Locus Online

Invisible Things, Mat Johnson (One World 978-0-59322-925-5, $27.00, 272pp, hc) July 2022.

Nalini Jackson is a sociologist looking to boost her academic career, and after being selected to join cryoship SS Del­aney for the first manned mission to Jupiter, her research aims to answer the following: can society’s most intelligent individuals overcome humankind’s social downfalls? The crew she travels with has a much different task: find a hos­pitable plant ...Read More

Concerning Those Who Have Fallen Asleep: Ghost Stories, Adam Soto (Astra House 978-1-66260-135-4, $17.00, 272pp, p) September 2022

My initial reaction to “Polyptych for the Begin­ning of the End of the World, or Three Begin­nings for the End of the World and a Play”, was that it was a poor choice of story to open Adam Soto’s debut collection, Concerning Those Who Have Fallen Asleep: Ghost Stories. As ...Read More

The Measure, Nikki Erlick (William Morrow and Co 978-0-06320-420-1, $28.99, 368pp, hc) June 2022. Cover by Elsie Lyons.

By the middle of 2020 I was wondering what novels could possibly look like in the future. Would they all be set in 2019? Would they all be alternate history? What sort of themes would be prevalent? John Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society (2022) was probably the first novel written entirely ...Read More

The Thing in the Snow, Sean Adams (Morrow 978-0063257757, hardcover, 288pp, $27.99) January 2023

An enormous, spooky, half-abandoned, cryptic building, whose inhabitants pursue ceremonies and rituals with unthinking adherence, while menaces hover both within (due to interpersonal conflicts) and also on the perimeters. We must be talking about Peake’s monumental and essential Gormenghast series, right? Not at all. Instead we are concerned with Sean Adams’s second novel, The Thing ...Read More

The Sunday Morning Transport 10/16 & 11/20/22 Slate Future Tense 9/24/22 New Edge Sword and Sorcery Fall ’22

Catching up with The Sunday Morning Transport in the fall, one of my favorites is “Trinity’s Drag­on” by Holly Lyn Walrath. Trinity is an older woman and space veterinarian, which means she actually has a chance when a sick space dragon wraps itself around her spaceship. Against the advice ...Read More

All Nightmare Long, Tim Lebbon (PS Publish­ing 978-1-78636-851-5, $32.68, 417pp, hc) May 2022. Cover by Daniele Serra.

Sometimes reviewing a big (400+ pages) short story collection can be complicated because there are often a plethora of voices, themes, and approaches – not to mention a variety of different tales – in its pages. When that happens, the easiest thing to do is to go with some of the overarching ...Read More

Greetings from beyond the paywall! We have been posting new content monthly on our Patreon Archive Feed – scans of vintage Locus and audio clips from author interviews and more – and wanted to share a little of what that feed looks like by making some of our earlier posts public. Come check out this post on our Patreon featuring some photos and letters collected from Ursula K. Le Guin ...Read More

The seven-title shortlist for the 2023 Wingate Literary Prize includes titles and authors of genre interest, such as The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land by Omer Friedlander (John Murray/Hodder), The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft (Fitzcarraldo Editions), and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Chatto/Penguin Random House). The award gives £4,000 “to the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to translate ...Read More

The World Fantasy Awards administration has announced an update to their previously announced panel of judges. Kelly Robson has joined the panel, replacing Mary Anne Mohanraj, who stepped down in January.

The proliferation of AI tools continues to make waves in the publishing industry. Apple Books is en­couraging small presses and self-published authors to nominate titles for “digital nar­ration,” with plans to produce audiobooks narrated by AI voices. Apple says,

More and more book lovers are lis­tening to audiobooks, yet only a frac­tion of books are converted to audio – leaving millions of titles unheard. Many authors – especially indepen­dent authors ...Read More

Revelations: Horror Writers for Climate Ac­tion. Seán O’Connor, ed. (Stygian Sky Media 978-1639510054, $40.00, 344pp, hc) April 2022.

Revelations: Horror Writers for Climate Action begins with the charred landscape of a California wildfire. Writing of her family’s vaca­tions in northern California, and her more recent experiences with its intensifying fires, horror reviewer Sadie Hartmann offers a focused and passionate introduction to the anthology: climate change is real, it is affecting ...Read More

The newly expanded Rathbones Folio Prize announced the shortlists in three categories: Non-Fiction, Fiction, and Poetry. Titles or authors of genre interest include Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo (Viking) and Pure Colour by Sheila Heti (Farrar, Straus, Giroux) for Fiction.

Similar to the format the Costa Award used, the Rathbones Folio Prize changed this year to feature three different categories. Each category winner receives £2,000 and is a candidate for the ...Read More

Worlds of Possibility 10/22 Baffling 10/22 Cast of Wonders 10/14/22, 10/23/22, 10/29/22, 10/31/22

I’m quite happy that Julia Rios is back in an editing chair, and Worlds of Possibility makes for an interesting next chapter for them. As sad as I was to see Mermaids Monthly come to a close at the end of 2021 (and as much as I’m hoping that project will still find a way to return ...Read More

The Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA) has announced shortlists for the 2023 Romantic Novel Awards, including titles of genre interest.

The American Library Association (ALA) announced the results of the Youth Media Awards during their LibLearnX conference, held January 27-30, 2023 in New Orleans, including some works of genre interest.

Jason Reynolds won the Margaret A. Edwards Award “for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults.”

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir (Razorbill) is the 2023 Michael L. Printz Award winner. Scout’s Honor by Lily Anderson (Henry Holt), When the ...Read More

Unbreakable, Mira Grant (Subterranean, 978-1-64524-103-4, $45.00, 152pp, hc), De­cember 2022.

Have you ever had a book sneak up on you? I mean, had something about the title, maybe the cover art, the back description make you think, ‘‘Meh, this will be okay,’’ but then – then you read it – and it smacks you upside your head because it was so unexpectedly, so unbelievably good?

Yeah, Seanan McGuire’s (writing ...Read More

Author and editor Sheree Renée Thomas and writer Jewell Parker Rhodes are the recipients of this year’s Octavia E. Butler Awards, presented by the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY.

They will be honored at the National Black Writers Biennial Conference, to be held March 31 – April 1, 2023 at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn NY. The event is focused on “DIASPORIC VISIONS: A CELEBRATION OF ...Read More

The Horror Writers Association’s Board of Trustees has voted to expel author and editor Thomas F. Monteleone from the organization, as explained in this post:

The Board of Trustees for the Horror Writers Association does not condone hate speech in any way, shape, or form. We stand in support of our members’ right to feel safe, welcome, and above all else, respected. The Horror Writers Association condemns the recent words ...Read More

Ruin, Cara Hoffman (PM Press 978-1-62963-931-4, $25.95, 136pp, hc) April 2022.

I was halfway through the ten stories in Cara Hoff­man’s latest collection, Ruin, before I was able to start to understand how to read them – and then, nearly done with all of them when it became clear why the collection fit in Locus at all. Highly liter­ary, strikingly stylized, and mondo experimental, Ruin is a collection ...Read More

Madeline McIntosh will leave her position as CEO of Penguin Random House US following a transition period:

I am stepping down from my position as your U.S. CEO. I’m not leaving right away; instead, Nihar [Malaviya] and I are working very closely together to determine the best plan for the U.S. organization going forward. I know you’ll be in good hands with Nihar and the U.S. Board. They know and ...Read More

The Golden Enclaves, Naomi Novik (Del Rey 978-0-59315-835-7, $28.00, 416 pp, hc) Sep­tember 2022.

Naomi Novik’s The Golden Enclaves wraps up her Scholomance trilogy. If you’ve not read A Deadly Education or The Last Graduate, I’d suggest skipping this review in order to read the first book fresh. This is definitely a series better enjoyed if you begin at the beginning, where you’ll meet El and what become ...Read More

HarperCollins and the striking members of the HarperCollins Union have agreed to enter mediation to settle their differences.

Publishers Weekly reported on a company-wide HarperCollins memo that says,

We entered negotiations eager to find common ground, and we have remained committed to achieving a fair and reasonable contract throughout this process…. We are optimistic that a mutually agreed upon mediator can help find the solutions that have eluded us so ...Read More

Artist Andrew Jones (AKA Android Jones) suffered a tragedy when his studio in Colorado burned down on January 18, 2023. Jones said,

My father designed and built this barn with his hands. I grew up in this barn. Nearly every material thing I cared about was inside. Decades of sketchbooks, all my archived originals, drawings and paintings, all of my art materials, terabytes of over 20 years of digital art, ...Read More

The 70-title longlist for the Dublin Literary Award has been announced. The list includes many titles and authors of genre interest, such as Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo (Viking), Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land (Scribner), The Sentence by Louise Erdrich (Harper), Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go in the Dark (William Morrow), and The Book of Form & Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki (Viking). The winner receives €100,000.

The longlist for the 2023 Branford Boase Award has been announced, and includes several titles of genre interest.

• The Eternal Return of Clara Hart, Louise Finch (Little Island)
• The Spectaculars, Jodie Garnish (Usborne)
• The Miraculous Sweetmakers, Natasha Hastings (HarperCollins Childrens)
• The Whisperling, Hayley Hoskins (Puffin)
• Wishes Come in Threes, Andy Jones (Walker)
• Seed, Caryl Lewis (Henry Holt)
• Rebel Skies, Ann Sei Linn (Walker)