futuristic versions of many of the technologies we use today. When the life-giving river that supports 
the Astravan way of life begins to dry up, the trickle of Astravans toward the Glass City becomes a hemorrhage, and Thurava is practically forced by her mother to abandon their way of life and establish a new home (and a way to better herself) in the Glass City. Only Thurava’s mother and her mother’s lover remain behind to tend the bovine lucerva the Astravans depend on. The Glass City is immediately suspicious, even before Thurava makes the trek there herself. Mechanical beings have been visiting Astrava for years, enticing Astravans with the promise of a life of ease and greater social mobility. Thurava’s own best friend, Kikriva, followed just this promise, only to fail to keep in touch with Thurava as she’d promised. So, when Thurava does arrive in the Glass City, we’re primed to distrust it. That distrust is soon validated when it becomes clear that all humans in the city are subject to a rigid class system, with immigrants like Thurava and Kikriva at the very bottom. Not only that, but the Astravans must relinquish any personal belongings fashioned from lucerva hide–a symbol of the rejection of the natural in favour of the synthetic, as well as the fact that Astravans must give up their last material connections to their culture in order to assimilate. The potential career paths open to Astravans are severely limited compared with those of humans native to the Glass City, and indiscretions against the City’s polite culture are monitored and punished by mechanical beings. The city itself is managed by an AI that communicates with and controls the population through mechanical bodies known as “liasons.” Ever curious and driven, Thurava takes it upon herself to investigate the liasons and their AI, soon discovering that many of the City’s peculiar and cruel laws are in service not to the human occupants, but to the AI itself.
Thematically and in terms of its plot, Hunger manages to successfully juggle a number of critiques: that of our relationship to environment, our reliance on (or subservience to) various technologies, and the colonial mindset that undergirds much of Western culture. As a young adult protagonist, Thurava’s very firm sense of right and wrong plays well both with these thematics and in terms of the real-world context of the novella’s readers. Although Thurava’s indomitable spirit is bolstered by her people’s traditions, Hunger is ultimately a story about the power of the individual to enact change, with Thurava acting largely unaided throughout the majority of the narrative. This is not uncommon to works in the age category, which often emphasize individuation and differentiation from one’s family, friends, or culture. Nonetheless, Thurava’s goals are easy to root for, since they’re in support of a greater good. Reading the work in 2025, there’s a catharsis to watching powerful villains face a challenge to their authority.
Teffeau’s prose is at turns very beautiful, with a clear sense of when to hold back in order to make key passages shine. Although there were some grammatically and stylistically questionable sentence choices in the opening, the work smooths out very quickly and becomes very easy to read. If I were to critique the writing at all, it would be to say that sometimes the text can be slightly dense. This is less a matter of the prose itself, however, and moreso an issue of knowing where to place narrative focus. Although the incredibly detailed world and culture of the Astrava is commendable and clearly demonstrates a thoughtfulness on Teffeau’s part, it can occasionally be quite dry. The POV is fairly distant, which is not in and of itself an issue (and Thurava’s personality comes through very strongly), but does mean that sections in which the focus is on Astravan culture lack the level of emotionality that would otherwise elevate them and justify their inclusion. That said, I do very much appreciate the texture of the world–I could feel the dusty landscape as I was reading, and Astrava presents a stark and beautiful contrast to the mirrored world of the Glass City.
“I breathe in the musty sweet scent of the delicate yellow flowers that erupt from one of the bushes like miniature suns.”
As noted, Thurava’s characterization is strong. While I wasn’t always certain that I liked her (she can come off as a little unforgiving and unempathetic), the portrait of a young woman up against the odds and with a self-righteous anger fueling her actions was powerfully drawn. One gets the sense, due to Teffeau’s impressive character work, that Thurava is someone who, even outside the context of her struggles against the liasons, would be just as driven by a need to attach herself to a cause. The longing she feels for home, along with her deep connection to the landscape and to her culture, feel realistic and relatable. Hunger‘s supporting cast is less developed and detailed. We do get to spend a decent amount of time with Thurava’s mother, as well as one of her rivals, but their characterization is largely limited to the ways in which they relate to Thurava herself (that is, their function in Thurava’s life and within the narrative). I don’t think this is necessarily a problem, since it further emphasizes Thurava’s own need for differentiation, and feels appropriate for the age category of the novella. Hunger perhaps falters a little in terms of Thurava’s characterization at the very end, where a key decision doesn’t quite feel consistent with what we’ve seen of her so far. The choice is thematically rich, tying a neat bow and sending a clear message, but I feel it could have used slightly more build-up and layering in order for it to feel true to Thurava herself.
Hunger is clearly a well-thought-out story, and Teffeau’s talent really shines, yet I did have issues with its pacing and structure. While the latter half of the novella easily gripped me, almost a full half of the book is devoted to Thurava’s life in Astrava prior to her travels to the Glass City. Some inclusion of Astravan culture and Thurava’s everyday life feels important to establishing an emotional anchor for her (and in the reader), but in some ways I think a tighter opening would have been more effective, and more emotionally impactful. This might not be the case were Hunger a novel rather than a novella, but in a shorter story it felt like the focus was a little uneven. Although there were some lovely worldbuilding details and poetic turns of phrase in the first half of the novella, I did find my attention wandering in the lead up to Thurava’s investigations. I love a strong supporting cast, and am typically in favour of exploring the interpersonal dynamics of the main character, but because none of the cast here feel fully realized outside of their utility to Thurava’s story, I’m not sure that we need as much time with them in the opening.
I was thoroughly impressed with Teffeau’s writing in this one, and her talents shine particularly bright in the latter half of the novella, where an almost thriller-like pace takes over. There, the suspicions Teffeau has seeded in the reader really bear fruit, as we await the revelations of the Glass City’s secrets with as much eagerness as Thurava herself. I was impressed by Thurava’s characterization–in particular, how Teffeau was able to make me root for a character and support her cause while simultaneously disliking her a little. To me, that’s exceptionally strong character work.
I certainly recommend A Hunger With No Name, which was a smooth read that engages with many urgent themes and questions. Aside with comparing it to Once We Flew, I’d further compare it with many of the works I gestured to in that review, including the Horizon videogames and the work of R. B. Lemberg.
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