Hey!

This week, there’s me trying to follow a discussion about reviewing on Bluesky even when Bluesky threads are unwieldy; an unreasonable number of reviews because I just kept opening links and reading them for distraction because the Offline World was hard; and I unloaded a ton of author content I had read/listened to but not linked yet. I also added a new, personal book section! I’m sticking it in the outro to go with my music rec each week. :)

A-Side

On Reviewing Debuts
On the Critical Friends Podcast (there’s also a transcript), Dan Hartland and guests discussed reviewing debut authors. Several great critics weighed in: Abigail Nussbaum, Roseanna Pendlebury, Niall Harrison, and others via the Bluesky post quotes. I’ve had enough authors across multiple genres go nuclear on me for the lightest critiques that I now try not to consider authors at all, debut or not, so I can write something that doesn’t feel like it was produced in the Literary Panopticon. However! If I were a short form video maker in algorithmic spaces the decision might look different given that a reviewer could trash a debut, tick off the fans, and monetize for themselves off the rage. Ah! The future!

What Does SFT Criticism Look Like?
Over at SF in Translation, Rachel Cordasco posted a piece about the ways speculative fiction in translation has grown and once again, the “how do we review/critique this subset of literature ethically?” question rises! There’s a lot of thinky things to chew on in this essay around the ethics of reviewing a work in translation that for many folks, will be divorced from its cultural context.

SFRA Review Vol. 56, No. 2 (Spring 2026)
The spring issue is live! This journal was one I discovered last year, thanks to Jake Casella Brookins and Ancillary Review of Books, and I look forward to it every quarter. Indeed, you will find several of the fiction reviews in this very issue. I thought the editor essay was great, because I enjoy when people insult billionaires. Intergalactic Mixtape is not a safe space for billionaires.

Reviews/Discussions

All Hail Chaos by Sarah Rees Brennan (Sia @ Every Book a Doorway)
All Hail Chaos by Sarah Rees Brennan (geraniums-red)
An Accident of Dragons by Cheri Radke (Trish Matson @ Skiffy and Fanty)
Bee Speaker by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Zorica Lola Jelic @ SFRA Review)
Cabaret in Flames by Hache Pueyo (Elias @ Bar Cart Bookshelf)
City of Others by Jared Poon (Alexandra Pierce @ Locus)
Counterweight by Djuna, translated by Anton Hur (Rachel Cordasco @ SF in Translation)
Dawn by Octavia E. Butler (Tar Vol on)
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett (Lexi)
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman (Emma Skies)
The Faith of Beasts by James S.A. Corey (Molly Templeton @ Reactor)
Ignore All Previous Instructions by Ada Hoffmann (Christine D. Baker @ Nerds of a Feather)
Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (Paul Weimer @ Skiffy & Fanty)
The Language of Liars by S. L. Huang (Galen Strickland)
The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda Lee (Realms of My Mind)
Love Galaxy by Sierra Branham (Kit @ The Lesbrary)
Mortedant’s Peril by R.J. Barker (Mark Yon @ SFF World)
The Night Ship by Alex Woodroe (Jake Casella Brookins @ Locus)
On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah Yah Scholfield (Alex Brown @ Locus)
Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold (Hugo, Girl! Podcast)
Platform Decay by Martha Wells (Marlene Harris @ Reading Reality)
Rabbit Test and Other Stories by Samantha Mills (William Shaw @ Strange Horizons)
Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei (Sarah Nolan-Brueck @ SFRA Review)
Slow Gods by Claire North (Womble @ Runalong the Shelves)
The Tapestry of Fate by Shannon Chakraborty (Beth & Nils @ The Fantasy Hive)
Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher (Dina @ SFF Book Reviews)
Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher (Marion Deeds @ FanLit)
Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher (Bonnie McDaniel @ Red Headed Femme)

B-Side

There’s a new issue of Journey Planet. Episode #533 of Sword & Laser is out, with lots of news/discussion and a chat about Slow Gods by Claire North. Cora Buhlert recapped her adventures at Eastercon for Friday and Saturday. The Octothorpe folks discussed the con, as well as all the future Eastercons. I’m pretty sure, given the thoroughness of how they cover the con, this makes them the Global Eastercon Ambassadors. They deserve cute tiaras and/or lanyards.

Lisa Tuttle shared some recent SFF favorites in the Guardian. Jo Walton shared her April 2026 reading list at Reactor. At Pages Unbound, the Fantasy With Friends question for this week was “Is there a particular fantasy that got you interested in the genre? Do you remember any of the earliest fantasy books you read?” I probably read a ton of fantasy adjacent material in all my early readers, but I didn’t do explicit fantasy reading until much later (I was too busy playing fantasy video games), with the exception of A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door. I was obsessed.

In film news, if you want to watch Project Hail Mary, it’s available on a few streaming services. Fourth Wing will soon be a TV show. I’m happy for you, Fourth Wing fans! But can someone please slide another production company a copy of His Majesty’s Dragon for me? Thanks. Ryan Coogler’s X-Files reboot has a stacked cast, and I hope this means the show will get to happen. We all deserve this. Leah Schnelbach loved The Sheep Detectives, based on the novel Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann. Arturo Serrano at Nerds of a Feather had a more measured take based off the changes they made in the adaptation (you’ll need to translate it from Sheep to English, though).

Over in the Tolkien Adventures Corner, Roseanna wrote up her thoughts on The Black Gate is Closed and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit. There’s also a lot of Sam/transformative fandom thoughts, which was quite interesting. I love extrapolating from texts, but Roseanna is like, “sounds boring, have fun without me.” That’s my paraphrase. Her phrasing was much more hilarious. Shelved by Genre read and discussed Book Three of The Two Towers.

Dina from SFF Book Reviews has been powering through Hugo finalists with reviews of The Summer War by Naomi Novik; Cinder House by Freya Marske; Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovksy; Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz; and The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi. If only I could be this productive! Nicholas Whyte continues his personal ranking of the finalists with the Short Story category. Camestros Felapton shared some thoughts about Citizen Sleeper and Dispatch, both nominated for the Hugo for the Game/Interactive Work category.

Molly Templeton asked folks what the last book they bought/rented by a new author was and where they heard of it, and there’s tons of recs. I find most of my book recs via Bluesky these days, with TikTok a close second, followed by Netgalley. Claudie Arseneault will be launching a campaign in a few weeks to publish another aromantic SFF anthology, Common Bonds 3. If you want a closer look at the cover, LGBTQ Reads has the reveal! Speculative Insight, a critical SFF magazine, debuted a new feature, From the Vault, where an older issue becomes free to read. This time, it was Nice Safe Emotions by Joanne Anderton, about The Murderbot Diaries. We’re all excited about the new adventures of Murderbot!

In short fiction, A.C. Wise read and recced stories from Analog, Augur, and Clarkesworld. Maria Haskins has reviews and recs for PodCastle, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Tasavvur plus FIYAH, Strange Horizons, and EscapePod. Womble dived into Interzone, and Vale Solomon has their Two Fic Tuesday column out, with two recs (plus a bonus, but when it comes to recs, I’m not counting).

The cover for The Flower Court by Kate Elliott is out. This is a companion novel set in the same universe as The Witch Roads duology, which I loved. Platform Decay is a massive bestseller, confirmed by the Martha Wells herself. This is very exciting and I’m so happy for her success. Isabel J. Kim will be touring her new book, Sublimation, and all the tour dates are available here. Emma Osborne and Ken Liu will be in conversation on June 1 virtually to launch Osborne’s book, Grief Eater. There’s a new book coming from M. A. Carrick, The Eye of Leviathan, out in July.

Maiga Doocy was on Right Here, Write Queer to talk about her book, Sorcery and Small Magics. If you like slow burn queer fantasy, I highly recommend this book! According to her newsletter (Substack), the sequel is with her editor. I can be patient (no, really). Wole Talabi debuted the cover for his upcoming book, The Fist of Memory. Jeremy Szal joined Paul Weimer at Nerds of a Feather for their Six Books column. I’ve read and hoarded several Big Idea columns from: Justin Feinstein, Marie Vibbert, and Brenda W. Clough. There’s also more recent columns from Andrew Dana Hudson and Ada Hoffman.

Melissa A. Watkins has an author spotlight at Lightspeed. Sunyi Dean was a guest on the SFF Addicts podcast, and had an interview with Paul Semel. Also with Semel, there’s an interview with Ada Hoffmann. Fonda Lee has an interview on Youtube with Gryftkin. At Transfer Orbit, Andrew Liptak has an interview with Thomas Elrod.

And if you like previews, you can read excerpts of Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Seek the Traitor’s Son by Veronica Roth, Inkpot Gods by Seanan McGuire, and The Tapestry of Fate by Shannon Chakraborty (plus see all her tour dates!).

For more SFF links, hit up last week’s Wombling Along!

Art recs: Mama and baby dragon by Devin Elle Kurtz; we should’ve called for a reservation by Simkaye; Any mustelid fans here? by JuliArtWorld; bird & berry by maru; I wish to be gentle by Kiwi

Outro

Big congrats to Ancillary Review of Books for their successful Kickstarter and to the Fansplaining crew for what looks like a booming launch. I’m excited to see more people doing creative projects with community support. It’s a great time to start writing more regularly and sharing that writing with the world! I am totally unbiased, of course. :D

That’s all for this week! Have an excellent weekend. — Renay

Recent Reading:

(Last) The Language of Liars by S.L. Huang (read it, y’all!)
(Now) Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Hugo reading time)
(Next) Slow Gods by Claire North (h/t Roseanna for the rec)