It's
time for the latest weekly round-up of interesting
links
about speculative
fiction from
around the web, this week with the 2025 Hugo Awards, the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, Washington, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek in general, news from the upcoming Masters of the Universe live action film and Masters of the Universe in general, Peacemaker and the DC Cinematic Universe in general, season 3 of Foundation, Star Wars in general season 2 of Wednesday, Alien Earth, Nautilus, Ne Zha 2, Revival, tributes to Terence Stamp and much
more.
Speculative fiction in general:
- Auralee Wallace talks about the joy of unexpected genre mash-ups
- Elizabeth Bear talks about the shifts in popularity of fantasy subgenres.
- Cora Buhlert talks about why women fantasy writers tend to be forgotten more quickly than men, even if they were influential and popular in their day.
- Melissa Pace shares five speculative fiction novels with feminist themes.
- Hannah Nicole Maehrer shares five SFF books about forced proximity and its romantic ramifications
- Alexandra Alter reports about the rise of Romantasy and its connection to Harry Potter fanfiction.
- Scott Simon and Rachel Kurzius talk about how fan fiction is changing publishing and reading
- Ratika Deshpande shares five stories featuring dragons great and small
- Elisa Shoenberger shares six SFF books about astronomical oddities
- James Davis Nicoll shares five science fiction works about repurposing organs and other body parts
- Ania Ahlborn talks about terrifying mothers in horror fiction and real life.
- Ella Creamer shares five hopeful novels about climate change.
- Rachel Ayers shares five retellings of "Thumbelina".
- Joe Hernandez chronicles how the word "nerd", which was popularized by Dr. Seuss, went from geeky insult to mainstream
- Wendy Xu talks about Bridge to Terabithia, The Boy and the Heron and A.I. “Art”
- Charlie Jane Anders discusses Possession by A.S. Byatt as a precursor to the dark academia subgenre.
- Nick Evershed wonders whether men have really stopped reading.
- John Keenan ranks the novels of Thomas Pynchon.
- Susana M. Morris takes a look at the early writings of Octavia E. Butler.
- Hua Hsu profiles R.F. Kuang.
- George Beahm remembers the late Terry Allan Murray.
- Science fiction and thriller writer Greg Iles has died aged 65.
Comics and Art:
Film and TV:
- Leah Schnelbach calls Boys Go To Jupiter a sweetly surreal anti-capitalist coming-of-age first contact adventure
- Melody McCune shares her thoughts on the latest episode of Outlander: Blood of My Blood.
- Catherine Bray calls The Home a horror film that falls short on internal logic and feels like a subpar Get Out
- Cath Clarke calls Grand Prix of Europe a safe but satisfying animated film.
- Tim Lowery calls Ren Faire a stylish documentary series.
- Peter Bradshaw revisits the 1975 cult horror musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
- Sean Fennell revisits the 1984 horror movie The Toxic Avenger.
- Tyler Dean revisits the 1985 fantasy movie Legend.
- Keith R.A. DeCandido revisits the 1996 Babylon 5 episode “Z’ha’dum”
- Ashley Cullins looks back on the making of the 1996 horror movie Scream.
- Kali Wallace revisits the 1997 science fiction horror movie Event Horizon.
- Jesse Hassenger revisits the 2000 virtual reality thriller The Cell.
- Germain Lussier revisits the 2001 science fiction film AI: Artificial Intelligence
- Germain Lussier lists twenty movies coming out in the rest of 2025 that he is excited about.
- Michael Brooke shares ten great East European science fiction films.
- Leah Thomas shares a round-up of absurdist anime.
- Cheryl Eddy interviews Elijah Wood, star of the Lord of the Rings movies and the new Toxic Avenger.
- John Bleasdale interviews Saul Hudson a.k.a. Slash, Guns 'n Roses guitarist and producer of the new Deathstalker.
- Nick Romano interviews Amy Madigan, who plays Aunt Gladys in Weapons.
- Tony Maglio interviews Dan Erickson, creator and showrunner of Severance.
- Cheryl Eddy shares her favourite science fiction, fantasy and horror roles played by Timothy Olyphant.
- Sian Cain shares Quentin Tarantino's ranking of his own movies.
- Olivia Rutigliano shares a quiz about which actors almost appeared in famous movies.
- Ben Child wonders about the future of the Terminator franchise.
- Lauren Cochrane wonders whether set photos are ruining movies.
- Yixuan Tan, Eve Qiao and Mithil Aggarwal report about the growing popularity of Chinese mini-dramas.
- The Guardian reports that child actor Jeffrey Vorhees is still getting residuals for a single brief scene in Jaws, where he is eaten by the shark.
- Jake Kanter reports that according to the BBC, Doctor Who isn't going anywhere - with or without Disney.
- Joe Caroff, designer of the James Bond logo and countless movie posters, has died aged 103.
Tributes to Terence Stamp:
- British actor Terence Stamp, best known for his appearances in Superman, The Phantom Menace, Modesty Blaise, The Limey, Smallville, Last Night in Soho, His Dark Material, Alien Nation, The Hit, The Collector and many others, has died aged 87.
- Director Neil Jordan remembers Terence Stamp.
- Director Stephan Elliott remembers Terence Stamp
- Xan Brooks remembers Terence Stamp.
- Andrew Pulver remembers Terence Stamp.
- Paul Andrew Williams remembers Terence Stamp.
- Justin Carter remembers Terence Stamp's many genre roles.
- Ronald Bergan shares an obituary for Terence Stamp.
- Greg Whitmore shares photos from Terence Stamp's lengthy career.
Comments on Masters of the Universe in general:
Comments on season 3 of Foundation:
- Melody McCune shares her thoughts on “The Shape of Time”, the fourth episode of season 3 of Foundation.
- Paul Levinson shares his thoughts on “The Shape of Time”, the fourth episode of season 3 of Foundation.
- Cheryl Eddy shares her thoughts on “The Shape of Time”, the fourth episode of season 3 of Foundation.
- Vanessa Armstrong interviews Lou Llobell, who plays Gaal Dornick in Foundation.
- Diana Keng visits the Long Room of the Old Library at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, which stands in for the Imperial Library on Trantor in Foundation.
Comments on Peacemaker and the DC Cinematic Universe in general:
- Trent Moore says that season 2 of Peacemaker shows that James Gunn is more than capable of using all that power to still tell weird, wild stories far outside the pantheon of any potential blockbuster Justice League saga to come.
- Jarrod Jones shares his thoughts on the season 2 premiere of Peacemaker.
- Isaiah Colbert shares his thoughts on the season 2 premiere of Peacemaker.
- Melody McCune shares her thoughts on the season 2 premiere of Peacemaker.
- Matthew Byrd lists what you need to remember ahead of season 2 of Peacemaker.
- GQ interviews John Cena, star of Peacemaker.
Comments on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek in general:
- Keith R.A. DeCandido shares his thoughts on “What is Starfleet?”, the latest episode of season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
- James Whitbrook shares his thoughts on “What is Starfleet?”, the latest episode of season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
- Caroline Siede shares her thoughts on “What is Starfleet?”, the latest episode of season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
- Avery Kaplan shares her thoughts on “What is Starfleet?”, the latest episode of season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
- Melody McCune shares her favourite quotes from “What is Starfleet?”, the latest episode of season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
- Avery Kaplan and Diana Keng share their thoughts on “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail”, the previous episode of season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
- Melody McCune shares her favourite quotes from “The Sehlat Who Ate Its Tail”, the previous episode of season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
- Paul Levinson shares his thoughts on episodes 5 and 6 of season 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
- Justin Carter notes that the TARDIS put in a cameo appearance in an episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
- Avery Kaplan shares her appreciation for the character of Kira Nerys in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Comments on Star Wars in general:
- Scott Feinberg interviews Tony Gilroy, showrunner of Andor.
- Sabina Graves interviews Nina Gold and Martin Ware, casting directors of Andor.
- James Whitbrook discusses the original history behind the Mandalorians’ wars against the Jedi
- Cody Hamman recounts how the 1978 Star Wars tie-in novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster was initially planned to become the basis of a low budget Star Wars sequel.
Comments on Alien: Earth:
Comments on Wednesday:
Comments on Ne Zha 2:
Comments on Nautilus:
Comments on Revival:
Awards:
- The winners of the 2025 Hugo Awards have been announced.
- The finalists for the 2025 Nommo Awards have been announced.
- The winners of the 2025 Sidewise Awards have been announced.
- The finalists for the 2024 Endeavour Award have been announced.
- The finalists for the 2025 Aldiss Award have been announced.
- The finalists for the 2025 Ringo Awards have been announced.
- The winners of the Single Pattern Contest at the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, Washington, have been announced.
- Cora Buhlert shares her thoughts on the 2025 Hugo winners,
- Mike Glyer shares a look at the 2025 Hugo base designed by Joy Alyssa Day.
- Ella Creamer reports that the Polari Book Prize was cancelled this year, following an uproar about TERF writer John Boyne making the longlist.
Writing, publishing and promotion:
- Martin Edwards talks about writing short stories.
- Amie Schaumberg talks about writing neurodivergence in crime fiction.
- Victoria Strauss explains how writers can determine if they can join the class action lawsuit against Anthropic AI.
- Camestros Felapton talks about an experiment conducted by Mark Lawrence comparing AI-written and human written stories.
- Rich Johnston shares the terms of the legal settlement between Image Comics and the bankrupt Diamond Comics Distributors.
- Benjamin Lee reports that according to a recent study, reading for pleasure has fallen by twenty percent in the US in the past twenty years.
- Jim Milliot also reports about the study confirming the decline of reading for pleasure in the US in the past twenty years.
- Miranda Bryant reports that Denmark is abolishing VAT on books in an effort to get more people reading
- Sarah Butler reports that young people are embracing reading, which benefits Waterstones and other bookstores.
Interviews:
Reviews:
- Molly Templeton reviews Sky On Fire by E.K. Johnston.
- Marlene Harris reviews The Hungry Gods by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- Kat Hooper reviews Soul Taken by Patricia Briggs
- Mahvesh Murad reviews The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Esmay Rosalyne reviews Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher
- Paul Weimer reviews The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
- Fiona Denton reviews The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig
- Gary K. Wolfe reviews Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders
- Julia Kitvaria Sarene reviews The Inside Story of the British Bureau for the Arcane: The Dark Elf Dynasty File by Phil Parker
- Adam Colclough reviews The Society of Unknowable Objects by Gareth Brown
- Ian Mond reviews The Lady, the Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death by Helen Marshall
- Marlene Harris reviews The Memory Hunters by Mia Tsai
- Alex Brown reviews Costumes for Time Travelers by A.R. Capetta
- Alex Punceka reviews The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
- Marion Deeds and Bill Capossere review A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett
- Julia Kitvaria Sarene reviews Bones and Betrayal: The Silence of the Dead by Marks Ewington
- Martin Cahill reviews Saint Death’s Herald by C. S. E. Cooney
- Marlene Harris reviews Wrath of the Dragons by Olivia Rose Darling
- Alex Wallace reviews Blood of the Old Kings by Sung-il Kim, translated by Anton Hur.
- Fantasy Faction reviews Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
- Paul Weimer reviews A Palace Near the Wind by Ai Jiang
- Mark Yon reviews Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler.
- Molly Templeton reviews Among Ghosts by Rachel Hartman.
- Alex Wallace reviews No Sympathy by Eóin Dooley
- James Davis Nicoll reviews VenCo by Cherie Dimaline
- Adam Roberts reviews Circular Motion by Alex Foster
- Vicki Weisfeld reviews How to Surf a Hurricane by Todd Medema
- Jen Lucas reviews The Transcendent Tide by Doug Johnstone
- Runalong the Shelves reviews The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
- Rob Bedford reviews The Unseen by Ania Ahlborn.
- Ed Crocker reviews The Extra by Annie Neugebauer
- Niall Harrison reviews Animals by Geoff Ryman
- Colleen Mondor reviews It Was Her House First by Cherie Priest
- Adrian Collins reviews It’s Not a Cult by Joey Batey
- Rai Furniss-Greasley reviews We Are Always Tender with Our Dead by Eric LaRocca
- Arley Sorg reviews Not Your Papi’s Utopia: Latinx Visions of Radical Hope, edited by Matthew David Goodwin, Alex Hernandez and Sara Rivera
Classics reviews:
- Richard Balir, son of Eric Arthur Blair a.k.a. George Orwell revisits the 1944 satirical fable Animal Farm by George Orwell.
- Alan Brown revisits the 1951 dying Earth novel City at World’s End by Edmond Hamilton
- Lesa Holstine revisits the 1956 children's fantasy Knight’s Castle by Edward Eager
- Gideon Marcus revisits the September 1970 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction,
- Kris Vyas-Myall revisits the September 1970 issue of Visions of Tomorrow.
- Maureen Hogan revisits the 1970 science fiction novel Hour of the Horde by Gordon Dixon, Victoria Silverwolf revisits the 1970 horror novel Gateway to Hell by Dennis Wheatley and Amber Dubin revisits the 1970 science fiction novel The Star Virus by Barrington J. Bayley and the 1970 science fiction novel Mask of Chaos by John Jakes.
- James Davis Nicoll revisits the 1980 science fiction anthology Galaxy: The Best of My Years, edited by Jim Baen
- Sean Guynes revisits the 1990 Wheel of Time epic fantasy novel The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan,
- James Davis Nicoll revisits the 1995 science fiction novel Project Farcry by Pauline Ashwell
- Alissa Burger revisits the 1995 YA horror novel Deadly Visions by Diane Hoh and the 1996 YA horror novel The Face by R.L. Stine.
- James Davis Nicoll revisits the 2010 biography Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century by William H. Patterson
Reports about the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, Washington:
- Shelf Awareness reports about the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, Washington.
- Juan Sanmiguel shares his experiences on the first day of the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, Washington.
- Juan Sanmiguel shares his experiences on the second day of the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, Washington.
- Juan Sanmiguel shares his experiences on the third day of the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, Washington.
- Juan Sanmiguel shares his experiences on the fourth day of the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, Washington.
- Juan Sanmiguel shares his experiences on the fifth day of the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, Washington.
- Alan Boyle shares some panel highlights from the 2025 Worldcon.
- Mia Tsai shares a summary of ConCurrent, the counter-programming to the 2025 Worldcon that she launched.
- Mike Glyer shares a summary of the final WSFS Business Meeting of the 2025 Worldcon.
- Mike Glyer reports that Donald E. Eastlake III, chair of the WSFS Mark Protection Committee, chaired a meeting of that committee while testing positive for covid without wearing a mask.
Other con and event reports:
- Montreal, Quebec, Canada, has won the site selection vote for the 2027 Worldcon.
- Chris M. Barkley shares his reaction to being named Fan Guest of Honour of the 2027 Worldcon in Montreal, Canada.
- Joyce Lloyd, chair of LACon V, the 2025 Worldcon in Anaheim, California, apologises for the tone-deaf use of imagery and terms associated with westward expansion and the displacement and genocide of indigenous people on the convention homepage.
- Mike Glyer shares a round-up of links regarding the LACon V controversy.
- Chattacon in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is shutting down after fifty years.
- Mariana Dale reports about the Pokémon World Championships in Anaheim, California.
- Keza MacDonald reports about the 2025 Gamescon in Cologne, Germany.
- Kaye Dee reports about the Expo 1970 in Osaka, Japan.
Science and technology:
- Adithi Ranakrishnan reports that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has found a new tiny moon around Uranus
- Hannah Richter reports that Saturn’s moon Enceladus might have weird “space rainbows”
- James Davis Nicoll notes that planets are actually very different from each other.
- Matthew R. Francis reports that infrared instruments could spot exotic ice on other worlds
- Victor Tangerman reports that scientists created an entire social network where every user is a bot in order to test strategies to combat polarization and toxic behaviour, only to realise that none of them work.
Toys and collectibles:
- Still a Big Kid reviews the Mattel Masters of the Universe Masterverse Vintage Collection Skeletor action figure
- Still a Big Kid reviews the Jada Toys Ultra Street Fighter 2 Sagat action figure.
- James Whitbrook takes a look at the Hasbro Marvel Legends Iron Man (Extremis) and Mandarin Two-Pack
- Germain Lussier shares a look at the Hasbro Marvel Legends Maximum Series Deadpool action figure.
Free online fiction:
- "The Dream Quest of Well-known Kawtar" by Luana Saitta in Swords and Sorcery Magazine.
- "Postman, Soldier, Traitor" by Vijayalaxmi Samal in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
- "Bloody Muddy Water" by Jonathan Louis Duckworth in Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
- "Sea of Fertility" by Bella Han in Clarkesworld.
- "Heart of Thunder" by Raahem Alvi in Clarkesworld.
- "Savannah and the Apprentice" by Christopher Rowe in Lightspeed.
- "The Dream Tourists" by Sarah Langan in Lightspeed.
- "In Connorville" by Kathleen Jennings in Reactor.
- "Miles To Go Before I Sleep" by Beth Goder in The Deadlands.
- "Maroon" by Meg Elison in The Sunday Morning Transport.
- "Husk" by James Bennett in The Dark.
- "Eight Ball" by Martin Cahill in Nightmare Magazine.
Trailers and videos:
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