Hey!

This week I caught up on my backlog reading/listening: things I’ve had bookmarked for a long time, all the Tolkien Reread Commentaries, shared my Surprise Horror first quarter, and of course, awards stuff! But fear not: Hugo nominations close in 30ish hours, so there will be a reprieve…at least for a little while. ;)

A-Side

There is No Such Thing as ‘Real’ Wuxia
I logged into Netflix the other day and happened to see The Untamed, which lives forever in my Watch It Again list, and was very tempted for a rewatch. Seeing it reminded me of this essay, which I thought was a cool, brief overview of a genre I’m not really familiar with. Any woman writing in the world absolutely understands the struggle of writing in a genre where our ideas and analysis are brushed aside or not considered part of a tradition at all. On a reread, I also took the time to write down all the recs mentioned, because while I have watched and rewatched The Untamed many times, I haven’t branched out into other shows/books yet. Perhaps it is time!

Stranger Things Fall Apart
Much like the author of this piece, my partner and I watched Stranger Things to prepare for the end of the series. I watched that first season with everyone else, and then the second/third seasons a few years later, but for him most of it was new. I tapped out at the end of season three because it felt like a solid ending and I wasn’t convinced that the world expansion that I was minorly spoiled for was going to gel (it didn’t). This essay journeys through a lot of the same feelings I had. That’s minus the digs at fanfic. It feels weird to use fanfic as a perjorative to insult the bad writing of White Men! The part of the show that finally broke me was the interminable Russia story line, which added too much bloat to a second-screen viewing experience (the essay goes over this cursed development) that was already painful. Don’t worry if you did love the Russia bits (sorry), because Netflix (usually hostile to physical media) is apparently releasing a physical edition so you’ll get to replay all those scenes whenever you like even if Netflix vanishes forever.

Stitch & Bitch - March 2026
The Stitch & Bitch crew had their almost three hour livestream (not a typo, ha), and they discussed awards, so I of course listened very closely due to My Special Interest!

This post about characters being Good People
Let characters do things that are bad and narratively interesting and then tangle with the interpersonal consequences! We’ll be fine and we can have fun explicating in the aftermath. No one will get in trouble or hurt. It’s fiction. :)

Reviews/Discussions

Accelerated Growth Environment by Lauren C. Teffeau (Paul Weimer @ Skiffy and Fanty)
Cabaret in Flames by Hache Pueyo (Rachel Cordasco @ SF in Translation)
Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh (Tar Vol on)
Hell's Heart by Alexis Hall (Roseanna Pendlebury @ Nerds of a Feather)
The Hospital at the End of the World by Justin C. Key (Melissa A. Watkins @ Lightspeed)
Intergalactic Feast by Lavanya Lakshminarayan (Womble @ Runalong the Shelves)
The Iron Garden Sutra by A.D. Sui (Narrated Podcast)
The Iron Garden Sutra by A.D. Sui (Niall Harrison @ Locus)
The Misheard World by Aliya Whiteley (Jonathan Thornton @ The Fantasy Hive)
The Misheard World by Aliya Whiteley (Ian Mond @ Locus)
Nobody’s Baby by Olivia Waite (Lara @ Smart Bitches Trashy Books)
Notes from a Regicide by Issac Fellman (Alexandra Pierce @ Randomly, Alex)
The Obake Code by Makana Yamamoto (Emory Rose @ The Lesbrary)
The Poet Empress by Shen Tao (Dina @ SFF Book Reviews)
Psychopomp & Circumstance by Eden Royce (Galen Strickland)
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson (Caelin @ Reading Past Dark)
Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar (Ben Berman Ghan @ Ancillary Review of Books)
Trace Elements by Jo Walton & Ada Palmer (Marlene Harris @ Reading Reality)
Trace Elements by Jo Walton & Ada Palmer (Bill Capossere @ FanLit)
When Among Crows and To Clutch a Razor by Veronica Roth (Electra Pritchett @ Strange Horizons)
Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher (Kat Marsh @ The Fantasy Hive)
Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher (Tammy @ Books, Bones, & Buffy)
Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher (Gary K. Wolfe @ Locus)
Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher (geraniums-red)

B-Side

Last week, I dug through IGMX archives for discussion of the Novel finalists for the Nebula Awards. I was curious if I’ve read a similar amount of reviews and commentary about the novella list. I had a theory.

• Disgraced Return of the Kap’s Needle by Renan Bernardo: Elias @ Bar Cart Bookshelf; Emmie Christie

• The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar: Kristen @ Fantasy Cafe; Mayri @ bookforager; Womble @ Runalong the Shelves; Archita Mittra @ Strange Horizons; Rob Maslen @ The City of Lost Books; Susanne Salehi @ The Lesbrary; Danika Ellis @ The Lesbrary

• The Death of Mountains by Jordan Kurella: Womble @ Runalong the Shelves

• Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz: Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog; Civilian Reader; Misha Grifka Wander @ Ancillary Review of Books; Narrated Podcast; Womble @ Runalong the Shelves; Gary K. Wolfe @ Locus; Bonnie McDaniel @ Red Headed Femme; Martin Cahill @ Reactor; Nileena Sunil @ Strange Horizons; Fiction Fans Podcast; Andrea Valeiras Fernández @ SFRA Review

• But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo

• “Descent” by Wole Talabi

If it’s small press, I’m either not reading reviews about it because I don’t know where those reviews are being written (yet!), people aren’t reviewing small press stuff (start a blog!), or I’ve run into the issue where people reviewed those things before IGMX started (it’s still a baby). Talabi’s lack of coverage is no surprise; his work would get lumped in with reviews of the whole Clarkesworld issue. I thought But Not Too Bold was too spidery for me so I avoided everything. Sorry, Hache Pueyo! It’s definitely me in this case. The lesson: more people should write about small press novellas and make fewer short form videos and I should get over my fear of spiders, because several people have mentioned putting But Not Too Bold on their Hugo ballots. The way my luck goes? Yeah.

The Otherwise Award went to Luminous by Silvia Park, and the judges also released an honor list and a long list. The Crawford Award went to Call and Response by Christopher Caldwell, and it’s great to see Neon Hemlock getting more award attention.

The Hugo Award nominations close this weekend, so the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom has been hopping and I’ve spent a lot of time clearing errors, helping streamline formatting, and answering questions. I saw that Abigail Nussbaum shared her Hugp ballot. It may not change anyone’s mind, but I love when people share their ballots because they’re secretly rec lists. Next year’s Hugo spreadsheet will incorporate recs more directly to continue helping new WSFS members, once I figure out how, exactly.

Everyone was very excited about the trailers for Dune: Part Three and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which both look fine. I’m most interested in the trailer that Diana shared with one of our group chats, Forgotten Island. It looks incredible. More stories about best friends! 2026 is apparently the year I’m doubling down on watching movies and the theme recently: horror. I finally caught Good Boy, and wow! Horror film writers sure are struggling with grief and loss these days! World is so messed up, even the dogs are getting haunted. I caught a short film, Zoe, on Youtube that I thought was excellently unsettling. I saw via Reactor that Monstress is going to be adapted into an animated series. Fingers crossed for an animation style that makes everything the maximum amounts of creepy. I also made my partner watch Brainscan, a niche teen comedy horror film from the 90s. It was just as bad as I remembered and I can’t recommend it at all unless you like terrible movies.

I wonder if J. R. R. Tolkien ever thought about the 21st century and asked himself if he would still be relevant. My good sir, the answer is “yes”, in ten foot high flaming letters (is there a beacons of Gondor joke here?). Shelved by Genre started The Fellowship of Ring and their discussion. Roseanna’s reread and write up of three chapters in The Two Towers is out. I disagree that she doesn’t have a good sense of humor. Her humor in these posts is perfect. Speaking of sense of humor, I really enjoyed Abigail’s analysis of Strider (this follows her write up of Fog on the Barrow-Downs, which I read earlier this month and forgot to share). Has anyone done a study on Tolkien’s impact on D&D? I bet that would be a fascinating thesis. At Prospective Cultures, Nick Hubble writes about Pippin and Merry, who remain my favorite hobbits from the films. And of course, the really big news in Tolkien nerdery is that Stephen Colbert will be writing a Lord of the Rings film. I’m intrigued! I would like to reiterate that I have never read A Lord of the Rings and still have no plans to do so. I wonder at what point I’ll have read more commentary/critique of the books than there are words in the books themselves.

A book coming out soon that I’m excited for, What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed, has a two-chapter excerpt at Civilian Reader. Premee Mohamed revealed the cover to her upcoming book, Wickhills, on Bluesky. I listened to Coode Street #720, and now I’m even more pumped for The Language of Liars by S.L. Huang. They even got me interested in a WW2 novel, titled Nonesuch? That is very hard to do, especially since there’s time-travel, but they were all so excited about it (except for the fact it’s a series and they have to wait for more). And for the first time, I’m doing the Magical Readathon. I have spent several years marveling over her world building, so now I’m going to actually participate (and inevitably choose the hardest possible path).

Don’t miss last week’s Wombling Along for more SFF links.

Art recs: Hello there fellow fishermen by Devin Elle Kurtz; sunbathing cat by Fulmin; a luminous city of elsewhere by ROWAN; Mother of Shadows by Waltjan; Red Poppy Morning by Roman The Painter; murderbot by feriowind

Outro

That’s it for this week! Have a lovely weekend. — Renay