Shortlist discussion time! @chloroformtea.bsky.social returns for the 2026 Le Guin Prize list: 9 of the most interesting speculative fiction books from last year. Lots of opinions, comparisons, and thoughts on what constitutes "Le Guin-y-ness". Listen before the winner is announced Oct. 21!

A Meal of Thorns 60- 2026 UKLG List with Roseanna Pendlebury

Only in its 5th year of operation, the Le Guin Fiction prize has already become something of a critical darling, with very interesting shortlists and winners that rarely overlap with other genre aw…

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

"My opinion of God has never been lower," "Christopher Tolkien is Morgoth," and "Dragons are boats" are each, in their own way, the most each of our hosts have ever cooked

Ranged Touch@rangedtouch.bsky.social · 2d ago

It's time for more Ancient Elf History on SHELVED BY GENRE, as we continue the Silmarillion and learn more about its bizarre process of editorial assembly: rangedtouch.com/2026/10/09/t...

They read 'em so you don't have to! Tonight in Boston at 630 we host the Worst Bestselles Podcast with Meredith Goldstein portersquarebooks.com/event/2026-1...

Worst Bestsellers Podcast, in conversation with Meredith Goldstein

Porter Square Books is excited to welcome The Worst Bestseller Podcast!

portersquarebooks.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 · 6d ago

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!

Also, do you like Roseanna Pendlebury? Do you like Roseanna Pendlebury on podcasts? Do you like Roseanna Pendlebury on podcasts talking about award shortlists? Do you like Roseanna Pendlebury on podcasts talking about award shortlists that skew literary? Do ya? Man, is it Christmas for you today.

A Meal of Thorns 60- 2026 UKLG List with Roseanna Pendlebury

Only in its 5th year of operation, the Le Guin Fiction prize has already become something of a critical darling, with very interesting shortlists and winners that rarely overlap with other genre aw…

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

Had an amazing evening at @blackwellsmcr.bsky.social talking with @ceciliarikap.bsky.social and Eleanor Drage about AI, political economy and the political imagination necessary for a better tech future to a packed out audience

Such an amazing episode, but now I want to read all of these books!

A Meal of Thorns@mealofthorns.bsky.social · 6d ago

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!

Also: podcasts I’ve read or re-read books because of @mealofthorns.bsky.social, @deathsentencepod.bsky.social, @strangehorizons.bsky.social, and @nochorus.bsky.social (SF Ultra) episodes.

Vajra Chandrasekera@vajra.me · 4d ago

it's been great in recent years to see new venues like Ancillary Review of Books, Typebar &c. appearing to uphold this whole sphere of discourse (there have been periods where at least to me it felt like it was Strange Horizons carrying the torch on their own)

If you're interested, it's @bookshop.org's anti-prime days today and tomorrow, so free shipping! You can support ARB & AMOT by picking up any titles we've talked about through our Bookshop:

ARB's Coverage

Check out this list on Bookshop

bookshop.org

It's out in the world! Order to your heart's content!

Richie Narvaez@richienarvaez.bsky.social · 5d ago

Out today! THE SPECULATIVE DETECTIVE AGENCY Free shipping #antiprimeday here: bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

Aha, good correction! And looking back through, it looks like the Crawford & the UKLG shortlists *have* overlapped by at least one title, except for the first UKLG list in 2022.

Eddie Clark@dreddieclark.bsky.social · 5d ago

Excuuuuse me there IS some overlap in one particular award shortlist: we gave this year's Crawford to Call & Response.

📚 NEW PODCAST EP 📚 In the wake of the @thebookerprizes.com shortlisting both M John Harrison and Rebecca Perry, is it time to ask (again) what relationship exists between the literary and the speculative? Yes. Yes, it is time. @chloroformtea.bsky.social and Ryan Elliott join me to do that (again).

Critical Friends Episode 28: On Literary SFF

In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons criticism podcast, Dan Hartland is joined by Ryan Elliot and Rosanna Pendlebury, to ask questions about literary SFF. What is it? How do we…

strangehorizons.com

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!

A Meal of Thorns 60- 2026 UKLG List with Roseanna Pendlebury

Only in its 5th year of operation, the Le Guin Fiction prize has already become something of a critical darling, with very interesting shortlists and winners that rarely overlap with other genre aw…

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

This year is the 35th anniversary of Timothy Zahn's HEIR TO THE EMPIRE, which touched off a wave of Star Wars novels that has never abated. So naturally I had to write about it.

Star Wars: Reading “Heir to the Empire” by Timothy Zahn (Thrawn 1)

On Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, the first novel in his acclaimed Thrawn trilogy, which relaunched Star Wars franchise fiction after a half-decade hiatus.

seanguynes.com

I'll be at @octocon.bsky.social this weekend. Here's my schedule. prog.octocon.com/people/Z0084 Anyone who's going, please feel free to say hi.

We've got an episode on Colson Whitehead's HARLEM SHUFFLE up on the Patreon for FREE in order to improve your Tuesday! Join @ckunzelman.bsky.social and @kearse.bsky.social as they chat about the first book (and come back for the next two eps on the next two books!) www.patreon.com/rangedtouch/...

bring back the corn lady you cowards

Had a lot of fun talking to @lucatrenta.bsky.social on NBN for the impending paperback release of Wastelands and Wonderlands. You can listen to the interview here: newbooksnetwork.com/wastelands-a...

Tin House is sending me on a mini-regional tour for the gorgeous reissue of Ursula K Le Guin: Conversations on Writing. Portland-Seattle-Bay Area friends I hope to see you. Come say hi and celebrate Ursula's legacy with me! @tinhouse.bsky.social @ursulakleguin.com @ebbooksellers.bsky.social

Years ago, I did a search for books signed by arch hepcat James Ellroy because I realised the inscriptions would be nuts. Here they are. (Reheating this from Twitter as it's been 18 months or so since I've really posted/scrolled on there, I'll probably delete it soon and want these to live on.)

People ask: "Does being a writer and niche left podcaster pay well?" Yes, if you're counting the currency of impressing weird gay guys with cool tattoos.

Listening to this interview is fascinating. Two main thoughts: 1) The blessing that is an interviewer so well informed, so thoughtful as Armfield is here. 2) Listening to M John Harrison talk about his books makes me feel very stupid and also that I do very much actually want to read them all now

M. John Harrison & Julia Armfield: The End of Everything | London Review Bookshop

The great M. John Harrison – ‘The closest thing we have to a present-day Wyndham or Ballard’ according to the New Statesman – returned to the shop to present…

londonreviewbookshop.co.uk

The prolific, sometimes brilliant, British SF writer John Brunner (1934 - 1995) was born on this day. I've covered his work fairly extensively, most recently his fourth and final "tract novel", The Shockwave Rider (1975). As a prediction of an online society, it is by turns prescient and naive.

Computer fugitive: The Shockwave Rider (1975) by John Brunner

On the run in the networked society

andyjohnson.xyz

“Zee Nu” by Eva Meijer. Picked this up at the library after hearing the recommendation on @mealofthorns.bsky.social - it’s the first novel I’ve successfully finished in Dutch (that wasn’t abridged into easier language) and I’m so glad I did

Absolutely love that we have the one and only @maris.bsky.social reading one of Ursula's tart and satirical and pointed publishing posts this week

Ursula K. Le Guin@ursulakleguin.com · 3w ago

On this week's episode of In Your Spare time, Maris Kreizman (@maris.bsky.social) reads Ursula's satirical May 2011 post "To Save Free Enterprise, Books Must Die."

New episode! OF ONE BLOOD is a fun, strange book, out of time but full of sympathetic resonance. @jgbridgergilmore.bsky.social returns to talk us through it:

A Meal of Thorns 59- OF ONE BLOOD with Garrett Bridger Gimore

Out of print for the greater part of the 20th century, Hopkins’ Of One Blood looks a lot like Afro-futurism, using ancient Ethiopian technology and the new science of mesmerism to think about…

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

We'd like your help with something. The one hundredth anniversary of Ursula's birth will take place in 2029. This may seem a long time away, but we’re already starting to think about how to celebrate Ursula’s life and art. We’d love to add your ideas to the mix—there's a brief survey here:

Centenary event planning

Please click the link to complete this form.

form.jotform.com

Premee Mohamed gave a vivacious, informative, and thought-provoking keynote at the Book Publisher Association of Alberta this morning. We are off to a great start! Her newest book is Wickhills. #authors @abbookpub.bsky.social

Babe, wake up, new Volodin just dropped. (five minutes later) Babe, wake up- www.thetimes.com/culture/book...

Cult writer’s 11 books in a week: ego trip or literary milestone?

The cryptic French author Antoine Volodin has convinced 11 publishers to simultaneously release what may be the culmination of his ‘post-exoticism’ project

thetimes.com

More Guynes/Casella commentary on the way, but in the meantime:

A Meal of Thorns 37 – THE HISTORIAN with Sean Guynes

Vampire scholar, science fiction studies editor, and ARB co-founder Sean Guynes joins to discuss Kostova’s 2005 historical vampire thriller. We both have fairly negative opinions of the book, but i…

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org