"I crave books with enough specificity that I can say they are not for everyone; the alternative, I think, is books that are not for anyone. Books that are, essentially, for the algorithm."
The @clarkeaward.bsky.social judges said this would be a future classic of the genre. FT said it was one of their SF books of the year. Interzone said all kinds of nice shit.
It is now cheap. Buy it, think about direct action and punk and the climate and hope wrapped round a brick
Of course they do... genius.
On this basis, I'm assuming, there's a retired primary school teacher out there whose antibodies could do the childhood disease equivalent of walking into the Copland Road end at Ibrox in a Celtic shirt and offering to take on all comers.
It's time! Nominations are now open for the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, which will be given to a work of imaginative fiction, published in 2025, that reflects the concepts and ideas that were central to Ursula’s own work.
a lil prize thread, now with nomination form link!!!!
you just KNOW before the Darkening of Valinor that whenever Fëanor showed up at a feast someone was like "ugh there's that gaudy bitch in his PRECIOUS SILMARILS again"
keep seeing people talking about Hugo and Nebula nominations which means it is my professional duty to remind you that nominations for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize open on SUNDAY
2 - it's Hugos season! If you were thinking about nominating us: thank you so, so much but please don't -- we're officially recusing ourselves from consideration and are very excited to vote for some of the other amazing sff podcasts out there!
family tree with KNARROS at the center showing his relationships and relationships-by-marriage to the various children of EMPEROR TIMOS IX
hello all! two quick announcements:
1 - due to technical difficulties, there will NOT be a new episode this week! Deep Secret will go up either 3/7 or 3/14 depending on how quickly we resolve them. as a taster to tide you over please enjoy @emilytesh.net's beautiful Lost Heirs Chaos Family Tree
i do not have a facebook, twitter, or tiktok account. i can't report the fake ones without creating a real one (nice try boys!!). i've already talked to *multiple* people who have lost money on these kinds of scams. be safe out there kids 🫡
Finally, we've made it all the way from Drowned Ammet to Crowned Ammet, and we do feel very lucky that, unlike readers in the 70s, we didn't have to wait 15 real time years for it
zencastr.com/z/wv-F0dWm
we WILL be returning to Dalemark in bonus stuff so please do feel free to write in with your hot takes on who comes first in the Dalemark Bad Dads Pageant (Mitt's dad disqualified for blowing all the competition out of the water)
wow that is Gorgeous. I cannot confirm or deny my involvement.
A ELF CHARLOTTE GEATER elf diaries I. long ago in the kingdoms of elfin sitting down to dinner with one piece of bread crumbling & an old green leaf i still had my baby name then i soothed burnt herbs under my tongue i can't remember their faces just that everything receded i can go for years without drawing in like a bowstring / one breath
2. out and other in before i speak of nights in baldur's gate cruising beneath birds who curse me back and bring me scraps of peaceable lies for white hairs and mice meat intact but cold for lack of blood. it is hard to remember a time when i fell anything other than this winter asleep caught in my eyelashes like a snowflake unmolten. 3. if once long ago spoken aloud a different. this one spell stitched into my locket. breaking into cellars and cupboards. the taste of scorched wine passes through me as an astral cloud as i pass through old streets reading on parchment what i do not remember learning. what was it for
when i was a different matter of being. the same shape but in a different place. 4. the words are long gone and will not return but a melody from two centuries ago under the moon plucked from our night dark lakes & pinned up in the sky. sings to me when i fall not asleep, but the sleep of the dead. i crook myself in the darling arm i have claimed, bitten tenderly and in a hundred years i will still be. not much remains. i have faith that the same feet will walk silver and dainty but bitten all over by fleas. to find nothing there but lead and vapour. dried in coastal mud.
and after centuries more you will walk with me in daylight and the sky's new lamp beneath oaken groves of old and lost and our new names
my copy of Ragged Band of Travellers: writing from the threshold of dungeons & dragons is here!
I have a poem in this one about that mysterious figure, a fantasy of long, long life twice over — an elfin vampire.
just in case anyone needs reminding or a guide:
reactormag.com/anyone-can-v...
Some Desperate Glory by @emilytesh.net is on sale today on kindle for only 99p! I really enjoyed the twists and turns of this book and its politics are only too relevant. I believe it was quite influenced by Hexwood, the discussion of which on @eightdaysofdiana.bsky.social I am currently savouring.
#UKSFFBookBargains offers a daily deal on Some Desperate Glory by @emilytesh.net. 99p.
One of the best books of the last ten years. A very well deserved Hugo winner. If you've not read this you're missing out.
www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/...
www.amazon.co.uk/Some-Despera...
Career milestone: saw my own book in my local library!
Pre-orders for this edition are still available on our website! We are SO excited to see this book in person, and we hope you are too 🤭
*Please note this is a digital mockup, final product may differ slightly*
litpinsandco.com/collections/...
Digital mockup of the hardcover artwork for the LitPins&Co special edition of The Incandescent, depicting an old book titled Nielle's Arrays, with post-it notes stuck on the back cover.
Digital mockup of the LitPins&Co special edition of The Incandescent, featuring dust jacket artwork of the two main characters stood in front of bookshelves.
We are so excited to reveal the hardcover artwork for our special edition of The Incandescent! 🐦🔥
This stunning artwork is by our very own @buttercupgrove.bsky.social and will be featured underneath the dust jacket (designed by RiotBones) 🥰
@emilytesh.net #LitPins #LitPinsAndCo #TheIncandescent
And that's a thousand words. A decent day's work.
Thank you, John.
The only thing I've written in the last two months was my father's eulogy. Starting work on this book again feels impossible. But I reread what there is the other night, and you know, it's not bad.
Very happy to see The Incandescent on the list!
So what I want to do is, Gaylactic Spectrum style, ask folks to think back to the 6 years the award has not run, and think of what longform queer speculative fiction (novel or novella) you liked for each year from 2020-2025. I'll bung that together with my own reckons to a shortlist & a favourite.
here it is: the DWJ that has been most influential on Me Personally and the whole reason I wanted to do this podcast project. are you read for the greatest portal fantasy space opera arthuriana of all time. hexwood!!!
perhaps you'll say: was it really necessary for this to be a four hour episode? to which I say: look forward to at LEAST another hour of Hexwood Time in this season's Q&A. Happy Hexwood Day, everyone!
zencastr.com/z/Y9k1q1AZ
does anyone else feel like SFF criticism is in a really good place right now? perhaps I just wasn't paying enough attention before. reading through the latest Strange Horizons and thinking about all the cool conversations I've seen and all the books I've picked up because of them. thank you critics.
My essay in the @strangehorizons.bsky.social criticism special is up! I muse about genre, vibes and the difficulty of pinning things down in an ever-shifting landscape.
