if you don’t keep up with the youth i want you to know they’ve renamed “tramp stamps” to “cake toppers” which feels like the first advancement for feminism in a long time
Emily Tesh
@emilytesh.net
Author. Hugo, Astounding, and World Fantasy Award winner; Nebula, Clarke and Le Guin finalist. Rep: Kurestin Armada at Root Literary. I talk about books here. Links: https://linktr.ee/emilytesh
Get a hobby. For example, be this fic author:
The Great Pumpkin Papers 🎃🎃🎃@professormusgrave.bsky.social · 4mo agoAll right, folks! How do you become a better person?
Hugo for Best Book That Can Hold The Picnic Blanket Down Even When It's Really Windy as opposed to Hugo for Best Book That Can Fit In A Pocket Even After Taking Unequal And Patriarchal Pocket-Distribution Into Account
The new Hugo categories will continue until morale* improves. *morale of Hugo Administrators will not be considered for this metric.
We put the first book on the Crawford shortlist last year. It's really good - recognisably epic fantasy but through the lens of Tlingit myth and evocative of oral storytelling.
Solaris Books@solarisbooks.bsky.social · 2d agoToday is #usindigenouspeoplesday , an excellent time to remind you of Caskey Russell's indigenous epic fantasy trilogy inspired by the culture and mythology of the Tlingit tribe that began with THE DOOR ON THE SEA and continues next month in THE EAGLE IN THE MOUNTAIN! geni.us/TDOSPB geni.us/eagleim
Books are so good when they’re good. I hadn’t reread Nghi Vo’s Empress of Salt and Fortune in about a decade. It’s even better than I remember, AND there’s a whole series now.
I said it and I meant it.
Solaris Books@solarisbooks.bsky.social · 4d agoThank you to @emilytesh.net for this great blurb for Yoon Ha Lee's "spectacular return to Space Opera" - CODE AND CODEX! A vast SF epic about the power of language and censorship by the bestselling author of NINEFOX GAMBIT! UK release - March 2027. Preorder now: geni.us/codecodex
must issue a tragic correction: out this month if you're in the US. not out till February in the UK. heartbreaking news for my people.
Emily Tesh@emilytesh.net · 5d agojust finished reading Code and Codex by Yoon Ha Lee (new! Yoon Ha Lee! space opera! out this month!) and man. no one else does the combination of indulgent (complimentary) and very, very clever quite so well.
Wow! Texts are super rare for the Hittites, basically there’s just one archive and it’s 95% lists of prayer sacrifices to mountain gods, so this is really, really exciting!
Sarah E. Bond@sarahebond.bsky.social · 5d ago184 new cuneiform tablets ✍️ (total), dating to c.1400 BCE. “Preliminary examination of the texts has revealed references to military activities, epidemics, the death of an infant princess & requests for assistance sent to the king by Hittite military commanders” www.heritagedaily.com/2026/10/184-...
just finished reading Code and Codex by Yoon Ha Lee (new! Yoon Ha Lee! space opera! out this month!) and man. no one else does the combination of indulgent (complimentary) and very, very clever quite so well.
'Upon learning of the prize, according to her agent, Nicole Aragi, Carson said, “Yikes.”'
We got some very action-packed book mail! Galleys are in for Devouring Gods by @jedediahberry.bsky.social, a sword and sorcery heist and the sequel to Kill All Wizards! 🐸⚔️
Book review: The Incandescent by Emily Tesh This vaguely dark academia novel set in a school for sorcerers/magicians is just spectacular. Dr. Sapphire "Saffy" Walden is our protagonist. Nearly 40, a workaholic, and with good reason since she's more or less trying to personally keep a 19c magical…
Book review: The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
This vaguely dark academia novel set in a school for sorcerers/magicians is just spectacular. Dr. Sapphire "Saffy" Walden is our protagonist. Nearly 40, a workaholic, and with good reason since she's more or less trying to personally keep a 19c magical security system running to keep Chetwood School safe. It's a LOT. Saffy is wry, intelligent, and although she'd be the first person to tell you that she's not all that personable, she's an excellent teacher.
lynnemthomas.com
Had a really great time chatting (and chatting, and chatting some more) with Casella about the Le Guin Prize shortlist. Honestly I could easily have gone on longer; it’s a list with a lot to discuss, in a great way.
A Meal of Thorns@mealofthorns.bsky.social · last wk.A little longer episode for a little longer shortlist: @chloroformtea.bsky.social & @casella.bsky.social talk through the 9 books on the @ursulakleguin.com Fiction Prize shortlist!
As ever, we begin with the #2026IgnyteAwards winner in Outstanding Novel - Adult for novel-length (40k words+) works intended for an adult audience Congratulations to THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER (Saga Press/Titan Books) by Stephen Graham Jones!
this book is SO good
Melissa Caruso@melissacaruso.bsky.social · 2w agoTHE SEVENTH BANISHER by A K Larkwood has Knives Out meets Lovecraft meets Gideon the Ninth vibes with a bunch of terrible but fascinating people trapped on an isolated island murdering their way through mind-blowing plot twists on a creepy magical mansion (out in March): bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
My third novel, HERO COME HOME, officially has a cover! Preorderable from the usual places us.macmillan.com/books/978125...
it has now been two months of suddenly having my reading mojo back. I have read or reread twenty-nine books. I can now share such revelations as 'it's been 13 years but Ancillary Justice is still a perfect book' and 'has anyone else heard of this Tchaikovsky chap?'
Emily Tesh@emilytesh.net · last mo.from 2014 to 2023 when I worked in education, I more or less stopped reading for pleasure. when you get a passion job, it eats your passions. it’s only this year it’s really started to come back.
the two lengths of SFF novella are 'ok fine I'll make it just long enough to be hugo eligible' and 'ok fine I'll make it just short enough to be hugo eligible'
i should clarify, when i write people doing bad things, it's because i am bad. they are me. more importantly, when you read about those bad things, they also become you. that's how story works. in fact, you are going to think about murder before this skeet ends. how's that feel, sicko.
it's simply impossible to write a book. there's no way. it can't be done. stop trying to trick me into - [eats lunch] turns out books are made of scrambled eggs.
apart from the known standard model of novels, novellas, and novellettes, we are yet to find evidence of the hypothesized novelino, noveletto, noveluccio, noveluzzo, or noveluolo. a great deal of work remains to be done
Lincoln Michel@thelincoln.bsky.social · 3w agoTIL: The word "novel" is actually derived from "novella," which was used by Boccaccio to mean "new little stories." English took the term later and applied it to longer fictional narratives as "novels."
I'm done with September. I think three weeks is long enough for one month.
SORCERER OF THE WILDEEPS by Kai Ashante Wilson is a fantasy novella with awesome worldbuilding, a queer love story, and beautiful writing. If you ever wanted to see dialects like African American Vernacular done well in a fantasy setting, this is your book. It's so good.
Marty Cahill@mcflycahill90.bsky.social · 4w agoWhat's a book you love with all your goddamn heart that you believe did NOT get the love and attention it's due? I'll go first, and it's abso-LUT-ely THE CITY IN GLASS by Nghi Vo. There are moments from that book that live in my blood and wake me from the dark.
I have been reading the Anne McCaffrey Pern novels for the first time yeah I don't know why I hadn't read them before and I don't know why I'm inhaling them so fast now BUT importantly I know they're not trying to actually do linguistic worldbuilding but BOY do I have linguistics thoughts anyway
THE UNSPOKEN NAME by AK Larkwood. gorgeously written adventure fantasy of an orc sacrifice turned warrior fighting free of the terrible wizard mentor who saved her, takes Tombs of Atuan & blossoms open at Planeswalker scale. doomed by its Feb '20 release 😭 dead planets! fighter/mage f/f! butch mc!!
Marty Cahill@mcflycahill90.bsky.social · 4w agoWhat's a book you love with all your goddamn heart that you believe did NOT get the love and attention it's due? I'll go first, and it's abso-LUT-ely THE CITY IN GLASS by Nghi Vo. There are moments from that book that live in my blood and wake me from the dark.