Hey!

There’s lots of great essays this week, plus the usual reviews. The short fiction folks went wild recently, or I’m just behind on my reading (or both!). SFF folks are out here writing so much that I’ll have reading material until 2094. Also, have I finally…joined BookTube…as a regular lurker? Stay tuned.

Quick promo (not sponsored!) for several sites/newsletters I follow and love, in case you’re looking for more things to read: Fansplaining, The Full Lid, what you love matters, The WYRMHOLE, The Maris Review, & Speculative Insight.

A-Side

Consoles Acting As Gods
Alli writes a pitch perfect essay about the latest news that Sony will end physical discs for their console games. I always love her writing, but there are so many banger quotes in this piece that if I quoted everything I loved the whole thing would be in this issue (and then Google, a Hater, would truncate it). This, though, is the heart: “Eradicating the disc drive and eradicating the art department are the exact same mechanism of corporate enclosure applied to different ends of the supply chain.” What this means for me as a console player is that the PS5 is the last Playstation I will own. I’ve already doubled down on physical media for film/TV/music where I can, and I simply won’t be moving to the post-ownership model these technology companies are obsessed with funneling us into.

Role Creep and The Numbers Game: A Measured Response
Kat Kourbeti wrote a response about the ongoing debate over whether or not to limit the number of finalists listed with any project nominated for a Hugo Award to eight. For me, the core of my disagreement with the proposal comes back to finding the dilution argument geninuely distressing and also to Kat’s perfect summary: “We wanted to preserve the record, and we wanted to make it known that to make something like this every single week, it takes the free labour of 80+ people from all over the world, and a whole lot of dedication and love—that only naming a couple of editors (or 4, or 7, or 8) at the perceived “top” doesn’t fully reflect the truth.” When I talk to people about participating in the Hugo Awards, I often mention history: making it and being a part of it. History is important. I thought Kat’s suggested compromises struck a good balance.

Are people really "turning their brain off" to read?
This week I learned that the big debate on BookTok (and maybe Threads, which I’m not on because I value my mental health) about brain off reading awhile back was not about what I thought. I also learned that the way I conceptualize brain off reading is…not…how many others…conceptualize it? Emma truly made me sit and stare into the middle distance while having an internal crisis about what words mean.

The Perpetual Disappointment of “If Only” Eroticism
This essay, which I was recced by Jenny, talks about how marketing is selling romance and erotica readers one thing while delivering something drastically different in the text itself. I’m not well-read in romance, much less indie romance, so if I’m nodding along with the thesis I suspect there is something happening out there! Of course, we’re in a very weird moment culturally in the U.S. (and the U.S. leaks into everyone else’s business) where we’re getting conservative shame about any kind of sex from both spectrums of the political sphere. It’s such a weird time, but I thought this summed up part of the problem very well.

Reviews/Discussions

And Side by Side They Wander by Molly Tanzer (Marion Deeds @ FanLit)
Angel Down by Daniel Kraus (Abigail Nussbaum @ Strange Horizons)
Angel Down by Daniel Kraus (Robin @ Pots and Plots)
Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang (Khan Book Reviews)
Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur by Ian McDonald (Gary K. Wolfe @ Locus)
The Curve of the World by Vonda N. McIntyre (Niall Harrison @ Locus)
Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Bonnie @ Red Headed Femme)
Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh (LiteraturelyLou)
The Dragon Has Some Complaints by John Wiswell (Arturo Serrano @ Nerds of a Feather)
Evocation by S.T. Gibson (Elias @ Bar Cart Bookshelf)
Ex Partum by emma burnett (Jacqueline Nyathi @ Harare Review of Books)
The Fox and the Devil by Kiersten White (Liz Bourke @ Locus)
Graceless Heart by Isabel Ibañez (Maya C. James @ Locus)
Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Marlene Harris @ Reading Reality)
The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri (Rose R. @ The Lesbrary)
The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda Lee (Narrated Podcast)
Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta (Amritesh Mukherjee @ Strange Horizons)
Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta (Womble @ Runalong the Shelves)
Palaces of the Crow by Ray Nayler (Tar Vol on)
Red Rising by Pierce Brown (Dina @ SFF Book Reviews)
Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay (Peat Long’s Blog)
The Strength of the Few by James Islington (lexi a.k.a newlynova)
The Tinder Box by M.R. Carey (Mark Yon @ SFF World)
Transmentation | Transgression by Darkly Lem (Daniel Haeusser @ Skiffy and Fanty)
The Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden (Becky’s Book Blog)
The Universe Box by Michael Swanwick (Ian Mond)

B-Side

The deadline for voting in the Hugo Awards is August 8, so people are still reading and reviewing! Pixelated Geek reviewed The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson. The Raven Scholar made the best books of the year so far for Becca and The Books. Tar Vol on reviewed Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz, Camestros Felapton reviewed Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor, and Dina reviewed The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison, wrapping up her series read of The Chronicles of Osreth. It’s not too late to register if you want to speed read everything and vote. :)

Andrew Liptak has a small list of new SFF books for July. Maureen has a collection of middle grade SFF out, as well. At Jump Scares, there’s a massive list of the horror books dropping this month. BookDogJL shared a Mid-Year Book Freakout survey full of back list books. She has been focusing on backlist fantasy by women, which I love, because she reveals so many authors even I haven’t heard of yet. Womble has a list of mid-year recommendations. Kelsey shared a list of anticipated SFF for the second half of the year. Book Roast does a big community survey on her channel and then produces a tidy video of all the books her folks are looking forward to, which I love every time. There’s always something interesting I’ve overlooked! At Literature Science Alliance, Angela does a personal rundown of the Le Guin Prize finalists. I don’t know where the Le Guin award commentary is happening this year, but feel free to send it to me if you find any.

At Ancillary Review of Books, Casella has Wow! Signal for the month, full of critical pieces about speculative fiction. There’s a new issue of The Drink Tank, part one of a Hugo Award special, filled with lots of finalist interviews. Episode #163 of Octothorpe is live, and raise your hand if you had never heard of Eurocon before they covered it. *raises hand* Sword & Laser discussed genre news in Episode #537, wrapped up their discussion of Red Rising, and started their discussion of A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hwawoldang. On Bluesky, there was a question posed asking people their dream video game announcement. I believe it’s important to be optimistic in the face of doom, so my answer would be a sequel to Mass Effect: Andromeda. There are so many good picks, though!

In short fiction coverage, Tar Vol on read and reviewed some back issues of On Spec and The Deadlands. Marlene Harris did a review of the audio version of “Wire Mother” by Isabel J. Kim. Brian Collins looked at two older short stories: “Are You Listening?” by Harlan Ellison and “First Love” by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. Although I can’t believe he said Human Girl/Monster Guy can be boring. Brian, what are you out there reading? Don’t suffer the boredom in silence. Let me know if you need recs, fandom can hook you up. XD He also discussed “Witch of the Demon Seas” by Poul Anderson, and it feels like I’ve been seeing dude’s name all over recently. Are we approaching a Poul Anderson renaissance? Maria Haskins reviewed and chose some recs for issues of Night Shades, Strange Horizons, PodCastle, and Escape Pod, as well as Otherside, Flash Fiction Online, and Small Wonders. A.C. Wise dug into the March/April issue of Analog. Myna Chang published her May/June roundup of flash favorites, with some bonus essay recs! Finally, Locus has a Kickstarter to fund an anthology for the best SFF stories of the year. I really miss all the cool anthologies we used to get back in the day, so it’s exciting that this has already funded.

The Murderbot show was nominated for three Emmys: Outstanding Title Design, Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music, and Outstanding Sound Editing For A Comedy Or Drama Series (Half-Hour) And Animation. There’s a trailer for Dune: Part Three, which I will probably see even though I struggle with my connection to these films. They just feel so emotionally minimalist, even though they are very pretty. Back to physical media: Project Hail Mary will be getting a physical release later this year. The more physical media I get the more I realized how much I missed commentary tracks, which streaming doesn’t make space for.

John Scalzi has a collection of his work in a new Humble Bundle benefitting World Central Kitchen. There’s also a bundle for Tanith Lee, benefitting the Book Industry Charitable Foundation. Karin Lowachee is going to be doing special behind the scenes stuff for the next book in the Warchild Mosaic via her newsletter. I was not subscribed (where’ve I been!?) but now I am and I sincerely think I need to slot in a reread somewhere ASAP before the fourth book drops. There’s a short interview with P. Djèlí Clark at Uncanny (someone give him a fat check for more books in the Dead Djinn series; I’m wasting away over here).

For more SFF reviews and book tempting, check out Wombling Along!

Art recs: letter landscape by The Sun, XIX; "if I was easy to kill you would have done it already" by Kiev; Happy Independence Day by Ethan M. Aldridge; kisses for us meeses & sugarcube by Azul; too hot to exist by purr.in.ink; Enjoy a joke by ishaway; Pride Forever by Koukouvayia; two lovely tabbies by KikiDoodle; silly burrowing owl by Aled Thompson

Outro

I wrote about my favorite books of the year through June, plus I revisited all my reading goals and changed a few of them around to make them more reachable. My favorite books so far will not be a surprise to anyone who has read this newsletter longer than a month. :D

Thanks to Petrea and Ed for sharing their favorite book with me last week! Meanwhile, I’ve had two book recs hanging around in the book rec form for awhile. To run a list I prefer four, so if you want to share a book you’ve loved recently, hit up the form and let’s ~free~ these two older recs! — Renay

Recent Reading:

(Last) The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
(Now) Ode to the Half Broken by Suzanne Palmer (FINALLY! IT’S BEEN 84 YEARS)
(Next) Moss’d in Space by Rebecca Thorne