Hey!

This week there are essays and conversations about genre, me sharing all my tech commentary links and spiraling (only slightly!), exciting award news, and then another special review section for A Wall is Also a Road by Annalee Newitz.

A-Side

Ursula K. Le Guin Award Nominees 2026 | Who should win???
Someone shared this video with me (thank you, mystery person). I’m never turning down a chance to listen to someone gas up Notes From a Regicide, with a bonus effusive review of Slow Gods. While reading all the Le Guin Prize finalists wasn’t in the cards for me this year (election years, sob), it’s been nice to see more folks discussing it. There are some excellent thoughts about all the books here. Plus: a new to me booktuber! The internet has been cursed by tech bros, always shared the work of artists you like (with me, especially)!

Snap! Criticism: Trace Elements and The Mulai
If you don’t mind light spoilers for The Mulai, this essay by Dan Hartland is intriguing. I have not yet been convinced by any review or recap to read Trace Elements. Nothing changed with this essay! (I will probably still read it someday, as I have an ebook version.) However, I’m sold on The Mulai.

Speculative Insight levels up in 2027
Speculative Insight is excellent and they’re raising funds to pay their authors more. Until Wider Society recognizes that funding the arts is critical to the continued growth of humanity, we must do it ourselves! Pitching in is tax-deductible for Aussies. Hooray for SF criticism and commentary.

What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed: Review Comparisons
Before finishing this book, I read a bunch of thoughts from other people about their experiences with it. After I closed the book, I immediately thought of two reviews I wanted to revisit. In reviews like this positive one from Cat Fitzpatrick, there’s genre history and a wider perspective on where the book sits with its peers (and for me, fun new words to learn). Then for reviews like this critical one from Sia, the personal stakes are brought to the forefront. Why the book failed gave me a path to think about the different ways we conceptualize and approach telling stories about hope and queerness. There’s also, possibly, a marketing discussion to have, but I’m still stewing those thoughts.

Reviews/Discussions

As We Fall Through Time by Claire North (T.O. Munro @ Fantasy Reviews)
As We Fall Through Time by Claire North (Mark Yon @ SFF World)
As You Wake, Break the Shell by Becky Chambers (Jess @ Into the Volcano)
Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz (Workers’ Lit Pod)
Dead Beat by Leigh Bardugo (Esmay Rosalyne @ Grimdark Magazine)
Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel (Mariko Hewer @ Washington Independent)
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (Narrated Podcast)
Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn (Sean Guynes @ Genre Fantasies)
Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall (Danika Ellis @ The Lesbrary)
Homebound by Portia Elan (Tar Vol on)
Ink Honey Blossom by Liza Losada (Ursula Pflug @ Strange Horizons)
The Library at Hellebore by Cassandra Khaw (Annie @ A Bookish Type)
The Loom Tree by Angela Mi Young Hur (Elias @ Bar Cart Bookshelf)
Massif by Garth Nix (Cheryl Morgan @ Salon Futura)
On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah Yah Scholfield (Sia @ Every Book a Doorway)
Palaces of the Crow by Ray Nayler (Alex Kingsley @ Strange Horizons)
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu (Pippin Took @ FanFiAddict)
The Recollections by Christopher Priest (Aran Ward Sell @ Strange Horizons)
A River From the Sky by Ai Jiang (Galen Strickland)
The Salt King by Natasha Pulley (Kathryn Adams @ Pixelated Geek)
The Scarlet Ball by Nghi Vo (Becky’s Book Blog)
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (Paul March-Russell @ Strange Horizons)
The Tapestry of Fate by S.A. Chakraborty (Bonnie @ Red Headed Femme)
Time Travel for Beginners by Jaclyn Moriarty (Ian Mond @ Locus)
The Tongue I Dream In by Sheree Renée Thomas (Jenny Hamilton @ Reactor)
A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett (Khan Book Reviews)
Traitor's Nest by Frances Hardinge (skygiants)
The Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden (Dina @ SFF Book Reviews)
What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed (WeAreTheKat)
What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed (Russ Allbery)
The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes (Maureen @ By Singing Light)

B-Side

I’ve been doing a lot of tech reading/watching lately as I try to get my head around the doom spiral we seem to be in re: technology. This video on the gross surveillance and manipulation built into mobile games makes me sad. Anil Dash discusses the rise of “unalive” and other words meant to bypass algorithmic monitoring and why we should push back against them. I’m now on team “ban default algorithmic timelines.” A zoo talked about why fake animal videos have real and dire consequences for animal rescue, safety, and conservation. In “Tech Hype is Cannibalizing the Future”, I read about the $80 billion wasted on Metaverse, knowing that Meta has tax breaks upon tax breaks, and think of what $80 billion could do for communities like mine. It’s frustrating to be a fan of science fiction in this moment, as tech bros with terrible media literacy miss the point of SF classics. Someone please send me good technology news. :’)

In better book-related news, the Clarke Awards are open for submission of 2026 books. More importantly, Roseanna Pendlebury is one of the judges next year! Prepare for a banger short list in 2027. The British Fantasy Award winners were announced. Tasha Suri won the Aldiss Award for The Isle In The Silver Sea. Angela from Literature Science Alliance had some thoughts on the Ignyte winners.

Rachel Cordasco wrote a cool essay tracking the history of sharing World SF. Via Sean Guynes, there’s a call for reviewers for Science Fiction Film and Television. At Reactor, there’s a list of genre crossover books out this month. Andrew Liptak has yet another list of October books (‘tis the season). Coode Street had a long discussion about genre and its place in the current literary environment and Octothorpe was live from Octocon.

Last week, A Wall is Also a Road by Annalee Newitz dropped. I, a genius, tagged all the reviews I read with a release date of this week. Well, at least this means I get to do a special review section! You can read an excerpt from the novel over at Reactor. You can also read an essay from Newitz about first contact stories and where their book fits.

Reviews/Discussions:
— Trish Matson @ Skiffy and Fanty
— Annie @ A Bookish Type
— WeAreTheKat
— Jess @ Into the Volcano
— Marlene Harris @ Reading Reality

In short fiction, the big news this week was some shenanigans from Must Read Magazines, which run Asimov’s, Analog and F&SF. This is not my lane, but Jason Sanford has the full story over at Genre Grapevine. How strange. Art isn’t worth paying a living wage for, but for some reason a lot of these companies want all the rights to it forever and always? Right. In a surprise twist, reviews of two multi-author anthologies came across my feeds: Marlene reviewed The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2026, edited by Olivie Blake and John Joseph Adams; Tar Vol on reviewed the second volume of Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Stephen Kotowych. Whatever happened to anthology culture? They used to get a ton of attention. Over at Locus, Maria Haskins checked out issues of Tasavvur, Lightspeed, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies and recced five stories. A.C. Wise reviewed the July/August issue of Asimov’s and recced one story.

There’s a Humble Bundle for books by Nnedi Okorafor, Wole Talabi, and Adam Oyebanji. Jo Walton shared her September reading list. Tansy Rayner Roberts launched a Kickstarter for a Pride & Prejudice retelling with dragons and apparently funded it in record time, but there are six days to go if you want to hop aboard. The Murderbot graphic novel Kickstarter launched and funded within the first day? There are 30 days left, but it looks well on its way to becoming a real book! The cover reveal for The Apprentice Liar and the Death of the World by Isabel J. Kim is at Locus. T.O. Munro has an interview with Claire North, author of As We Fall Through Time. I listened to this interview with Robert Jackson Bennett and it’s always a gamble whether I’m going to leave excited/frustrated. He is Very Opinionated, but as all good readers know, the author is dead. :D Ken Liu had a short interview by Caroline M. Yoachim in Uncanny. Back in September, Annalee Newitz was over at Nerds of a Feather for their Six Books column and on Breaking the Glass Slipper for a chat about aliens and an interview.

I watched the trailer for Narnia: The Magician's Nephew. I don’t go here (I barely remember the books) but it slaps. Reactor has more details. Now all we have to do is hope Netflix doesn’t get in the way. The trailer for Hexed looks good, too: a mother/daughter adventure, maybe? I made my partner watch the trailer for The Cat From Outer Space because I knew it would delight him (I was correct). Does anyone else remember this film? I also, for some reason, watched the trailer for The Exorcist: Martyrs and confirmed I’m not this type of horror girlie. Amazon is going to try again with Stargate. I will believe it when I see a cast. Meanwhile, Ryan Coogler’s X-Files is definitely happening! And a reminder: Wildwood comes out soon. I have no idea if any theater near me is going to get it, but I have my fingers crossed. I really want to support art like this.

More SFF links await you in the recent edition of Wombling Along.

Are recs: Overgrown by A. Faë; bramble by The Sun, XIX; a character and her skeletal mount by margaw; Coven of Mischief by Courtney Agee; halloween can be dreamy too by btw.draw; Simulation by Claire Fukuchi

Outro

This week I wrote about What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed. I enjoyed it, but had many thoughts about space opera as a genre and what I expect from books marketed/recced that way. If you’ve reviewed/discussed the book on a blog/pod/video somewhere, I’d love to read about it. — Renay

Recent Reading

(Last) What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed
(Now) A Complement of Scoundrels by S.V. Lockwood
(Next) The Shamshine Blind by Paz Pardo