Hey!

This week there’s World Fantasy Award news, the regular deluge of new book lists for the month, and a diverse collection of reviews! And speaking of lists, since we’re getting towards the end of the year, a quick reminder that if you do a personal yearly round up for your favorite SFF books on your blog/newsletter/etc, I’d love to see it. You can submit links via this form. Also, if you know of any good essays/reviews/analysis of Severance S1/S2, which my partner and I just finished, I’d love to see those, too. I’m getting to this series very late in the discussion game. :)

A-Side

World Fantasy Awards Winners
The World Fantasy Awards were presented over the weekend. Out of the awards I follow, World Fantasy is the one that wraps up last. The highlight was seeing R.B. Lemberg recognized for Yoke of Stars in Best Novella. I’ve been watching their career and hard work for years, so it’s very cool to see them get their flowers. The Tainted Cup took home the novel award. Robert Jackson Bennett spoke about his win from the restroom of a Little League complex, which is honestly on brand.

Now that all the 2025 awards are over, it’s time to look forward to 2026 and start speculating on what the Hugos, Clarke, and Le Guin could hold for us next year. Hold up. Why are you all looking at me like that? Is that a basket of rotten tomatoes…? Wait!

The State of SFF – November 2025
I always look forward to Dina’s monthly round ups. In this edition, she goes over some of the special editions of beloved series coming out. I’m surprised there are two versions of The Murderbot Diaries, especially since the series isn’t finished. (I am safe from both, because while pretty, I don’t like the coloring changes across volumes even if the art is beautiful.) I also learned about Girl With a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean from this post, so if you’re wondering whether having a book blog where you talk about books helps anyone find out about those books, the answer is yes. :P

“The endless churn of Content to Consume”
This thread by Saathi‬ was very good. It’s potentially hypocritical for me to agree so heavily with this, as a person who has an entire newsletter dedicated to linking to people Consuming Content and posting about it online. But the quick hit nature of social media is why I wanted this newsletter; there’s so much value in longer form writing in an age where everything is set automatically to fast forward, either by the platforms we use or the habits we’ve picked up from those platforms. I’m still puzzling over my place in our book/media ecosystem, and if you are, too, you might like this thread.

Reviews/Discussions

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz (Martin Cahill @ Reactor)
The Blackfire Blade by James Logan (Vinay Vasan @ The Fantasy Hive)
Brigands and Breadknives by Travis Baldree (Realms of My Mind)
Cinder House by Freya Marske (Sia @ Every Book a Doorway)
Cities Are Forests Waiting To Happen by Cecile Cristofari (Womble @ Runalong the Shelves
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester (Alan Brown @ Reactor)
Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin (Nileena Sunil @ Strange Horizons)
The Essential Patricia A. McKillip (Alex Dueben @ Reactor)
The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow (Elias @ Bar Cart Bookshelf)
A Forest, Darkly by A.G Slatter (Randomly, Alex)
Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein (Hugos There)
God's Junk Drawer by Peter Clines (Paul Weimer @ Nerds of a Feather)
Halcyon Years by Alastair Reynolds (Mark Yon @ SFF World)
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (Ash @ The Lesbrary)
The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri (Dina @ SFF Book Reviews)
A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo (Roseanna Pendlebury @ Nerds of a Feather)
The Nameless Land by Kate Elliott (Only The Best Fantasy Novels)
Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler by Susana M. Morris (Andrew Liptak @ Transfer Orbit)
Run with the Hunted 2: Ctrl Alt Delete by Jennifer R. Donohue (Fiction Fans Podcast)
Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher (Kat Marsh @ The Fantasy Hive)
Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell (Raquel R. Rivera @ The Lesbrary)
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (Hugo, Girl!)
Tuyo by Rachel Neumeier (Tarvolon)
Under The Eye Of The Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Asa Yoneda (Meal of Thorns)
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher (Bethan Hindmarch @ The Fantasy Hive)
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher (Marion Deeds @ FanLit)
What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher (Bonnie McDaniel @ Red Headed Femme)
When There Are Wolves Again by E.J. Swift (Niall Harrison @ Locus)
The Will of the Many by James Islington (Rob Bedford @ SFF World)
Witch You Would by Lia Amador (Alex Brown @ Punk-Ass Book Jockey)

B-Side

We’re down to two months in 2025 for new releases. Gizmodo has their massive list and Transfer Orbit has another list. Reactor has a bunch of November release lists, broken into categories: science fiction, fantasy; romantasy; and horror. Over at Paste, there’s a list of SFF books featuring liars, thieves, and con artists. Bailey also had a list of heist recs. Helen Rhee has her monthly list of new books out by authors from the entire continent of Asia and the Pacific Islands. Transfer Orbit has the November edition of the Table of Contents column, collecting and linking to all the various fiction magazine TOCs. The October Table of Contents has also been updated.

There’s a new issue of The Full Lid and SFRA Review dropped the Fall 2025 issue. Ancillary Review of Books released their October 2025 Wow! Signal, a collection of critical discussions about speculative fiction. There’s some good stuff this week! They also launched their review call for February 2026.

In Worldcon news, the annual business meeting for LAcon V will be virtual. If you’re planning on being a WSFS member, there’s a survey to take about scheduling for the meeting days/times. It closes on November 17, so if you’re considering being a participant, be sure to fill it out!

My podcast feed was bursting this week! There was a new episode of Critical Friends, looking at hope and optimism in speculative fiction. Episode #147 of Octothorpe dropped, with lots of con talk. Sorry to them that my eyes glazed over during the accounting bits, but I suspect I’m not alone. I can barely think about my finances. Antimatter Pod had a discussion of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Haven”. The Mystery Spotcast did a watch-along episode for Supernatural S4E1, "Lazarus Rising" to celebrate the anniversary of November 5. These days, I honestly prefer getting my news in Destiel meme format. Yes, I am bitter I didn’t learn Zohran Mamdani won the NYC mayoral race via Destiel meme because I’m too online.

Over at Fantasy Cafe, Theodora Goss shares a guest post, and there’s a giveaway of her upcoming short story collection, Letters from An Imaginary Country. At Reactor, there’s an excerpt from The Villa, Once Beloved by Victor Manibo and from A Forest, Darkly by A.G. Slatter. Martha Wells did a recap of what she’s published in 2025. Kate Elliott published a new novelette, “Barnacle”, at Reactor. Author interviews: J.T. Greathouse, author of The Tower of the Tyrant; Chloe Gong, author of Coldwire; and Lyndsay Ely, author of The Lost Reliquary.

For more excellent links, check out Wombling Along. He’s also started linking to other monthly round-ups, too, so there are links within links within links, as the Internet should be.

Art recs: murderbot attends a sanctuary moon convention (ribbons included and I hope to see some of these ribbons offline in the future); In the distance by Mali; Go for it young miss!! by Gin; Serene kitty by Jessica Elena; Big hat & Cozy mode: activate by Aubo; Happy Halloween(Zilla)! by ‪Spider Samurai; Don't bread on me by ‪Lar deSouza

Outro

If you missed it last week, Roseanna shared a Bonus Track full of novella recs. If you’re looking for a read for Novella November, consider one of hers. She’s got great taste. As we collect more Bonus Tracks, I’m working on a way to link to past issues so they’re not simply lost in the archives. :)

That’s it for this week! Have a great weekend, and happy reading.