The shorthand for Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is slipstream slasher, although it’s more funny than frightening so it’s not actually a horror film. It’s also earnestly weird so, despite the humor, not a satire. Teenage Sex and Death is a love letter to the subgenre. It’s a visual feast, anchored by outstanding performances, and multilayered with the type of metafictional alternate realities I find so charming …Read More

Several awards for services to fandom were presented by the First Fandom Foundation during the opening ceremonies of LAcon V, the 84th Worldcon, held August 27, 2026.

First Fandom Hall of Fame Award

• Mike Glyer
• Craig Miller
• Bjo Trimble

First Fandom Posthumous Hall of Fame Award

• Fredric Brown
• Myrtle R. Douglas

Sam Moskowitz Archive Award

• Andrew Porter
• David Ritter

[via File 770] …Read More

Electric Shamans at the Festival of the Sun, Mónica Ojeda, tr. Sarah Booker (Coffee House Press, 978-1-56689-755-6, $20.00, 240pp, hc) May 2026.

Sometimes you wait ages for a story about a group thrown together at a music festival in an extreme location who then embark on a strange and surreal journey-quest as a kind of makeshift family (a term that I picked up from the academic Yue Xie at a …Read More

The winners for the 2025 Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were announced August 31, 2026 at LAcon V.

Long Form

• WINNER: Ten Incarnations of Rebellion, Vaishnavi Patel (Ballantine) amazon / bookshop

• Pagans, James Alistair Henry (Moonflower) amazon
• Tobacco Republic: What If The 13 Colonies Never United?, R.A. Moss (Beck & Branch) amazon

Short Form

• WINNER: Caesar at Sea , Alan Smale (Skull X Bones)

…Read More

• Facebook
• X
• Tumblr
• Pinterest

Author and editor David Kopaska-Merkel, 69, died August 26, 2026.

David C. Kopaska-Merkel was born January 11, 1957 in Charlottesville VA. He attended William & Mary, earned a doctorate in geology, worked for the Geological Survey of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and wrote several articles and books on geology and paleontology. He began writing speculative work in short fiction, starting with his first published story Mecroniya (1981), but soon began publishing …Read More

The African Speculative Fiction Society (ASFS) announced the shortlist for the 2026 Nommo Awards, given to works by African authors as defined by the ASFS and Nommo Awards Guidelines, on August 27, 2026 at LAcon V, the 84th World Science Fiction Convention, in Anaheim CA.

Ilube Award for Best Novel

• The Bone River, Nkereuwem Albert (Phoenix)
• Black Navel, Paul Olisaeloka Anozie (Griots Lounge) amazon / bookshop
• Firstborn of the …Read More
  • Facebook
  • X
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

Visit our bookshop.org page to purchase this week’s new books and support your local bookstore. And us!

Aguirre, Ann: The Hocus Pocus Handbook (Sourcebooks Casablanca 978-1464224119, $18.99, 352pp, formats: paperback, ebook, audiobook, 09/01/2026)

SF romantic comedy novel. Thea, a changeling, was stolen from the mortal world and now lives in the wildlands. Now she has to hunt down Devan J. Fenelon, but she has to work with …Read More

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has named Nancy Kress the 43rd recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.

SFWA President Kate Ristau said,

When we choose a SFWA Grand Master, the discussion begins with the Past Presidents. Year after year, Nancy’s name has come up as an author who is long overdue for this award. She has made an incredible impact on our …Read More

LAcon V has announced that Aussiecon 5 and the Brisbane in 2028 bid won the right to host the 2028 Worldcon. The 86th World Science Fiction Convention will be held July 27-31, 2028 at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre in Brisbane, Australia.

Guests of honor announced so far include Claire G. Coleman, David Gaider, Kathleen Jennings, Seanan McGuire, Perry Middlemiss, and Jonathan Strahan.

According to File 770, Brisbane …Read More

Strange Horizons 5/4/26, 5/11/26, 5/18/26
Lightspeed 6/26
Kaleidotrope Spring ’26

The three stories published in Strange Horizons in May are all quite different in mood and style, but in one way or another, they are all about outsiders, sometimes seemingly monstrous ones, trying to find their place in a world that is alien, or hostile, to them.

In Senescence by aegor ray, an alien creature arrives in a …Read More

The September 2026 Locus magazine, issue #788, has interviews with Garth Nix and James Islington, a spotlight on Dmitri Lincoln Mehlhorn & Archipelago of Light, and a spotlight on artist Tithi Luadthong AKA Grandfailure. The Fall Titles section includes reviewers’ seasonal picks, US and UK forthcoming books, a spotlight on Chinelo Onwualu, and commentary from Claire North, Tricia Narwani, and Yoon Ha Lee. John Crowley and Dave Nee are …Read More

Lovecraft’s Brood, edited by Ellen Datlow (Tachyon, 978-1616964627, trade paperback, 320pp, $18.95) July 2026

As always, anthologist Ellen Datlow finds a fresh and intriguing hook on which to hang a many-colored-coat of new stories. Assuming an anthologist begins by wanting to honor Lovecraft’s seminal work, should she simply put together another collection of Cthulhu Mythos stories, specifically invoking the Elder Gods, the streets of Providence, and the ruins of R’lyeh, …Read More

This list covers new SF/F/H print, online, and electronic periodicals (including regularly updated websites) seen by Locus magazine, focusing on those that publish fiction or reviews and criticism. To submit titles for listing on these pages, please send to Locus Publications, 655 13th St. #100, Oakland CA 94612 or email locus@locusmag.com.

Dwarf Stars 2026

• Jean-Paul L. Garnier, ed.
• 2026, $5.00 print USA/more internationally, annual, 26pp, 14 x 21½ …Read More
  • Facebook
  • X
  • Tumblr
  • Pinterest

The notable debut this week is Sheila Masterson’s romantasy The Poison Daughter (Slowburn), ranking #1 or #2 at New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly.

Title Debut / #wks on any list NYT
09.06 LAT
08.30 USAT
08.23 PW
08.31 Amz
(08.31) UK:
Amz UK
(08.31) Canada:
Amz.ca
…Read More

Richmond-Upon-Thames is a charming borough of South West London, famous for its riverside and the mixture of artists and rock stars it routinely attracts. These days, it is familiar to many Americans from the Apple TV show Ted Lasso, who will be delighted to know it is just as charming and quirky as it appears on screen.

It therefore seemed like a good idea to hold a miniconvention there. …Read More

The League of Dangerous Young Ladies, J.A. Morgenstein (Stonefruit Studio 978-1-464-23854-3, $19.99, 368pp, hc) June 2026.

J.A. Morgenstein’s A League of Dangerous Young Ladies is full of swashbuckling adventure involving Count Dracula, a mysterious orb, a collection of human/insect hybrids on a deadly quest to gain control of said orb, and the young ladies of the title who formerly attended a most unusual boarding school and now are fending for …Read More

The Locus Selected Books by Author list has been updated on our Forthcoming Books page, with information from the September 2026 issue covering upcoming titles from genre houses slated through March 2027. Find out about your favorite authors’ upcoming books!

For the complete list of books by publisher, subscribe to our print magazine or purchase the September issue in print or digital editions, available September 1, 2026. …Read More

The winners of the Hugo Awards, the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, and the Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book were announced on August 30, 2026 by LAcon V, the 84th World Science Fiction Convention.

The winners are:

Best Novel

• WINNER: The Everlasting,Alix E. Harrow (Tor US; Tor UK) amazon / bookshop

• A Drop of Corruption, Robert Jackson Bennett (Del Rey; Hodderscape) amazon / bookshop

…Read More

• Facebook
• X
• Tumblr
• Pinterest

Scion, James Islington (Saga Press 978-1-66823-924-7, 240pp, $28.00, hc). September 2026.

As James Islington’s new cyberpunk novel Scion opened, I was expecting a heist or heist-adjacent novel: After all, the narrator was breaking into a well-fortified residence, and being given rough treatment by a ten-foot-tall Argos with more eyes and arms than seems reasonable. Soon, however, it’s revealed that Azure is an assassin rather than a thief – and their …Read More

Icons of the Fantastic: Illustrations of Imaginative Literature from the Korshak Collection, David M. Brinley & Amanda T. Zehnder, eds. (University of Delaware Press, 978-16-445-34052, $44.95, 172pp, hc) October 2025. Front cover by Edmund Dulac, rear cover by José Segrelles.

The Korshak family’s world-class collection of fantastic art illustrations has been curated into a thoughtful dust-jacketed volume on glossy paper that not only celebrates the history of fantastic art over …Read More

Ice Vegas, Larry Niven & Steven Barnes (Blackstone, 979-8228329577, hardcover, 272pp, $29.99) July 2026

What is it about fantastika that encourages the co-authoring of stories? The genres of fantasy, science fiction, and, to a lesser extent, horror (Skipp & Spector) have generated an honor roll of simpatico authors who choose to compose their fiction together, in a manner and quantity that other genres-crime, romance, mimetic, thrillers (with a notable exception …Read More

Animal Spiral, Luis Othoniel Rosa, tr. Katie Marya (Charco Press 978-1-91726-032-9, 448pp, $18.95, tp) June 2026. Cover by Pablo Font.

Animal Spiral wants you to love the future. Sprawling across three centuries, it is an exuberant, insistent text, and does as good a job of conveying the subjective experience of a human collective consciousness as any novel I can remember reading. Not incidentally, although its credited author is Luis Othoniel …Read More

An Impossibility of Crows, Kirsten Kaschock (University of Massachusetts Press 978-1-62534-925-5, $22.95, 248pp, tp) March 2026.

The premise for this novel is one that I found irresistible: A troubled chemist returns to her childhood home to breed a crow as big as a horse, for the purpose of providing wings for her daughter.

It’s a premise that Kirsten Kaschock delivers with conviction in this darkly spellbinding tale, a Gothic science-fiction …Read More

Looking for something new to add to your reading list? Our August 25, 2026 new releases roundup takes a look at the latest arrivals in Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Young Adult fiction.

From futuristic journeys and imaginative fantasy adventures to eerie horror stories and gripping YA novels, this week brings a diverse range of new titles to discover. We’ve gathered some of the standout releases to help you find …Read More

Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep, Paul Tremblay (Morrow 978-0-06339-846-7, $30.00, 336pp, hc) June 2026.

Last month, I reviewed Monster Capital, an excellent new anthology from Comma Press that uses genre to shed light on the monstrousness of capitalism. In his introduction to the book, Ra Page argues that despite Marx and the cultural critic Mark Fisher framing capitalism as a sorcerer (Marx) and a zombie (Fisher), speculative fiction rarely …Read More

Lemuria 7, Allen Steele (Fantastic Books 978-1515458517, hardcover, 204pp, $22.00) July 2026.

It has certainly been enjoyable to watch Allen Steele, in recent years, revive the Captain Future franchise (a review of one such outing here). But it’s even more pleasant to get a fresh novel from Steele that is not connected with anyone else’s intellectual property. Steele has been delivering the solid stefnal goods since his first short-story appearance …Read More

Young World, Soman Chainani (Random House 978-0-593-90518-0, $21.99, 480pp, hc) May 2026.

Before I begin a review of Soman Chainani’s Young World, I need to make sure you understand that I enjoyed this book, in fact I read it over a single weekend because I had to know what was going to happen next. But I also have to admit that this might be one of the most ridiculous books …Read More

Visit our bookshop.org page to purchase this week’s new books and support your local bookstore. And us!

Arnott, Jake: Netherwood (Titan Books UK 978-1835416594, £18.99, 256pp, formats: hardcover, 08/25/2026)

Horror novel. After moving to the town of Hastings, Justine and Adam find a witch bottle that’s said to be connected to a band that experimented with blood magic, and occult forces. When Adam opens the bottle, strange …Read More

Mahbod & Mahyar A. Amouzegar, Tomorrow Brings Joy: Elysium (University of New Orleans Press 3/26) Near-future SF novel set in Elysium, a utopian society where humans and androids coexist, but Dolores and her android companion KR uncover a place called Walled City, a parallel social experiment that reveals some unsettling truths about Elysium’s origins.

Andrea Hairston, The Redemption Center Is Closed on Sundays …Read More

The Book of Bots, James Patrick Kelly (Fairwood Press 978-1-958880-41-8, $19.99, 302pp, tp) August 2026. Cover by Devrim Erdogan.

A new collection by James Patrick Kelly, one of the best practitioners of short fiction in our field, is always cause for celebration. The Book of Bots, however, is something special, a collection of 12 stories featuring robots and other artificial intelligences.

But it’s more than that.

The stories, presented in …Read More