Nutritional Facts Mock the Lord: @deeholloway.bsky.social reviews Edwin Callihan's BACULUM (@weirdpunkbooks.bsky.social)

As you read, play, watch, listen, and otherwise enjoy new #SpeculativeFiction this year, please recommend works for the Otherwise Award to consider! otherwiseaward.org/award/2026-o... #sff #awards

There is no end to pondering these questions. In search of the Secret Third Thing.

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:

Battlestar Ataxia: Vanessa Wolosz reviews Violet Allen's PLASTIC, PRISM, VOID (@littlepuss.net)

Late-breaking schedule update: going to have to skip the SFRA episode for Personal Chaos Reasons. So, next up will be Robert Shearman's TINY DEATHS (@commapress.bsky.social) with critic & reviewer @mondyboy74.bsky.social!

Accepting the Strange: @strangelibrary.com reviews Jeffrey Ford's latest collection, PANDEMONIUM WALTZ (@lethepress.bsky.social)

Words in Tension, Words’ Intention: @krajewskib.bsky.social reviews Ali Smith's GLYPH (@pantheonbooks.bsky.social)

Prompted by a discussion with Ed, a thought. A criticism I often see levelled at books that do SF-y stuff but maybe not from a traditional angle/SF imprint/author background for SF is that the SF things in them "aren't new". Ministry of Time, for example, I saw that about how it used time travel.

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:

Apologies if you're waiting on a review, ARB or podcast email, or other communication from me—universe & I didn't do the best job spacing out ARB logistics/review deadlines/conference paper presentation/funerals/house buying & moving/multiple cons/day job blowing up unexpectedly. Will get to you!

The Science Fiction Foundation's biennial conference this year is in partnership with the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the University of Liverpool. Attendance is online; deadline for cfps is 27 July. call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/04/...

I really enjoyed writing this book review for Ancillary Review of Books, which is a great venue to write for @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

I'm putting together quarterly lists of forthcoming SFFH books published by small presses. I do my best to find the info but I can't possibly know every press or release, so I have a submission form. Please share broadly with small pubs, authors, and everyone & their dog so I don't miss a release 👇

I make my @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org debut this week with a review of Francis Spufford's Nonesuch, a story about magic in WWII London that remains fascinated with the war (and its most esoteric corners) while telling a rollicking fantasy tale. ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2026/06/17/l...

A Love Letter to the Revolution: Zara Dershowitz reviews Radhika Singh's EARTHLY PLAYING FIELD (@commonnotions.bsky.social)

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

Deliverance by Dog Roaming the Multiverse: @krajewskib.bsky.social reviews Andrea Hairston's THE REDEMPTION CENTER IS CLOSED ON SUNDAYS (@torbooks.bsky.social)

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!

Be still, my haploid heart! Hugely excited to learn that @notquitehydepark.bsky.social is editing "James Tiptree Jr.: Novellas & Stories" for @libraryofamerica.bsky.social. My face is, o my sisters, filled of light! www.loa.org/news-and-vie...

I get to talk about reviewing with a host of cool reviewers - this was a lot of fun!

english lit and culture studies people from the last 10 years, favorite standalone articles, or book intros/chapters, that open new ways of reading / new areas of study / new paradigms and thus usefully show new grads range in the field?

Continuing my campaign to get everyone to start a blog again, I recced several things hosted on blogs! Intergalactic Mixtape is live. 🥳

They’re Not Bad, They’re Just Drawn That Way: @katepreach.bsky.social reviews Danai Christopoulou’s VILE LADY VILLAINS (Union Square & Co)

My column for June is up - this time tackling a book with a fun little structural trick up its sleeve. More books should do this sort of mild nonsense; I loved it in Three Eight One by Aliya Whiteley and I love it here too.

Reviewers on Reviewing: @chloroformtea.bsky.social discusses positivity, negativity, and criticism with reviewers & bloggers @mollytempleton.com, @runalongwomble.bsky.social, @forestofglory.bsky.social, and @casella.bsky.social

An absolutely 🔥🔥🔥 review of ELECTRIC SHAMANS: "The power of the novel lies in the beauty and skill of Ojeda’s language, which boils complex philosophical ideas down into short aphorisms and laces them together into flowing, poetic monologues reminiscent of the best of Virginia Woolf."

I love reviews where the critic is openly grappling with their reading of a book. Too often it seems reviewers feel compelled to have formed an opinion set in stone, but one of the benefits of the critical review is the space to ask more questions. Rabbit, Fox, Tar sounds like a fascinating book.

I do not fully trust critics who are not both lovers and haters. All I want is for you to have some kind of taste, some kind of ethic, and I want you to argue in favor of it, which should inevitably mean that you greatly admire some works in your chosen field and definitely don’t admire others.

Single Syllable Symphony: for this month's Small Press Dispatch, @chloroformtea.bsky.social looks at language and worldbuilding in Rebecca Gransden’s FIGURES CROSSING THE FIELD TOWARDS THE GROUP (Tangerine Press)

one thing about arts journalism is you have to pay people to do it

I'm curious--if you have time: what reading-list would you recommend to accompany this story, for people new to subversions of Lovecraft? (no pressure--not meaning to add work.)

Conjuring Toni: Sullivan Summer reviews P.C. Verrone's RABBIT, FOX, TAR (@catapultbooks.bsky.social)

The Critic #2026IgnyteAward finalists are: @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social @gabino.bsky.social @mariahaskins.com @skiffyandfanty.com @vanessafogg.bsky.social

Hello hello and welcome to the shortlist announcement thread for the #2026IgnyteAwards, recognizing outstanding contributions to SFFH and its community in 2025! We are grateful to be supported this year by sponsors @bcsmagazine.bsky.social , @edmontonin2030.bsky.social, & @laworldcon.bsky.social

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)

Weekend crowd, in case you missed it:

John Langan’s Lost in the Dark won the Stoker award for best collection last night, what better time to read my thoughts on it and hamburgers and Lyn Hejinian (and Rebecca Campbell’s The Other Shore and B. Catling’s A Mystery of Remnant)

The essay by @soila.bsky.social mentioned here is particularly excellent -- if you haven't already read it, check it out! On how language gets associated with serious v. unserious fiction in ways underwritten by colonial logics fansplaining.com/the-elation-...

This was an interesting conversation to be a part of.

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.

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

As an aside, despite being an unpaid venue [until next month; DJ airhorn], the level of editing we offer at @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org is one of the things I'm proudest of. The secret sauce really is one person asking "what do you mean here?" and another fixing typos.

my SFF pals: which SFF-relevant or adjacent newsletters do you read and love? (and a second, much vaguer question: what do you wish was out there that isn't?)

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.

Asexual Portals and Dank Feelings: Ela Przybyło reviews Debbie Urbanski's PORTALMANIA (Simon & Schuster)

once again i point out that one big crux of the current moment is what to do with the fact that science fiction's various impossibilities and distortions of the actual world now function as a kind of vernacular religion. everyone gets taught how to speculate, but not how to see themselves doing it

"A good review is a story about a story."- @niallharrison.bsky.social

ARB is now a paying venue for sff criticism. This is a dream come true thanks to the efforts of @casella.bsky.social and the many writers, editors, and interviewees who have made @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org and @mealofthorns.bsky.social one of the best places for contemporary sff criticism.

The Race to Radiant Sainthood: David Tierney reviews Ann Leckie's RADIANT STAR (@orbitsbrasil.bsky.social)