A grieving mother wakes up to find all traces of her lost son have been erased as if he had never existed. Only in the hallway mirror is she able to see a glimpse of the reality she remembers having lived—the reality she wants back.
The Counterworld
Read an Excerpt From The Strange
1931, New Galveston, Mars: Fourteen-year-old Anabelle Crisp sets off through the wastelands of the Strange…
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Nathan Ballingrud’s The Strange, the story of one girl’s quest for revenge amidst a spent and angry world—out from Saga Press on March 21st.
Terry Pratchett Book Club: Thief of Time, Part IV
Hickory dickory dock, the Death of Rats ran up the glass clock that stopped Time—or however that dang thing goes…
Series: Terry Pratchett Book Club
Tim Burton and Jenna Ortega May Reunite for Beetlejuice 2
Screenshot: Warner Bros.
It’s been years and years and years since Michael Keaton told MTV News that a Beetlejuice sequel was in the works. Ten years, to be exact. But with director Tim Burton back in the pop culture spotlight with Wednesday—another story prominently featuring a teenager dressed all in black—perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that this curséd concept is once again in the news.
The latest detail about the continuation of the Deetz family’s story is directly related to Wednesday. “Multiple sources” tell The Hollywood Reporter that star Jenna Ortega is “circling” a role in Burton’s Beetlejuice 2.
Can’t Miss Indie Press Speculative Fiction for March and April 2023
It’s a good time to be a reader. We’re now into the third month of 2023, which feels less and less like a new year by the day and is slowly morphing into simply being a year, full stop. As for what the coming months have in store from indie presses, well, much like the weather in March, they’re all over the place. That’s not a bad thing. From a vision of a bizarre futuristic society to a fantasy epic that’s also an epic poem, there’s a host of innovative work due out in March and April on indie presses. Here are some notable titles, grouped thematically.
Marvel’s What If…? Season Two Introduces Kahhori: A New Hero Never Seen In The Comics
Credit: Marvel Studios
The Disney+ animated series What If…? takes the Marvel Cinematic Universe and flips it on its head, often giving us — thanks to the multiverse —different versions of events that happened in its 31 films to date, and different takes on existing characters. But it’s never created an entirely new character.
Until now.
The first season gave us some interesting premises, such as a universe where Peggy Carter became Captain Britain Carter and where everyone became zombies, because why not? We’ve known about a second season for awhile, but haven’t gotten many details about what we’ll see. That changed today when Marvel revealed Kahhori, a new superhero we’ll be introduced to in the upcoming episodes.
All the New Horror and Genre-Bending Books Arriving in March!
Head below for a list of genre-bending titles—horror, mystery, short fiction collections, and more—heading your way in March!
Mystery Science Theater 3000′s Latest Season Is Airing for Free On Pluto TV
We’re all Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans over here, and if you are too, I have some good news: The show’s thirteenth season is now available on Pluto TV.
Simulant Trailer: Simu Liu and Sam Worthington Star in Movie About A.I. and Bad Hairstyles
We’ve got a new trailer for the sci-fi film, Simulant (fka Hello Stranger), a movie with an impressive cast that explores the trope of whether sentient A.I. beings deserve to live (and love) like biological humans.
Read an Excerpt From Christopher Paolini’s Fractal Noise
July 25th, 2234: The crew of the Adamura discovers the Anomaly.
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Christopher Paolini’s newest science fiction adventure Fractal Noise, set in the world of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, publishing with Tor Books on May 16th.
An Uncanny Revolution, With Cats: Owen King’s The Curator
Given the context, the comparison I’m about to make might seem like a strange one. Bear with me. As the saying goes, patience is a virtue, and patience is most definitely a virtue when discussing Owen King’s The Curator.
LCD Soundsystem’s third album, This Is Happening, begins with one of the best Side 1/Track 1 combinations ever, a song called “Dance Yrself Clean.” For just over the first three minutes, the song exists in a very narrow scope, with a handful of elements: vocals, a minimal drumbeat, and a tinny melody. And then, just over three minutes in, another beat comes in out of nowhere, suggesting an entirely new sonic palette and dramatically expanding the scope of what’s possible in the scope. It’s Dorothy seeing Oz in color; it’s Jeremy Irons stepping through a door into a hidden world in Steven Soderbergh’s film Kafka.
Owen King’s The Curator has a moment like that, when a bunch of seemingly disparate elements all line up and the true nature of the story being told comes into focus. It’s not quite halfway through the book, and it suddenly makes the novel’s true nature—and, to an extent, the magic trick being played by its author—that much clearer.
“Everybody take a deep breath” — Star Trek: Picard’s “No Win Scenario”
Image: CBS / Paramount+
When I saw the title of this week’s Picard, I was apprehensive. The show has spent its first three episodes doing callbacks to the Star Trek movies in general and The Wrath of Khan in particular, so I was dreading sitting through an hour of Kobayashi Maru references. We’ve already gotten that in Discovery and Prodigy within the last sixteen months…
So I was relieved to get to the end of “No Win Scenario” with nary a Kobayashi Maru reference. That particular deadly test—seen, not just in TWOK, but also in the 2009 movie and numerous works of tie-in fiction—has been beaten to death.
[Forgive me, but at some point asshole became a substitute for charm…]
Science, Fiction, and Fungi: What The Last of Us Gets Right
Image: HBO
Fungi have not always gotten the attention they deserve—“they will probably never make the bestseller list,” opens a 1996 New York Times Magazine article titled “The Fungus Among Us.” But just look at them now, taking their place in the spotlight thanks to The Last of Us, the wildly successful video game franchise that’s found a whole new audience as a critically acclaimed television series.
Fantasy and science fiction buffs know that fungi infiltrated literature long before we first met Joel and Ellie. Fungi—those mysterious, confusing, grotesque, and intriguing life forms considered plants until just a few decades ago, which include mushrooms, spores, mycelia, hyphae, moulds, mildew, lichens, and yeasts—are great subjects for speculative and weird fiction for a good reason. What are they? Are they visible, or invisible? Friends or foe? Venerated or despised? Are they poisonous, or can they be used for healing? Familiar, or still mysterious and unknown? Yes and yes, to all of those questions.
I May Be Trying to Read Too Many Books at Once
Photo: Lysander Yuen [via Unsplash]
Whenever someone says they like to read several books at once, my brain insists on picturing them with too many arms, extra hands grappling with slippery paperbacks, eyes racing from book to book to book. It’s not what we mean when we say that we’ve got multiple books going, though it can be what it feels like. Sometimes the gears shift easily: a chapter from a nonfiction book, a magazine or essay that catches your eye, a long dive into a novel when you have time to sit and luxuriate in it.
And sometimes the gears grind and stick and I ask, not for the first time: Is this any way to read? Why don’t I just pick a book and stick with it?
The Wilderness Is Waiting in the Latest Yellowjackets Trailer
Is it a Yellowjackets trailer, or is it a creepy short video for Florence + the Machine’s cover of No Doubt’s “Just a Girl”? Honestly, it works either way. Showtime’s drama about teen girls stranded in the wilderness—and their adult selves, still haunted by the experience—returns later this month, and now we get a tiny bit more of a peek at what season two has in store.
Rhythm of War Reread: Chapter One Hundred Twelve
Happy Thursday, Cosmere Chickens! Are you ready for some CRAZY ODIUM ACTION? I sure hope so, because Dalinar’s clearly not, poor guy. We’ve got a LOT to cover (though not quite as much as last week thankfully), so let’s dive in, shall we?
Series: Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson
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