Hey!

AO3 is down and will be for, potentially, weeks. I learned about Sir Patrick Stewart almost at the same time. I’m handling these things in a totally normal manner.

However! There are good things out there: fun thought experiments, new podcasts, fans writing lots of thoughts about art they love, arguing about genre! But most importantly: new books.

A-Side

Patrick Stewart, ‘Star Trek’ Captain and ‘X-Men’ Superhero, Dies at 86
Getting this out of the way early. What a beautiful example of what humanity and artistry can be. I’ll miss him and appreciate all the wonderful art and thoughtful perspectives on the world that he left us.

Read Receipts: Lady Knights & Sword Lesbians
Reactor’s new podcast with host Christina Orlando is live! It’s very exciting for Reactor to have a podcast again.

Do You Distinguish Between “Best” and “Favorite” Books?
I decided that I don’t use “best” in my own reading life very much at all. I use it when I’m in a judgment space, like reading for awards. Then, “best” for me will depend on the short list, what the award is for, and which book I thought did well with its themes. I also use “best” when I’m considering a limited range of books, like when giving out recs to someone. In those cases I’m choosing based on their request and what I know of their preferences. In that scenario, my favorites wouldn’t work, but I could find the best options for their needs in that moment.

$$ Every Trope Everywhere All At Once
This essay by Elizabeth Minkel at Fansplaining (for subscribers, do it if you can, they’re great), looking back on the fanfiction tropes survey she and others worked on in 2016, examines the way some of our tropes have left fanfiction behind to become a part of popular culture. I loved the mention of how different communities colliding online created a lot of cross-pollination. As always, Elizabeth is so good and thorough at telling the story of fandom.

A Close Reading of LotR – Episode 23 – Sad, SAD and EXTRA SAD
Roseanna’s latest Lord of the Rings recap says some neat things about Éowyn, but also it made me wonder: if Tolkien came back to life today, miraculously, would he be a romantasy author?

Reviews/Discussions

As You Wake, Break the Shell by Becky Chambers (Madeline @ The Bookish Mutant)
As You Wake, Break the Shell by Becky Chambers (Adrienne Martini @ Locus)
Audition by Pip Adam (Zachary Gillan @ Seize the Press)
Blacktail by Scott Hawkins (Tamara O. @ Grimdark Magazine)
The Book of the Dead edited by Jonathan Strahan (Gary K. Wolfe @ Locus)
Code and Codex by Yoon Ha Lee (Alex Pierce @ Locus)
Code and Codex by Yoon Ha Lee (Sia @ Every Book a Doorway)
Code and Codex by Yoon Ha Lee (Chris Kluwe @ Lightspeed)
Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel (Niall Harrison @ Locus)
From the Library of Jurgen Leitner by Premee Mohamed and Jonathan Sims (Annie @ A Bookish Type)
From the Library of Jurgen Leitner by Premee Mohamed and Jonathan Sims (Luna Gray @ Strange Horizons)
Fold Catastrophes by Peter Watts (Allison Pottern @ Ancillary Review of Books)
The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean (Tar Vol on)
The Killing of a Chestnut Tree by Oliver K. Langmead (Tammy @ Books, Bones, & Buffy)
The Killing of a Chestnut Tree by Oliver K. Langmead (Trish Matson @ Skiffy and Fanty)
Luminous by Silvia Park (Dina @ SFF Book Reviews)
The Practice, The Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar (Raf Blutaxt)
Once Was Willem by M.R. Carey (Womble @ Runalong the Shelves)
The Only Way Out Is Up by Django Wexler (Eddie Clark @ Nerds of a Feather)
Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield (Wizards vs. Lesbians Podcast)
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson (Russ Allbery)
Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee (A Meal of Thorns Podcast)
The Scarlet Ball by Nghi Vo (Kate Towner @ Ancillary Review of Books)
The Scarlet Ball by Nghi Vo (Galen Strickland)
Scion by James Islington (Sasha Bonkowsky @ Reactor)
The Shadow Before the Dawn by Alma Alexander (Bill Capossere @ FanLit)
The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling (skygiants)
The Unbroken by C.L. Clark (Becky’s Book Blog)
The Unicorn Hunters by Katherine Arden (Liz Bourke)
Slow Gods by Claire North (Lekden @ Reading from the Depths)
The Way the Future Was by Frederick Pohl (Hugo History Podcast)
Testament of Leaves by Carolyn Ives Gilman (Bonnie @ Red Headed Femme)

B-Side

It’s a big book release week, but the most popular one in my reading archive was The Fist of Memory by Wole Talabi. The cover I’m sharing is the UK version, which I love. I’m in the “bring back semi-realistic art covers” club. American market, please get less boring ASAP. You can read two excerpts: one at Civilian Reader and another at The Nerd Daily.

Reviews/Discussions:
— Alex Pierce
— Tar Vol on
— Trish Matson @ Skiffy and Fanty
— Will Swardstrom @ FanFiAddict
— Richard @ Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud

Against my clear wishes, the best-of-2026 lists have begun to drop. Publisher’s Weekly has a list of SFF and horror. Perhaps I’m just old and out of touch based on the SFF selections. 🦕

There’s a new episode of Octothorpe where they very kindly responded to my Listener Mail (I’m still thinking about the logistics of the zine idea for WSFS/Hugo Award promo) and gave some convention news. Angela at Literature Science Alliance did a recap of the SFF awards she follows. The Mythcreants podcast discussed the romantasy hate, which I luckily don’t see much of these days. I do want people who are smart about fantasy and romance both (I’m not in this category) to write many thoughtful essays about how older fantasy romance and romantasy relate to each other. That would be so fun. **stares convincingly into the void**

Alex Pierce recapped Stargate SG-1 Season 4. The Black Tapes Podcast is finally getting the long-discussed series adaptation. I loved this podcast so much and made everyone listen to it. I hope they can save the end, though, because the final episodes were pretty messy. I found this list, 10 Greatest Hard Sci-Fi Novels Of The Last 10 Years Ranked, via Casella, and while his reason for Project Hail Mary not being hard sci-fi is good and correct, the reason I know it’s not hard sci-fi is that I specifically loved the film because of all the gooey feelings between Grace and Rocky. I was told, quite assuredly back in the day, that hard sci-fi was the quarter of the legit scientific ideas only. They don’t have time for the soft sciences dealing with emotions. I’m being a joker here, but some of those conversations were wild.

Wole Talabi did a rec list of first contact stories in African SF. Martin Cahill posted a World Fantasy convention recap, with a very cool perspective. Maurice Broaddus is writing an SF thriller, Hard Times, with Wayne Brady. Yes, that Wayne Brady. These are the kinds of interesting times I want to live in; more of this, please. Via Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, I found this game, Krillion, where you get points for the obscurity of your guesses to questions. It’s very addicting. I can’t find anything about it being made with genAI. That seems to be the trend with cute online games these days, but…maybe not this time?

In short fiction, Charles Payseur has a list of queer short SFF from September at his Patreon. Emmie Christie has an profile of Eric Fomley, with an interview and multiple short fiction recs. Tar Vol on reviewed Clarkesworld and GigaNotoSaurus and recced one story. If you’d like a treasure trove of short fiction to read, I suggest this thread from Harare Review of Books on Bluesky. There are lots of genre options!

The author section returns! Wole Talabi has a Big Idea essay over at Whatever for The Fist of Memory, he had an interview with Renan Bernardo at Hyperspace of Words, and was also on the recent episode of Coode Street, talking to Jonathan and Gary about the book. Earlier this year, Talabi was on the Long Story Short podcast covering his earlier books and career. Finally, Arley Sorg did an in-depth interview with Talabi in Clarkesworld. Sorg also interviewed Yoon Ha Lee, author of Code and Codex, who has a Q&A at The Nerd Daily, another quick chat with Paul Semel, and was a guest on The Functional Nerds last month. Premee Mohamed gave a short Q&A about From the Library of Jurgen Leitner. Scott Hawkins was on the Turn the Page podcast to discuss Blacktail. Allison Pottern interviewed Peter Watts about Fold Catastrophes and Watts was also a guest on the Hugos There podcast back in September.

In unfortunate news that I was legit shocked by, over the weekend File 770 platformed a known fascist. This is notable because File 770 is a very respected, long running fanzine and has been around the entire time I’ve been in SFF fandom. It’s a central hub for convention and SFF community news. Many of those community members were targeted by the author of the File 770 article. I learned about this via Paul Weimer on Bluesky, and I’m puzzled because this person’s bigoted, anti-social behavior is public record via File 770. I also learned about the apology from Paul and…I’m whelmed. Say no to Nazis!

For more SFF links, check out Wombling Along or get some general bookish links in the round-up from A Bookish Type. The latter is mostly non-SFF, but it was a cool find that I wanted to share. Art recs: Dreaming of autumn... by Victoria Maderna; Flamboyance & shoebill by Evan Sky; fairy raccoon eating a cookie by Yeppenny; mothman feeding moths by The Latest Kate; 31 Sppoky Cats by Yokani.

Outro

My recent reading has been derailed because I’ve been busy with election work. I’ve been mainlining volumes of Witch Hat Atelier which is about my limit at this moment. I should have listened to everyone about this manga sooner!

I also wrote a list of thoughts about An Accident of Dragons by Cheri Radke. I keep bouncing back and forth between “oh, this book is so charming” and “wait a damn minute.” My brain is so full right now.

U.S. folks, go vote. Make good choices! — Renay