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Drill, Scott R. Jones (Word Horde 978-1-95625-209-5, $19.99, 256pp, tp) August 2024. Cover by Matthew Revert.

Sometimes you’re reading a book and suddenly ask yourself, “What the hell am I reading?” This can be a bad thing or an excellent thing. In the case of Scott R. Jones’s Drill, it’s the latter. Slightly surreal, angry, smart, Lovecraftian, chaotic, and written with the kind of prose that dances between ...Read More

State of Paradise, Laura van den Berg (Farrar, Straus, Giroux 978-0-37461-220-7, $27.00, 224pp, hc) July 2024.

I move from one instance of weird Florida (Area X is a distorted version of North Florida) to another: Laura van den Berg’s State of Paradise. I’d say that reading VanderMeer and van den Berg back-to-back (alliterative surnames aside) is a remarkable coincidence, except that Florida, to outsiders such as myself, has ...Read More

Smothermoss, Alisa Alering (Tin House 978-1-959-03058-4, $17.95, tp, 256pp) July 2024.

Alisa Alering’s debut novel Smothermoss is a master class in conveying both a physically and psychologically oppressive atmosphere. Set in a small rural Appalachian town in the early 1980s, the novel follows the tough adventures of sisters Sheila and Angie. At seventeen years old, Sheila is acutely aware of her ‘‘otherness,’’ a kid all too often bullied and ...Read More

Fiyah Summer ’24 Flash Fiction Online 7/24 Escape Pod 7/25/24 Strange Horizons 7/15/24, 7/29/24, 8/12/24

The Summer ’24 Fiyah theme is disability. The issue seeks to break down stereotypes and expectations that Black people are monolithic and separate from experiences with disability, and it does sharp work of just that, as in F. Kirk’s “Worms Fill My Mouth”, which finds Isaac experiencing an acute horror that the ...Read More

The Ancients, John Larison (Viking 978-0593831168, hardcover, 400pp, $30.00) October 2024

Writers from outside our genre seem to have fixed upon four major themes or topics that they find congenial to their arguably more “literary” way of writing.

Time travel. Robots and Androids. Dystopias. And Apocalypse or After the Collapse scenarios.

You don’t see many “mainstream” folks writing about, say, “talking squids in outer space,” or starship troopers or ...Read More

We’ve got one last video for October for you to watch while prepping for Halloween! We’re excited to tell you about the best SF, Fantasy, and Horror new releases of the week of 10/29/2024! If you’re feeling generous, why not come by out YouTube channel and Subscribe to show your support for what we do! From everyone at Locus, we hope you’re all having an especially spooky Halloween!

Analog 7-8/24

The July/August 2024 issue of Analog opens with the “Great Martian Railways” by Hûw Steer. An engineer named Lowell oversees the first voyage of a new prototype steam train on Mars as a rail system is being built. When unexpected complications arise, Lowell and the other engineers on board must come up with innovative solutions on the fly to avoid a high-speed disaster. “Vouch for ...Read More

Wish I Was Here, M. John Harrison (Serpent’s Tail 978-1-80081-297-0, £16.99, 224pp, hc) May 2023. (Saga Press 978-1-66806-304-0, 224pp, $26.99, hc). September 2024.

It’s hard to know where to start writing about a book that knows exactly what it is and knows that knowledge doesn’t help much. “When [a piece of writing] has been assembled like this one,” writes M. John Harrison, “from so many layers of your life… ...Read More

The Saltire Society announced the 2024 Scotland’s National Book Award shortlist during a livestreamed event in Edinburgh’s Old Town on October 30, 2024. Titles of genre interest follow.

Fiction Book of the Year

Reactor compiled a list of “The Most Iconic Speculative Fiction Books of the 21st Century” in various categories.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has announced the results of its special election.

President: Kate Ristau

The newly elected officers and directors-at-large will serve on the SFWA Board from November 1st, 2024, through June 30th, 2025.

Kate Ristau – President Anthony Eichenlaub – Vice President Jonathan Brazee – CFO Steven D. Brewer – Secretary Christine Taylor-Butler – Director-at-Large Phoebe Barton – Director-at-Large Noah ...Read More