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. . .
The week that Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was set to come out, I went to the bookstore to fill in my scattered Scott Pilgrim collection, thinking I’d at least page through the books after watching the new anime adaptation. After a single episode of the series, I tossed that idea out the window.
There will be spoilers, but until the spoiler warning, only the first episode will be spoiled. Got that?
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.
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.
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?
Photo: Mariano Cecowski [CC BY-SA 2.5]
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.
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.
Photo: Hannah Busing [via Unsplash]
Some of our favorite SFF protagonists tend to form their own circles, building communities with those that love them for who they are. Around the holidays, these stories offer a gentle reminder that there are many ways to define family, and plenty of reasons to spend time bonding with the people who mean the most to you even if you’re not strictly related.
These five stories celebrate found families and the wonderful, unconventional love they share.
The latest installment in Legendary MonsterVerse—the Apple TV+ series, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters—is more about some complicated multi-generational family issues than Titans like Godzilla. That doesn’t mean, however, that some very large and very deadly creatures don’t make an appearance.
One of those creatures is the tentacle-faced Frost Vark, who we first meet at the end of the third episode where it exacts its terror on a too-warm airplane. The Titan isn’t one we’ve seen before, and we owe its existence, in part, to the young son of the show’s co-creator, Matt Fraction.
In February, Disney announced that another movie in the Toy Story franchise was in development—an inevitable happening, clearly, given that Disney loves nothing so much as it loves making more movies in series, or making more versions of movies it has already made. What wasn’t known at the time was whether it would be Toy Story 5 or another spinoff like Lightyear.
But a hint came this week from original Toy Story star Tim Allen, who said on The Tonight Show that he and Tom Hanks have both been contacted about starring in the next film.
Welcome back to Reading the Weird, in which we get girl cooties all over weird fiction, cosmic horror, and Lovecraftiana—from its historical roots through its most recent branches.
This week, we continue Max Gladstone’s Last Exit with Chapters 17-18. The novel was first published in 2022. Spoilers ahead!
