Hey!
This week, we’ve got a big antipated book list, some reviews (it felt like a quieter week to me; summer in the northern hemisphere shifting down, maybe?), and more Hugo/Worldcon updates.
Anticipated Reads
Earlier this week, I made the Rookie Mistake of asking people for their anticipated reads. After, as my Storygraph account was smoking and I was sweating profusely at my library holds that will inevitably all come in at once, I decided that I could also inflict this on everyone else who didn’t read the thread. I put numbers besides the titles that were mentioned multiple times. Good luck to your TBR pile.
All that We See Or Seem by Ken Liu (2)
An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole
Angel Maker by Elizabeth Bear
Audition for the Fox by Martin Cahill
The Beasts Beneath the Winds by Hanna Alkaf
Blood for the Undying Throne by Sung-il Kim, translated by Anton Hur (2)
Bloodtide by Sophie Burnham
Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree
This Brutal Moon by Bethany Jacobs (2)
Cinder House by Freya Marske (2)
Cry, Voidbringer by Elaine Ho
Dead Hand Rule by Max Gladstone (2)
The Dead Man's Empire by W.P. Wiles
Dinner at the Night Library by Hika Harada
The Door on the Sea by Caskey Russell (2)
The Fire Within by Touhfat Mouhtare
The First Thousand Trees by Premee Mohamed
Gnomes of Lychford by Paul Cornell
God's Junk Drawer by Peter Clines
The Graceview Patient by Caitlin Starling
The Happiness Collector by Crystal King
Hazelthorn by CG Drews
Helm by Sarah Hall (3)
Herculine by Grace Byron
Honeyeater by Kathleen Jennings (3)
Ice by Jacek Dukaj
The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri (3)
Letters From an Imaginary Country by Theodora Goss
Lives of Bitter Rain by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Making History by K J Parker
Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur
A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo (5)
The Nameless Land by Kate Elliott (2)
The New Eve by Moussa Ould Ebnou
A Philosophy of Thieves by Fran Wilde (3)
Project Hanuman by Stewart Hotston
Of the Emperor's Kindness by Chaz Brenchley
Orlanda by Jacqueline Harpman
Outlaw Planet by M. R. Carey
Queen Demon by Martha Wells (7)
Redneck Revenant by David Slayton
A Ruin, Great and Free by Cadwell Turnbull
The Salt Oracle by Lorraine Wilson (3)
Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei (2)
The Salvage by Anbara Salam
Sea Now by Eva Meijer
The Second Death of Locke by VL Bovalino
Secrets of the First School by T.L. Huchu
The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi
The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver by Rafael Torrubia
Slow Gods by Claire North (3)
Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher
The Sovereign by CL Clark
Spread Me by Sarah Gailey
Stratagem of Fated Winds by Minyue Fu
The Summer War by Naomi Novik
Sunward by William Alexander
Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha
The Wax Child by Olga Ravn
We Love We Bunny by Mona Awad
We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories About Political Protest, Resistance, and Hope
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher
When There Are Wolves Again by E.J. Swift (2)
Witch You Would by Lia Amador
The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman (2)
The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes
Year's Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction, Volume 3
A Song of Legends Lost by M.H. Ayinde (The Book Wyrms Hoard)
Ascending Species by Rand Paulsen (William Emmons @ Ancillary Review of Books)
The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Andrew Liptak @ Transfer Orbit)
Cinder House by Freya Marske (Maggie @ The Lesbrary)
Colourfields: Writing About Writing About Science Fiction by Paul Kincaid (Nicholas Whyte @ From the Heart of Europe)
Don’t Sleep with the Dead by Nghi Vo (Jenny Hamilton @ Strange Horizons)
The Hungry Gods by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Womble @ Runalong the Shelves)
The Hungry Gods by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Paul Di Filippo @ Locus)
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (Gabino Iglesias @ NPR)
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (lexi aka newlynova)
The Last Soul Among Wolves by Melissa Caruso, narrated by Moira Quirk (Narrated Podcast)
Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders (Carrie S. @ Smart Bitches, Trashy Books)
Moderation by Elaine Castillo (Niall Harrison @ Locus)
The Outcast Mage by Annabel Campbell (Paul Weimer @ Nerds of a Feather)
Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch (Friends Talking Fantasy)
Redshirts by John Scalzi (Hugo, Girl!, but with guest hosts)
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho (Nick Hubble @ Prospective Cultures)
Starstruck by Aimee Ogden (Alex Brown @ Punk-Ass Book Jockey)
Starstruck by Aimee Ogden (Elias @ Bar Cart Bookshelf)
At last, we finally got the long list for the Hugo Awards, where we can see where a ton of my nominations ended up. That sound you hear is me hatching plans for 2026. Camestros Felapton was immediately ready with the data (I love a chart).
Worldcon and Hugo discussion has continued, but I admit I am pretty burned out on it due to being depressed about all the mistakes. The Seattle Worldcon chair apologized for the way the Hugo Ceremony went. The hosts of the 2025 Hugo Ceremony shared their apology, too. I still feel terribly for all the finalists who had their night spoiled, and I really, really hope LAcon and the bidding Worldcons are paying attention. Our Hugo events are no longer just a fun nerd prom. Our community is international, the ceremony is streamed worldwide, and the recording is available in perpetuity.
Every time there are ceremony problems, new people learn that the convention committee changes every year and want to know why we just can’t have a master document of how to do things. There’s so many answers to this, but the biggest ones: these projects are huge, volunteers are already stretched thin, and if it’s not formalized year to year by people specifically responsible for it, how would we keep it going? I was only half joking when I suggested WSFS form a Rakestepping and Dogpiling Prevention Committee which could, effectively, submit a risk management report to every new concom so they don’t try to reinevent the wheel or the errors, since this is often the suggestion most thrown out when these problems arise. But truly, it might not be a bad idea! Obviously it could be named something more professional, I guess. WSFS loves a committee.
In other award news, the Dragon Awards were announced. Cora Buhlert has some thoughts on the awards, as well as Camestros Felapton, in Dragon and on. Mary Robinette Kowal won the Eugie Award with her story, “Marginalia”. Award season is slowly winding down. I used to have a spreadsheet to track this, but then I got lazy. Luckily someone made a page for that. Awards I’m still excited for include the Ignytes, the Le Guin, and World Fantasy. If you’re like me and like being a nerd about award lists, I highly recommend SFADB.
Over at Ancillary Review of Books, there’s a new Wow! Signal wrap up of essays, analysis, and commentary for August. They link to a wider range of things than Intergalactic Mixtape, so don’t miss checking it out! They also have their call for Reviews and Essays out for December 2025. Womble has another entry in Wombling Along, for even more interlinking goodness.
I’m behind on pods due to accidentally tripping and starting a new save on Stardew Valley, but there’s a bunch of regulars out! The SFF Addicts podcast recapped their experience at Seattle Worldcon. Antimatter Pod tackled “Four-and-a-Half Vulcans" from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Critical Friends dropped Episode #15 about reviewing popular media, and I’m sorry to laugh, but the use of “TikTok reels” in their description is very funny give all the inter-generational wars that happen between Instagram and TikTok that end up on my FYP no matter how much I hit “Not Interested”. Tar Volon or Bust Presents continues their deep dive into Mary Stewart’s Arthurian Saga with The Crystal Cave, Book 4: The Red Dragon, Sections 1-5. Mythcreants tackles the enemies to lovers trope. In newsletters, The Rec Center shared a grab bag of recs last week in Issue #504.
Meanwhile, welcome to September! At Reactor, there’s All the New Science Fiction Books Arriving in September 2025. Book Riot has their own list of September releases and if you still want more, Gizmodo has a massive list across multiple subgenres. Over at Five Books, Sarena Ulibarri shares recs for the best solarpunk. Over at Paste, there’s another anticipated books list for the fall. Sean Guynes shared a list of Fall 2025 University Press Recommendations, featuring a really robust speculative section.
At Worldcon, Martha Wells was interviewed by the Ink to Film Podcast, and you can now watch the interview on Youtube! Gautam Bhatia, author of The Sentence and editor of Strange Horizons, was on If This Goes On (Don't Panic). Deva Fagan, author of House of Dusk, was over at Fantasy Cafe with an guest post. The Nerd Daily has an interview with Kathleen Jennings, author of Honeyeater. Also at the Nerd Daily, there’s an excerpt of The Baby Dragon Bakery by A. T. Qureshi. Over at Civilian Reader, there’s an excerpt of The Heist of Hollow London by Eddie Robson.
At Transfer Orbit, the Table of Contents column is up. This is a great resource to bookmark for having all the available links to the big short fiction magazines stories on one page. Fantasy Magazine is open for submissions from BIPOC authors September 10 through September 17. Trollbreath Magazine dropped their Fall 2025 issue. In October, Shousetsu Bang*Bang will have their spooky issue and signups are open now.
Mia Tsai wrote an essay about the growing trend of pulling fic to publish but still openly engaging with the original fandom. It’s less wink-wink, nudge-nudge nowadays, and more like a bullhorn? It makes me very uncomfortable! It was cute when authors were choosing AO3 tags to describe their fics. It’s gone too far and we need to make fic fandom a semi-secret subculture again. Sam J. Miller shared a piece about the ongoing discussion of Golden Age science fiction, which tied into the spiraling discussion started from a post on Bluesky that raised the question of whether science fiction was dying (please don’t give this person a hard time, their mentions must have been a nightmare). I came into the discourse via Roseanna’s thread, where she said: “If SF is forever tied to riffing on what's come before, this reinforces the (imo still very present) idea that we must all be deeply versed in the "greats" of the past rather than enjoying the breadth of the now.”
I’m with Roseanna on this one.
This week in art recs! Magical Girl #1, Magical Girl #2, and Magical Girl #3 by Yoshi Yoshitani; Ginkgo Trees by Maxine Vee; Everyone cheer for the apple boar, bringing fall fun by Gwen!!!; Primary tigers and It's only a paper moon by Dominique Ramsey; papillon, a tiefling bard by maya kern; 'Tis the season by Ciara | Ciaraíoch; Your Garden by Mali; Soup season by Cloudy; serious Business Goose by Cailyn Creative
This newsletter wouldn’t have been possible without Bluesky (the art section definitely). Recently, due to a law passed in Mississippi, Bluesky blocked service to users from that state. But I live in the state next door. While I agree with Bluesky’s position, that means that randomly when I’m preparing the newsletter on Thursday, I’ll get the “sorry, you’re blocked” announcement from Bluesky. Then it’s a whole thing to use my phone’s data plan to get links where I want them (I often bookmark Bluesky posts that link to things on other sites). That’s why recently the newsletter has come out early Friday morning because it’s taking much longer. Thanks, censorship weirdos in Mississippi! Anyway, sorry about the random schedule changes. Hopefully I’ll have a permanent fix soon.
See y’all next week!