Hey!

It’s Podcast Week on Intergalactic Mixtape’s A-Side, plus an essay about awards. This week there’s also a special “Renay decided she wanted a book list after it was too late to ask in the last issue” section. Welcome to Acute New Book Weather: it’s both the start of the third quarter where book releases don’t stop and the beginning of a new month.

A-Side

Antimatter Pod
Hello, do you like Star Trek? Perhaps you need a Star Trek pod in your life, if so. I used to listen to this pod (and read their show notes, which are always rad), and then my RSS reader betrayed me. I thought they went on hiatus! But no! Instead, it was technology that failed me. Anyway, I have a lot to catch up on so have a general rec for now.

In Defense of Literary Awards
Maris Kreizman, who writes the excellent The Maris Review (naming it after herself gives her incredible aura, I’m still starstruck months after discovering her), wrote an essay about awards. She’s into different awards that I am (more on what “literary” means in the next item), but I really identified with her position on earnestness about book awards. I cling to that earnestness in a culture that seems hell-bent on cynicism. I consider awards not only around recognition, but discovery, too: I would have made it to SFF literature eventually, but I got there early-ish because of the Hugo Award and was very curious about the niche rabbit hole* I had discovered (lucky 10,000!). I have discovered every other genre award I follow, especially those relevant to my interests (Compton Crook, Crawford) because of that initial discovery. Anyway, this is a “earnest about book awards” safe space.

*I regret to say that the Hugo Award is extremely niche and we really need more promo in nerd spaces.

Critical Friends: On Literary SFF
After listening to this podcast about the Booker Prize (an award I don’t follow), I pondered one of the topics they discussed: what does “literary” mean when we’re talking about book genre? What I determined about myself is when I think something is “literary SFF”, it’s because I expect that person is writing for an audience beyond SFF and wants that audience to take their writing seriously instead of writing it off as trope-filled fluff that only has one reading (to be clear, nothing ever only has one reading). Also, I’m guilty of thinking that when other people use it, they’re using it to mean “serious” literature, because even in this modern world of SFF media being ascendant (even if it has been captured by billionaire monopolists), there’s still a separation between the imaginary external worlds of SFF and the imaginary inner worlds of characters created by people. Both are given different cultural weight depending on where a reader stands. I guess I’m guilty of snobbery? Or maybe…reverse snobbery?

A Meal of Thorns 60- 2026 UKLG List
If you’re into awards in an earnest manner, as I, you will be very happy at this almost two hour long discussion of the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize award list. The prize will be announced on October 21, so there’s not a lot of time to read the whole list before the winner is revealed, but there’s plenty of time to listen to commentary about it. I’ve read both Notes from a Regicide and Slow Gods, and I’m very partial to the former. Casella and Roseanna dig into each finalist and for (almost) every one they find something that would make it a worthy winner. They had a short aside about the length of the long list. I can see how it would be unwieldy for people to get through with everyone so busy, but I like the idea that its list gets to be just a bit longer than traditional awards. It gives the award a special vibe. I really do hope Notes from a Regicide wins because I want Tor to keep publishing these kinds of stories.

Reviews/Discussions

All the Hidden Places: Stories by Cadwell Turnbull (Tobias Carroll @ Reactor)
The Burn Line by Jonathan Sims (Tammy @ Books, Bones, & Buffy)
Daggerbound by T. Kingfisher (Bonnie @ Red Headed Femme)
An Empire in the Clouds by Ai Jiang (Sasha Bonkowsky @ Reactor)
The Expert System’s Brother by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Kat Hooper @ FanLit)
The Faith of Beasts by James S.A. Corey (Camestros Felapton)
The Green Man’s Debt by Juliet E. McKenna (Womble @ Runalong the Shelves)
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik (Becky’s Book Blog)
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik (Galen Strickland)
The Infinite State by Richard Swan (Gryftkin)
Ink Honey Blossom by Liza Losada (Sébastien Doubinsky @ Ancillary Review of Books)
The Jewel and the Comet by Tim Pratt (Cheryl Morgan @ Salon Futura)
The Jewel and the Comet by Tim Pratt (Alex Pierce)
The Jewel and the Comet by Tim Pratt (Sam Tyler)
The Language of Liars by S.L. Huang (Marlene Harris @ Reading Reality)
Life Out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger (Charle Jane Anders)
Massif by Garth Nix (Paul Di Filippo @ Locus)
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett (Dina @ SFF Book Reviews)
The Redemption Center Is Closed on Sundays by Andrea Hairston (Molly Templeton @ Reactor)
The Republic of Memory by Mahmud El Sayed (Narrated Podcast)
The Salt King by Natasha Pulley (Chris @ biblio nerd reflections)
The Scarlet Ball by Nghi Vo (Sia @ Every Book a Doorway)
The Scarlet Ball by Nghi Vo (Annie @ A Bookish Type)
The Scarlet Ball by Nghi Vo (Trish Matson @ Skiffy and Fanty)
Slow Gods by Claire North (Ant Jones @ SF Book)
Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell (ilikereadingactually)
The Splintered Sun by Tad Williams (Petrik Leo @ Novel Notions)
The Splintered Sun by Tad Williams (Niko’s Book Reviews)
The Splintered Sun by Tad Williams (Bill Capossere @ FanLit)
There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm (Mike Cahoon @ FanFiAddict)
This Is How The World Ends by Disco Barrington (Michael Patrick Hicks @ FanFiAddict)
The Unhaunting by Micaiah Johnson (Jim McLeod @ Ginger Nuts of Horror)
The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez (Roseanna Pendlebury)
World’s Okayest Oracle (Reluctantly) Seeks Demon by Olivia Dade (Jenny Hamilton @ Reactor)

B-Side

Skiffy and Fanty are hosting a Fundraiser & Membership Drive to recover from technological shenanigans. At Ancillary Review of Books, the call for reviews and essays for art out in January 2027 is up. I recognize maybe three of these books. Oh, ARB, are you leaving popular genre fiction behind? *sheds a tear* Casella also shared his monthly wrap up of critical essays and articles from around the internet. From this list, I came across 2026 University Press Recommendations from Sean Guynes that I somehow missed. Many of these sound fascinating. Dina shared her State of SFF column for October, which has her anticipated books. Tammy also has a list of her anticipated books. I forget how I came across it now, but the SFWA Recommended Reading List is available and the UI seems new and very slick! This is for the Nebula Awards, for SWFA pros, so if you’re a member of SFWA and like sharing your faves, this is for you. Kelsey shared all the books she’s acquired in the last year. flameswallower shared book recs for September.

The Ignyte Awards were announced, and the winner in the adult novel category was The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. Lots of folks I read have had things to say about this one: Bonnie, Womble, Tar Vol on, Camestros Felapton, and Galen Strickland. This is a great time to say that I love reading SFF reviews and you can send them to me any time (don’t self-reject)! In these times of Google ruining their search for slop reasons, we must rely on each other. I was also pleased to see We Will Rise Again get recognition after it didn’t make the Hugo list for Best Related Work due to Confusing Rules From The 1900s.

And we have another Special Book Section, featuring: Cassandra Khaw! This book sneaked up on me; I didn’t realize I had seen five reviews about it. You can find an excerpt over at Civilian Reader.

Reviews/Discussions:
— Trish Matson @ Skiffy & Fanty
— Tammy @ Books, Bones, & Buffy
— Elias @ Bar Cart Bookshelf
— Tom Stone @ Ginger Nuts of Horror
— Matthew Jackson @ Bloody Disgusting

Interlude: A Book List

I asked my followers on Bluesky to share a 2026 book they planned to get to before the end of the year, and they delivered.

— The Night Sweeps the Mountains Away by Tanvir Ahmed
— Plastic, Prism, Void by Violet Allen (2)
— A Dance of Burning Blades by M.H. Ayinde (2)
— On the Calculation of Volume V by Solvej Balle
— As You Wake, Break the Shell by Becky Chambers (2)
— Harbour of Hungry Ghosts by Eliza Chan
— Stay for a Spell by Amy Coombe
— Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories by Amal El-Mohtar
— The Republic of Memory by Mahmud El Sayed (3)
— Dark Reading Matter by Jasper Fforde
— Traitor's Nest by Frances Hardinge
— The Rainshadow Orphans by Naomi Ishiguro
— The Unhaunting by Micaiah Johnson
— The Book of Bots by James Patrick Kelly
— A Compendium of Supernatural Entities Found in the Government Girls Higher Secondary School by Kuzhali Manickavel (2)
— Bodies of Magic by Freya Marske
— Call Me Traitor by Everina Maxwell
— Wind of Earth, Wind of Tau Ceti by JM McDermott
— Through Gates of Garnet and Gold by Seanan McGuire
— Silver & Blood by Jessie Mihalik
— Moon Over Brendle by Jeff Noon
— Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer
— May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry
— The Burn Line by Johnathan Sims
— Exit Party by Emily St John Mandel
— Doctor Who: The Key to Time by Robert Shearman, James Goss, David Fisher
— Revolution in the Heart ed. Jonathan Strahan (2)
— Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky
— The Scarlet Ball by Nghi Vo
— The Gates of Midnight by Helene Wecker
— The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams

There's a dramatic genre spread! I had never heard of some of these titles before. If a book was mentioned more than once, I put a number by it. I hope I got all of them; Bluesky’s threading system is one big shrug emoji sometimes.

Speaking of lists, it’s the start of October which means they’re everywhere:

— 125 New Sci-Fi, Horror, and Fantasy Books Releasing in October
— Here's the first batch of SF/F books to check out in October 2026
— All the New Romantasy Books Arriving in October 2026
— Queer SF releases from Kila Green for September and October.

Goodreads, seeing that other book apps could and would eat them for lunch, has introduced not only half stars, but quarter stars. There’s a new issue of the LODESTAR. Sword & Laser dropped episode #524A, where they started their discussion of Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom. Extremely relevant to me, there’s going to be a horse stable management game called Horses of Hoofprint Bay, and my inner horse girl is very excited.

In short fiction, The Sturgeon Memorial Award went to “We, the Fleet” by Alex T. Singer, from Clarkesworld. Andrew Liptak has his Table of Contents column up for October, and he’s updated the September column with new links. If you read short fiction, I can’t recommended Liptak’s Transfer Orbit enough. Emmie Christie shared her favorite stories from September. Maria Haskins reviewed issues of Escape Pod, PodCastle, Cast of Wonders, and Diabolical Plots from May and June and recced five stories. A.C. Wise reviewed the latest issue of khōréō and recced one story. Paula Guran reviewed stories from June and July in Reactor, The Dark, Mysterion, and The Sunday Morning Transport and recced two. THE WYRMHOLE has a guest editor, Claire Jia-Wen, but it’s still full of the same great HOLE-some content.

Humble Bundle has more author collections for Joe Haldeman and Gene Wolfe. Over at Instagram, Daw Books shared an image of the tour dates for Tad Williams (I miss out on lots of these because I don’t get them early enough, sob). Arley Sorg has a long interview with Cadwell Turnbull, author of All the Hidden Places: Stories, in Clarkesworld. The Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog interviewed Mahmud El Sayed, author of The Republic of Memory. On the Turn the Page podcast, they spoke with Jonathan Sims, author of The Burn Line and Nghi Vo, author of The Scarlet Ball. Nghi Vo was also on the FanFiAddict Podcast a few weeks back to talk about her novella, A Long and Speaking Silence. Paul Semel has a short interview with Claire North about As We Fall Through Time. North also read from the Le Guin Prize finalist novel, Slow Gods. Tim Pratt had an essay over at Whatever back in August for The Jewel and the Comet.

Need even more links (and more book recs, in case you…need them…)? Check out Wombling Along.

Art recs: moonlit by Rii Abrego; Moth by Hannah Alexander; dragon by Gustavo Rinaldi; Lemonade Shark by Requinoesis; whale by Alex Plante; Star Trek baby quilt top by Marsha Loftis

Outro

That’s it for this week! Have a great weekend and make time for some reading. It’s only too late to discover your favorite book of the year until December 31! — Renay

Recent Reading

(Last) An Accident of Dragons by Cheri Radke
(Now) What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed
(Next) A Complement of Scoundrels by S.V. Lockwood