Aisha

Bandigoat -- a glowing extradimensional rat-goat hybrid on a cloudy black background

The Bandigoat lives!

7 tales of weird fiction & horror by @kuzhalimanickavel.bsky.social, @emelkrishnan.bsky.social, Jugal Mody, Miriam Kumaradoss-Hohauser, Lungmying Lepcha, and Rashmi Ruth Devadasan

www.blaft.com/products/ban...

(Just lurking in the shadows)

This is really excellent. What I really appreciate about Zach Gillan's writing is how ecumenical and wide-ranging it is. This piece demonstrates that well, pointing toward some interesting intersections of affect, reading strategies, and genre expectations.

26 January 2026 Welcome to the annual Strange Horizons criticism special!

📣 It's here: the 2026 @strangehorizons.bsky.social Criticism Special!

💡 A whole week of critical insight, with a new essay and new review every day. A podcast, a roundtable, an *editorial*.

📚 The weird! Anthropology! Non-anglophone SFF! Plus thoughts on fantasy series, adaptations, film and more.

(That, too, is one point of view.)

I Dream of Theresa May: an electric black comedy about the hostile environment The former Home Secretary torments and guides a queer Indian immigrant as he desperately seeks settled status

How thrilling is this! A glowing review of I Dream of Theresa May in the London Evening Standard:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"There’s honestly not a weak link in this hilarious and heart-breaking production"
www.standard.co.uk/culture/thea...

On until November 29th @taratheatre.com :
taratheatre.com/whats-on/i-d...

Critical Friends Episode 17: On Imagining Hopefully Dan Hartland is joined by Paul March-Russell and Jacqueline Nyathi to discuss speculative fiction’s approach to hope and optimism. Where has it gone? How do writers express it? And what are its pit…

🎧New Critical Friends! It was a real pleasure to convene this talk with Paul March-Russell of @sffoundation.bsky.social and Jacqueline Nyathi of @hararereview.bsky.social.

On the hopeful imagination: “We should have a much bigger perspective when we’re thinking about how to get to the future.” (JN)

YouTube video by LionsgateFilmsUK H Is For Hawk - Official Trailer

HERE IT IS!!!!!

If you can, please donate to help one of our regular contributors in this time of need.

JUSTICE AND BALANCE BRIEFLY RESTORED TO THE LAND

Also, don't miss Vajra's incredibly powerful acceptance speech
(fitting given how many of Le Guin's speeches were and are so unforgettable):
youtu.be/Y5h5ZDjWPTc?...

this rocks. when indiana edu killed the student newspaper, Purdue stepped up, printed the forbidden issue, drove it to Bloomington and stocked the boxes.

Of course, but more importantly: is that a Charles Keeping cover?

Happy 25th Birthday to Strange Horizons

Strange Horizons published our first issue 25 years ago this month! 🎉

Thank you to everyone who has ever read, shared, submitted, donated! We wouldn't be here without you and we hope you'll continue to support us into the future!

Critical Friends Episode 15: On Time-Pass Dan Hartland is joined by Sneha Pathak and Tansy Gardam to discuss the kinds of text which many don’t find worthy of criticism at all.

🎧 New Critical Friends for your listening devices!

This month, Sneha Pathak and @tansyg.bsky.social talk to me about texts often dismissed as too slight to review - books, films, genres with which we might be accused of merely passing time.

How should critics approach this sort of work? And why?

How do you mean? I haven't been writing much about YA at all recently, though I have been reading!

The Blaft Anthology of Gujarati Pulp Fiction edited by Rakesh Khanna, translated by Vishwambhari S. Parmar Parmar, who has translated writings by various authors, of various lengths, and belonging to different sub-genres, giving a detailed picture of the pulp writing scene, both as it was and as it has …

Wednesday's SH review is from Sneha Pathak, on @blaft.bsky.social's Anthology of Gujarati Pulp Fiction. This is a really interesting piece on a super-valuable collection, which "plays an important role in bringing more readers to the rich and varied world of purely entertaining, juicy pulp fiction."

Something very very weird happened during the Hugos award ceremony... It's been on my mind for days, and so I wrote this blog: "When People Giggle at Your Name, or the 2025 Hugo Awards Incident"

grigorylukin.com/2025/08/21/w...

#Worldcon

Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction – Wesleyan University Press Groundbreaking study of science fiction's relation to colonialism and imperialismThis is the first full-length study of emerging Anglo-American science ficti...

Apropos of nothing, John Reider's book "Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction" is a great, accessible look at science fiction's infatuation with colonialism, manifest destiny, and the idea of "the frontier".

www.weslpress.org/978081956874...

☎️ SH CRITICISM HOTLINE NOW OPEN

In mid-August, thoughts naturally turn to the end of next January: the @strangehorizons.bsky.social Criticism Special.

What spec fic essays, roundtables, interviews, song-and-dance routines have you got for us? Go broad!

⚾️ Pitch us: danwhartland at gmail dot com

& enabling this whole situation is British bureaucracy's weird fetish for the abstract thought experiment over what real people actually experience, where the powerful people who make decisions wilfully pretend not to know anything by silencing & excluding anyone w/ any skin in the game.

At this point it feels so insufficient & stating the obvious to keep pointing out that appeals to "biology" to dictate who should have rights & who shouldn't is fascist, that policing gender only props up patriarchy, etc. but I guess we have to keep loudly doing that (& hopefully not only that).

A fringe group of bigoted weirdos have dragged British media, government, and law into their hateful obsession with trans people. Grim, depressing, and dangerous. Everyone with power in the UK who's played along should be ashamed of themselves.

Online Talk: "Feminist Struggles and Fairy Tales: Writing Kunhuthee" by Dr. J Devika
ACLiSA Speaker Series: Author talks
26 April 2025
8.30 p.m. IST
To register, please scan the QR Code on the poster or follow this link: docs.google.com/forms/d/1LpT...
Website: aclisa.in/2025/04/04/a...

Charles Darwin from @lettersofnote: I loathe, I abhor the sea and all ships which sail on it. --Charles Darwin to his sister, 4 Aug 1836 I hate a barnacle as no man ever did before -- Charles Darwin to William Fox 24 Oct 1852 I am very tired, very stomachy and hate nearly the whole world. -- Charles Darwin to Thomas Haxley 10 September 1860 I am poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything -- Charles Darwin to Charles Lyell 1 Oct 1861 I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees. -- Charles Darwin to John Lubbock 3 Sept 1862

Legendary hater Charles Darwin

Why would your housemate do this to you?

If you are interested in going #BeyondtheSecretGarden but don’t know where to start, check out this book pack created by @letterboxlibrary.bsky.social

Photo of 5 dog figurines in profile facing to the left in a staggered line. The closest one is reddish, the three in the middle are beige, and the furthest is dark grey. Each one has a cuneiform inscription on their side.

For anyone wondering, some possible dog names have survived from cuneiform sources.

On tiny dog figurines found buried under a palace in Nineveh, Iraq are inscriptions that seem to be names.

dan rigiššu “loud is his bark”

munaššiku gārîšu “biter of his foe”

mušēṣi lemnūti “expeller of evil”

It’s always a pleasure to read Paul Kincaid.

The subtle, wry confidence. The distillation of context that’s important to those of us who don’t know the whole history. Opinion that’s rooted in criticism and history—not just to have a take on the subject.

Frances Hardinge Conference Frances `Hardinge has written eleven acclaimed novels (and rising). This is a weekend dedicated to discussing her work.

CfP the work of Frances Hardinge 11-12 July 2026.
The conference welcomes academic paper proposals, panel discussion topics; art and craft workshops or posters; fan art.
Closing date 30 September 2025. 1/2

The Submission Form: eventbrite.co.uk/e/frances-ha...