A new novelette set in the realms of Kerstin Hall’s acclaimed The Mkalis Cycle series. The 813th realm of Mkalis has fallen to a cruel and mercurial god, but Tahmais, its would-be successor, finds an unlikely ally in her quest to reclaim it at any cost…
Sneak a peek at the cover for Kerstin Hall’s new standalone fantasy novel ASUNDER, coming August 2024 from Tordotcom!
A contentious election and radicalized locals interfere with Canadian recovery workers’ efforts at the site of a catastrophic flood in near-future Mississippi.
This story is set in the same future as The Lost Cause, Cory Doctorow’s new novel, available everywhere on November 14, 2023.
While learning the ropes from a crafty Jazz Age bank robber, a young stowaway discovers their authentic self, a hidden gift, and that there are no straight lines when you run the fox roads…
A new Judge Dee mystery!
While visiting the mysterious castle of Maidstone for an investigation, Judge Dee and Jonathan discover the only thing more menacing than a vampire child is twin vampire children…
On one of their earliest Visigoth assignments, Graff and Ell stumble into each other’s secrets (and one significant surprise) while conducting a recovery mission on a mining asteroid scheduled for imminent pulverization. . .
The sister of an abducted child is haunted by a sinister figure who may or may not be real. . .
It’s basically 2008 all over again! I don’t know that I’m emotionally capable of handling that transition, but seeing that transition is pretty much what Doctor Who is all about (as this episode proves from multiple angles)… let’s get to it.
You know where you are with stone tools. Or rather, scientists know where their ancestors were with stone tools, because stone tools are sufficiently durable that, with a bit of luck, the tools will outlast the species that made them.
Other technologies are not as considerate. We can only make an educated guess as to when clothing was adopted by comparing head and body lice, which became reproductively isolated from each other when humans started wearing clothes: 70,000 years ago, plus or minus about 40,000 years.
Doctor Who is back! Last Saturday, we got the first new episode in absolute yoinks, and there’s tons more to come. Returning showrunner Russell T. Davies has said that one of his goals is to make more Who spinoffs, the same way RTD’s previous stint was accompanied by Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. (Full disclosure: RTD gave a very generous cover blurb to my novel Victories Greater Than Death.)
As someone who thinks about Doctor Who all the time (it’s true!) I’ve been musing about spin-offs I’d like to see. Here’s a bunch. (Warning: Spoilers for old Doctor Who stories ahead…)
The FX series Alien, helmed by Fargo and Legion creator Noah Hawley, is set to start up production again early next year in Bangkok, Thailand, and we’ve got some news on what actors will be making the trip. Read More »
With The Honeys, Ryan La Sala demonstrated that he understands everything there is to know about young adult horror, from the tone to the content to the characters to the themes. Now, with his latest book Beholder, he doubles down on the intensity and pushes the reader to their limits in a way that’s both thrilling and terrifying.
The world ended… again. Prime Video’s adaptation of the post-apocalyptic video game Fallout is coming next year, and we finally have a real look at the series (as opposed to the single image they bestowed upon us a year ago). Walton Goggins (Justified), Ella Purnell (Yellowjackets), and some very large power armor suits feature heavily in the just-released images, which tease a world very, very changed.
In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement.
Today I’m looking at In the Country of the Blind, the first book by one of my long-time favorite science fiction authors, Michael F. Flynn. Since Flynn passed away in September of this year, I have been intending to review one of his books in this column, but had been torn deciding which one. But once I realized I am not bound to a single tale, I decided to start with his first novel. And it’s a good one, about the discovery of a secret society of mathematicians who perfected the mechanical computing devices envisioned by Charles Babbage in the early 1800s, and since then, have been using their research to dominate the world from behind the scenes. The book fits into the category that is sometimes called a techno-thriller, set in the present, but with a plot that focuses on science and technology.
There’s a meme going around of late. There may be variations, but the one I’ve most frequently seen features a tableau by Russian paleoartist Vasily Vatagin portraying a few of the more well-known dinosaurs—brontosaurus, stegosaurus, etc.—in the wild. It’s accompanied by the following text, which I’ll transcribe with the dodgy punctuation intact, just to give you the full flavor of the thing: “The dinosaurs didn’t ‘rule the Earth’, they were just alive. Stop giving them credit for administrative skills they almost certainly did not have.”
It bugs me, that meme. I get the semantics game that’s being played, and if you’ve been reading my pieces, you know I’m no stranger to that kind of snark myself. But in this case, there’s something so dour, so unromantic about the thing that it gets my hackles up. Whenever that meme manifests in my Facebook feed, I always post the same comment: “Ask any eight-year-old whether dinosaurs rule. You’ll have your answer.”
Doctor Who is back! Last Saturday, we got the first new episode in absolute yoinks, and there’s tons more to come. Returning showrunner Russell T. Davies has said that one of his goals is to make more Who spinoffs, the same way RTD’s previous stint was accompanied by Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. (Full disclosure: RTD gave a very generous cover blurb to my novel Victories Greater Than Death.)
As someone who thinks about Doctor Who all the time (it’s true!) I’ve been musing about spin-offs I’d like to see. Here’s a bunch. (Warning: Spoilers for old Doctor Who stories ahead…)
This week in Reading The Wheel of Time, we’re finishing off “Snow,” the Prologue of Winter’s Heart—catching up with Toveine and then going to see what Rand and and Min are up to. Everyone’s got big plans right now, and it will be interesting to see whose come to fruition, and whose fizzle out.
There’s been a notable upsurge in Viking-related releases across all forms of media in recent years, as I’ve previously discussed, specifically regarding retellings of the myths and novels inspired by the sagas. The broader world of original fiction is no exception to that. But even with the significant increase of interest in the subject matter, not all worthy manuscripts are fated to be published by one of the major publishers.
Marvel is sticking with Michael Waldron. The screenwriter behind Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness—also the guy who created and wrote much of the first season of Loki—now has not one but two more major Marvel movies to write. He was previously tapped to write Avengers: Secret Wars, a bit of news about which we were not particularly enthused. And it seems he’ll also be writing the lead-up to that film: Deadline reports that Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is now in Waldron’s hands.
We’re thrilled to share the cover for Tobi Ogundiran’s In the Shadow of the Fall, the first of two novellas in the epic fantasy Guardians of the Gods duology. In the Shadow of the Fall is forthcoming from Tordotcom Publishing in July, 2024, with Book 2 following in Winter 2025.
The year is 2050. Ava and her girlfriend live in what’s left of Brooklyn, and though they love each other, it’s hard to find happiness while the effects of climate change rapidly eclipse their world.
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Yours for the Taking by Gabrielle Korn, a science fiction novel of queer love, betrayal, and chosen family, and an unflinching indictment of white, corporate feminism—out from St. Martin’s Press on December 5th.
The television series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters takes place on two timelines: one in 2015 that takes place between 2014’s Godzilla and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and one in the 1950s, which shows the origins of the titular Monarch organization, the institution in Legendary’s MonsterVerse responsible for researching the Titans and protecting humanity against them.
The show, which just had its third episode released on Apple TV+, is centered around a family whose lives are intertwined in various ways with Monarch. The 1950s timeline focuses on three of those characters—Keiko (Mari Yamamoto), a young Bill Randa (Anders Holm), and a young Lee Shaw (Wyatt Russell)—who also happen to be the founders of Monarch.
“Bound”
Written by Manny Coto
Directed by Allan Kroeker
Season 4, Episode 17
Production episode 093
Original air date: April 15, 2005
Date: December 27, 2154
Captain’s star log. While en route to Berengaria to scout locations for a starbase, an Orion pirate ship intercepts them. The pirate captain, Harrad-Sar, wishes to discuss business with Archer on his ship. Archer, Reed, and two MACOs beam over (Reed expressing great apprehension).
“That’s what people do, they get different together.” (Solitaire, 351)
Kelley Eskridge is not a prolific author, but she has nevertheless produced a body of work remarkable for its subtlety and depth. Eskdrige’s short stories are marvels of character-focused SF, where speculations are explored through the interactions of everyday people. They frequently centre queer characters and explore ideas around gender. Similarly, her lone novel Solitaire (2002), is an underrated and pioneering work of queer cyberpunk that thoughtfully explores the potential uses of VR technology for incarceration.
I have a lifelong fondness for soppy kids’ movies. Yes, I like Disney movies, and Disney knockoffs, and kids’ movies, period. My inner editor may be making squawky noises, but I can’t make myself care. I love them anyway.
Not long after Aquamarine first came out, along about 2006, I happened across it on one of the primordial streaming channels. We had satellite TV then. Remember satellite TV?
