We're excited to announce our next book! The Great Driving Right Show: Cars, Crisis and the Rise of Fossil Fascism will be published by @versobooks.bsky.social exactly one month from today. Here it is, in the flesh. If you're interested, please do pre-order now: www.versobooks.com/products/340...

Hey, I have these postcards of my book's cover (by Vera Villanueva for Yale UP). I'd love to mail you one. Will you send me a screenshot of 1) your pre-order OR 2) your (free!!) request that your library purchase the book? And of course an address to mail it to.

With the first book in our CINEMAS OF ASIA series coming out in just a few months, I really want people to know how awesome this series is. And that we want your ideas! We're on Open Access publisher and we *pay* our authors for their books. Plus our print editions are beautiful and affordable.

Look what they took from us

Sharing this beautiful review of @anniemcc.bsky.social’s Beneath the Wage for @proteanmag.com , written by Flora Arnold and Lauren Hough. A real honor as F & L were two of my first graduate students, who recently graduated and are already doing such great things 🫶 proteanmag.com/2026/07/08/s...

Alien Laughter: @cole-adams.bsky.social reviews THE PLAYFUL LEM, a sampling of Stanislaw Lem's philosophical, cybernetic, and humorous short stories, translated & edited by Michael Kandel (@modernlanguage.bsky.social)

I am very grateful to my friends in St Louis on the Air, producer Emily Woodbury and host Elaine Cha for the kindness of inviting me for a farewell interview, where I spoke about the importance of the humanities and the interdisciplinary programs in universities Link: www.stlpr.org/show/st-loui...

The late communist poet (and woman smoker) Leijia Hanrahan’s posthumous works have been brought together in this beautiful edited collection by @illwill.bsky.social I was very honored to write the introduction. You can order it now here: store.illwilleditions.com/products/lik...

Now published: Historical Materialism vol.33, no.3. A link to the articles can be found here: brill.com/view/journal...

it's interesting / symptomatic that the original trolley problem by Philippa Foot placed the person choosing the track in particular social roles, whereas later formulations tend to imagine an abstract individual walking onto a scene with no particular duty or connection to what's happening.

If you're a John Scalzi fan, here's your chance to send some money to World Central Kitchen.

sing it: "Culture, in the nineteenth-century sense, is losing its social importance generally, with cultural capital replaced by plain old capital." www.artforum.com/features/kat...

New on the site is our first interview for quite a while: @optional.bsky.social had a conversation with @gimblll.com about Sektori, arcade games, roguelikes, and that thumping soundtrack.

A World to Get Lost In: @stephenfrug.bsky.social reviews Jo Walton's EVERYBODY'S PERFECT, out now from @torbooks.bsky.social!

Great review of REACTIONARY WORLDBUILDING at LARB, with a really key last paragraph: lareviewofbooks.org/article/reac...

We're thrilled to present the shortlist for the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction:

Great news for the American people 💯🎯

“You cannot make billions of dollars without hurting lots of people. And you can’t hurt lots of people without, in some sense, believing that they’re not really people.” Corey Doctorow

boosters say that being against AI is like being against some other revolutionary technology from the past. besides being bad history, this claim begs the question because it takes up a future anterior position where AI has already proven its amazing potential—the very thing up for debate.

Lonely planet.

The UFO is such an emblematic trope for how science fiction cinema operates. It represents a sublime disruption of everyday life, what whose spectacle can only be rendered through the special effects film affords. Whether heavenly or terrible, it asks viewers to stand in awe at the unknown. 1/6

Free shipping for @bookshop.org's Anti-Prime-Days! If you want to support ARB a little bit while you snag some books, click on any of the links in our reviews and essays, or check out our shop here:

It so hard to break out of this. 👇🏻

Two great special issues of Marxist theory and criticism just came out. From CLCWeb, "Keywords for Value and Culture," edited by Sean O'Brien and Thomas Waller. I contributed the entry on metabolism (Stoffwechsel), but there are so many great pieces in this. docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol27...

Dr Walter Rodney was assassinated on June 13, 1980, by a bomb planted in a walkie talkie. He was 38. His key work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, exposed the roots of global inequality and the violence of colonial underdevelopment.

Life (And Magic) During Wartime: Abigail Nussbaum reviews Francis Spufford's NONESUCH (@faberbooks.bsky.social)

@ankhge.bsky.social video.mshparisnord.fr/w/8VNDCPmTHX...

"The mere existence of trillionaires is a major political and economic problem, probably the defining issue of our time," writes @gabrielzucman.bsky.social. "When the power of wealth is wielded by sociopaths, the consequences are a matter of life and death."

Me and @seanobrien.bsky.social talked about the 90s with @thisisdavemaher.bsky.social on This is Your Afterlife, including my adolescent obsession with smoking cigarettes (and later cigars) at diners.

Taking a careful look at a problematic fave—its pessimism, its style, its assumptions—@danhartland.bsky.social and @casella.bsky.social discuss John Brunner's 1968 novel STAND ON ZANZIBAR for the latest episode of A Meal of Thorns. Listen wherever you get your podcasts!

Amazing that SH is nearly halfway already. Thank you so much to all who’ve donated, can confirm it means a lot. 💜 In fact, another review has been unlocked: @notquitehydepark.bsky.social on @adamroberts.bsky.social’s Short History of Fantasy. Important review of important book. (It’s how we roll.)

It's not very often that a writer come across such a perfect set up to post one of her bits, and why would I even resist www.orions-belt.net/archives/pro...

Just got my author copies of the new FIFTH SEASON RPG book from Green Ronin! This is the special edition, and it's gorgeous. Ozzy agrees. Official release is on June 20, available in most game and book stores. You can still preorder here: greenroninstore.com/products/fif...

The Ear Is the Organ of Fear: Matthew Eatough reviews Mónica Ojeda’s ELECTRIC SHAMANS AT THE FESTIVAL OF THE SUN (@coffeehousepress.bsky.social, tr. Sarah Booker)

Reviews, interviews, new podcasts & magazines to check out—check out @casella.bsky.social's latest Wow! Signal link round-up:

For those who might not be aware, there's an amazing resource called the SFF Research Database, probably the most comprehensive survey of scholarship, criticism, and fan writing on sff.

Using this only slightly related post to ✨sneak preview✨ an article I’ve got coming out in Cultural Critique:

The great Ted Chiang on LLMs as speculative fictions. www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2...

Reviewers on Reviewing: in the this roundtable discussion, @chloroformtea.bsky.social asks @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social, @danhartland.bsky.social, and @princejvstin.com about the effects of payrates (and lack thereof) in the SFF reviewing scene.

The Strange Horizons Kickstarter to fund 2027 will begin on Sunday, 7 June, 2026! This is a critical time for SFF publications when the existence of venues publishing short speculative fiction, poetry and non-fiction is sometimes uncertain. We hope that you will keep us publishing for another year!

A couple months ago I got curious about how we got to the point where so much of the world’s commodity traffic had to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. In this episode, I talk with two historians of Iranian oil production.

Art and Authenticity: @apottern.bsky.social reviews Molly Tanzer's AND SIDE BY SIDE THEY WANDER (@tordotcompub.bsky.social)

This is fascinating.

American Vandal in Brooklyn with @mckenziewark.bsky.social

always so much cool stuff coming from @uminnpress.bsky.social (including Antoine Volodine's Living in Fire, translated by me!)

This is an incredibly useful resource.

Okay so, remember when we did this big post about the most iconic contemporary speculative fiction books? A lot of responses we got from authors included a "no one else has read this but it's awesome" pick. All bangers, no skips. So we started an essay series: The Hidden Gems Book Club.

Who cares about D&D novels anyway? Some thoughts on why scholars of fantasy probably should, and a bunch more people, too. This is the first essay in my forthcoming Dungeons & Dragons reading series.

To Dust You Shall Return: @tallesteden.bsky.social reviews Jeff Noon's MOON OVER BRENDLE (@angryrobotbooks.bsky.social)