Author: locusmag

Books Reviews 

The Underwood Tapes by Amanda DeWitt: Review by Colleen Mondor

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The Underwood Tapes, Amanda DeWitt (Peachtree 978-1-682-63599-5, $19.99 320pp, hc) February 2025. Cover by Cherrielle.

Shifting to the modern-day American South, teenager Grace decides to spend the summer in her mom’s hometown of Hermitage, Florida as she struggles to contend with overwhelming grief following her parents’ accidental death. The plan is that living with her uncle and grandfather, and spending time at the quiet local beach, will take her ...Read More

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New Titles & Bestsellers 

Magazines Received – April

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This list covers new SF/F/H print, online, and electronic periodicals (including regularly updated websites) seen by Locus magazine, focusing on those that publish fiction or reviews and criticism. To submit titles for listing on these pages, please send to Locus Publications, 655 13th St. #100, Oakland CA 94612 or email locus@locusmag.com.

Alien Dimensions

  • Neil A. Hogan, ed.
  • #27, March 2025, $14.99 print/$7.99 digital, annual, 270pp, 15 x 23 cm.
  • SF
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Books Reviews 

A Thousand Blues by Cheon Seon-ran: Review by Niall Harrison

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A Thousand Blues, Cheon Seon-ran (Doubleday UK 978-1-52993-802-9, £16.99, hc) June 2025.

About two-thirds of the way through Cheon Seon-ran’s A Thousand Blues, two slightly drunk secondary characters have a brief discus­sion about Ted Chiang’s 2010 novella “The Life Cycle of Software Objects”. The character who brings up the story, Bokhui, is a vet at a racehorse stables in Seoul, and she has just been lobbied by the ...Read More

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Announcements News 

Kemi Ashing-Giwa Joins Locus Awards as Featured Local Author

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We are pleased to announce that award-winning and bestselling author Kemi Ashing-Giwa will be joining us as a Featured Local Author at the Locus Awards Weekend on June 21, 2025, in Oakland, California. Ashing-Giwa will join fellow local artist Stephanie Law and a lineup of amazing guests for an unforgettable celebration!

From her website: Kemi Ashing-Giwa is an author and scientist-in-training based in Palo Alto. Her work includes the USA ...Read More

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Announcements News 

Stephanie Law Joins Locus Awards as Featured Local Artist

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Prolific artist and creator Stephanie Law will be joining us as a Featured Local Artist at the Locus Awards Weekend on June 21, 2025, in Oakland, California. We’re absolutely thrilled to welcome her and her stunning art to the events! Law joins fellow local Kemi Ashing-Giwa and a lineup of amazing guests for an unforgettable celebration.

From her website: Stephanie Law’s images trace the boundary between dream and reality. She ...Read More

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New & Notable New Titles & Bestsellers 

Audiofile’s Top New SF/F Picks from April 2025

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From our friends at AudioFile Magazine, we have the top new science fiction and fantasy Earphones Award-winning audiobooks from April 2025. The Earphones Awards are selected monthly by AudioFile for “truly exceptional titles that excel in narrative voice and style, characterizations, suitability to audio, and enhancement of the text.”

From the second title in a wonderful fantasy-mystery series to a return to Panem to a fantastic meta-novel, these sci-fi and ...Read More

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New & Notable New Titles & Bestsellers 

New & Notable, April 2025

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Edward Ashton, The Fourth Consort (St. Martin’s 2/25) First contact and dark comedy merge in this SF novel following Derek Greaves, one of humanity’s first representatives to Unity, a supposedly benevolent pan-species confederation. He soon starts to wonder if Earth hasn’t joined the wrong alliance, but the other group, the Assembly, already dislikes Unity’s new human minions, and the miscommunications and misadventures just keep getting worse (but more entertaining) ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison: Review by Abigail Nussbaum

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The Tomb of Dragons, Katherine Addison (Tor 978-1-25081-619-1, 352pp, $28.99, hc) March 2025.

At the end of Katherine Addison’s The Grief of Stones (2022), the second novel in her Cemeteries of Amalo sequence, Thara Celehar, a witness for the dead – a cross between priest, detective, and necromancer – lost his powers. Since Celehar’s job involves quieting ghouls and zombies, communing with the recently deceased to discover their final ...Read More

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Awards News 

2025 Branford Boase Award Shortlist

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The shortlist for the 2025 Branford Boase Award for children’s books has been announced.

The 6-title shortlist features titles of genre interest, including:

  • Peregrine Quinn and the Cosmic Realm, Ash Bond (Piccadilly)
  • All the Hidden Monsters, Amie Jordan (Chicken House)
  • The Boy to Beat the Gods, Ashley Thorpe (Usborne)

The Boase award is “given annually to the author of an outstanding debut novel for children.” The author ...Read More

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White Heart against a Black Background, cover for "Don't Sleep with the Dead" By Nghi Vo
Books Reviews 

Don’t Sleep With the Dead by Nghi Vo: Review by Gary K. Wolfe

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Don’t Sleep With the Dead, Nghi Vo (Tordot­com 9781250362612, $24.99, 112pp, hc) April 2025.

Nghi Vo’s 2021 novel The Chosen and the Beau­tiful was so thoroughly entwined with its source text, The Great Gatsby, that it seemed a sequel would be unlikely, if not impossible. Nearly all the action in that novel took place within the defined spaces of Fitzgerald’s classic, and much of its ap­peal lay in ...Read More

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Awards International News 

2025 Sir Julius Vogel Awards Winners

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The winners of the 2025 Sir Julius Vogel Awards have been announced by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand (SFFANZ).

Best Novel

  • WINNER: Echoes of Earthshine, Mel Harding-Shaw (Coruscate)
  • A New God, Menilik Henry Dyer (Podium)
  • The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door, H.G. Parry (Hachette)
  • Sun God, Andy Southall (Amapur)
  • The Sunforge, Sascha Stronach (Simon & Schuster)

Best Youth Novel

  • WINNER:
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News Obituaries 

Nancy Kilpatrick (1946-2025)

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Author Nancy Kilpatrick, 78, died March 31, 2025. She was best known for her vampire fiction.

She was born May 6, 1946 in Philadelphia PA to parents George Christopoulos & Viola Hopkins and attended Temple University. After living in San Francisco and Chicago, she settled in Montreal, Canada in 1970. She married Len Kirschner in 1964, with the marriage ending in 1975, and married Michael Kilpatrick in 1984; they later ...Read More

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Awards News 

Online 2025 Hugo Voting Open

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Seattle Worldcon has announced that online voting for “the 2025 Hugo Awards, the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book, and the Astounding Award for Best New Writer” is now open.

WSFS members can access the Hugo Awards voter packet and cast their ballot by logging in to the Seattle Worldcon membership portal. The deadline is July 23, 2025, 11:59 p.m. PDT, and votes can be resubmitted at any point ...Read More

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Awards News 

2025 Guggenheim Fellows

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The 2025 Guggenheim Fellows have been announced by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Authors of genre interest announced as fellows include Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Marie-Helene Bertino, Sheila Heti, Miranda July, and Jonathan Lethem. Fellowships were awarded to 198 recipients across 53 fields of study “based on both prior career achievement and exceptional promise.”

The Foundation was started in 1925 and has awarded grants totaling over $400 million to over ...Read More

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Awards News 

2025 Young Lions Fiction Award Finalists

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The New York Public Library has announced its Young Lions Fiction Award finalists for 2025. Titles of genre interest in the five-title list include Ghostroots by ‘Pemi Aguda.

The $10,000 prize is awarded “each year to an American writer aged 35 or younger for either a novel or a collection of short stories” by a panel of judges. Previous winners include E.J. Koh’s The Liberators (Tin House) in 2024 and ...Read More

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Cover of "Shroud" by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Books Reviews 

Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky: Review by Alexandra Pierce

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Shroud, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor UK 978-1-0350-1379-1, £22.00, 448pp, hc) February 2025. (Orbit US 978-0316579025, $19.99, 416pp, tp) June 2025.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shroud is an epic first-contact novel and delivers one of the most intriguing visions of alien/human interaction that I’ve read in many years.

The Garveneer has been tasked with deciding whether a particular solar system is worth strip-mining. Through their exploration they discover that a gas giant’s moon ...Read More

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Legal News 

Gaiman Files Claim Against Accuser

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Neil Gaiman has filed a demand for arbitration against Caroline Wallner, the woman who accused him of sexual misconduct while she lived on his property in New York. He is seeking more than $500,000 in damages, arguing that Wallner violated a non-disclosure agreement by coming forward with her account.

Caroline Wallner lived on Gaiman’s property in Woodstock NY from 2014 to 2021 and says that she felt pressured to have ...Read More

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Awards News 

2025 Jhalak Prize Shortlists

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The six-title shortlists for the Jhalak Prizes have been announced. The shortlists include titles and authors of genre interest, such as My Friends by Hisham Matar (Viking) in the Prose category and Mayowa and the Sea of Words by Chibundu Onuzo (Bloomsbury) and The Boy to Beat the Gods by Ashley Thorpe (Usborne) in the Children’s & YA category.

The awards “seek to celebrate books by writers of colour in ...Read More

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Awards News 

2025 HWA Specialty Awards

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The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced the recipients of its 2025 Specialty Awards.

Mocha Memoirs Press is the recipient of the Specialty Press Award, given “to a specialty publisher whose work has substantially contributed to the horror genre, whose publications display general excellence, and whose dealings with authors have been fair and exemplary.”

The Richard Laymon President’s Award, “presented to a volunteer who has served the HWA in an ...Read More

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Awards International News 

Inaugural PEN Presents x International Booker Prize Shortlist 2025

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The shortlist for the inaugural PEN Presents x International Booker Prize has been announced. Titles, authors, and translators of genre interest include:

  • YZ Chin for the translation of Storied Ruins, Teng Kuan Kiat
  • Nayereh Doosti for the translation of A Tale in Ruins, Aboutorab Khosravi
  • Tiffany Tsao for the translation of The Born Out of Wedlock Club, Grace Tioso

For this prize, PEN Presents partnered with the ...Read More

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New Books New Titles & Bestsellers 

New Book Releases: 4/22/2025

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Visit our bookshop.org page to purchase this week’s new books and support your local bookstore. And us!

New science fiction, fantasy, and horror books for the week of April 22, 2025. 

Ancrum, K.: The Corruption of Hollis Brown (HarperCollins 978-0063285835, $19.99, 384pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, audiobook, 04/22/2025)

Young-adult paranormal thriller. Teen Hollis Brown lives in a dead-end town, but a chance encounter leads him to get possessed by a troubled ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Harmattan Season by Tochi Onyebuchi: Review by Gary K. Wolfe

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Harmattan Season, Tochi Onyebuchi (Tor 978-1250782977, 240pp, $27.99, hc) May 2025.

I think it’s safe to say, on the basis of Riot Baby and Goliath alone, that we didn’t have any idea what to expect next from the adventurous Tochi Onyebuchi. But I doubt that even his most assidu­ous readers were anticipating a hardboiled his­torical/political private-eye postcolonialist noir fantasy mystery (and even at that, I’ve probably left some stuff ...Read More

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Awards International News 

2025 Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire Shortlist

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The shortlist for the 2025 Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, honoring the best SF/F work published in France in 2024, has been announced.

French Novel

  • Les Nuits sans Kim Sauvage, Sabrina Calvo (La Volte)
  • La Maison des veilleurs, Patrick K. Dewdney (Au Diable Vauvert)
  • Vallée du carnage, Romain Lucazeau (Verso)
  • La Sonde et la taille, Laurent Mantese (Albin Michel)
  • L’Ost céleste, Olivier Paquet (L’Atalante)
  • Conque,
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News Obituaries 

Damien Broderick (1944-2025)

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Australian SF writer, critic, and scholar Damien Broderick, 80, died April 19, 2025 in Portugal. Broderick wrote over 70 books of fiction, non-fiction, and criticism.

Damien Francis Broderick was born April 22, 1944 in Melbourne Australia. He earned a PhD in the semiotics of fiction at Deakin University. He was a senior fellow at the University of Melbourne for many years. Later in life he lived in San Antonio TX ...Read More

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Awards News 

2024 BSFA Awards Winners

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The winners of the 2024 British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards have been announced.

Best Novel

  • WINNER: Three Eight One, Aliya Whiteley (Solaris)
  • Calypso, Oliver K. Langmead (Titan)
  • Rabbit in the Moon, Fiona Moore (Epic)
  • Alien Clay, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit) Removed from the ballot at the request of the author

Best Shorter Fiction (for novelettes and novellas)

  • WINNER: Saturation Point, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Solaris)
  • Navigational Entanglements
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Features Spotlight 

Spotlight on Tachyon Publications

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Founded in 1995, Tachyon Publications LLC is a publisher of smart science fiction, fantasy, and horror, as well as the occasional mystery, memoirs, young adult, and literary fiction. We champion the creative storytelling of authors who inspire us through intelligent prose and imaginative worlds. Our titles are consistently unique, thought-provoking, and entertaining; our books have received the Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Mythopoeic, Locus, Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, Endeavor, Neukom, ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Reactor and The Sunday Morning Transport: Short Fiction Reviews by Paula Guran

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Reactor 1/13/25 The Sunday Morning Transport’s 1/5/25, 1/12/25, 1/19/25

Reactor led 2025 off with a terrific dark fantasy novelette by A.C. Wise: “Wolf Moon, Antler Moon”. Teenaged Merrow’s grandmother was once the protector of their small town but she’s dead. After the five doe-girls – similar to selk­ies but with doe rather than seal skins – are slaughtered and their radiant magic is gone, the town needs ...Read More

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Reviews Short Fiction 

Diabolical Plots and GigaNotoSaurus: Reviews by Charles Payseur

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Diabolical Plots 1/25 GigaNotoSaurus 1/25

The January Diabolical Plots features a new story by Marissa Lingen – “The Year the Sheep God Shattered”. In it, Suvin is overseeing the annual making of gods, in which children and elderly people of the community craft gods out of clay to help prepare, protect, and inspire the village for the next year. For Bei, though, a young adult just out of ...Read More

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Awards News 

Peynado Wins PKD Award

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The 2025 Philip K. Dick Award winner has been announced: Time’s Agent by Brenda Peynado, with special citation for Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The award is presented annually to a distinguished work of science fiction originally published in paperback form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philip K. Dick Trust and the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, and the ceremony is sponsored by the Northwest Science ...Read More

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Books Reviews 

Greenteeth by Molly O’Neill: Review by Colleen Mondor

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Greenteeth, Molly O’Neill (Orbit 978-0-316-58424-1, $18.99, 320pp, tp) February 2025.

As author Molly O’Neill explains in the open­ing pages of her debut novel Greenteeth, Jenny Greenteeth has enjoyed a relatively quiet existence living in her private lake near the village of Chipping Appleby. Jenny is not human, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t a conscientious lake-dweller. ‘‘Good lake maintenance is impor­tant for fish stocks and water quality,’’ she ...Read More

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