Next #HugoAwards ballot post is up! 2025 couldn’t live up to the amazing novella year that was 2024, but I still found things I liked www.tarvolon.com/2026/08/05/2...

Super underrated horror novel getting an unexpected shoutout in my current ARC

Whoops, I thought I’d reviewed all the #HugoAwards Best Novella finalists, but I’d left this one sitting in drafts. That’s not a bad sign—it’s a good read! www.tarvolon.com/2026/08/05/f...

Fantasy Novella Review: Cinder House by Freya Marske - Tar Vol on

I’d heard some positive buzz about Freya Marske’s Cinder House before awards shortlists were released, but seeing as how I didn’t seem to fit any of the

tarvolon.com

“Laws of Night and Silk” by Seth Dickinson is a difficult fantasy parenting story that interrogates sacrificing children to the war effort (not literally, but almost literally) www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/laws...

Beneath Ceaseless Skies - Laws of Night and Silk by Seth Dickinson

This is how an abnarch is made. This is the torment to which Kavian gave up her first and only born. The wizards of the Paik Rede, dam-makers, high rulers of isu-Cter, seal a few of their infants into...

beneath-ceaseless-skies.com

New for this post, though not new at all, is “The Ugly Chickens” by Howard Waldrop, which won awards 40 years ago and has been on my list to check out. The tale of an ornithologist seeking dodos has a wonderful voice that’s fun but also poignant www.drabblecast.org/2014/01/16/d...

Drabblecast 310 – The Ugly Chickens

My car was broken, and I had a class to teach at eleven. So I took the city bus, something I rarely do. I spent last summer crawling through The Big Thicket with cameras and tape recorder, photogra…

drabblecast.org

And from my Reckoning-heavy Magazine Minis bsky.app/profile/tarv...

Jay@tarvolon.bsky.social · last wk.

Check out some short fiction reviews, or stay here for a thread of favorites

As always, I’m linking rather than repeating my favorites thread from this month’s Clarkesworld bsky.app/profile/tarv...

Jay@tarvolon.bsky.social · 2w ago

Got my usual magazine review up last night. Check it out, and/or stick around for me to shout out a couple favorites On Here

ICYMI, my July recap is up! Stay tuned for a thread of short fiction favorites!

Jay@tarvolon.bsky.social · 3d ago

July is over, and I’ve got a round-up of the sci-fi and fantasy I read and reviewed over the course of the month, including a handful of short fiction recommendations that didn’t make it into my previous magazine reviews www.tarvolon.com/2026/08/02/j...

Grateful to be included in another Tar Vol short fiction roundup... and Jay's right—I'm writing a lot of father/daughter stories these days. (No surprise if you know me, of course.)

Jay@tarvolon.bsky.social · 3d ago

July is over, and I’ve got a round-up of the sci-fi and fantasy I read and reviewed over the course of the month, including a handful of short fiction recommendations that didn’t make it into my previous magazine reviews www.tarvolon.com/2026/08/02/j...

Literary, character-centered epic fantasy: armies and war for the nation, waged by humans caught in moral and emotional conflicts.

Jay@tarvolon.bsky.social · 2d ago

“Laws of Night and Silk” by Seth Dickinson is a difficult fantasy parenting story that interrogates sacrificing children to the war effort (not literally, but almost literally) www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/laws...

Collecting my thoughts on the #HugoAwards shortlists for the print fiction categories, starting with Best Novel! I had mixed feelings about much of the list, with everything having really strong elements but not much totally blowing me away www.tarvolon.com/2026/08/03/2...

Collecting my thoughts on the #HugoAwards shortlists for the print fiction categories, starting with Best Novel! I had mixed feelings about much of the list, with everything having really strong elements but not much totally blowing me away www.tarvolon.com/2026/08/03/2...

Well I guess the buy/sell mix was actually just sell

This slaps It's a ride that tastes like pure insomnia

Jay@tarvolon.bsky.social · 2d ago

New for this post, though not new at all, is “The Ugly Chickens” by Howard Waldrop, which won awards 40 years ago and has been on my list to check out. The tale of an ornithologist seeking dodos has a wonderful voice that’s fun but also poignant www.drabblecast.org/2014/01/16/d...

This probably makes total sense if you assume Adley didn’t want to extend here, but then you think about why he wouldn’t have wanted to extend here and it gets depressing again

It feels weird to be book-posting when this up in sports emotions (oh no, Adley), but I did review a Hugo finalist www.tarvolon.com/2026/08/03/h...

Horror Novella Review: What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher - Tar Vol on

T. Kingfisher’s Sworn Soldier series offers bite-sized horror stories linked by a common central character. And because the first three have been nominated

tarvolon.com

ICYMI, my July recap is up! Stay tuned for a thread of short fiction favorites!

Jay@tarvolon.bsky.social · 3d ago

July is over, and I’ve got a round-up of the sci-fi and fantasy I read and reviewed over the course of the month, including a handful of short fiction recommendations that didn’t make it into my previous magazine reviews www.tarvolon.com/2026/08/02/j...

July is over, and I’ve got a round-up of the sci-fi and fantasy I read and reviewed over the course of the month, including a handful of short fiction recommendations that didn’t make it into my previous magazine reviews www.tarvolon.com/2026/08/02/j...

July is over, and I’ve got a round-up of the sci-fi and fantasy I read and reviewed over the course of the month, including a handful of short fiction recommendations that didn’t make it into my previous magazine reviews www.tarvolon.com/2026/08/02/j...

I had a dream last night that Reactor published a short story in a style that was a hybrid between @isabel.kim and @jonbois.bsky.social and I might need this in real life

😮

“The Over-Sea” by Jamie McGhee also redacts proper names in a colonialism story where the lead’s island culture sees its ecology destroyed and people brutalized, and an attempt to leave and pursue higher education leads only to new problems reckoning.press/the-over-sea/

The Over-Sea | Reckoning

On the island, there is too much blood and not enough rain. That’s because the wetleaf is gone. The soldiers told us to kill it: to slice and strangle the emerald vines as they flowed over our hills, ...

reckoning.press

reckoning.press/dr-_____-and...

Dr. _____ and His Thousand Children | Reckoning

The Society for the Preservation of Kynish Technology is proud to present the most complete artifact ever recovered from the Genetic Archive at Yor Yan. The following manuscript owes its remarkable pr...

reckoning.press

“Dr. ________ and His Thousand Children” by J.R. Staples-Ager is structured as pieced-together diary entries written by one of those thousand children—all genetic experiments. Both the viscera and the redactions reinforce the way they’re treated as disposable, and yet the lead makes *some* mark

“In the Foothills” by @rajivmote.bsky.social is a heartwrenching tale of a wartime refugee trying to keep himself and his daughter alive without breaking her spirit. Almost every major decision point has no right answer reckoning.press/in-the-footh...

In the Foothills | Reckoning

The war had taken nearly everything from Dozan, but by leaving him his little daughter Ayula, he also found something he’d lacked most of his life: a sharp, crystalline sense of purpose. As they fled ...

reckoning.press

Check out some short fiction reviews, or stay here for a thread of favorites

Jay@tarvolon.bsky.social · last wk.

Guess what? I've got an *extra* short fiction review this month! I took a look at a handful of stories from Adventitious, Kaleidotrope, and Reckoning. All had stories worth reading, with Reckoning in particular standing out: www.tarvolon.com/2026/07/27/t...

It's an avalanche of fantastic.

Jay@tarvolon.bsky.social · last wk.

Guess what? I've got an *extra* short fiction review this month! I took a look at a handful of stories from Adventitious, Kaleidotrope, and Reckoning. All had stories worth reading, with Reckoning in particular standing out: www.tarvolon.com/2026/07/27/t...

Lots of Reckoning love in this one!

Jay@tarvolon.bsky.social · last wk.

Guess what? I've got an *extra* short fiction review this month! I took a look at a handful of stories from Adventitious, Kaleidotrope, and Reckoning. All had stories worth reading, with Reckoning in particular standing out: www.tarvolon.com/2026/07/27/t...

When your story’s not even out yet and it’s already a standout for Jay. Thanks for the great review of “A Game of Go” @tarvolon.bsky.social! 😊 This one’s really special to me. I can’t wait till everyone can read it in the next @adventitiouswords.bsky.social.

Jay@tarvolon.bsky.social · last wk.

Guess what? I've got an *extra* short fiction review this month! I took a look at a handful of stories from Adventitious, Kaleidotrope, and Reckoning. All had stories worth reading, with Reckoning in particular standing out: www.tarvolon.com/2026/07/27/t...

what a nice surprise to click on a link and see my forthcoming @adventitiouswords.bsky.social story “A Hole in My Heart the Shape of the Multiverse” reviewed—and to see so much love for @reckoningmag.bsky.social, where I’m on staff! clearly Jay has excellent taste

Jay@tarvolon.bsky.social · last wk.

Guess what? I've got an *extra* short fiction review this month! I took a look at a handful of stories from Adventitious, Kaleidotrope, and Reckoning. All had stories worth reading, with Reckoning in particular standing out: www.tarvolon.com/2026/07/27/t...