Hey!

I hope everyone who wanted to got to watch the first two episodes of Murderbot. I liked it a lot and I’m in awe of their casting department. Ratthi? was perfect? Are these people from The Hunger Games casting department?

This week is full of more Murderbot content, fun headcanons, and my ongoing obsession with rebuilding the art feeds I lost when I left Twitter. Happy exploring!

A-side

'Murderbot' is the best new comedy of 2025. You read that right
Over at NPR, Glen Weldon reviews Murderbot. He repeats a concern I know many fans who want the show to succeed and get more seasons worry about: Apple TV is the cryptid of streaming platforms. I hope people talk about the show on social media, write about it (I want to read your thoughts!), and rec it to their friends, because my desire to see at least the first ARC of the series, collected in the first four novellas, adapted, is strong. Weldon identifies the thing that I love most about Murderbot: it’s actually a very funny person. Who hasn’t coped with trauma via dark humor?

Thoughts on an Unplanned Reread of The Murderbot Diaries
What jumped out at me from Kelsey’s recent discussion of her reread of the whole series was something I hadn’t twigged to. Although my favorite books in the series are Artificial Condition and Network Effect, my reasons for both are simple: we meet ART and we reunite with ART (eventually). But Kelsey’s point about Artificial Condition and Rogue Protocol both having characters that don’t really show up again is intriguing as an indicator of which entry most people will gravitate toward as a favorite.

Murderbot Moves to a New Medium in Exciting Television Premiere
Alex Brown recaps the first two episodes of Murderbot over at Reactor. I appreciate Brown’s reading of the show because they come at it from different marginalizations than I do. That gives me different ways to think about the adaptation, and in turn, the choices the books made, too. Their analysis on the very weird behavior from cis male reviewers is correct. How much of the adaptation is influenced by our own cultural moment? It’ll be interesting to look back on these episodes in a few years, provided we’re not still in the “cis people being really weird about anyone who isn’t cis” moment and…who knows.

How Illumicrate Chose HP Fanfic & Betrayed Their Community
I don’t have a dog in the Harry Potter IP fight because I can control me and me alone. I divested years ago and simply don’t engage with content about it. The power of the scroll in these Times of Algorithms, Reposts, and Likes is my greatest weapon. But even as toxic as the brand is, it still earns money and people want in on those stacks of cash. Illumicrate decided to be shady about it. Part 1: tell customers they wouldn’t be engaging in the IP anymore. Part 2: Wait a bit. Part 3: Acquire what was originally HP fanfic but is now “original fiction”. Part 4: tell anyone who said, “Uh, what about your stated values?” to kick rocks because it’s not the same as the original IP. Di’s breakdown is thorough and damning!

8 Horror Books for Fans of Sinners
No, I’ll never get tired of book rec lists based on Sinners. Have I seen Sinners yet? Also no, because I can’t wear a mask for that long. I’m trying my best to enjoy the rec lists while also not getting spoiled too much until the movie can make it to streaming. This rec list great because of the White Tears mention. White Tears is a book with one page that creeped me out so much I put the book down for awhile in another room.

You’ve Watched ‘Sinners’ Now Here’s What’s Next
This rec list based on Sinners expands to TV/movies/games, which is very cool. LaNeysha Campbell digs into the ways Sinners reflects in each piece, whether it’s the horror, the historic, or the exploration of culture via the vampire.

Five Upcoming Speculative Mysteries and Thrillers
Paz Pardo (author of The Shamshine Blind) does a rec list. I initially clicked into this because I saw Malka Older’s name (an author I love) and wanted to see what other recs might be afoot, but now I’m pretty sure I must read Metallic Realms by Lincoln Michel?

The Shape of a Quiet Life
Not only did reading this essay about Animal Crossing break me open emotionally, the format of the website itself was as if a nostalgia bomb went off in my heart. As Alli walks through the memory of discovering Animal Crossing on Gamecube and following it all the way to New Horizons on the Switch, reading this really sent me back in time when so many of us wrote our vulnerable thoughts about media on self-hosted blogs and hoped someone would come along, share our experience, and reflect it back at us. This is an excellent deep dive into how Animal Crossing started and how it, and we, have changed with the ever shifting political and social landscape. Also, there’s a guestbook! And a music player (optional, because we all hopefully learned our lessons about autoplay anything after corporations ruined the internet).

Magic Doesn’t Have to Make Sense
This essay by Molly Templeton made me realize we’re doing the “should magic have rules?” discussion again. That’s always a fun one! I don’t prefer one way over another, or so I thought. I immediately second-guessed myself and wondered if the fact that most of my favorite science fiction media is “magic, but in space and also space is kind of magic?” qualify me for the Magic Doesn’t Have to Have Rules, Actually club? I look at some favorite space media, like the Mass Effect series, The Last Watch by J.S. Dewes, or, hell, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer and who cares if this is scientificially possible? There’s a space magic/alien magic/a robot horse! I am in the club.

A Hugo For The Best Fan Spreadsheet
It feels weird to put this here, but it was incredibly generous for Olav and Amanda to take the time to put this together so I want people to see their work! Even if their work is partially about my work. I will compromise and put it in the middle of this issue. The Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom feels so much bigger than me now. I admin it with the help of others but it really feels like the best collective group project us WSFS nerds are doing together. Maybe next year in January I can figure out a way to put up a contributor sheet. That’d be a cool addition. As always, all past spreadsheets can be found linked here.

Reviews/Recaps/Commentary

Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame by Neon Yang (Alexandra Pierce @ Locus)
Countess by Suzan Palumbo (Alasdair Stuart @ The Full Lid)
The Incandescent by Emily Tesh (Greekchoir/Bailey)
Murderbot, episodes 1 and 2 (Liz Barr @ Escapist Routes — scroll to the end)
The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses by Malka Older (Alexandra Pierce @ Locus)
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar (Kristen @ Fantasy Cafe)
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Roseanna @ A Reader of Else)
Thunderbolts* (Alex Wallace @ nerds of a feather)
khōréō: Short Fiction Reviews (A.C. Wise @ Locus)

B-side

Everyone can preorder A.C. Wise’s next book, Ballad of the Bone Road. Emily Tesh, author of The Incandescent, did an AMA on Reddit. Author S.L. Dove Cooper is offering an itch.io bundle of their books to help raise funds to go back to school. FIYAH’s next theme is Gods & Monsters, submissions between July 1 - July 30. Strange Horizons did a podcast with Naomi Kritzer (there’s also a transcript). Read an excerpt of Wearing the Lion by John Wiswell if you like Greek stories. I don’t go here at all and got my fill of this in college, but they’re still popular. Enjoy, majority! Kate Elliott shared the cover of The Nameless Lands, which is the sequel to The Witch Roads (out June 10), in her newsletter. Everyone’s going to be sick of me talking about The Witch Roads by the end of the year (sorry not sorry). LGBTQ Reads has the cover reveal for The Elysium Heist by Y.M. Resnik, which is a sapphic SF heist novel I literally just heard about but it sounds great. Ursula Whitcher did an interview about North Continent Ribbon, a story collection where all the stories are about the same planet but from different perspectives. I recently read the collection via the library, but I’m still mulling it over and might order myself a shelf trophy just so I can mark passages. The 2025 Sturgeon Awards finalists are out, which is an award for the best short science fiction story.

12 new SF/F books to check out in the second half of May from Andrew Liptak. This series of Murderbot memes had me wheezing. This scene was when I knew I was going to rock with the show’s characterization of Murderbot and Gurathin. Kristen from Fantasy Cafe shared the recording of her recs she did in partnership with the Ashland Public Library. It comes with a little SFF blog history, too! A Dance With Books is ten years old (congrats)! Octothorpe #134 is out, with a bunch of genre news and discussion. Kelsey did a book meme on TikTok (I got 140/360 points) and so I did the same meme to see how niche of a reader I am over there and the answer is “extremely niche” as people kept responding “0”. Womble’s weekly thread of what people are reading gave my TBR 9999 damage (danger).

This Murderbot art is? so good? I don’t go here, but this piece of Jayce and Viktor, from a show I’ve only seen three episodes of, is incredible. This captures the mood of Murderbot perfectly. The Little World Next Door is so clever and the colors are beautiful. The boy who swallowed a star. Illustration for Lore of the Tides. tiny spooky gouache paintings. "take us with you!" generative AI is shit which is also apparently a sticker you can buy. crow family.

Outro

Who are your favorite science fiction and fantasy book/media reviewers? I follow lots of people and sites, but my reach is limited after the loss of Twitter (sob) because as always, platforms ending mean network shake up. Send me your favorite folks by emailing intergalacticmixtape @ gmail dot com.

That’s all for this week! Music this time is a song by RM that, for me, perfectly captures the feeling of the seasons shifting to more inviting weather.