REMINDER: Today (June 30) is the last day to submit your manuscripts to Fafnir for the 2/2026 issue!

In "Attuned to Loss," Radvilė Musteikytė uses James Phelan’s rhetorical narrative theory to examine how Richard Powers and Emmi Itäranta's novels evoke solastalgia and attune readers to environmental loss. Read for free here: fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Essi Varis reviews Merja Polvinen’s Self-Reflective Fiction and 4E Cognition, which demonstrates how SF narratives constitute “cognitive environments” for fostering layered effects of self-reflection, potentially leading to entirely new ways of thinking. fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

📣 Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research invites authors to submit papers for issue 2/2026. 📣 Deadline: 30.06.2026 Submissions should be made through the online portal: fafnir.journal.fi/about/submis...

Cristina Arbués Caballé reviews Jaime Harrison’s Digital Culture in Contemporary Fiction, which investigates representations of algorithms in works by Joshua Cohen, Nicola Barker, Neal Stephenson & a Grasshopper Manufacture visual novel. @livunipress.bsky.social fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Miranda Miller reviews Julie Wosk’s Artificial Women: Sex Dolls, Robot Caregivers, and More Facsimile Females, which examines the representation of artificial women across media, highlighting the relationships between sexuality, gender, technology, and simulation. fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Jayden King reviews Matthew Oliver's Magic Words, Magic Worlds: Form and Style in Epic Fantasy, which close reads selected novels by Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, and N. K. Jemisin to explore language and style in epic fantasy. fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Anna Juhi John reviews Urvashi Kuhad’s Science Fiction and Indian Women Writers: Exploring Radical Potentials, which examines the works of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Manjula Padmanabhan, Priya Sarukkai Chabria and Vandana Singh. @routledgebooks.bsky.social fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Andrea Valeiras @aryaflintstark.bsky.social reviews The Songs of the Spheres: Lewis, Tolkien, & the Overlapping Realms of their Imagination (eds. Łukasz Neubauer & Guglielmo Spirito), which compares The Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkien’s subcreative works. fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Natalie Hopwood @nrhopwood.bsky.social reviews Germanic Heroes, Courage, and Fate: Northern Narratives of Tolkien's Legendarium by Richard Z. Gallant @richardzgallant.bsky.social, which offers a new perspective on the theory of Northern Courage & the heroic. fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Jeremy Brett @jbarchivist.bsky.social reviews Science Fiction and the Historical Novel: Days of Future Pasts (eds. Ian P. MacDonald and Kate Polak) which explores the intersections between the historical and the speculative. @livunipress.bsky.social fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

📣 Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research invites authors to submit papers for issue 2/2026. 📣 Deadline: 30.06.2026 Submissions should be made through the online portal: fafnir.journal.fi/about/submis...

In “Game of Thrones as a Work of Fantasy Fiction in the Storytelling Environment of the Internet,” Markus Laukkanen @paratexts.bsky.social examines the interactive media culture around the series as an intriguing challenge for speculative fiction research. fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

In “Undringslitteratur: Understanding New Norwegian Speculative Fictions,” Marta Tveit describes a form of speculative storytelling marked by Anthropocene poetics of scale, attention to everyday life & spirituality, and distinct Norwegian elements. Read here: fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

In "Climate Models as a Retroactive and Exploratory World-building Tool," John Cook et al examine the fantasy worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin & Robert Jordan, as well as one built by Cook, as speculative climate models on a global scale. Read here: fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

In "The Search for the Perfect Era: Speculative Fiction and Eutopian Imagination," @israelnoletto.bsky.social examines eutopia in contemporary SF, drawing attention to solarpunk & hopepunk whilst looking back to the influences of “Golden Age” SF. Read it here: fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

🎉✨NEW ISSUE OUT!! 🎉✨ Fafnir's latest issue features a prefatory by Israel A. C. Noletto on SF and Eutopian Imagination, two essays on Norwegian SF & climate modeling as a worldbuilding tool, a lectio praecursoria and seven book reviews! 🐉 Read the full issue for free here: fafnir.journal.fi

In “The Cultural Work of Fantasy in the Anthropocene" Marek Oziewicz celebrates the potential of fantasy to provide new models & patterns of thinking to counter the ecocidal status quo and underlines the genre's importance in educating citizens. Read for free here: fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Noah Slowik reviews Ross Clare’s Ancient Greece and Rome in Modern Science Fiction: Amazing Antiquity @livunipress.bsky.social, which examines the legacy of classical thought in popular culture by analyzing the use of stories & figures from antiquity in modern SF. fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

In “The Cultural Work of Fantasy in the Anthropocene" Marek Oziewicz celebrates the potential of fantasy to provide new models & patterns of thinking to counter the ecocidal status quo and underlines the genre's importance in educating citizens. Read for free here: fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

🎉✨ NEW ISSUE OUT!! 🎉✨ ☀️ Fafnir's issue 1/2025 welcomes midsummer with a blazing selection of cutting-edge speculative fiction research, essays, book reviews, and a prefatory by Marek Oziewicz. Check out the full issue for free here!: fafnir.journal.fi Happy reading!

Michael Pitts reviews Stephen C. Tobin’s (@kiptobin.bsky.social) Vision, Technology, and Subjectivity in Mexican Cyberpunk Literature, which illuminates the centrality and significance of the screen in 1990s–2010s Mexican cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk fiction. fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

C. Palmer-Patel reviews Gendered Defenders: Marvel’s Heroines in Transmedia Spaces (eds. Bryan J. Carr & Meta G. Carstarphen) @ohiostatepress.bsky.social, a volume exploring the publication histories, character arcs & media battles of Marvel’s famous female heroes. fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Aino-Kaisa Koistinen reviews Pablo Gómez's Science Fiction Cinema in the 21st Century: Transnational Futures, Cosmopolitan Concerns @routledgebooks.bsky.social, which offers a timely analysis of sf cinema's significance for interrogating transnational concerns. fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Carol Franko reviews Tolkien, Enchantment, and Loss: Steps on the Developmental Journey, which points to a coupling of enchantment and loss that shapes Tolkien’s art. @ksupress.bsky.social Read it for free here: fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Sabina Fazli reviews Mike Ashley’s The Rise of the Cyberzines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1991 to 2020 @livunipress.bsky.social, an encyclopedic history of science fiction periodicals. Read it for free here: fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Ananya Buragohain and Lakshminath Kagyung review The Evolution of African Fantasy and Science Fiction @lunapress.bsky.social , ed. by Francesca T. Barbini - a collection of five essays tracing the emergence and development of African SFF. Read it here: fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Jeremy Brett @jbarchivist.bsky.social reviews Uneven Futures: Strategies for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction @mitpress.bsky.social, which highlights the imaginative power of speculative fiction to reshape how we relate to the world. Read for free here: fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

Karl Bell @karlbell.bsky.social reviews Space(s) of the Fantastic – A 21st Century Manifesto, edited by David Punter & C. Bruna Mancini, which examines the various ways in which literary geography can be used to interpret fantastic literature. Read for free here: fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...

In her mixed-media conference report, Fafnir’s former Editor-in-Chief, Essi Varis, relays the highlights of SFRA 2024. Varis weaves her observations from the opening speech, keynotes, panels, and a multimedia performance into a tapestry of insights on imagination. fafnir.journal.fi/article/view...