Apropos of something.... troubador.co.uk/pricing

The novella Light Chaser by Gareth L. Powell and Peter F. Hamilton has just dropped to £1.99. (The Amazon UI tells me that it was £8.54 when I added it to my wishlist, but I think it's often been around £3.) www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B088Q9CQZ4/ www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/... #UKSFFBookBargains

Errm.... (Source: www.theguardian.com/technology/2... ) (You might need to open the full image to see the headline, which is somewhat at odds with the bit I've highlighted)

Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan is 99p in today's deals - seems to be literary SF? (The blurb comps to Station Eleven) www.amazon.co.uk/Awake-Floati... www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/... #UKSFFBookBargains

This is a very good piece. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

Interesting article linked from the "On this day in history" section of Wikipedia today, somewhat alt-history LARPing en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Day

I feel the title of this recent SF novel has rather different connotations for UK readers than the author expected... www.netgalley.co.uk/catalog/book... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael...

Well, this is super-unhelpful in trying to get the correct details of the original Chinese publication into ISFDB. (Source: www.amazon.co.uk/White-Fox-Fo... )

Ann Leckie's Hugo, Locus and Nebula finalist Translation State is 99p in the ebook deals today - it's been out for a couple of years now, but I think this is the first time it's been on sale. www.amazon.co.uk/Translation-... www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/... #UKSFFBookBargains

After numerous missed publication dates, this finally does seem to actually exist as a product you can buy!?! www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FF9P8JTV Per this comment on Tor.com (as was), a "final edit" was "recently finished" way back in 2020... reactormag.com/a-post-apoca...

I just looked at how many First Novels Locus recommended the past few years: 2022: 25 2023: 25 2024: 23 2025: 12 I also just ran some rough stats for some of the main US publishers, and I don't see that there were fewer debut novels from genre imprints than in previous years.

#UKSFFBookBargains www.amazon.co.uk/Vivid-Worlds... (showing as £1.77 for me) Doesn't seem to be available on Kobo.

Locus recommended reading list: locusmag.com/2026/02/2025... I need to go through it more closely, but I noticed last year that nearly half the SF recs were from non-genre or indie/small press/selfpub imprints, but this year seems to have a higher ratio of trad genre imprints.

Does anyone know of any legitimate SFF awards which require a fee to be paid for their work to be considered by a jury, with additional fees for each work that the author wants to be considered?

Confusingly (IMHO at least), this upcoming "science fantasy ghost story" appears to be not by the Ian Watson who has been publishing science fiction since the mid-60s, and is still active in the field. Caveat emptor... www.brixtonbuzz.com/2026/01/the-...

Booker and Ursula Le Guin Prize finalist The Employees by Olga Ravn - £1.99 in the daily deals www.amazon.co.uk/Employees-Ol... www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/... #UKSFFBookBargains

@camestrosf.bsky.social It looks like comments are closed (perhaps unsurprisingly) on these several month old posts, but I've just seen the issue of Locus that has the details of the voting. camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2025/05/03/l... camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2025/04/09/n... [contd]

Grrr, Overdrive ebook library service web UI has removed the ability to filter your wish list for only books which are available right now. This makes it *much* less usable for me, and I imagine others too? (I tried manually adding the "&showOnlyAvailable=true" parameter, but it doesn't work.)

A day of research ended up with stumbling onto this 1998 BSFA for the Best British SF(ish) novel since 1948. Interesting, especially the comments about Iain M. Banks' "relatively poor showing", and that CP, Excession & The Bridge were preferred over PoG and UoW. Source: fanac.org/fanzines/Vec...

I appreciate January is considered a fairly dead month for publishing, but this list doesn't exactly make me feel US imprints have much dynamism or interest when it comes to science fiction: * 2 Baen titles * 2 imported UK editions (were no US publishers interested?) [contd]

I wonder how many of the SF authors in this list were asked for their permission to allow Google to have "the opportunity to draw inspiration from their work" in the dataset used to (irony) train an #AI about ethics? [contd]

@aptshadow.bsky.social Terrible Worlds Chinese covers (well, four of them at least) Source: xerosoul on Rednote/Xiaohongshu and Weibo xhslink.com/o/1QyA0dBHfdQ

WTAF... www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

Feel like this screen/UI from a new BMW is what the set designers of Deep Space Nine were going for, but couldn't really do at the time because they could only get square/rectangular screens. Sources: www.resetera.com/threads/car-... , lcars.fandom.com/wiki/Cardass...

Nifty Chinese cover for King's The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (note the first character of the title) Source: csfdb.cn/books/25710

Because the cover doesn't exactly shout "SFF", it's probably worth pointing out that Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei is 99p in today's Kindle deals, same price on Kobo. www.amazon.co.uk/Saltcrop-bea... www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/... #UKSFFBookBargains

Front cover of SF World Translations Dec 2025, featuring the first part of @aptshadow.bsky.social's House of Open Wounds. I assume the interior art shown on the contents page is also for HoOW. Source: xerosoul weibo.com/5989953755/5... , xhslink.com/o/4B9McTEdM46 Artist is 景韵文化 (Jingyun Culture).

Bit confused by a new novel blurbed with "[featuring] ... a deeply weird and dangerous hyperdimensional entity to haunt the dreams of any reader of Kim Stanley Robinson." TBH I haven't read that much of KSR's oeuvre, but I'm not aware of any of his work that has "weird hyperdimensional entities"?

I know these sorts of warnings appear on old film and TV, and maybe also kids' books, but I'm not sure I'd ever heard about them appearing on adult fiction? (From the Amazon preview of an upcoming Brian Aldiss collection)

Does anyone have access to a print copy of Cixin Liu's The Collected Stories, published in the UK in September? I recently borrowed the ebook from the library, and one of the two stories that are first published in this collection ("Glory and Dreams") seems to be massively truncated. [contd]

Seems a bit weird to have two pages of editorial/production credits, but not mention who the editor of a book was? (Maybe it's one of the "Editorial Management" people?)

@nickpheas.bsky.social Looks like you're the most recent person to edit this author's Wikipedia page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Ro... I just noticed that ISFDB has a place-of-birth discrepancy with what's stated in an interview in the current Locus, and Wikipedia has the same info as ISFDB.

Is Cloudflare broken for everyone else, or is it is just me who is prevented from accessing loads of sites right now?

#ai Bloody hell... www.reddit.com/r/london/com...

www.thebookseller.com/bestsellers/... "This analysis has, so far, neglected the Science Fiction category as it is now by far SFF’s junior partner with just 2 titles in the 2025 Top 50." Though I don't think non-romantasy fantasy does much better - less than half-a-dozen titles, I think?

Hmmm.... based on the sample output in the final image, can't say I'm rushing to read a whole story in that style. Source: www.techrxiv.org/users/901254...

Not sure if this image is legit, as I can't find any reference to this poll on MoreInCommon's social media or website... I found it in a video game forum post: www.resetera.com/threads/uk-p...

An "interesting" Chinese cover for Asimov's Second Foundation. I'm told that this particular image was quickly replaced. I presume from the text in the top-left that the face in the bottom-left is supposed to be Paul Krugman. Source: xhslink.com/o/gUpxVfFJZW

Seems a bit weird to have a table of checkmarks showing whether an author's books feature particular tropes, as if you were comparing features on something like a TV or laptop. (Source: www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Moon-hea... )

Well well well, look who just showed up in Chengdu (again)... Via x.com/berry_jetty/... Original Chinese language post: weibo.com/6045346855/Q...

Encountered this fox in nearby park last night; seemed surprisingly tame, and far less scrawny and mangy than the local ones back when I lived in London. Wonder if someone is feeding it? It kept looking at me as if expecting treats... More photos and videos: drive.google.com/drive/folder...

Encountered yesterday whilst walking home

Anyone know if there is a reliable source for the claims on Twitter that the company run by Tony Blair's son ("Multiverse") is involved in the proposed UK digital ID system? A quick glance at the BBC and Guardian websites didn't show anything...

#UKSFFBookBargains Absolution, book 4 of the Southern Reach trilogy is a daily deal. That's the whole series popping up at 99p, one a week. I approve. Let's have more whole series. www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/... Also on Kindle www.amazon.co.uk/Absolution-S...

Whilst I appreciate this is a quote from someone else, this event promotional text seems to me (a) a bit cheeky, and (b) an interesting choice to translate to English whilst leaving the rest of the text untranslated. Source: weibo.com/ttarticle/p/... (English version via Chrome's translator)

This Chinese box set of Asimov's Foundation series looks very nicely done, but I'm a bit bemused why there's a jigsaw of an off-brand Imperial Star Destroyer. Source: www.bilibili.com/opus/1111706...

Amazon ebook deal: Days of Shattered Faith (Tyrant Philosophers #3) by Adrian Tchaikovsky - £1.99 www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CZVQC6FR/ (Not reduced on Kobo) // cc @nickpheas.bsky.social

Interesting commentary in a report on the Japanese natcon from a Chinese translator, cf concerns about greying fandom in the West/Anglosphere, and also maybe some of the atypical-for-a-Worldcon content at Chengdu in 2023. Source: weibo.com/1923185037/Q...

Interesting contrast with the Western complaints about streaming services (especially Netflix) having short seasons with multi-year gaps between them. www.sixthtone.com/news/1017505