The Final Chronicle of Yeneh, reviewed at Nerds of a Feather, sounds like an interesting mashup of genres.
Over at Reactor, Laurie Penny gushes about Prime’s They Boys, which finished up this season. Apparently, the show told us all that we live in an oligarchy, which is hardly news, but it was done well.
Apparently, Nuremberg, Germany, has bowed out of the WorldCon 2028 bid process.
This is a depressing article from Bookriot, about the steady silencing of LGTBQI books.
The Astral Library by Kate Quinn
2026’s The Astral Library, by Kate Quinn, will probably delight the readers of her historical romances, and may introduce some of them to fantasy (most likely romantasy). The Astral Library is a fun romp, with Quinn borrowing liberally from various sources; litRPG; The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, and many of the numerous magic library tales currently available. Her characters, especially the protagonist’s fashion designer friend who goes by Beau Brummel,
They loved this book in Britain. It was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and named Best Science Fiction book by the Financial Times. Extremophile by Ian Green, published in the USA in 2026, is a biopunk thriller-adventure with an emphasis on the -punk suffix. The plot was familiar and predictable, and several of the characters could have been more rounded, but I liked the energy, and, with a few exceptions, Green’s deliberate style choices. Dialogue without quotation marks, long flights of punk-style descriptions,
Sliding Scales by Alan Dean Foster
Sliding Scales (2004) is a PIP & FLINX novel by Alan Dean Foster and should be read after Flinx’s Folly.
Flinx is feeling low after leaving Clarity Held just when things were going well, so Teacher, his ship’s AI, suggests a vacation. The chosen destination is Jast, a world administered by the AAnn and inhabited by the slow, thoughtful, mushroom-like Vssey.
Jast is a good setting,
We Burned so Bright by TJ Klune
TJ Klune‘s 2026 novel We Burned so Bright is a short, deep tale about two men on a quest at the end of the world. On their journey from Maine to Washington state, they encounter people acting out fear, denial, joy, and desperation in the face of certain and unstoppable annihilation. Along the way, they too must face and embrace their own demons and fears.
Don and Rodney have been married since gay marriage became legal,
Weird Tales by Leo Margulies (editor)
Although there have been numerous anthologies drawn from the pages of the legendary pulp magazine Weird Tales that have been released over the past 60 years – I have previously reviewed here such outstanding collections as Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors, Weird Tales: The Magazine That Never Dies and Weird Tales: Seven Decades of Terror – credit must be given to editor Leo Margulies,
Flinx’s Folly by Alan Dean Foster
Flinx’s Folly (2003) is the eighth book in Alan Dean Foster’s PIP & FLINX series by internal chronology. It follows Reunion, where Flinx discovered what may be the most dangerous secret in the universe. You’ll want to read these books in order because, by this point, Foster is no longer just sending Flinx and Pip on episodic adventures. The old mysteries are finally beginning to coalesce.
As Flinx’s Folly opens,
The Language of Liars by S.L. Huang
S.L. Huang’s The Language of Liars (2026) is both brief (160 pages) and brilliant, and while its brevity means you’ll speed through it relatively quickly, its brilliance means it will linger far longer in your mind. It will not be for everyone, as I’ll explain, but everyone should give it a shot, and those who continue will find themselves well rewarded.
The plot is relatively straightforward. In this universe of sentient alien species, the one essential element for both travel between worlds and,
It looks as if the Anthropic suit is expected to progress smoothly this time.
Elon Musk, on the other hand, did not have smooth sailing with his lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. After ninety minutes of deliberation, the jury declared unanimously that Musk missed the deadline to file a suit. (I don’t understand why the timeframe issue wasn’t addressed by the judge before the trial started.)
File770 provides a link to the winning stories in the Arthur C. Clarke award’s Quantum Universe category.
The U.K.
Platform Decay by Martha Wells
A couple of books back in the MURDERBOT DIARIES series, I secretly began to nurture a hope that Murderbot was going to start a revolution, one SecUnit at a time. With 2026’s Platform Decay, by Martha Wells, my wish is one step closer to coming true.
Warning: this review contains mild spoilers for System Collapse.
The two previous books in this series, Network Effect and System Collapse,
Reunion (2001) is the seventh book in Alan Dean Foster’s PIP & FLINX series by internal chronology. It follows Mid-Flinx, in which Flinx visited the deadly forest world of Midworld and, after his business was done there, left with some strange plant companions. You’ll want to read the previous books first, since Reunion is mostly concerned with Flinx’s ongoing search for information about his origins.
Nerds of a Feather reviews the film adaptation of The Sheep Detectives. It’s good, but the reviewer does two things that set my teeth on edge: 1) compares the film with the book and 2) plays with “baaa” too much. Still worthwhile, though. Reactor felt differently about the film.
Following the theme of animal detectives, Nerds of a Feather also review Green City Wars by Adrian Tchiakovsky.
James Davis Nicoll discusses how to create plausible generation-ship governments for your generation-ship space opera.
The Mysterious Planet by Lester del Rey
When most readers think of 1950s sci-fi geared toward a younger audience, they probably focus on two authors, Robert A. Heinlein and Andre Norton … and for good reason. Heinlein, from 1947 to 1958, and for the publisher Scribner’s, came out with a round dozen sci-fi works, the so-called “Heinlein juveniles,” that catered to what we today would call a YA (young adult) audience. And it would be a difficult task to enumerate the books for teens that Norton came out with in the ‘50s,
T. Kingfisher, who writes folk horror, parasite horror, dark fantasy, and fantasy, seems to have a book a week coming out. One reason is because her publisher is reissuing a lot of her backlist, but she’s also creating original works as well. 2026’s Wolf Worm, her latest parasite horror novel, is one of those. The hardcover work features a glorious cover and endpapers illustrated by the author herself.
Wolf Worm is set in 1899 in North Carolina,
How to Survive the End of the World: A Graphic Exploration of How to (Maybe) Avoid Extinction by Katy Doughty
How to Survive the End of the World: A Graphic Exploration of How to (Maybe) Avoid Extinction (2026), written and illustrated by Katy Doughty, is a YA graphic non-fiction book that does a fantastic job of exploring its topic, so much so that any adult interested in a quick intro to the potential threats to humanity’s well-being could do far worse than picking it up as well.
Doughty divides the book into a number of sections,
Journey Into Limbo by Scott Michel
In Aldous Huxley’s final novel, 1962’s Island, released one year before the British author’s passing, a man becomes shipwrecked on the utopia called Pala, in the Indian Ocean, and his presence leads to terrible developments for the blissful residents there. But as it turns out, this was not the first time that year that the reading public was given a novel in which a utopian island (that starts with the letter “P”!) was unsettled by the arrival of shipwrecked outsiders.
The Hugo candidates have been selected.
At Reactor, Lish McBride comments on books everyone told her to read (so she put it off) that she finally got around to reading… and really liked.
Charlie Jane Anders shares the intriguing history of the copyright of the character Sherlock Holmes. Wild and strange.
Oh, yes, it’s award season. New Zealand has the Sir Julius Vogel Awards for excellence in speculative fiction. I’ll admit I only picked this article because their award is so cool-looking.
The Demon King by Peter V. Brett
The Demon King (2026) is the conclusion to Peter V. Brett’s NIGHTFALL SAGA, itself part of the long-running DEMON CYCLE series. Readers will probably have ranging reactions to the book as a conclusion, as it heads off in another direction (literally), leaving a number of characters and plot points from the earlier books unanswered. I actually was fine with both of those (more than fine with the former as I loved the new setting),
A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson
This was not the book for me, but here’s the “your mileage may vary” disclaimer; this book is beloved by its fans, and there are a lot of them. You may be one. I’ll call out the things I did like before discussing those that didn’t work for me.
First of all, 2022’s A Dowry of Blood, by S.T. Gibson, embraces the Bad Boyfriend trope, a trope I would normally skip, but this was a book club book so I felt obligated to read it.
The Artemis craft splashed down safely, and last week, after a few days back, the astronauts gave an inspiring news conference. Their mission was thrilling, and there is also something wonderful about this team of four.
The video is at the bottom of the column. It’s more than one hour long.
Are heist books having another moment? Oh, I hope so! Molly has one, And Side by Side They Wander, coming out May19, and Reactor has an excerpt for you.
Street Fighter was a game,
Right, and we, as fantasy readers, would have appreciated the reference.... it certainly gives the impression that she didn't want…
Right? Especially since the character is allegedly a fantasy reader. It would have taken one sentence to have her think…
Wow, that is really disappointing.
The explanation of chord voicings was very clear. Do you have advice for transitioning smoothly between complex chords? freeonlinepiano.com
This piece has a lovely melody and your interpretation highlights its emotional depth. It's inspiring to hear such nuanced playing.