Welcome to the annual Locus Recommended Reading List!

Published in Locus magazine’s February 2021 issue, the list is a consensus by the Locus editors, columnists, outside reviewers, and other professionals and critics of genre fiction and non-fiction — editor-in-chief Liza Groen Trombi; reviews editor Jonathan Strahan; Locus reviewers Liz Bourke, Alex Brown, Karen Burnham, Katharine Coldiron, Paul Di Filippo, Amy Goldschlager, Paula Guran, Rich Horton, Maya James, John Langan, Russell ...Read More

The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction (HDSF), “a comprehensive free online historical dictionary of science fiction terms,” has been announced. Edited by Jesse Sheidlower, the HDSF is an outgrowth of the Science Fiction Citations Project, crowdsourced by the Oxford English Dictionary.

As a historical dictionary, the HDSF includes not only a definition of each term, but also quotations from works of science fiction which illustrate how each term is used, ...Read More

Ellen Datlow is accepting submissions for her 14th The Best Horror of the Year anthology, to be published by Night Shade Books and covering material appearing in 2021.

I am looking for stories and poetry from all branches of horror: supernatural, uncanny, sf horror, psychological, dark crime, terror tales, or anything else that might qualify. This is an all reprint anthology, so I’ll only consider material published in 2021. Deadline ...Read More

The Association of Au­thors’ Representatives (the professional organiza­tion for literary agents) has changed its name to the Association of American Literary Agents. They say the new name “better reflects the membership and aligns the organization with its core mission of empowering and educating literary agents.” They’re updating their website to reflect the new branding and to “offer deeper resources for members and writ­ers.” They’ve added a non-profit division, Literary Agents ...Read More

Several titles of genre interest made The Atlantic‘s list of the 15 best books of 2020: Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley (Farrar, Straus, Giroux), Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, translated by Jamie Chang (Liveright), and Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu (Pantheon).

For the full list, see The Atlantic‘s website.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring ...Read More

Entertainment Weekly has released their list of the 10 best books of 2020, compiled by Leah Greenblatt and David Canfield. Titles of genre interest include The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel (Knopf) in the top spot, Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam (Ecco) at number four, and Memorial by Bryan Washington (Riverhead) at number five.

For the full list, see EW‘s website.

While you are here, please ...Read More

HuffPost has announced its list of the best books of 2020, compiled by Claire Fallon, including several titles of genre interest:

President Barack Obama announced his list of Favorite Books of 2020 via Twitter, including several of genre interest:

While ...Read More

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) has announced its new executive committee, as voted on by members of the organization:

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would ...Read More

Author Julia Golding has started Project Northmoor, a fundraising campaign with the goal of buying J.R.R. Tolkien’s Oxford house and turning it into a literary center. The house on 20 Northmoor Road was Tolkien’s home from 1930-1947 while he was professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University and where he wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings.

The campaign seeks to raise £4.5 ...Read More

The Washington Post has released its list of the best science fiction, fantasy and horror books of 2020, as chosen by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Lavie Tidhar.