@thehubble101.bsky.social
Aberystwyth-based writer, researcher & critic. Author: Culture Wars in Britain (May, 2026). Columnist at Vector. Incoming editor of Foundation. Nonbinary (they/them)🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️. https://linktr.ee/nick_hubble
Absolutely disgusting that the police are still making these arrests, which I do not believe are 'investigations' in good faith. Deliberate attempts to intimidate women even though parliament has voted to decriminalize.
The Clarke was never set up to award Clarkean fiction, so I don't think this is a useful point of comparison. But I agree that this award doesn't appear to be clearly constituted.
My review of Aliya Whiteley's The Misheard World is up at @locusmag.bsky.social. This was the first great SFF novel I read in 2026, and a standout even in Whiteley's top-notch bibliography. locusmag.com/review/the-m...
This is still a complete dog's dinner of a policy. Unnecessary, nationalistic, and completely inconsistent. (Although good to know that some people's lives have been made easier by this 'u-turn').
Another great round-uo from Lisa Tuttle. I'm particularly pleased to see the new edition of Naomi Mitchison's Travel Light included here. #ScottishSFF
*even better!
I did refer to Will's first book, Lockdown Wales, in this piece I wrote for Bylines Cymru when the UK COVID Inquiry came to Wales a couple of years ago.
Just bought a copy of Will Hayward's new book at the packed launch in Cardiff this evening. I told him I'd read his first two books and I'd let him know if this one was better, so might have to write a review. The Introduction doesn't pull its punches: 'Wales we need to talk. You are being screwed.'
As well as reading @thehubble101.bsky.social's discussion of genre here: prospectiveculture.wordpress.com/2026/03/08/c... (HT for this article: @renay.bsky.social)
“It has long been the case that a lot of Labour supporters have had a very positive view of Plaid Cymru — they just didn’t have a reason to vote for them until now.” - Professor @richardwynjones.bsky.social 👇
www.politico.eu/article/uk-b...
He also shouts, 'Come on, you filfth!' in an injection of social realism into the fantasy.
Not having a good month so far and completely missed the Welsh-themed fantasy Salon Futura!
Excellent podcast from @welshhistorypod.bsky.social
Really enjoyed learning about the The Welsh Women's Movement. It is fascinating to find out how they influenced the government at the time.
It's awful that the Wales curriculum does not have this front and centre honestly!
youtu.be/4kCY6pdtxkg
Now, John Wyndham is an interesting case: woke political progressive feminist who wrote both pulp and more mainstream SFF. Definitely someone who wrote about change and who had a concept of the future that was very different: Trouble with Lichen, Chocky, 'Consider Her Ways'. #SFFWriterAsHistorian
The Great Tolkien Reread takes a swerve into shlock horror today with "Fog on the Barrow-Downs", a chapter that wouldn't feel out of place in a pulp magazine, but which is also a major turning point for Frodo in his relationship to danger. wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-...
I'm doing a short list review this year for BSFA Best Novel, which will take the form of individual posts for each novel and then probably an overview post at the end. All tied in with thinking about historical change and the future.
When they come for the bookshops... I know that bookshops have been targeted in the past but I think we are seeing a new level of state assault on independent and critical thinking.
No. 66. E.J. Swift, When There Are Wolves Again (2025). Reviewed from the point of view of the future and as part of the shortlist for the BSFA Award for Best Novel of 2025. This is a radical novel. 4/-
New paper:
Mass Observing British Politics
On what Mass Observation might contribute to political studies (and what political studies might contribute to Mass Observation). With @jmoss88.bsky.social and Alex Hill. Also paging @massobsarchive.bsky.social
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
True. On one level, I do find it funny because the whole thing is fake spin and funny money and nothing much more. But, on the other hand it's such a sham.
Reads like the plot for a comic high-concept near-future novel of the type that disproportionately gets to feature on shortlists for the Clarke Award. Only it's not funny because we're the marks being taken for a ride.
In which Nick announces a project: "I’m going to have a go at [reviewing the BSFA shortlist] explicitly from the point of view of the future, where the criteria I apply to judging the value of the book are shaped by its success in foregrounding the historical mechanisms of change"
This International Women's Day, please remember that trans women are women. Full stop. No qualifiers.
Another interesting novel from Gold SF
The anti-trans moral panic is also why those of us combating book bans keep telling people that this current movement isn't like bans of old. This is part of the same playback as eradicating queer and trans lives, and implementing Christian nationalism and white supremacy.
Last month I was feeling guilty I'd run into so few cool pieces of SF-related criticism, so of course this month I am positively drowning in them. Some really good reads here.
This weekend, @mollytempleton.com encourages rewatching Buffy, reading about reading, and perchance allowing warmer weather and later sunsets warm your heart:
just the same thing as modernism in a book, which would have linked to my book on why proletarian literature and modernism are really just the same thing. The goal being to really piss EVERYONE off. As Marx: criticism aims to understand literature, but my goal is to use it to change the world. (2/2)
So, am I going to write something on this question of SFF as history as social science as changing the future and whether this is something that distinguishes it from lit fic per se or is that just going to piss people off? Once upon a time I was going to do this by arguing that SFF is really (1/2)
Our panel at @modernistudies.bsky.social @moderniststudies.bsky.social has been accepted!
To the weird (quite possibly) village (probably not) village of Loughborough Alice Dodds, @thehubble101.bsky.social, @mcmccluskey.bsky.social and I go…
