PhD @ UBC English, sf and ecocriticism, Luddite, walking the laneways of the Lower Mainland of BC
As an MJH diehard I pre-ordered The End of Everything (the signed Blackwell's edition) from the UK, received it in the post, and finished reading it last week. Rest assured: it's got the juice. So pleased it's getting this sort of recognition.
Cody R BrownM. John Harrison on the Booker longlist! That's what's up!
M. John Harrison on the Booker longlist! That's what's up!
The Booker PrizesPresenting the Booker Prize 2026 longlist. Find out more about the books and authors that make up this year's Booker Dozen: thebookerprizes.com/bp2026
seriously one of the best stories I've read in a minute
An Unofficial Hugo Book Club BlogWe are asking the WSFS business meeting to extend this story’s eligibility until 2026, because it received extremely limited distribution in 2025. Only 5,000 copies of the print edition were distributed in late 2025, to a primarily non-SFF audience. It became available online on July 9, 2026. 1/2
renee gladman, cristina rivera garcia, barbara comyns, nell zink, pip, adams, and many more! incredible work coming out of dorothy press.
Dorothy, a publishing projectWe're having a TWO-DAY SUMMER SALE on all our books! 🎉 You know what to do. Go do it here: www.nyrb.com/collections/...
pulling for Works of Vermin! everybody read Works of Vermin!!
Ursula K. Le GuinWe're thrilled to present the shortlist for the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction:
if you're working in the sf studies/weird studies space you'd do well to read Jeffrey Ford's "Well-Built City Trilogy"
Zachary GillanTruly fantastic news. I go on about this excellent trilogy at length here but the short take is “you’ve got to read these books”
(it's because they basically want slaves: conscious entities—but software this time!—that they can use and dispose of when convenient. this is the big tech logic of "sentient AI.")
Django WexlerLike imagine a scenario where you are calling fully sentient minds into existence, asking them for cooking instructions or erotic roleplay, then snuffing them out when you're finished. That's grade A nightmare cyberpunk dystopia right there
the value of the university and education more broadly is the production of self and world
cmrn knzlmnI went to college because it was my only opportunity to change social classes in life. It worked. I also discovered a whole other universe of knowledge while I was there. I think both of these functions are important and should be preserved.
If we're talking academic field, it's something like Outer Limits, Night Gallery, or Kolchak. If it's based on pure, goofy interest: The Sandbaggers or Spooks/MI-5. I'd also like a crack at LOST.
Jose MolinaWriter-types: what's a franchise you were born to write, but you never will? I'll start: The X-Files.
good call, here. I love emailing people that I liked what they made!
Erin BlakemoreSend fan mail to your heroes. Send fan mail to your kind-of heroes. Send fan mail to obscure and penniless authors. I'm always amazed by how touching I find reader mail. Someone took the time to read something I wrote and let my voice narrate their world for a bit? Incredible. 💖
I'm lucky enough to own a beat up paperback of Survivor and this is a great overview of its significance. My pet theory is that Butler's feelings on Survivor are part of what get in her way re: further Parable novels (due to the space colonialism element of both). Very glad it's getting republished.
Matthew CheneyI wrote about Survivor back in 2014. (UNH had a beat-up copy I read, and I begged them to take better care of it bc they didn't know what a rarity they had circulating.) It's not terrible, but it's clear why Butler hoped the novel would fade away. mumpsimus.blogspot.com/2014/08/note...
Zach is correct and also this is my biannual reminder to read the works of M. John Harrison, who rocks at this approach.
Zachary GillanTapping the sign
the replies to this are fantastic and also a testament to how formative the reading years of 12-16 are. for me it's when i first encountered writers like Vonnegut, Le Guin, Baldwin, Ballard, Butler, Moorcock, Murakami... I thank goodness my folks didn't care what I read, just that I was reading
alix e. harrowone thing I'm not gonna do is tell you, a stranger in my signing line, if my book is appropriate for your 13yo. baby i was reading kushiel's dart at 13 i am not the one to ask