"Beautiful, gripping and deliciously disturbing..." Read my review of @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social's "Absolution" here: www.goodreads.com/book/show/21... 🐇🐊📚💙

The Hugo nomination period is officially open, which seems like a good time to remind folks about my links post gathering eligibility and recommendations from others. I'll continue to update through the nomination period so keep sending links my way! acwise.net/what-have-yo...

TWO years ago we published @kashinggiwa.bsky.social's essay "Ceremony, Subjugation, Sacrifice, and Camellia sinensis" about the place of tea in science fiction. You can read it here - also for free! www.speculativeinsight.com/essays/ceremony

One year ago, we published Ng Yi-Sheng's excellent "The SEA is Whose?" - about the Southeast Asian authors who have made it big, and what it might mean that many are of Chinese ethnicity... Read it here for free: www.speculativeinsight.com/essays/sea-is-whose

"A perfect read if you are looking for a bit of a different proposal!" Nice review of All That Is In The Earth from Jamedi. I'm very proud of the reception my little book's getting so far. I'd tell the characters how well they're doing, but they're still stuck in quarantine.

"It’s a story about the monsters we create, both real and imagined, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive them." gnofhorror.com/night-of-the... @sgj.bsky.social

Good morning Bluesky peeps, today we are honoured to be part of the cover reveal for Catamorphosis by Shannon Knight gnofhorror.com/catamorphosi... @shannonknight.bsky.social 💙📚 🩸📚

In her new book, @lyndseycroal.bsky.social gives us a city where it always rains. Uncanny, considering the weather we’re having in the UK now. My #review of In This City, Where it Rains bluebookballoon.blogspot.com/2026/02/revi... #horror #BookSky 📚💙 (It’s a cracking read!) @lunapress.bsky.social

Okay, nomination eligible folks. I want to see NUMBERS. I want us to beat the record of the most ever Hugo nominations. I don't actually know what the record is, but I believe we can fly past it!

UK readers, reviewers, bloggers! Mercutio is now available on Netgalley UK and I am very excited and nervous to have this one out in the world. It is the book of my heart, my brain, my toes. Please request and read if you can. It'll help me hugely to get some word of mouth before UK release in May.

An interesting read www.theguardian.com/news/2026/fe...

If you liked Bridgerton, and you like dragons, this will be your new favorite book!

We were delighted to be joined by @starkholborn.bsky.social to discuss her latest novella, FOR THE ROAD, on this week’s #podcast! Listen here: linktr.ee/fictionfanspod #booksky 💙📚

Hello Evening Crowd this horror take sadly really didn’t work for me

A reminder that we'll be talking ghosts, Unquiet Guests, and haunted houses at the UK Ghost Story Festival at the end of the month! Join me, Will Maclean, Alison Moore and Ally Wilkes - tickets available now for our event, or buy a pass for the whole weekend. www.derbyquad.co.uk/events/unqui...

Reading holiday was great, so I've written up short pieces on the books I got through. I might cover a couple of them more thoroughly later, particularly Slow Gods, Hav and On the Calculation of Volume 2, about all of which I have a lot to say. But this is the overview.

No notes. 🧵

AGENCY: A Tor Original - out today! TFW your landlord might be an eldritch demon god…? Amazon UK - www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0GBYKFTV8 Amazon US - www.amazon.com/Agency-Tor-O... Apple Books - books.apple.com/gb/book/agen... Kobo - www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/... eBooks.com - www.ebooks.com/en-gb/book/3...

A wonderful review of After the Fall by Edward Ashton! We are publishing it with this lovely cover 😊

Hey folks -- Signal Boost time for this week's #TheFullLid. If you have a creative project to promote, leave the details in a reply. Include the title and a link please, so folks can find it. For pre-launch crowdfunders let us know about 2 weeks in advance.

I am not even kidding but I've been searching for the original MS of a story with "gaslight" in the title and file explorer says there never was one.

This comes up in the submissions queue every now and then, and it’s likely to result in a rejection unless we can see a very simple fix. As Joanne says, song TITLES are okay, but stay away from lyrics!

Hello Lunchtime Crowd - sadly this one did not work for me

Duneton Abbey

The table of contents for the Best of British Science Fiction 2025 has been released, and I can reveal I have a story included in it. The book is published by NewCon Press and edited by @wishusdonna.bsky.social

I love the fact that this suggests that counteracting incursions from extraterrestrial abductors is a local council issue. That's as far up the chain as it needs to go.

New Review - Sadly folk horror novel Grace by A M Shine did not really work for me www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2026/2/...

The town is hungry. Take a trip you won't forget to the Australian cosmic horror of Gulpepper with author @alanbaxter.bsky.social . In a new interview, he talks about building his fictional NSW harbour town #AlanBaxter #AustralianHorror #CosmicHorror #TheGulp #HorrorWriters

Here's a look at what I'm hoping to read this week. This Week in Books (11th February, 2026) noveldeelights.com/2026/02/11/t... - via @noveldeelights.bsky.social 💙📚

Whatever your feelings toward Valentine's Day, @lishmcbride.bsky.social's Necessary Whimsy column has some excellent suggestions for feel-good reads (some full of romance, some focused more on fun and friendship and maybe a few murders)! ❤️

You can't just "know" kung fu: @tallesteden.bsky.social is on to talk about Greg Egan's hard SF classic, DIASPORA, with much discussion of the mechanics of scale & wonder, and what we can learn from thinking about weird posthuman societies: ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2026/02/09/a...

Okay, fam, this book here. Let's talk about it. I had it on my desk, I went in hard at auction, and unfortunately lost out. If fucked-up bone lesbians are your jam, and you want some weird mash-up of Gideon the Ninth and fucking Gormenghast, then get this on your radar. Out in March. It's sublime.

ICYMI, modern horror!

“Genres can, in certain conditions, become prisons that trap the raw alchemy of writing and storytelling into limiting tracks of thought and meaning. […] What I’d like to see is more genres like artistic movements of the 18th-20th centuries. They were a moment in time. It grounds them.”

Alexandra Pierce reviews THE YEAR’S TOP ROBOT AND AI STORIES: SIXTH ANNUAL COLLECTION edited by Allan Kaster

The Great Tolkien Reread continues today with "The Old Forest". In which Frodo and the other hobbits encounter evil trees, and I offer my first (but by no means last) defense of Tolkien's nature writing as an inextricable component of his worldbuilding.

New Review - Sadly folk horror novel Grace by A M Shine did not really work for me www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2026/2/...

Also, the benefit a reader gets from a book is not exhausted at the last page. Given the choice between writing 200 books, each of which the reader will never think of again, or 1 book that will stay in the reader's brain all their life, the choice is obvious.

*INCOHERENT SCREAM OF TRIUMPH* gizmodo.com/mummy-4-rele... Now bring back Admiral Hotness and the world's worst brother and we are in BUSINESS.

My review of the November/December issue of @asimovssfmag.bsky.social for @locusmag.bsky.social is now available to read online! locusmag.com/review/asimo...

Trad wives have finally hit horror lit, plus new Catriona Ward and a culty anthology! @emilyhughes.bsky.social covers the horror highlights for February 2026 🔪🩸

A Perimeter is a device that measures the presence of Nicola Bryant in mid-1980s Doctor Who stories

New book review: “Don’t stop looking” — on Julian Barnes’ last novel, Departure(s): anenduringromantic.wordpress.com/2026/02/10/d...

y'all all saw this, yes?

It’s a story about a woman whose body has always been contested territory, by traffickers, by cartels, by economic systems, finally seizing control of it, even if that control comes via monstrous transformation. gnofhorror.com/maria-the-wa...

And an excellent smart slice of the fantastical

Help Evening Crowd a suitably dark tale for you tonight!

I wrote my final book review column for the Washington Post a while back. (I didn't know it was the last one of course.) I was worried it might not even run since the book section is ending, but thanks to the heroic efforts of editor Jacob Brogan, here it is: www.washingtonpost.com/books/2026/0...

The Great Tolkien Reread continues today with "The Old Forest". In which Frodo and the other hobbits encounter evil trees, and I offer my first (but by no means last) defense of Tolkien's nature writing as an inextricable component of his worldbuilding. wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-...