Everything Is Sex, Except Sex, Which Is Power: @marmercurio.bsky.social reviews Rachel Feder's THE TURN (@triquarterlymag.bsky.social)

Everything Is Sex, Except Sex, Which Is Power: Review of Rachel Feder’s The Turn

Marisa Mercurio Under Review:The Turn. Rachel Feder. Triquarterly Books, July 2026. Title, in this particular sequence of words, borrowed from “Screwed” by Janelle Monáe (2018) I missed my train. I…

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

We're 75% of the way to our first stretch goal! Big thanks to everyone who's already contributed, and we'd love your help spreading the word to push ARB to the next level!

Ancillary Review of Books: Year 7!

Questioning power, imagining possibility: ARB provides thoughtful criticism of speculative fiction. Help us pay our writers and staff!

kickstarter.com

Official fundraiser announcement: it's kicking off April 8! Shares appreciated!

ARB Fundraiser Starting April 8!

We are excited to announce that we’ll be launching our Kickstarter fundraiser campaign on April 8! Follow our Kickstarter pre-launch page here to get an email as soon as our campaign goes live. Whi…

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

Victorian Egyptomania! Gender-fluid bugs! Cults! And… lots and lots of transportation.

Ancillary Review of Books@ancillaryreviewofbooks.org · 7mo ago

For the first 2026 episode of @mealofthorns.bsky.social, @marmercurio.bsky.social is our guest and guide for Richard Marsh's THE BEETLE, a melodramatic Gothic horror-mystery with a lot going on under the carapace:

Not usually one for promoting donating to alma maters, but I genuinely had a wonderful experience with the faculty. They advocate for their grad students more than I experienced anywhere else. Support the English dept. here if you can. tol-edo.org/english

ICYMI: Marisa Mercurio of HOWEVER IMPROBABLE (@marmercurio.bsky.social) joins to discuss Richard Marsh's THE BEETLE, a melodramatic Gothic horror about shape-shifting cultists and imperial anxieties that reads a bit like DRACULA's louder sibling! ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2026/01/12/a...

Victorian Egyptomania! Gender-fluid bugs! Cults! And… lots and lots of transportation.

Ancillary Review of Books@ancillaryreviewofbooks.org · 7mo ago

For the first 2026 episode of @mealofthorns.bsky.social, @marmercurio.bsky.social is our guest and guide for Richard Marsh's THE BEETLE, a melodramatic Gothic horror-mystery with a lot going on under the carapace:

For the first 2026 episode of @mealofthorns.bsky.social, @marmercurio.bsky.social is our guest and guide for Richard Marsh's THE BEETLE, a melodramatic Gothic horror-mystery with a lot going on under the carapace:

A Meal of Thorns 41- THE BEETLE with Marisa Mercurio

If you read Dracula and thought: “I like the ancient shapeshifting nemesis and the homoerotic subtext, but I don’t like how subtle the sexual and national anxieties are,” you&rsqu…

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

If you read Dracula & thought “I like the ancient shapeshifting nemesis & the homoerotic subtext, but I don’t like how subtle the sexual & national anxieties are,” you’re in luck! Editor, reviewer, & scholar @marmercurio.bsky.social talks us through Richard Marsh's THE BEETLE:

A Meal of Thorns 41- THE BEETLE with Marisa Mercurio

If you read Dracula and thought: “I like the ancient shapeshifting nemesis and the homoerotic subtext, but I don’t like how subtle the sexual and national anxieties are,” you&rsqu…

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

😱 NEW CRITICAL FRIENDS 😱 📚 With @marmercurio.bsky.social and Shannon Fay, on the flat affect of cosy horror. 🎢 "Horror is a series of, like, stasis, stasis, stasis, spike, right? And if it's not being delivered, then that becomes a generic problem for the novel."

Critical Friends Episode 19: On Cosy Horrors

In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Dan Hartland is joined by Shannon Fay and Marisa Mercurio to discuss horror, and especially its cozy variety.

strangehorizons.com

🎧 Also out with this week’s issue of @strangehorizons.bsky.social:🚨the latest episode of the Critical Friends podcast.🚨 This time I’m joined by @marmercurio.bsky.social and Shannon Fay to discuss horror, the gothic, and coziness: what can, should and do reviewers look for in these texts? And why?

Critical Friends Episode 19: On Cosy Horrors

In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Dan Hartland is joined by Shannon Fay and Marisa Mercurio to discuss horror, and especially its cozy variety.

strangehorizons.com

The reviews are in! Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby reviewed by Marisa Mercurio Link ⬇️ strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no... #speculativefiction #specfic #sff #bookreviews

Splendid review to start the week at SH today - @marmercurio.bsky.social on the curious Neo-Gothic of Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby (@berkleypub.bsky.social). “A novel filled with such potential should be a pleasure to untangle.”

Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby

Scholarly analysis of an historical oddity may not be paramount to the success of a Neo-Gothic novel; but this context speaks to Slashed Beauties’s larger issue of flattening gender relations.

strangehorizons.com

Ypsilanti, Michigan has officially decided to fight against the construction of a 'high-performance computing facility' that would service a nuclear weapons laboratory 1,500 miles away.

A Small Town Is Fighting a $1.2 Billion AI Datacenter for America's Nuclear Weapon Scientists

Ypsilanti, Michigan has officially decided to fight against the construction of a 'high-performance computing facility' that would service a nuclear weapons laboratory 1,500 miles away.

404media.co

"When we embrace genAI without examining the domino effect it will have on library workers and users, we fail to do our jobs." @marmercurio.bsky.social networks.h-net.org/group/discus...

"When we embrace genAI without examining the domino effect it will have on library workers and users, we fail to do our jobs," writes @marmercurio.bsky.social for #FeedingTheElephant. How has the embrace of AI affect publishing, research, and teaching. Find out! ➡️ networks.h-net.org/group/discus...

My article with @crimereads.bsky.social on one of the best, longest-running, and somehow overlooked Holmes adaptations. crimereads.com/elementary-i...

Elementary is a Masterclass in Sherlock Holmes Adaptation

In 2012, the cable network CBS introduced the world to a new Sherlock Holmes. And he was going stateside. Set in the present day, Elementary places Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) in New York City where …

crimereads.com

Exclusive: Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication. My latest. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Revealed: Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication

As Harvard’s feud with Trump escalated, so did tensions over an ‘education and Palestine’ issue of a prestigious journal. Scholars blame the ‘Palestine exception’ to academic freedom

theguardian.com

Let's get vegetable Gothic going as a subgenre. Bunnicula takes first spot.

Dan Hartland@danhartland.bsky.social · last yr.

Wednesday's review is the excellent @marmercurio.bsky.social on Margie Sarsfield's Beta Vulgaris. She goes in excited to discover the vegetable gothic, and finds surprises: "readers of Strange Horizons should know that Beta Vulgaris might not fulfill your expectations of a horror novel."

Wednesday's review is the excellent @marmercurio.bsky.social on Margie Sarsfield's Beta Vulgaris. She goes in excited to discover the vegetable gothic, and finds surprises: "readers of Strange Horizons should know that Beta Vulgaris might not fulfill your expectations of a horror novel."

Beta Vulgaris by Margie Sarsfield

These beets aren’t destined for dinner plates.

strangehorizons.com

They're trying to kill Rumeysa Ozturk for writing a fucking op ed

Joshua J. Friedman@joshuajfriedman.com · last yr.

NEW: Rümeysa Öztürk says she's had 4 painful asthma attacks in ICE custody, and not only is her asthma going untreated but a nurse tore off her hijab, saying, "You need to take that thing off your head." www.aclum.org/sites/defaul...

Today at @strangehorizons.bsky.social, @marmercurio.bsky.social on Marx and horror in the Pacific Northwest. “Carson Winter shapes his horror novella around the friction between the bourgeoisie and proletariat.”

A Spectre is Haunting Greentree by Carson Winter

Carson Winter shapes his horror novella around the friction between the bourgeoisie and proletariat.

strangehorizons.com