@stephenembleton
From KwaZulu-Natal to Oxford. Academic Visitor to Oxford Uni 2022 2024 Nommo Award Winner Best Novella: “Undulation”. YA urban fantasy “Bones & Runes” SF novel “Soul Searching” Sauúti Collective (@sauutiverse.bsky.social) He/Him stephen.embleton.co.za
LISTEN: @genni.bsky.social Reads from ‘The Rawness of You’ (Sauúti Terrors) 📢💫
Editor and contributor Eugen Bacon was invited by the Flame Tree team to record one of her stories from the anthology for their podcast.
YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJdx...
Absolute loved this book by my fellow @sauutiverse.bsky.social sibling Cheryl S. Ntumy!
#booksky
Very cool to see that my @sauutiverse.bsky.social novella DESCENT is now a finalist for the BSFA Awards! Many thanks to @clarkesworldmagazine.com for publishing it, to everyone who read and congratulations to all my fellow finalists whom I'm pleasantly intimidated to be counted among!
#bsfa #awards
Thanks to Jacqueline Nyathi @hararereview.com for a great review of Sauúti Terrors at @thecontinent.org
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A screenshot from The Continent. Partial text: The Continent 28 FEBRUARY 2026 | ISSUE 230 TC BOOK REVIEW BY JACQUELINE NYATHI How safe is sound? If you haven't explored the Sautiverse yet, you're missing out on a fascinating project from an African collective. THE SAUÚTIVERSE is Afrocentric fantasy centred on sound. This universe is held together by the mysterious Mothersound, its magic mediated through song, instruments, and words. Sauúti Terrors, the second short-story collection (after Mothersound) expands the Sauútiverse in dark directions. It brings welcome depth. The editors of the latest anthology - Cheryl Ntumy, Eugen Bacon, and Stephen Embleton - wanted to bring realism to this imaginary African future by showing readers that "everything is not perfect in the federation of planets". In Sauúti Terrors, sound magic is perverted through human failing, through its sheer power, or because good, life-giving sound must have its antithesis in destructive anti-sound (or silence). The collection's authors - including Shingai Njeri Kagunda, Wole Talabi, T.L. Huchu, Moustapha Mbacké Diop, J. Umeh, and more - show us what could go wrong. In Umeh's excellent The Sounding, a healer learns of ancient, evil beings when she becomes inhabited by one. A similarly chilling exploration occurs in Kofi Nyameye's The Unspoken, which unpacks clandestine government experiments at secret military bases. Ntumy's Where Daylight Bows to Darkness gives us an alternate view of 2024's Song for the Shadows in which we meet the mysterious Shad-Dari for the second time. A spacecraft in Wole Talabi's The Final Flight of the Ungu-ugnu is powered by humans singing in chorus. Xan van Rooyen's unsettling Kyi'yaji features anti-music recorded in scars - which can be played back.
Some of my thoughts on this excellent collection in this week's @thecontinent.org, which you can download here: www.thecontinent.org/_files/ugd/2...
An African View Of The 2025 Locus Recommended Reading List, Hugo and Nebula Nominations, BSFA voting and More.
Hey y’all. The 2025 Locus Recommended Reading List is out and as usual, I did a quick analysis of the list to see how much work by African authors appears, something I've been tracking…
Check out these new works from Black authors this month! On Sunday She Picked Flowers by Yah Yah Scholfield, The Starseekers by Nicole Glover, and Beyond & Within Sauúti Terrors edited by Eugen Bacon and others. Look out for these wherever you buy your books! #BlackHistoryMonth
In case you missed it, the 2nd Sauútiverse anthology (ed. @genni.bsky.social, @stephenembleton.bsky.social and Cherly Ntumy) came out just a month ago. If you're looking for stories that extrapolate african and african diaspora cultures/philosophies into something new and unique, then check it out!
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Sauuti Terrors short story collection
SAUUTI TERRORS, the latest anthology from @sauutiverse.bsky.social has stories that dug deep and rooted inside of me.
My review of this fine collection of African-inspired sci-fi horror stories:
fanfiaddict.com/review-sauut...
@fanfiaddict.bsky.social
#Booksky
Sauúti Terrors, edited by @genni.bsky.social @stephenembleton.bsky.social and Cheryl S. Ntumi, is a well balanced anthology that allows the reader to dive into horror with the particular flavour given by the Sauútiverse.
Some thoughts:
jamreads.com/reviews/saut...
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Sauúti Terrors UK Book Tour 👌🏾@sauutiverse.bsky.social, @flametree.bsky.social, @nuzo.bsky.social, @andrewhook.bsky.social , @stephenembleton.bsky.social
Purple page edging with white swirling circles. It’s pretty
Another view showing the wonderful sprayed edge Flame Tree Publishing added to Sauúti Terrors
Also, forgot to tag @genni.bsky.social and @sauutiverse.bsky.social
Hardbacks of both books
Book mail
The Last of Earth by Deepa Anappara. 19thC historical fiction of survival and exploration in the mountains of Tibet. Storms, snow leopards.. what’s not to love?
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Sauúti Terrors by various African and African diaspora writers, as part of the Sauútiverse
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This is a good one. 💫💭
I believe it, too.
Here's the thing, if publishers and distributors are indifferent (or actively cheering for) the race to the bottom, then alternative signals of quality will surely become salient.
Collectives like @sauutiverse.bsky.social, or individual editors, could become effective signals.
🚀 An amazing night at the Flame Tree Press Sauúti Horrors anthology launch, where I caught @stephenembleton.bsky.social and @genni.bsky.social and met the wonderful Cheryl Ntumy and Jude Umeh.
This sci-fi universe is 100% African and bursting with detail. Get it today wherever you find your books!
What a night!!!
Sauúti Terrors book launch
Sauúti Terrors book launch
Sauúti Terrors book launch
Sauúti Terrors book launch
The best book launch! Sauúti Terrors. London, UK. 💞 @flametree.bsky.social, @stephenembleton.bsky.social, @sauutiverse.bsky.social
www.flametreepublishing.com/sauuti-terro...
Gentle reminder that all Issue V stories are once again free to read on our website.
🔗 willthisbeaproblem.co.ke/issue-5/
A promotional graphic set in a purple background with wavy line patterns. At the centre, inside a circular frame, bold text reads “Spotlight: 2025 LOCUS Recommended Reading List”. The WTBAP logo appears at the top, and a website link is placed at the bottom. The overall design highlights a spotlight theme.
Purple textured background with the heading “WTBAP on the 2025 Locus Recommended Reading List” on a teal banner. The main text reads: The Locus annual Recommended Reading List for 2025 is out, and we’re thrilled to share that Will This Be A Problem? The Anthology: Issue V has been included in truly stellar company. The Recommended Reading List is compiled each year by Locus reviewers, editors, and columnists; outside reviewers; and other professionals and well-known critics of genre fiction and non-fiction. This year, they looked at over 1,000 titles between short and long fiction. This is also the first year for the Translated Novels category. Voting is now open to all via the 2025 Poll and Survey. Results will determine this year’s Locus Award winners, to be announced on May 30, 2026, in Berkeley, California, during the Bay Area Book Festival. The Locus Awards have been held since 1971 to celebrate the best in science fiction, fantasy, and horror publishing, and are voted for by readers of Locus magazine and the public. Prior winners include Isaac Asimov, Octavia E. Butler, Ted Chiang, Ursula K. Le Guin, Nnedi Okorafor, and G.R.R. Martin, with R.F. Kuang, N.K. Jemisin, T. Kingfisher, Sheree Renée Thomas, and Martha Wells among recent years’ winners.
We’re delighted to share that Issue V of Will This Be A Problem? The Anthology has made the 2025 @locusmag.bsky.social Recommended Reading List!
Congratulations to everyone included.
Congrats, Wole!!! Sauúti!!! 🔥❤️🙏🏼💫
Well then! The 2025 Locus Recommended Reading List is out and I’m very glad that my @sauutiverse novella DESCENT makes an appearance alongside some of the best SFF work published last year.
locusmag.com/2026/02/2025... 🚀
I know how much effort goes into this list so congratulations to all of us.
We are proud to have @wtalabi.com’s Sauútiverse novella "Descent", published in Clarkesworld Magazine, featured in the 2025 Locus Recommended Reading List 🔥💫
locusmag.com/2026/02/2025...
This makes the story eligible for the Locus Award, where voting is open to everyone! poll.voting.locusmag.com
Startling insight into the #sauutiverse. @sauutiverse.bsky.social . @brittlepaper.bsky.social , @stephenembleton.bsky.social , @wtalabi.com
brittlepaper.com/2026/01/weve...
Thanks to Ainehi Edoro and @brittlepaper.bsky.social (from the start of this Sauúti journey) for this Sauúti Terrors feature and the opportunity to go into @sauutiverse.bsky.social more deeply.
🙏🏼🔥💫
brittlepaper.com/2026/01/weve...
Thanks to @brittlepaper.bsky.social for this Sauúti Terrors feature: 🔥💫🙏
We cover building a shared African sci-fi/fantasy world from scratch, the five planets, two suns, sound magic, and our Story Bible that lets writers step in and create. ✨
brittlepaper.com/2026/01/weve...
When a review of the anthology specifically mentions your story 😊
"Kyi’yaji by Xan van Rooyen was one of my favorite stories, equal parts chilling and mesmerizing. I loved the concept within and how music was used as the catalyst. I found this one profoundly moving."
Link 👇
#booksky #horror
We are thrilled for @genni.bsky.social, whose book, The Nga’phandileh Whisperer: A Sauútiverse Novella, has made the preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction! Congratulations! Read about the book: www.starsandsabers.com/books/the-ng...
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