Intergalactic Mixtape #26
Hey!
It’s time to rec your favorite SFF book of October. Drop your rec in the book rec form; so I know it’s for the monthly rec call put “faves” in the tropes/themes field. I have also updated the form for those who want to be anonymous. :)
This week there’s a new Bonus Track to celebrate novellas. Novellavember is something I saw a few weeks ago on Bluesky, so of course I had to solicit my pal Roseanna to bring her expansive novella knowledge to the mix.
A-Side
The Best Military Sci Fi Books
Over at Five Books, A.D. Sui (author of The Dragonfly Gambit, a hot, slicing blade of a book I read a few months ago) lays down a trap for me by mentioning The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley, which I loved. The way she unpacks her reading of the book echoes my own experience. Although Hurley did get some award nominations, I don’t feel like the book got the critical attention it deserved. I don’t normally do time travel, but culture seems to love it. Then when something with time shenanigans shows up and I’m all starry-eyed, culture goes, “Eh.” Culture, you’re confusing! Sui also makes me want to read Starship Troopers for the first time and then rewatch the film with the new context.
Things to read if you loved Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman
Roseanna has recced Notes from a Regicide for months; I picture her showing up to every rec thread and holding the book up like a stereo outside everyone’s metaphorical window. Talking about this rec list feels like cheating, because I bounced around at her and went “write IT write IT write IT” until she did. The Internet is full of lists of things to read on themes, but what I’m most interested in is why a reader resonated with a book and what connections they’re making in the world around them after reading it. This rec list does that perfectly.
Reviews/Discussions
All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu (Green Team of the Legendarium)
The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow (Mark Yon @ SFF World)
The Everlasting by Alix E Harrow (Clara Cohen @ Nerds of a Feather)
The First Thousand Trees by Premee Mohamed (Niall Harrison @ Locus)
Frankenstein (2025) (Kate Sánchez @ But Why Tho?)
The Green Man’s Holiday by Juliet E. McKenna (Womble @ Runalong the Shelves)
Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher (Marion Deeds @ FanLit)
If Wishes Were Retail by Auston Habershaw (Tarvolon)
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh (Kelly Lasiter @ FanLit)
Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs (Rachel Friars @ The Lesbrary)
Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice (Dina @ SFF Book Reviews)
The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri (Liz Bourke @ Locus)
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (Andrew Liptak @ Transfer Orbit)
The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw (Bonnie McDaniel @ Red Headed Femme)
Lives of Bitter Rain by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Bill Capossere @ FanLit)
Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle (Emilia Ferrante @ The Lesbrary)
Moonbound by Robin Sloan (Samantha @ ladybug.books)
A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo, narrated by Cindy Kay (Narrated Podcast)
Psychopomp & Circumstance by Eden Royce (Tristan Beiter @ Strange Horizons)
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson (Stewart Hotston)
Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold (Niko’s Book Reviews)
Spread Me by Sarah Gailey (Martin Cahill @ Reactor)
Terms of Service by Ciel Pierlot (Cat Treadwell @ The Fantasy Hive)
This Vicious Hunger by Francesca May (Maura Krause @ Reactor)
To Bargain With Mortals by R.A. Basu (Shay @ poetry.shaman)
Tyrant Philosophers by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Abigail Nussbaum @ Asking the Wrong Questions)
What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher (Bethan Hindmarch @ The Fantasy Hive)
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher (Trish Matson @ Skiffy and Fanty)
The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes (Sia @ Every Book a Doorway)
B-Side
My pal Maureen has a list of upcoming middle grade SFF. If you’re intensely interested in convention financials, then wow, will you love Episode #146 of Octothorpe and the latest episode about the future of fan conventions from Our Opinions Are Correct. There’s a new issue of The Full Lid. Alex Brown shared their list of must read short SFF for September. Roseanna continued her close reading and analysis of The Lord of the Rings; she’s up to the start of Book 2. Tar Valon Or Bust Presents continues their journey through Mary Stewart’s Arthurian Saga.
Andrew Liptak recapped the Green Mountain Book Festival, where Scalzi was the headlining author, and the theme centered around science fiction. Locus Magazine has a video recap of this week’s speculative books. WisCon did a call for volunteers. khōréō will open for fiction submissions from November 1 to November 30. Over at Book Riot, R. Nassor shared a rec list of books to read if you loved KPop Demon Hunters. Related, apparently there will be a Magic: The Gathering tie-in set with KPop Demon Hunters, although it’s hard to be excited about new sets when I can’t afford the previous ones I want and they just keep releasing more. Please give us time to breathe.
There’s more news about the second season of One Piece. The show has taken a neat approach to disclosing the reveals that the manga sits on for awhile; said reveal will then deepen the story of the live-action. When I read that we’d get to meet Laboon in season two, I was excited, but nervous. How heartbreaking are we talking, showrunners? If you’re a manga reader (I understand that most don’t have that kind of time), you understand the emotional danger of am Advanced Laboon story line. For those not familiar with One Piece: Laboon is a whale. That doesn’t clear up why there will be emotional damage, I know, but it’s spoilers all the way down. Meanwhile, the finale of Stranger Things will be in theaters. It’ll be nice to have an end to this saga, and I’m talking about all the drama around the show itself. Please bring back reasonable TV season gaps. And…M. Night Shyamalan is…making a…Nicholas Sparks movie?
Apparently lots of cover reveals and book announcements are still happening over on Instagram. I have dusted off my account so I can have even more avenues to damage my TBR list (and yours). The Unicorn Hunters, a historical fantasy novel by Katherine Arden out next summer, has a cover. Tor Books debuted the cover for Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Saga Press announced The Republic of Memory by Mahmud El Sayed, along with cover art. The UK cover art is also out. It feels like generation ships might be making a comeback! Finally, one of my book blogging pals, Leslie René, has a cover reveal for her book, Maggie and Arthur’s Magic Moment. I’m really excited for her!
Marie Lu was at Paste talking about her new book, Red City. Max Gladstone was interviewed about his new book, Dead Hand Rule, by Paul Semel, and then again over at The Nerd Daily. The Nerds also have an interview with N.E. Davenport, author of Our Vicious Oaths, and Sung-il Kim, author of Blood for the Undying Throne (translated by Anton Hur). Alix E. Harrow was on SFF Addicts to talk about writing. FanFiAddict interviewed Ren Hutchings about her two new books, The Legend Liminal and An Unbreakable World. Back in August, R.F. Kuang was interviewed in The Observer. Auston Habershaw, author of Faceless Galaxy, was on The Functional Nerds. And not an interview but pretty neat: Mia Tsai made a playlist for her book, The Memory Hunters.
Art recs: the end of summer by Deb JJ Lee; Drag n Drop by gdbee; lots of critters by Meg; Cover art for Renegades by Erin Hunter by Devin Elle Kurtz; hens by Natee; Stove bunnies by Mali; he's been good by Gwen; Little worried mouse by JLMeyer; HUNTR/X by Lesly; Happy Black Cat Day by emwheezie; Ghost kitty by ursiday
Bonus Track
Welcome to Bonus Track! This is a guest column for specialized rec lists. This week, I’m pleased to have Roseanna Pendlebury, editor at Nerds of a Feather and author of Small Press Dispatch, the novella column at Ancillary Review of Books. Please welcome her and try one of her recs! — Renay
Novellas are great. Sometimes, I don’t want a story with sprawl, I want something more tightly focussed or more narrow in scope, something that lets me hold it all in my head at once at look at it from a bunch of different angles, like a cool rock I found on a beach. Novellas are the cool rocks of the book world—you heard it here first.
In honour of Novellavember, Renay has given me the opportunity to talk about a few that were particularly shiny and cool, and yearned to be put in a jar on display on my shelf (yes I have stretched the metaphor to breaking point, hush). This is far from the full spectrum of cool stuff novellas are doing at the moment, but here are just a few things you might be looking for, and a great read that might fulfil the need:
Vampires and Moral Doubt
No Such Thing As Duty by Lara Elena Donnelly
Following the very real Somerset Maugham on a very not real interlude in his wartime life, No Such Thing As Duty by Lara Elena Donnelly really is doing exactly what it says on the tin. If you want a heavily introspective character triangulating around his own failings and the duty he ought (or perhaps ought not) to do, this will absolutely fulfill that need. It manages to be inward looking without becoming self-indulgent, and takes the main character on a believable and compelling emotional trajectory, with some fascinating (and sexy) side characters along the way. Some of the best vampire fiction I’ve read in a while, and all the better for the subtlety of how it handles its subject.
Dragons and Persistence
The Mountain Crown by Karin Lowachee
This is the first in a now-complete trilogy, every single one of which are bangers. Following a protagonist exiled from her people’s homeland on a mission to gather a dragon, as has always been the way they have preserved balance in nature. It’s a quest story, where much of the substance is in the journey, and in the people met along the way, as well as the way it portrays the impact of colonialism and the complex web of compromises and struggle that goes into resistance and survival. The characters are widely different from one another but all incredibly interesting, and Lowachee writes the main character’s thoughtfulness and sympathy beautifully, in a clear, individual voice.
Community and Strangeness
What a Fish Looks Like by Syr Hayati Beker
Formed of rewritten fairytales and scraps of notes, adverts and other ephemera, What a Fish Looks Like blurs the boundaries of science fiction and fantasy, all while drawing clear lines of community and solidarity in a dying world. As the countdown begins for a space flight taking the lucky few with tickets to a potential safety off world, the story follows those who intend to remain, telling their stories within the framework of folklore, and highlighting both the darkness and the hope of living in difficult times. The reimagined fairytales leave a lot of space for ambiguity and interpretation, letting the reader find resonances between the wide cast of characters and the themes, and to read into this world a beauty and strangeness that runs in opposition to the darkness set out at the start. Hope may be hard, but this is a story that shows how solidarity in even the smallest things can help people get by.
Distinct Voices and Their Stories
The Death of Mountains by Jordan Kurella
Sometimes what I really want is a big hit of characters, more than I want to be rattled through a plot. The Death of Mountains delivers on that. Following the personification of the death of… well, of mountains on a job to reap a peak in the Appalachians, the narrative is structured in back and forth stories, told between Death and the Plundered Mountain in the night before its demise, playing out the time so it can live just that little bit more before the end, and detailing the impact humanity has had on its slopes over the many years of its life. This is cli-fi that gives a voice and embodiment to the landscape being harmed, and really decentres the human perspective, and in so doing gives beautiful, distinctive voice to a character I would never have expected to love so much. It’s a cli-fi angle a little different from the norm, and one I think packs a punch without needing to spend pages on plot and exposition to get you to the emotional core.
Moral Complexity and Sexy Prose
A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson
Technically, kinda this is the sequel to Wilson’s other (excellent) novella The Sorceror of the Wildeeps. But I read them out of order and you can too, and there is something about how Wilson keeps you hanging on the structure that really makes A Taste of Honey sing. I’ve put it in here for moral complexity, because you have to sit with a main character who exists at a lot of crossroads of behaviour and identity, and I think the way that is done, the way Wilson evokes some really great historicity with it, is just to die for. But wrapping that all up is some phenomenal prose, gorgeous character work and progression and absolutely perfect pacing and reveals. This is probably my favourite novella in the whole, entire world, and I would recommend it to pretty much anyone.
Outro
Super big thanks to Roseanna for contributing a Bonus Track and also being this week’s Featured Artist, accidentally (I didn’t plan this, I swear).
That’s it for this week! Stay hydrated and don’t doom scroll too much on your phone. — Renay