In a cosmic rally race winding 12,000 kilometers across Io’s treacherous surface in just 60 hours, all while dodging the competition, fatigue, and violent lava geysers—there’s only one way Cat knows how to win: Just drive.
Detonation Boulevard
The Tale of Clancy the Scrivener
After a fraught, improbably long life, a post-apocalyptic archivist resigned to cataloging ephemera from the “old world” times finds his life upended by an orphaned girl. . .
The Passing of the Dragon
A woman who fears she’s failing as a painter and as an artist seeks inspiration from one of her favorite poets and finds something even more wondrous, but also more impossible to capture on canvas…
The Job at the End of the World
A weary resilience worker should know better than anyone: no one is safe when the world is always ending…
Read an Excerpt From The Society for Soulless Girls
Ten years ago, four students lost their lives in the infamous unsolved North Tower murders…
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Laura Steven’s The Society for Soulless Girls, a young adult enemies-to-lovers retelling of Jekyll & Hyde—publishing with Delacorte Press on September 19.
Twisty, Turny, and Very Compelling: The Dark Place by Britney S. Lewis
What would you do if you could travel to another universe or through time? Would you try and fix the terrible things in your life? What would you do if your changes made things worse? Britney S. Lewis asks her readers these questions in her chilling new young adult horror romance The Dark Place.
Power, Rage, and Teenage Witches
Consider the teenage witch. At least, consider the teenage witch as she existed in popular culture at the time I, personally, was a teenager: from 1993 to 1999. The ’90s, in retrospect, was a very particular decade to be a teenage girl. Alanis was on the radio. We had Juliana Hatfield, the Cranberries, Missy Elliott, Shirley Manson, Lauryn Hill, Kim Deal and the Breeders—voices that told their own stories, who joked and cried and soared and screamed and roared. Riot Grrrls. Lilith Fair. Tori freaking Amos. These women formed a coven of sound, a shared promise that what we had to say had value, what we felt was real.
But let’s turn now to the scripted witches.
Behind the Mask: Five Mysterious SFF Fighters
Imagine for a moment the distinct narrative thrill of seeing a masked character appear for the first time. Who could it be? What are they hiding? Is it a character we already know and love, shirking their identity in favor of this mysterious persona?
In fantasy stories, masks often stand in for identity, or a character’s understanding of who they are. Donning a mask obscures a face and creates someone entirely new. Storytellers in fantasy capitalize on this duality, treating us to wonderful, compelling character development both behind and beyond the mask. So let’s talk about some favorite examples…
Denis Villeneuve Says Dune: Part 2 Will Be “A Much More Emotional Movie”
Credt: Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.
While we now sadly have to wait until 2024 to see the spice flow once more in Dune: Part Two, director Dennis Villeneuve has some details on what we can expect from his adaptation of Frank Herbert’s work.
Terry Pratchett Book Club: A Hat Full of Sky, Part I
It’s time to settle in for a little light reading of Fairies and How to Avoid Them…
Series: Terry Pratchett Book Club
Can’t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for September and October 2023
Maybe it’s the presence of autumn on the horizon; maybe it’s the entirely understandable desire to sit down with a good book when the mood gets cozier. I’m not honestly sure what it is, but: the next two months seem to bring with them a lot more books on indie presses than I usually write about in this column. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you; looking over this list of books, I see an impressive range of work represented—and whether you’re looking to read a subdued novel of subtle horrors or an expansive tour through alternate worlds, you might just be able to find your next great read right here.
Here Are the Winners of the 2023 Aurora Awards!
The Aurora Awards, presented by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, recognize the best work done by Canadians in the previous year. The winners of the 2023 awards were announced last weekend in an online ceremony, and you can see the full list of nominees and winners below.
Congratulations to all the winners!
Ned Beauman Wins the 2023 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Venomous Lumpsucker
Author photo: Alice Neale
Author Ned Beauman has won the 37th Arthur C. Clarke Award for his excellently named novel Venomous Lumpsucker, which The Guardian called “a jaunty, cerebral eco-thriller.”
Five Beguiling Gateways Into Gothic Horror
Illustration from The Hound of the Baskervilles (Richard Gutschmidt, 1905)
Gothic horror is not like other horror. Most people tend to think of it as the quieter genre—the subtler horror that creeps in like mould in your walls—and they’re not wrong. Subtlety has long been a key hallmark of the genre, which wends its way through domestic settings and unsettles them, not by crashing through with a battering ram but by picking things up and putting them back in slightly the wrong place. The Gothic comforts us paradoxically with its creeping sense of unease, appealing to our desire to be reassured that, “yes, something is wrong here; no, you’re not imagining it.” On the surface, there’s something almost gentle about it—and yet, this genre can resonate powerfully from one age to the next. It speaks to us about the anxieties of our time, and connects us with the anxieties of the past, many of which are more familiar to us than we may realise at first glance.
Perhaps for this reason, Gothic horror has seen a dramatic resurgence of popularity in the last few years. Last summer, over 200,000 people signed up to the newsletter Dracula Daily, and this year the serialisation of Bram Stoker’s classic has been joined by a spectacular accompanying podcast, Re: Dracula. If you’re new to the genre, or looking to delve in a bit deeper, you may be uncertain where to start. To help, here are five memorable Gothic classics, ordered by date of publication, which pack a great deal into relatively few pages…
Dune 2 Delayed: No Wormsign Until 2024
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Shai-Hulud, Kraven the Hunter, and the Ghostbusters are an odd group to have something in common, but they do: All three are the stars of movies that have been moved to 2024. Warner Bros. has moved their big dusty sequel from this fall to March 15, 2024. Does Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) need to worry about the Ides of March?
Read an Excerpt From Foxglove
Fate, the elusive brother of Death, has taken up residence in a sumptuous estate near Thorn Grove…
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Adalyn Grace’s Gothic-infused YA fantasy Foxglove, the sequel to last year’s Belladonna—out now from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.
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