Hey!
This week, I have the first edition of Bonus Track, where I or a special guest create a specialized rec list. “Specialized how?” you may be wondering, but to find out, you must read on. You will never guess.
This idea was not mine, but the brainchild of the first guest! An entire genius! I will now squeeze as much unhinged hilarity out of it as I can in my “how can we relate as many topics as possible to science fiction and fantasy?” quest.
A-Side
Moon Tiara Magic: How the DiC ‘Sailor Moon’ Dub Shaped Me — Even If I Wasn’t the “Target Audience”
This retrospective captured a lot of why the Sailor Moon dub was so formative for a lot of people even those like me who should have already aged out when they discovered it. There was just something about the dub. It was brash, it was gaudy, and it felt American in a way that allowed those of us propagandized by American exceptionalism to open our hearts to it when we otherwise might have ignored it. The heart of the source material persists across every iteration to this day and if it resonates with you, there’s no way to prevent being changed by it. Like the original essay outlines, you can alter the surface level content—dialogue, names, references, relationships—but the subtext will remain. Plenty of people, even kids, will pick up on it.
A Close Reading of LotR – Episode 1
Roseanna is doing a readalong of Lord of the Rings with her partner. My history with Lord of the Rings as a book is either nonexistent or lost to the past, because I have no memory of this place. It’s possible I read it after I read The Hobbit (which I remember because it was a whole school thing), but kid me didn’t track my reading. I was too busy jamming things into my brain at plaid speed. I’ve been told I read an entire shelf of Steven King and Dean Koontz books one summer, but I don’t remember that at all. So: Lord of the Rings could have happened! I have never had any desire to return to it. I know a lot of people praise the writing, but I’ve never been able to get past how impenetrable it feels. The films remain my touchstone for this particular universe. Luckily, there are readers who will take me along on their journeys! Roseanna’s analysis so far is cool, because I never would have considered looking at the hobbits in the way she does here.
(It’s Not) The Death of Criticism (Again)
Over at Reactor, Molly Templeton writes a wonderful examination of our latest anxieties about the state of criticism. I’ve been thinking a lot about critique, review, analysis, and writing recently, and this piece drills down and gets to some of what I’ve been worrying about: how far are we going to swing into anti-intellectualism, media illiteracy, and the undermining of critical analysis/review spaces before we start swinging back? How long will we be in this space, writing critique when the fascist wolves are just beyond the door? I don’t think there’s an answer because the future isn’t certain. It is inevitable because there are so many people who still want to create these communities of, as Molly says, curiosity.
Reviews/Discussions
Audition for the Fox by Martin Cahill (Dina @ SFF Book Reviews)
Audition for the Fox by Martin Cahill (Elias @ Bar Cart Bookshelf)
Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher (Dina @ SFF Book Reviews)
Devouring Tomorrow: Fiction from the Future of Food edited by A.G. Pasquella and Jeff Dupuis (Annette Koh @ Ancillary Review of Books)
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami (Kristen @ Fantasy Cafe)
Godkiller by Hannah Kaner & These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs (Kelsey @ The Fancy Hat Lady Reads)
Honeyeater by Kathleen Jennings (Christina Ladd @ Geekly)
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated by Ros Schwartz (Dina @ SFF Book Review)
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh (Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog)
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (Rachel @ Shades of Orange)
Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang (Briana Wilvert @ The Lesbrary)
The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw (Martin Cahill @ Reactor)
The Long Walk (2025) (Haley Zapal @ Nerds of a Feather)
The Magnus Archives (S3) (Para @ To Other Worlds)
Moon Songs: The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller, edited by Matthew Cheney (Ursula Pflug @ Ancillary Review of Books)
The Needfire by MK Hardy (Liz Bourke @ Locus)
The Other Frankenstein by Melissa F. Olson (Womble @ Runalong The Shelves)
A Philosophy of Thieves by Fran Wilde (Paul Weimer @ Nerds of a Feather)
The Possession of Alba Díaz by Isabel Cañas (Jenny Hamilton @ Reactor)
Rakesfall by Vajra Chadrasekera (Womble @ Runalong the Shelves)
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson (@BenEliauthor)
Slow Gods by Claire North (T.O. Munro @ The Fantasy Hive)
Starship Troopers (1997) (Jamelle Bouie @ Takes™)
The Summer War by Naomi Novik (Tarvolon)
Tiny Bookshop (Katherine Kong @ But Why Tho?)
Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha (William Shaw @ Strange Horizons)
Uncertain Sons And Other Stories By Thomas Ha (Womble @ Runalong the Shelves
The Wax Child by Olga Ravn (Rachel Cordasco @ Speculative Fiction in Translation)
When There are Wolves Again by EJ Swift (Alex Brown @ Punk-Ass Book Jockey)
A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna, narrated by Samara MacLaren (Narrated Podcast)
B-Side
It was a busy week! We’re getting deep into Q3 Book Season, so many things are happening. Gird your loins, my friends.
Yuletide nominations are open! I have never managed to participate in this (I will punk out due to pressure), but I love seeing everyone getting excited about it, especially all the newly eligible fandoms. Also in very exciting news, Kissing Books is back (and not on Substack)! If you like romance, it seems like romantasy will feature and I love that for us. I don’t know why Ghost makes RSS feeds so hard to find, but if you’d rather subscribe that way, here it is.
There were some fun discussions on Bluesky this week. Eddie Clark asked,“what 80s & 90s epic fantasy holds up best to modern eyes and why?” The replies and quotes are full of recs (my fave). Also, Novella November is a great idea and it should catch on! It’s a busy month for a lot of people, so the shorter work fits perfectly. Not a review (hence it not being in that section, but Niall Harrison had some musings on The Incandescent by Emily Tesh and some reviews by others critics (the vibe in this thread made me go, “Oh, 2026 Clarke Award winds, are you already beginning to blow?” even though The Incandescent is a fantasy novel).
Kelsey compared the 2025 Hugo shortlist to the 2025 Le Guin Prize for Fiction shortlist; I know lots of folks don’t like comparing popular awards to juried awards, but I think looking at the different shortlists can tell us something really interesting about the genre if we look at them from a zoomed out view. Katabasis is out and…surprise! It’s divisive. :D There were two interesting video discussions about the reaction to the book that I liked, this one from Emma Skies and this one from Shay.
Lists! My pal Maureen has a list of middle grade fiction that features the ocean. Transfer Orbit has another list of books to check out for September. Alex Brown published their must read speculative short fiction for August. Seth Dickinson was over at Five Books with a Best Alien Invasion Books rec list.
There are new episodes and issues of all the things I love! The Rec Center dropped Issue #506. Wombling Along is out again, full of delicious links (I fear Womble and I are going to have lots of overlap because we have similarly great taste). The Sword and Laser Podcast debuted episode #519, featuring spooky picks for October. If you need support during this time of season finales, Antimatter Pod has their thoughts on the season three finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ready for you. And Octothorpe was back with more Worldcon commentary in Episode #143. Everyone can relax; Alison is not retiring. The No Page Unturned Podcast rereleased their interviews with Sung-il Kim and and Anton Hur to celebrate the paperback release of Blood of the Old Kings.
Over in visual media land, there’s an interview with Alexander Skarsgård (do you think he knows SFF fandom is ready to adopt him and his cast members?). There’s a new teaser for One Piece S2 (I’m so ready) and Good Boy, the horror movie featuring a dog.
Switching to publishing, there’s news about the next Murderbot Diaries entry, Platform Decay, in USA Today. Plus, the cover by Jaime Jones is great! I’m going to be totally normal about this. Kai Ashante Wilson has a Patreon and is looking for supporters! He teased some upcoming work, which is very exciting. Ai Jiang is doing a preorder campaign for A River from the Sky, second in the Natural Engines duology. Thomas Ha, author of Uncertain Sons And Other Stories was interviewed by the Skiffy and Fanty crew. The Nerd Daily has an interview with Samantha Shannon, author of Among the Burning Flowers. Charlie Jane Anders shared some copy clipped from another article talking about dark academia.
The Tapestry of Fate, the sequel to The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty will be out in 2026! You can preorder here and read an excerpt at her newsletter. You can read an excerpt of The Lost Reliquary by Lyndsay Ely and an excerpt of The Keeper of Magical Things by Julie Leong at Reactor. The Fiction Fans Podcast has an interview with Gabriella Buba, author of Saints of Storm and Sorrow. SciFiNow debuted the cover for Intergalactic Feast by Lavanya Lakshminarayan, sequel to Interstellar Megachef.
Dave Hook, a fan who did a panel on short fiction anthologies at Seattle Worldcon, posted a summary of the panel. If you like short fiction anthologies, this is a fascinating read. I remember back when we were getting themed anthologies and they were very fun. Tenebrous Press moved their newsletter off Substack (hooray). If you’re into weird horror, give them a sub. Issue #23 of Solarpunk Magazine is available and khōréō 5.3 is also out now. There’s a new issue (#357) of New York Review of Science Fiction, which I guess had a long hiatus!
Art recs: stuffed bunny and real bunny by JLMeyer; A dream of the fields by indui; special delivery by renata (KPDH); STAMPEDE!!! by ren; autumn colours by Aled Thompson; Two Crowns by CadmiumTea; simulation training by Madeline (FF7); Crystal Dragons by Devin Elle Kurtz; Back to school by Celesse; autumn friends by michiums
Bonus Track ft. Jenny Hamilton
Welcome to Bonus Track! This is a guest column for specialized rec lists. This week, I’m happy to feature Jenny Hamilton, a writer and critic at Reading the End, Reactor, and Strange Horizons. Please welcome her warmly! — Renay
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the Babysitters Club Super Specials, which had different narrators in every chapter, and cool vacations, and tortured justifications for why the girls had to keep such detailed journals. Now I am grown, and Renay has given me permission to write an (1) mini–rec list for each Super Special I read as a kid. Enjoy!
Baby-Sitters on Board!
The girls go on a family cruise to Disneyworld with Kristy’s family, which sounds quite awful but it takes all kinds to make a world. This is the least focused of the Super Specials, probably because they were still figuring out what they wanted the books to be.
If you have reservations about going on an expensive vacation on some rich guy’s dime… Read Floating Hotel, by Grace Curtis, which is set on a giant space hotel during the annual Problem Solver’s conference. The book is narrated from various staff members aboard the ship, most especially its devoted caretaker, Carl. Maybe you’ll come out of it thinking “yum yum eat the rich” and you’ll gobble Kristy’s stepfather Watson right up. (No, he’s nice. He can stay. No guillotine for Watson.)
If you find Disneyworld inherently ominous… Read The Getaway, by Lamar Giles. This YA dystopian thriller follows a Black kid named Jay who lives a pretty okay life at a luxury resort that keeps him and his family safe from all the disasters of the world outside. But when more and more rich white families start showing up at the resort—with no plans to leave—Jay’s easy life takes a much scarier turn. Warning that this book is pretty violent! Because rich people are horrible!
If your favorite bit was the stowaway who turned out to be a rich little shithead… Read A Restless Truth, by Freya Marske. This is the middle book in a series of fantasy romance novels set in Edward England, and you really do have to read them in order—but this second one is my favorite. It takes place on a transatlantic sea voyage, with plenty of sneaking around and hijinks, and just the right amount of fisting.
Outro
A big thank you to Jenny for her Babysitters Club themed SFF rec list! Is that the first time that sentence has been written on the Internet? Maybe so.
Also, I was listening to my pods this week and was very surprised and touched that the Narrated Podcast gave the newsletter and the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom a shoutout. It was very kind of them to do. If you like audio books and SFF you should give them a follow.
See y’all next week!