Hey!

This week I welcomed several new books to my house. This was illegal, as I was supposed to be on a book buying ban for December. However, one of the used books I ordered ended up being a signed copy in great condition (Defy the Stars). Clearly I was meant to fail at my task, as the universe chose to reward me.

A-Side

Ann Leckie and Arkady Martine: in conversation
If you only read one long form piece this week, have it be this one. It’s a fascinating interview/back and forth on empire in science fiction, especially as it relates to space opera. I know projects like this are hard to put together, which is why I’m grateful Speculative Insight made the effort. I would love to see more of these from authors working in the same spheres across all the SFF subgenres. Note: There are light spoilers for the Imperial Radch and Teixcalaan books.

The Year Of The Crone
Wait, I lied. Also read this piece, too, if you’re into horror. I get overstimulated by horror films pretty fast, but I was excited for Weapons. I was curious about what the movie had say about trauma. The promotional material made it no secret that would be a strong theme of the film. When I saw it, I was pleasantly surprised about all the pieces there were to pick apart: trauma, perspective, paranoia, family obligations, etc. I thought Weapons raised some interesting questions; my partner and I discussed it several times as new ideas occured to us. That’s the mark of a good movie for me. I hadn’t thought about the movie from the angle that Gavia delves into here, though. I found myself nodding along as I read, following throughline history of this type of character and imagery. Looking back, I agree that Weapons created a cool villain, but then got a bit lazy with her presentation. Warnings for spoilers for Weapons and several other horror films (which I didn’t mind because I won’t watch them, see: big overstimulated wimp).

LAcon V Announces Hugo Award for Poetry + Celebrating Poetry at the 2026 Hugo Awards
There’s going to be a vote at next year’s Business Meeting to confirm the Hugo Award category for poetry. As soon as I saw the announcement, I updated the Hugo Award Spreadsheet of Doom to add a poetry sheet (I felt very fast). If you know of any SFF poetry published in 2025 that you liked, be sure to drop by and add it so non-poetry voters can have options to sample. The folks over at the Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog were even faster, netting a guest post with Brandon O'Brien about the news. If you watched last year’s ceremony, you’ll recognize him! He’s a great ambassador for poetry. I admit that I’m not super into poetry, but I’m happy for poetry fans to have their own category. Celebrating more art in These Times is always a good thing. I hope we can also welcome new WSFS members that participate in other categories with this addition over the long term.

Reviews/Discussions

All That We See or Seem by Ken Liu (Vanessa Armstrong @ Reactor)
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer (Hugos There Podcast)
The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed (Stewart Hotston)
Clay’s Ark by Octavia E. Butler (Tarvolon)
Cinder House by Freya Marske (Elias @ Bar Cart Bookshelf)
Countess by Suzan Palumbo (Randomly, Alex)
Deryni Rising by Katherine Kurtz (Niko’s Book Reviews)
The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow (Nick Hubble @ Strange Horizons)
Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman (Hugo, Girl! Podcast)
House of Dusk by Deva Fagan (Liz Bourke @ Locus)
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar (Fiction Fans Podcast)
Project Hanuman by Stewart Hotston (Alasdair Stuart @ The Full Lid)
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson (Lexi/newlyvoa)
Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher (Christina Ladd @ Geekly )
Snake-Eater by T. Kingfisher (Gary K. Wolfe @ Locus)
Stars Uncharted & Stars Beyond by S. K. Dunstall (Clara Cohen @ Nerds of a Feather)
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman (A Meal of Thorns)
Vicious by V. E. Schwab (Dina @ SFF Book Reviews)
The Villa Once Beloved by Victor Manibo (Robert Welbourn @ Ancillary Review of Books)
The Wolf and His King by Finn Longman (Sia @ Every Book a Doorway)

B-Side

It has begun in earnest: Year End Favorite Books Season. In their last episode of the year, the SFF Addicts podcast dropped their favorite books in 2025. The full list is in the video description. The Goodreads Choice Awards announced the winners in all categories, and there are, in the way of popular vote awards, no big surprises. Reactor is doing a big survey of readers to find out their favorites of the year. The survey closes December 7, so only a few days left to get your selections in! Sylvia Bishop over at Five Books shared thoughts about some of the award winning SFF of the year (from books published in 2024). The LitHub list of 100 Notable Small Press Books has several genre entries.

But there’s still books coming out! Locus Magazine dropped their weekly new books video. Gizmodo has its usual list of 31 New Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Books Arriving in December. Transfer Orbit has a December release list. Reactor also has lists, but broken up by category: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romantasy, YA SFF, SFF Crossover, and Horror.

There’s a new Wow! Signal column from Ancillary Review of Books. They’ve also got their call for reviews and essays for March 2026 out, for people who might want to write some cool criticism. Nerds of a Feather continues to roll out profiles of their new contributors: Eddie Clark and Gabrielle Harbowy. Dina over at SFF Book Reviews has her State of SFF column out.

If you’re looking for creative projects to support, the Otherwise Award is soliciting donations and Beneath Ceaseless Skies is looking for new patrons to help sustain the magazine.

Coode Street is wrapping the year with an advent calendar-esque drop of short conversations with authors: Nina Allan, Kij Johnson, Arkady Martine, and Martha Wells. Andrew Liptak has an interview with John Scalzi. Liptak also dropped the Table of Contents feature for December 2025, a collection of all of short fiction offerings from various genre magazines. It’s a great way to get a bird’s eye view of the magazine space.

The Dominion of the Fallen trilogy by Aliette de Bodard is being rereleased with a new publisher. There were posts all over about the new covers, which are very pretty! Here’s Kristen at Fantasy Cafe’s post about them. Meg Elison’s upcoming book, Foundling Fathers, has a cover. Daniel H. Wilson was on Episode #686 of the Functional Nerds podcast. The British Fantasy Society podcast, Long Story Short (new to me), has an interview with Stewart Hotston, author of Project Hanuman.

For more links, check out Wombling Along from last week!

Art recs: Morning skies by Kelly Lianne; kiki by Rii Abrego; Happy decembirb by Anaïs Faë; unfinished.jpeg by Arthur Baron-Clément; California Quail by Lauren; Ol' Salty, Pirate Saltasaurus by Natee; Floating fishes by Big Hippo; ambiguously cervine creature by greybriar; drawing a weird deer in the woods by rat wednesday

Outro

In a very last minute decision, I decided to participate in #DecRecs (Bluesky) / Rec-Cember (name borrowed from goodbyebird on Dreamwidth), where throughout December we rec things we love. All my recs so far are in this tag on Dreamwidth.

As usual, if you’re working on a favorite SFF of the year post, I’m interested in seeing it.

That’s a wrap for this week. Have a great weekend!