Locus Online

rekt, Alex Gonzalez (Erewhon Books 978-1645661597, hardcover, 368pp, $28.00) March 2025

Here comes another startling debut novel to give us all hope for the future of the field in the hands of a new generation of writers. But unlike Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory, another recent standout premiere, this book is not conducted in a “civilized,” literary, cultured manner. Its domain is not the corridors of state, nor ...Read More

The Mune, Sue Dawes (Gold SF 978-1-91598-324-4, $19.95, 329pp, tp) March 2025.

The Hampdenshire Wonder, J.D. Beresford (Sidgwick & Jackson 412pp, hc) 1911. (The MIT Press 978-0-26255-141-0, $19.95, 282pp, tp) March 2025. Cover by Seth.

Who speaks in a novel, and how, is always important. In The Hamp­denshire Wonder (1911), a lightly starched scientific romance about superhuman intelligence (and near-superhuman cricket), reis­sued by The MIT Press with a ...Read More

The Third Rule of Time Travel, Philip Fracassi (Orbit 978-0316572514, trade paperback, 336pp, $18.99) March 2025

I will never forget the thrill of encountering Jack London’s novel The Star Rover when I was a teen. This incredibly powerful and vivid tale of a man who can send his consciousness roaming across time and space to live again through distant events was truly thought-expanding. It was mind-opening in its large ...Read More

Water Moon, Samantha Sotto Yambao (Del Rey 978-0-59372-499-6, $28.99, 384pp, hc) January 2025. Cover by Fritz Metsch.

Samantha Sotto Yambao brings whimsy with an unexpectedly sharp edge in Water Moon, her first novel since 2020’s The Beginning of Always. Ishikawa Hana is about to take over the nameless family pawn shop, as her father finally retires after many years. This is no normal shop; for one thing, ...Read More

The Black Orb, Ewhan Kim (Serpent’s Tail 978-1-80081-572-8, £14.99, 368pp, tp) August 2024. (Mira 978-0-77838-734-8, $28.99, 304pp, tp) February 2025.

There’s little written in English about South Korean science fiction author and critic Ewhan Kim. A brief profile of Kim written by the author on the ‘‘Science Fiction Writers Union of the Republic of Korea’’ tells us he became ‘‘a writer after reading Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles’’ and ...Read More

Welcome back, book lovers! We’re starting the month of April off right with a lovely new video on our top picks for the best SF, Fantasy, Horror, and YA books of the week! We post a new video every week, so come on by our YouTube channel and subscribe to keep up-to-date on future releases! We hope to see you next week!

Rest Stop, Nat Cassidy (Shortwave 978-1-95956-536-9, $13.99, 160pp, tp) October 2024. Cover by Alan Lastufka.

When done right, there’s nothing like a novella: short, fast, engaging, and easy to devour. Nat Cassidy’s Rest Stop brings all of that and more to the table. Besides being fast and engaging, it’s also weird, intense, and deeper than it seems on the surface.

A young vocalist and bass player named Abe is on ...Read More

The Society of Illustrators has announced the 2025 inductees into its Hall of Fame. Honorees “are chosen based on their body of work and the impact it has made on the field of illustration.”

2025 Hall of Fame Laureates

The artists will be honored at the 2025 Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, to be held October 9, ...Read More

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has opened registration for the 2025 Nebula Conference and Award Ceremony, to be held June 5-8, 2025 in Kansas City MO and online.

Registration may be purchased at this link.

Registration to attend the in-person conference is $375.00. The ticket is all-inclusive and grants access to “in-person programming & events, the Nebula Banquet and Ceremony, and… online recorded content at events.sfwa.org until ...Read More

The 2025 Joyce Carol Oates Prize has announced its list of five finalists. The award honors “mid-career authors in fiction,” and the winner receives a $50,000 prize and a residence at the University of California, Berkeley and/or Bay Area. The award is given by the New Literary Project. Works and authors of genre interest include:

The judges for the Crawford Award, which honors “an author’s first work of fantasy in book form,” are soliciting books published in the year 2025 between March 30 and December 31, 2025. What qualifies as a book is flexible: “In addition to novels and novellas, collections of poetry, short stories, and fiction aimed at younger readers are all eligible.” The Crawford Award will be given at the International Conference of ...Read More