Hey!
This week I have some things I read, a small Hugo TedTalk (I will be the change I want to see in the world), a reasonable number of reviews (multiple sources agree that 30 is a good max number per issue), and your wildest and weirdest book recs!
A Path Through the Landscape: A Journey Into Fantasy
What struck me about this essay by Roseanna is her mention of gaps in her reading, for whatever reason there were gaps: school, life, different interests, uninspiring stories, etc. I have the same worries when presenting myself as a reviewer because I have those gaps in both fantasy and science fiction (romance, too, now that romantasy is popping off). This feels relevant this week because there’s another round of “should you read/rec classic SFF?” going around. My journey to SFF wasn’t through books because I didn’t have access to the library services or bookstores in my rural area that would support a child’s SFF habit or lead her to these ✨ foundational masters of SFF ✨. I did have some via my school library, but you will be shocked to hear it was sporadic due to meager funding. I had more reliable access to TV, film, and video games. I come to these types of essays with both curiosity and a desire for revelation—show me your path so I can see all the potential paths I could have had, if circumstances had been different. It’s not a sad thing at all! Instead, it feels a little like a time travel adventure. Anyway, now I’m definitely going to reread The Goblin Emperor.
One Piece: Season 2 | First Look
I loved the first season of Netflix’s One Piece. A live action adaptation was always going to be quite different than the manga (I have not watched the anime), but my experience with it was that the changes made to the structure of the story served a visual medium much better and the emotional core was still solid. The latter is so important; I’m very sorry to Oda but I read One Piece for the feelings, friendship, and snark, not necessarily the punching (except for the times the punching is also related to Peak Feelings). They’re already filming Season 3, too. I worried about getting attached to the adaptation given Netflix’s history with shows, but with Stranger Things ending soon, I wonder if they’re not going to position One Piece in its place as their main juggernaut fantasy show. Myself, I want them to drop Season One on disc immediately with as many unhinged, behind the scenes interviews with Iñaki Godoy as possible.
Wombling Along This Week
When I saw that Womble had posted something experimental, I was excited! Experiments in blogging! We are so back. However, I wasn’t excited enough because it was a whole post full of links. There’s a lot of handwringing online about how it’s so hard to build community offline, but it’s just as true for online communities. It’s dead simple to get caught up in various social media timelines and not realize how much we’re missing. I have the seed of an essay idea: reccing as critical practice; how SFF criticism could expand its reach by learning how to reach for “Yes, and” instead of “No, but” when responding to how others react to media so there’s less dunking and more discussion; how part of community building means being deliberate about claiming a community; and rejecting virality and the “being first” mindset. But alas, my thoughts are still nascent. Maybe one day! Until then, everyone should start doing rec threads on their revamped or brand new blogs/newsletters (not substack, though). I’ll link them normally and won’t put them on blast like this one. I just know Womble can handle it. :P
The Hugo Awards are in the churning consciousness of the SFF internet as Worldcon is happening now! It’s a great time to join LAcon V so you can nominate media in 2026.
If you’re already a member of Seattle and you have your profile set to allow them to forward your membership details to LA, you should be good to go. If you’re not sure, go to the Seattle membership portal, log in, and look at the right side of the page for the “Actions” section. For sure if you’re in the U.S. you can edit your profile there to check the ticky “Please pass my information to future Worldcons“; other countries might be different depending on their privacy laws.
All Seattle WSFS members can nominate items released in 2025 in early 2026. After that, they’ll need to buy an LA WSFS membership to vote on the finalists mid next year. Or the “forward my info” ticky can stay unchecked and people can join LAcon V outright. This is also the option for new people who haven’t participated before but want to hop aboard! I’ve done both and they work pretty well.
One of my favorite parts of the Hugo Awards is getting to be part of the history of the award specifically and SFF fandom generally. It’s cool to look back at past years and go, “I helped with that!” It’s even cooler to look at the long lists for each award and see books, media, and cool folks you nominated that almost made the ballot. Then for the people who continue doing great work, you can campaign harder next time! I’m a big history nerd, so this is my favorite thing about participating in a collective, popular award. And as a bonus, if you love discussing books in a book club type setting, the Hugo Award is the biggest SFF book club ever.
If you decide to participate and get stuck during any part of the process, feel free to reach out to me any time! I’m happy to help.
Anji Kills A King by Evan Leikam (Jacqueline Nyathi @ Strange Horizons)
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, narrated by Gisela Chipe (Narrated Podcast)
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones (Womble @ Runalong the Shelves)
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab (Debbie Gascoyne @ Strange Horizons)
The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach (Briana Wilvert @ The Lesbrary)
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (mynameismarines)
A Fire Born of Exile by Aliette de Bodard (Nick Hubble @ Prospective Cultures)
Haze by Katharine Kerr (Paul Di Filippo @ Locus)
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh (Bonnie McDaniel @ Red Headed Femme)
The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tashi Suri (Caelin @ The Lesbrary)
For The Road by Stark Holborn (Womble @ Runalong the Shelves)
Flight of the Fallen by Hana Lee (Elias @ Bar Cart Bookshelf)
The Keeper of Lonely Spirits by E.M. Anderson (Alex Brown @ Locus)
Mindscape by Andrea Hairston (Trish Matson @ Skiffy and Fanty)
On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara Haveland (Roseanna @ Nerds of a Feather)
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar (Tarvolon)
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 (Ann Michelle Harris @ Nerds of a Feather)
Starstruck by Aimee Ogden (Fiction Fans Podcast)
The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling (Liz Bourke @ Locus)
Translation State by Ann Leckie (Nick Hubble @ Prospective Cultures)
Weapons (2025) (Haley Zapal @ Nerds of a Feather)
Weapons (2025) (Kate Sánchez @ But Why Tho?)
Weapons (2025) (Leah Schnelbach @ Reactor)
When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley (Alex Brown @ Punk-Ass Book Jockey)
A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna (Dina @ SFF Book Reviews)
Womble’s weekly reading thread from last weekend is available for Expert TBR managers (if not an expert, beware). The SFRA Review has published their Summer 2025 issue. I haven’t dug into it yet, but there’s a review of Mass Effect I’m excited to read.
Antimatter Pod discusses another episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Mystery Spotcast tackle two episodes of Supernatural (our strongest soldiers). Issue #501 of The Rec Center is out with a call for fic recs for multiple themes. The Full Lid was out on August 8th, full of the usual goodies. Octothorpe dropped episode 141, discussing Worldcon and Business Meeting topics.
Paste Magazine did a SFF rec list for 10 Unorthodox Summer Beach Reads. The Portalist has a list of still-to-come SFF for the year. I was online a lot less this last week so I didn’t see many cover reveals. But The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver by Rafael Torrubia came across my timeline thanks to Charlotte. And the cover of Song of Spores by Bogi Takács dropped on LGBTQ Reads. Not cover related, but The King Must Die by Kemi Ashing-Giwa has a preorder campaign going on for some very cool digital art. One day publishers will figure out a way to work with artists to let them sell physical prints of book cover art. It’s my dream and I will hold on to it.
For short fiction reviews, Charles Payseur covered Samovar, Lightspeed and Flash Fiction Online and A.C. Wise reviewed works from Clarkesworld, both at Locus. If you want even more short fiction reviews from Charles, he also reviewed Diabolical Plots, Zooscape, and Worlds of Possibility, Version One. Myna Chang put together a July round up of recommended flash fiction. And for short fiction writers, FIYAH! is doing their first reprints-only edition for Black Southern Speculative fiction.
The 2025 Aurora Award winners were announced. The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed won Best Novel; it’s a pretty good book, even if it’s giving big Kameron Hurley bugs-and-guts vibes (I remain squeamish). The 2025 Aurealis Awards are open for entry. This is a cool award, capturing current SFF from Australian authors. The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History is looking for judges until October 14. The 2025 Hugo Award ceremony will be streamed on Youtube on August 16 at 8:30PM PDT. Camestros Felapton looked at some Dragon Award stats. Finally, the 2025 Endeavour Award finalist list is out for best book by a Pacific Northwest author. (I’ll be over here cheering on Ocean’s Godori.)
Essa Hansen did an AMA at r/Fantasy. Andrea Hairston was a guest on Skiffy and Fanty to talk about Mindscape. Annalee Newitz did an event with Left Bank Books (one of my local faves) on their tour for Automatic Noodle and was also interviewed by the Bay Area Reporter. Jim C. Hines was on Mythcreants to talk about his author journey. Ursula Whitcher, author of North Continent Ribbon, was interviewed by the Ann Arbor District Library. Via Locus, Stephen Graham Jones did a reading of “Love Is a Cavity I Can't Stop Touching”.
Olivia Waite did the 6 Books interview over at Nerds of a Feather. Alexander Boldizar, author of The Man Who Saw Seconds that took home the Locus Award for in the science fiction category in a bit of a surprise win, has an interview excerpt up at Locus. Fran Wilde has a Big Idea column up over at Whatever for her collected short fiction volume, A Catalog of Storms as well as an interview with Paul Semel. John Scalzi did an interview earlier this with LiteraryHype, and he also posted Poking the Discourse Bear Re: “Classic” Science Fiction in response to some Bluesky discourse dunking on Reddit/Some Guys. These discourses come around now and again. They’re mostly silly, but people do toss a lot of great book modern recs into the mix in response so I can’t get too het up over yet another debate about Heinlein.
Art recs: gouache wilderness paintings by Maddy Bellwoar. North American valley by Big Hippo. Radioactive hummingbird by Olivia Waite. Bonders' Enclave by Eleonor Piteira (yes, I will be ordering a print of this).
The Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta
Summary: A whale on space, magic, secrets and madness.
Rec: It’s a trip where you have to learn the world’s rules yourself and a compelling story, too.
From: Womble
The Three Armageddons of Enniscorthy Sweeny by R.A. Laffety
Summary: Alt history possibly about memeing our way to the apocalypse by treating apocalyptic operas as history?
Rec: This is absolutely bonkers insane, but the turns of phrase are wonderful and if you get past the weirdness, there’s some really tremendous thematic work about cultural responses to historical horrors.
From: Jay (Tarvolon)
Human Omega: Discovered on the Slave Planet by Eileen Glass
Summary: "An engineer captured by bug aliens whose military isn't looking for him. Yet, Carter is very much alive, and if he wants to stay that way, he'll need to trust Pykh and Siel, two affectionate aliens with claws, teeth, and size."
Rec: This bonkers and fun, if you like space opera, aliens, and a kind of romance.
From: Grace Hill
The Further Adventures of Halley's Comet by John Calvin Batchelor
Summary: A retelling of Ivanhoe except it's 1986, the villains are plutocrats with a plan that will cause spiritual damage to the cosmos, the forest outlaws are named after cancelled NASA projects, and many more layers of weirdness that there isn't room to mention here.
Rec: Such a uniquely weird book, with an authorial voice and a plot device utterly unlike anything I have encountered before or since. But this was also memorable because underneath the weirdness and the artifice of recycling Ivanhoe, there's a real anger about how space exploration, and the push for commercialization of space, were being handled even then.
From: Petrea Mitchell
Vellum by Hal Duncan
Summary: There's a war in heaven and everyone's invited, but there are also conscientious objectors. Someone has stolen the book that contains all of destiny, and it's a Problem. Everyone is also in some way tied to an archetype from mythology, living over and over again the patterns of their stories. Non-linear, messy and gorgeous.
Rec: It rewired my brain chemistry when I first read it in my early twenties - it's the sort of mad and glorious thing I hadn't known could exist, and it stayed mad and glorious through every reread. It takes mythology and makes something new and strange out of it, in a way I wish was more common in stories that play with myth.
From: Roseanna Pendlebury
Corey Fah Does Social Mobility by Isabel Waidner
Summary: Corey Fah is a struggling writer who hears they have won a prize that might offer them some stability amongst the horrors of late capitalism. However Corey soon finds, it’s one thing winning a prize in life’s lottery, and quite another being able to collect it – especially if you are a queer, working class immigrant with all of History working against you.
Rec: A book that involves Neon Beige, an eight legged Bambi, the mysteries of day time TV alongside time loops and more. It's a story that captures the precarity and absurdities of late stage capitalism while doing cartwheels of speculative brilliance around it. I'm not sure I've read anything like it and can't claim to have taken everything it's doing in but it has a sheer energy and mood that have stuck with me.
From: Ed Morland
Thanks for reading the newsletter and welcoming me (and my book rec pals!) to your inbox/RSS feed once a week. Putting it together is always a bright spot for me from The Horrors and I hope it brings you some joy, plus a book rec or two, as well.
As always, the book rec form is open for any one off recs you may have!
That’s all for this week. Drink some water and stay healthy.