Please Discuss!

So I went and got the new release book for the ACOTAR book 6 and with how small it is, I’m just not at all motivated to read it. I don’t usually like reading different perspectives in one book and with so many laid out in a small book I feel like I won’t enjoy it? Anyhow please tell me what you guys think? Worth a read now or wait until the next book?

Ps. Any other book recommendations that are similar and that give off the same vibes please recommend too! I’m kinda getting into a reading stump 😭

A pair of anthology reviews means I left the magazines until late this month, but I still read through Clarkesworld and GigaNotoSaurus. What sci-fi/fantasy short fiction do I have to recommend? Let’s take a look!

Clarkesworld

Clarkesworld celebrated its twentieth anniversary this month, and if you think that means a star-studded issue full of big-name authors, you don’t know Clarkesworld. They pride themselves on a total refusal to solicit stories, so while this issue has several pieces by authors I’ve enjoyed in the past, it’s very much in keeping with a normal issue of Clarkesworld. 

The October issue opens with A Vintage Kind of Death by newly-minted Sturgeon Award-winner Alex T. Singer. It details something of an AI meet-cute, with a pair of synthetics donning human costumes and awkwardly recreating the untimely death that had arrived on the heels of a broken relationship. Both generate pathos with the personalities peeking out through their struggles to stay in-character, making for a story that’s a bit more uplifting than its premise may suggest. 

Fiona Moore returns to Clarkesworld with another entry in her long-running Morag series that started in 2023 with “The Spoil Heap.” The Mari Lwyd is very much in keeping with the previous entries, so fans will doubtless stay fans and critics have no real reason to try again. But it’s a pleasant story that offers a bit of seasonally-appropriate spookiness and some light in an issue that certainly does get darker. 

The issue’s sole novelette, How Does One Person Kill a Mountain by Shi Heiyao, translated by Andy Dudak, sees the Malawian lead attempt to execute a scheme to kill the mountainous alien that he sees as the center of the death of local industry and the influx of wealthy foreigners. As one might expect, the job doesn’t go off quite as planned, forcing him to consider things from another angle. I’ve often shared my dislike of heist stories, and assassination plots hit much the same for me, leading to a read that I view as a bit overlong but could easily click better for another reader. 

For me, the highlight of the issue—by a large margin—is the extended centerpiece, Elizabeth Bear’s novella The Job. Like my other favorite novella published this year in Clarkesworld (Rebecca Campbell’s “The Floating Republic”), this deals with people going off-script while working on a distant planet and later having to reckon with Earth’s response. In this case, the lead leaves behind a failing body and a rocky relationship for the opportunity to earn life-changing money being embedded in a whale-like body designed to scout an ocean world for extractible resources. But a potential first contact significantly muddies the waters, casting doubt on the project’s viability and introducing friction between the lead, her partner, and their boss. It all comes together in a way that’s absolutely enthralling, with nuanced characters and heart-wrenching moments. A truly exceptional tale. 

The issue returns to short stories with Five Bottles in Memory of Petronius Finch by Louis Inglis Hall, an author who has released more than his fair share of excellent tales over the last couple years. Here, the quality of the storytelling is as good as always, but the premise of making wine from human cadavers is a bit more grotesque than I prefer. If that’s not an obstacle, this family drama formatted as a wine tasting is still worth the read, though it wouldn’t be the place I’d go first for readers new to Hall’s work. 

Natalia Theodoridou’s Roams the Planet of Our Grief introduces a lead who hears voices of the dead coming from a mysterious planet nicknamed Little Prince. He tries persistently to pass those messages to loved ones, even at great personal cost, all the while caught up in his own loss and a society that doesn’t always accept his gender identity. The thread of self-sacrifice to the point of vice comes through wonderfully, making for a quality read, even if the various other story threads don’t always click quite as well. 

The fiction section closes with The Rice Paper Bleed by Tia Tashiro, starring a woman in an assisted living facility who insists that her surroundings keep changing inexplicably. Perhaps unsurprisingly, her family members chalk it up to deteriorating memory, but the reader quickly sees glimpses of the underlying truth. Well put-together and emotionally engaging. Nothing else in this issue hits the level of the novella, but for me, this comes the closest. 

The editorial reflects on twenty years of survival as a short fiction magazine—truly a staggering achievement—while also talking about pay for staff, columnists, artists, translators, authors, etc. It also updates an anniversary subscription drive conducted with an eye toward raising pay (for authors, who were next in the raise rotation). At the time of publication, it was just short, but I’m pleased to see that Clarkesworld reached its goal before the month was out. There is, of course, no rest for the weary, but good news is good news. 

The science article takes a look at the amazing vision and flight of the dragonfly and wonders whether any of the principles behind it could be applied to spaceship design. And as usual, there are a pair of interviews, this time with authors Wole Talabi and Yoon Ha Lee. I’ve already read the former’s upcoming novel (and liked it!) and am certainly intrigued by the latter’s. 

GigaNotoSaurus 

This month’s longish short fiction in GigaNotoSaurus is the novelette People Like Us by Grace F. Hopkins, which tells of the awakening of a werewolf. The narrator tells the reader immediately what to expect, before retreating to a time when she had not known werewolves existed and detailing the agonizingly slow process of trying to figure out just what kept going so wrong every month. There’s very little plot here, but it wonderfully sinks into the character’s perspective. For fans of origin stories and found families, this is an excellent read.

October Favorites

• The Job by Elizabeth Bear (novella, Clarkesworld)

After a very sudden illness I just lost one of my best friends Cheddar. Cheddar was a goofy pitbull mix with personality for days. I almost named him Mouse after Harry Dresden's dog, but it my partner didnt love that name and isn't a Dresden fan. I am looking for lightish fantasy stories that feature awsome dogs or other furry friends. Anything that touches on the special relationships between humans and their pets in an escapist fantasy world, would be really appreciated.

Edit: Before this becomes overrun with Dungeon Crawler Carl rec, I am aware of how awesome Princess Doughnut is.

Are there any books set in the modern day that use typical fantasy tropes and archetypes. I guess what I'm looking for are fantasy archetypes wandering the streets of 2026. A barbarian and a battlemage duking it out on the streets of London or a spellsword and a nightblade plotting in a dark back alley in New York. Are there any fantasy series out there which fit this vibe?

Review originally on JamReads

Some novels definitely feel as terribly accurate to the times, a wake-up call that leaves us with much to think about, and Our Infinite and Inevitable Ends is one of those. An ambitious sapphic, climate-fiction speculative thriller that also puts the effort of becoming a character study over grief and self-destruction, a plot that keeps us asking questions about the central mystery, and a terribly accurate book for our times.

At the center of the plot, we have Dr. Cassandra Barlowe, just after finding her ex-lover and leader researcher on deleria (a drug that allows to see alternative futures), Dr. Yana Gusniv, has died in mysterious circumstances. A moment that starts a journey for Cass, while she's being investigated as a suspect for it, to discover the truth behind Yana's death, using the own drug to try to find what happened, while self-torturing herself with visions of herself and Yana in other timelines where they might would have been happy together.

Cass is a marvelously complex character, and we get to know her very intimately, especially as past, present and future become intertwined in the narration; she's suffering a lot, emotionally destroyed with Yana's death even if six years have passed since they took different ways. A person that is at the absolute bottom, almost self-destroying herself using the deleria, trying to find what could have happened, but also reviving and experiencing really painful moments, false hope that also feels like not being able to let Yana go.

However, even when this book is a really well-executed character study, I found the ideas behind it extremely compelling (but also a bit scary). The way deleria is eating the funds for any kind of investigation, just aiming to find that perfect solution in the alternative futures; the thing is, sometimes you might need to compromise with a less than perfect solution, a temporal help that might allow to alleviate the problem, even when it's not the perfect answer (and it also feels as a parallel to how LLMs are trying to cannibalize science promising those unachievable goals while at the same time they are the ones contributing to burn the planet). The climate collapse that is described is not a far-fetched future, and again, it's still possible to reverse it; there's hope, but we need to acknowledge the problem and stop shrugging our heads because "this is not a definitive solution".

Our Infinite and Inevitable Ends is a brilliant novel, a piece that invites the reader to think about its themes while following the deconstruction of Cass looking for a clue about Yana's death. Another book that puts A.D. Sui on my auto-buy list!

Still Lost: Tales From 2080 by Sam A. Miller

Bingo Square: Five Short Stories (HM)

My IRL book club strikes again! Not because it was this month's book, but as a suggestion from one of the friends I made there.

The premise is the author finds these stories on a mysterious floppy disc while dumpster diving and is, ah, rather forcibly made the custodian of the stories here. 

What did I think? Not bad. I was expecting it to be stories about dealing with the aliens, instead it's about people. Yes, the Xenos do put in some appearances, but they aren't the focus. 

• Foreword: How the author found the disk and the stories.
• Prologue: How the aliens came and we got into this mess. The aliens are amusing, all powerful and annoyed. And disappointed in humanity. ★★★★★★★
• Xenos: A grade student meets with a Xeno for an exchange. The Xeno is trying to get samples, but there are restrictions on how it can be done. So, the Xeno is left to deal with perverts. It's a funny story and also gets into a new religion established after contact.★★★★★★★★★
• Being a Nothingness: A man dealing with crippling anxiety seeks out a new treatment that would allow him to communicate with his unconscious mind that's responsible for his anxiety. It doesn't go as expected for them. ★★★★★★★
• Eggs For Roman: A bit like Flowers for Algernon, but Algernon is a baboon called Habbibi (who prefers to be called Roman). It's an uplift story, and one where we humans don't come off looking good in any real sense. ★★★★★★★★★
• Four Little Words: Annoying botanist is very smug, technically correct and annoying. Not very realistic in how people immediately changed tacks. ★★★★★★
• Bloodstreams: Professional hit man who takes out only hits on the annoying and aggravating. I mean, who wouldn't want to take out a petty tyrant of an HOA president? But it's not solo work. No, he's generating content and there are rival streamers. ★★★★★★★
• The Prophet: A skeptical industrial hacker seeks out a “prophet” and gets into something he didn't expect. ★★★★★★★★
• Beat: A story of new addiction and a young man's fall to rock bottom. ★★★★★★★
• Story Notes / Conclusion: Author's notes for the stories. 

7 stars on average. “Eggs for Roman” and “Xenos” were the winners for me. “The Prophet” was close though, and if someone did that to my dog…

Very much a first book though. And I’m taking away a star for only being able to read it on my tablet.
Six stars. ★★★★★★

I’ll be honest, I went into this not knowing anything about the plot or concept, just based on the strength of how much I loved The Everlasting by the same author. I assumed from the title that this would also be a little Arthurian-adjacent, but it’s way more of a fairy-tale story than anything. No connection to Arthur beyond a tower named Avalon. I think if I had read the blurb, I would not have picked this up. Just a plot and concept that does not typically appeal to me. 

The writing style of The Everlasting that had gripped me from the first pages was just not present in Witches. In fact, it read way more juvenile, on the edge of YA, which is another thing that’s just not for me. And romance, which was a central feature and very well done in Everlasting, felt forced and half-baked in Witches. 

I was also baffled by some of the world-building. This is supposed to be a highly patriarchal society where women have been spurned for witchcraft, but/and many male historical figures or fictional heroes have been genderbent. So this version of Odysseus is a woman, yet trickery and cunning is not a heroic trait for a woman in this world. So how does that change the Odyssey? We also get mentions of Charlotte Perrault and Andrea Lang and the Sisters Grimm as famous folklorists, but why would women scholars be held in such esteem? (And why genderbend Andrew Lang at all when Leonora Blanche Lang was right there? I think it would perhaps have been better to showcase how the work of women was historically overlooked in favor of propping up their male collaborators, both in the fictional world and in ours. Especially considering the themes of the book.)

It also has very white feminism. Someone with a now-deleted account left a few very good comments about this in the FIF book club discussions a few years back, which I felt encapsulated my own misgivings. It’s not the worst thing in the world; it’s trying, at least. While Harrow makes an effort to include various characters of color, they read more as token inclusions to serve the stories of the white main characters, who are, despite the environment in which they were raised, somehow more open minded and progressive than anyone else of this period would be. Despite having a prominent interracial lesbian romance, the story mainly highlights the queerness of it, rather than attempting discussions around intersectionality. It’s a similar story when it comes to the inclusion of classism and the labor movement. In fairness, there may simply not have been space for it, what with three main characters each needing their own character arcs. 

And this brings me to the impression I get of this book as a whole: that it’s trying to do too much, and ends up doing a lot of things poorly rather than a few things well.

All that being said, there are things I still enjoyed. The story picked up in the second half, and often kept me guessing as to where it would go. The three main characters felt distinct, and their anger at the world justified. I especially appreciated Agnes’s arc and the centering of motherhood.

But the only reason I finished this is because I buddy-read it with a friend; as I said, had I read the synopsis I would not have picked it up myself. (My friend had given me a list of books to choose from, and I landed on this just because I saw Harrow’s name.) It’s wild to go from one of my favorite reads of the year in The Everlasting, to having this one be such a huge disappointment. It also does a very specific meta thing in its ending which is a pet peeve of mine, something that without spoilers The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue does too.

Bingo: Judge a Book by its Title, Book Club or Readalong, Politics and Court Intrigue (HM, as a mayoral election is a major plot point)

Welcome to the daily recommendation requests and simple questions thread, now 1025.83% more adorable than ever before!

Stickied/highlight slots are limited, so please remember to like and subscribe upvote this thread for visibility on the subreddit <3

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This thread is to be used for recommendation requests or simple questions that are small/general enough that they won’t spark a full thread of discussion.

Check out r/Fantasy's 2026 Book Bingo Card here!

As usual, first have a look at the sidebar in case what you're after is there. The r/Fantasy wiki contains links to many community resources, including "best of" lists, flowcharts, the LGTBQ+ database, and more. If you need some help figuring out what you want, think about including some of the information below:

• Books you’ve liked or disliked
• Traits like prose, characters, or settings you most enjoy
• Series vs. standalone preference
• Tone preference (lighthearted, grimdark, etc)
• Complexity/depth level

Be sure to check out responses to other users' requests in the thread, as you may find plenty of ideas there as well. Happy reading, and may your TBR grow ever higher!

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^{tiny image link to make the preview show up correctly}

art credit: special thanks to our artist, Himmis commissions, who we commissioned to create this gorgeous piece of art for us with practically no direction other than "cozy, magical, bookish, and maybe a gryphon???" We absolutely love it, and we hope you do too.

I just finished reading Idols Fall, the third book in the Iconoclasts series by Mike Shel. I have questions. I liked the first two books, but there are so many things about the third book that confused me. Maybe some of you smart people can help me understand.

1. What was the point of Ilanda’s story?

A large part of the book was dedicated to Ilanda and her political struggles, the barbarian invasion and the “flame child”. I just couldn’t get my head around how these stories impacted Agnes’ story and her mission to destroy the “gods”. I feel these stories were developed and concluded pretty much independently.

Have I missed something? How do Ilanda’s decisions or the events in the realm affect Agnes’ mission which we have been following for three books?

1. What was the deal with the «flame child»? Why didn’t the “gods” care about her?

If I remember correctly, Ilanda’s magic talking sword says that it can’t foresee/see the “flame child’s” actions. This seems significant since it can usually make accurate prophetic predictions of the future. Doesn’t this point towards the “flame child” having powers fundamentally different to those of the “gods”?

Why then is this revelation seemingly of no consequence to the main story? As far as I remember the implications of this are never brought up. The “gods” don’t seem to find it a big deal. Which I should think it is considering the nature of magic. Which brings me to my next question.

1. How does magic work?

We are told that magic will disappear from the world if the “gods” are killed, so Belu must survive to save magic and avoid societal collapse. However, the «gods» were originally powerful sorcerers. Hoarding magical power to such an extent as to make them practically gods. Humans now channel magic through them somehow. Lending types of magic from specific «gods». Magic leaving the world if the «gods» die is told to us and Agnes by Belu, herself a “god”, thus giving her ample reason to lie about this to save her skin. Agnes, or the book, never stops to ask the question “if the “gods” started out as sorcerers, didn’t magic have to exist before the “gods”? Should we be fine if they die?”

What happens to the magically inhabited swords if the “gods” die? They are after all the same powerful sorcerers that the “gods” themselves were. Would that magic stop working? If not, could they then take on the mantle of the “gods” and be the new magic dispensers?

Also, Agnes butchers all the “gods” except Belu, who then takes on all duties of dispensing magic to worshippers, regardless of which “god” they previously prayed to for magic? I just don’t understand it.

1. What was the purpose of main characters losing agency?

Agnes and Ilanda (maybe more characters, can’t remember) become increasingly dependent on magical advisors who know exactly what they have to do and when. This happens a lot in the last book. I feel this makes their actions somehow less meaningful and they lose agency. Is there a point to this that I don’t understand?

1. Ilanda has a magical talking sword as well now?

Her sword suddenly comes to life after she starts killing people with it and turns into a powerful magical advisor. I felt this came a bit out of thin air. Were there hints or foreshadowing for this that I missed? It just suddenly showing up and stealing the show made her packing it away in a box not feel very impactful. Especially since she just turn to another magical advisor in the form of a talking head moments later.

1. What happened to the implied moral ambiguity of the “gods”?

Reading the books I felt that I was lead to believe that maybe Agnes’ talking sword wasn’t quite honest and maybe there would be some sort of betrayal. Or that Timilis had made some elaborate plan that steered Agnes towards making a mistake. But no, the «gods» were evil as shit and deserved to die. Every shady character and advisor actually told the truth and no one was misled (except that Belu was the sword’s wife and there was a grudge – that was however irrelevant). There was implied moral ambiguity that turned out to black and white.

Were there deeper moral conflicts that I didn’t pick up on?

1. What happened to Qeelb?

He was left behind thousands of years in the past. When this happened I immediately expected it to be revealed that he had survived, gained power and become an important part of the ancient uprising against the “gods”. Maybe he was one of the swords all along? That dude in the cave? I looked forward to going back through the books to look for hints and foreshadowing. However, revelation never came. Or did I miss it?

It seemed like an obvious cool twist to throw into the mix.

That was perhaps more of a rant disguised as questions. But I am curious if anyone can answer some of them.

Thank you!

Looking for Fantasy books that have many super short, self contained vignettes or prose miniatures. Anything shorter than the average short story length. Not looking for poetry but prose poems and similar forms count

I feel like I'm going crazy. Finished the book today.

Okay so first we're told:

She led me to a mound of snow, which she cleared away with a broom to show three faces. One older man with close-cropped white hair wore the tattoos of an Assassin-Adept; one woman had the hard face of a warrior; the last was a dog-man, his jaw a bit too large, his canines sharp, his ears on the top of his head and pointed. He had armor on his legs, but none on his trunk, which I found odd. He still had an arrow through his mouth that went up where his brain would be. “What a shot,” I said. “How like you to praise yourself. But it was, jilnaedu. It was a very good shot. You lay in hiding and struck him from below before he knew exactly where you were. This one”—and here she pointed at the woman—“I think she was an Ispanthian mercenary, she had studied Calar Bajat.”

And then:

“And the dog-man broke my head for me.” “Yes. And I sent him to the Bride.” “Does she take dogs?” “I have also wondered this.”

How did the dog-man break his head if he put an arrow through his brain from hiding?

If the Dog-man broke his head in the fight how did he keep up fire on the assassin and kill the mercenary?

tldr: 10/10. An emotional and unique story about autonomy, survival, and the right to exist on your own terms. It asks: What would you give up for a quiet life?

TW: Child Death

Spoiler-Free Review:

For those unfamiliar with the story, The Fifth Season, the first book in N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, follows three orogenes, people with the ability to manipulate seismic and thermal energy.

Our three main characters are:

Essun: A woman in her forties who discovers that her husband has murdered their three-year-old son and fled with their older daughter. Her story is told in second person, while the other two are told in close third person.

Damaya: A young girl who is sent to the Fulcrum, an institution where children with the power of orogeny are trained.

Syenite: A young woman who has spent years training at the Fulcrum and is now sent on a mission alongside a powerful mentor.

Following these three stories is heart-wrenching. Jemisin takes some big risks, particularly with the shifting narrative perspectives and her use of humor throughout an otherwise devastating story, and they completely pay off. The book rewards readers willing to engage with the complexity of its world.

The second-person POV creates an interesting tension between intimacy with the character and emotional detachment.

If you enjoy:

• Bene Gesserit breeding plans in Dune
• Banter between Shallan and Jasnah in The Way of Kings
• Or the way Nesta must confront her own trauma and reckon with how it shapes her relationships with those around her in A Court of Silver Flames

I think you'll find something to latch onto here.

All three women possess superhuman abilities, but those powers don't make them immune to grief, fear, or the limitations imposed upon their lives. They exist in a world where they are treated like dangerous livestock, struggling simply to survive. Some are more successful than others, and while their motivations differ, they share a common experience: the systems governing their lives promise them peace and stability, provided they fulfill their assigned roles.

My only critique, and something I could see other readers struggling with, is that the worldbuilding and the concept of Seasons can initially be difficult to grasp. Jemisin introduces a lot of unfamiliar information without immediately explaining how it all fits together. Personally, I'm comfortable being confused for a good chunk of a book since I'm more of a vibe reader.

I laughed, I cried, I was shocked, and I stayed up past my bedtime. This, for me, had everything I need in a satisfying book. The reader is treated with respect. Information isn't hand-fed to you or "lore dumped" through pages and pages of monologuing villains. Seeds planted in early chapters have satisfying, earned payoffs later on, and there's so much more to glean from a reread.

Now onto some specifics and thus spoilers ahead...

Now, I love heresy and evil religious institutions, and the Fulcrum and their nasty Guardians had me by the throat. I went into this book completely blind, so it took me a while to understand orogeny and its place in this world.

I know the Fulcrum isn't a religious institution, but I see major parallels between its teachings and those of dogmatic religious institutions. Schaffa tells Damaya that she is "a gift of the Earth, but Father Earth hates [them], never forget, and his gifts are neither free nor safe." This immediately reminded me of Catholic teachings about original sin: being made in God's image, yet born with something you must spend your life seeking absolution for.

But watching Schaffa take Damaya away from her family and begin indoctrinating her into believing that her worth comes solely from her obedience to the Fulcrum was heartbreaking. And then he broke her hand.

I knew immediately that this book was going to challenge me, in the best possible way.

On a reread, I noticed that when Essun is about to kill people in her village, she hears a male voice in her conscience saying, "Naughty, naughty." I believe this is meant to be Schaffa's voice. He has so insidiously wormed his way into her psyche that even after she believes him dead, she still hears his judgment.

And I do believe Schaffa loved Damaya, but not in a healthy way. His love reminds me of a farmer's affection for his livestock. He cares for and protects them, but ultimately considers them his property, to be disciplined when they step out of line. In his mind, they simply don't know any better.

And I am so proud of myself. Maybe y'all figured this out sooner, but the whole time I was trying to understand how the three women's stories were connected. Then there was a line suggesting that Damaya wouldn't understand something until she was older, and it clicked: Oh shoot, Damaya is Essun, and that probably means she's Syenite, too.

The way the Fulcrum completely lied to and poisoned its orogenes is fascinating. I think Jemisin does an amazing job of portraying indoctrination without making it over-the-top or cartoonish. It's insidious but powerful.

I keep thinking about it, and I really do think dairy cattle are the best comparison for how the Fulcrum treats its orogenes. Bred, prodded, confined, and ultimately slaughtered when they can no longer produce or cooperate.

The concept of bodily autonomy goes beyond women being used as incubators. We see Alabaster live his life as a stud, denied love, rest, and choice. These are the very things Syenite believes she'll be granted if she can just earn a few more rings.

Alabaster sees himself as a tool, thanks to the conditioning of the Fulcrum. But by the end, he's decided how and where he will be wielded. I don't see him, at least in this book, as a revolutionary, but rather as a tortured man pushed to his breaking point, disillusioned with the institution that raised him.

The whole system is a lie.

So that's that on that. What do y'all think? Have you read The Fifth Season or the rest of the trilogy? If not, does it sound like something you'd be interested in?

I was enjoying my read of As You Wake, Break the Shell quite a bit already, being a sucker for the beautiful hard work of solarpunk as Becky Chambers writes it, when I came across this paragraph:

[Cora] also kinda thought that changing a recipe was maybe the best way to give a mental thumbs-up to the person who'd given it to you, because after all, they'd gotten that recipe from someone else, who'd gotten it from someone else, on and on and on, all the way back to the first time somebody stuck a bug on a stick over a campfire. Something always drifted, when you copied it. That was just the way of things. And any sort of activity that made you really feel that chain reaching way back behind you--those were the things Cora relished.

I was so instantly charmed by this idea, of recipe drift akin to genetic drift, of generations of influence altering the outcome of a meal as much as a species, that I knew I had to recreate a recipe from this book. With some small modifications, for taste, convenience, and narrative resonance. 😉 So, without any further ado, please feast your eyes on:

Meredith's Take on Cora's Take on Otto's Take (on Becky Chamber's Take on Mary WanderPolo's Take) on Apple Cake

A gently spiced cake with a pointedly sweet topping! Goes very nicely with a mug of the Cypsela greenhouse chef's bittersweet hot chocolate on the side.

When Wildwood had its premiere at the BFI I read a lot of reviews praising the animation but knocking the story for being full of epic adventure and fantasy tropes. My only reaction to that was, "That's awesome!" I am a millenial and have fond memories of endlessly rewatching things like POTC, LOTR, Harry Potter, Kingdom of Heaven, Troy etc over and over on my old TV set. And obviously, times have changed and we haven't gotten anything like it since, but I do long for it.

Because you know, I've watched dozens of movies over the years that of course yes I can praise for having good cinematography, acting, witty dialogue etc. But deep down, we all want that movie that's "just our thing" so to speak.

And Wildwood finally scratched that itch. While I went in expecting a good ol fantasy romp with supposedly the best stop motion animation ever attempted, I wasn't expecting such an emotional and involving storyline examining yes your classic tropes of courage, heroism, and the fantastical. But also loss, guilt, regret, family and the lengths people will go for their loved ones. I knew going in the villainess would have a tragic backstory, but I didn't expect to see her, by villain standards, be so vulnerable and to be such a good foil for the main character. And for all the talks that the story was predictable, I did not expect the choice that would be presented to the main character, let's just keep it at that. It was just such a well rounded character driven story and that unlike animated movies nowadays, has just the right amount of emotion without veering into the sentimental. Disney/Pixar movies do that a lot and even if I do enjoy their movies for the most part, I appreciated Wildwood for adding just the right dose.

As a fantasy movie, it definately had everything that tickled my fancy. Characters having their moments of heroism, beautiful environments, armies marching in rythm, battles. You name it.

If I have one gripe with the movie, especially in the second half there does end up being a lot of lore and politics with all the factions, but we're only given like one sentence explanations of each before the mad dash to the climax. Funny since this movie is already over 2 hours long, which is an eternity for an animated movie, not least a handmade one. But I wouldn't have minded an additional 20 minutes to flesh everything out.

Nonetheless, I am finally glad a movie brought me back to my youth and the good ol days of being transported to another world for an epic adventures! 9/10

Hello! I am a big fan of high fantasy, and am looking for a book that has a general theme of foxes or a fox-themed character (preferably the main character, but I am not incredibly picky).

I know this is an odd request lol. I am getting a new puppy this summer, and am really really stuck on what to name her. I usually like to have my call names and registered names picked out in advance. My current dog of the same breed is named Suren/Wren "Foxes and Folklore", and I really want a name that matches the vibe AND the theme. So a fantasy book character associated with foxes in some capacity with a two-syllable, elegant-ish name with good nickname opportunities. Obviously I would like to read the book or series first before deciding if I like it enough to name my dog after! This is a super tall order, I know, which is why I'm asking around in several spaces to get ideas.

I am NOT looking for Once Upon A Broken Heart (I just didn't like the series at all, and don't love the name Evangeline for a dog), or The Stolen Heir by Holly Black (what my current dog is named after). Any other recommendations are fair game though!!

TIA and if anyone needs any more details I'm happy to do my best to answer any questions lol

ETA: I realized reading back through that I didn't make it super clear, but the puppy will be female! So the most important beats:

- Female dog

- Fox-adjacent at least

- Two syllable name

- Nickname opportunities (Like, my current dog's legal name is Suren. But she's called Wren with equal consistency, which has turned into nicknames like Wrenesmee, Wrenyth Paltro, Wrenny Egg, Kylo Wren, Wrenaissance Faire etc etc. Vs a name like Vixen, which is really hard to derive a good nickname from)

Like I said, tall order, I totally understand that!! I'd just love some ideas to bounce off of!

I’m looking for some fantasy books with rogues, thieves, scoundrels as main characters. I’m more interested in real rogue D&D/RPG archetypes, with some thieves/assassin guilds around. I’ve read Locke Lamora’s first book, and it wasn’t that. Any suggestions?

There's an unobtrusive storefront in Sydney called "The Time Travel Agency," which claims to be selling expensive trips back in time. Anna, the new employee, is designing tours to give customers the chance to meet historic authors like Frances Hodgson Burnett ("The Secret Garden") and the Brontës. Teddy, a customer, wants to revisit his own recent past to figure out why his wife cheated on him with his brother. Jade, who's taking a writing workshop above the Agency, rolls her eyes at the whole premise. But to be fair, so do some of the customers--most of them assume it's might be some kind of hypnosis or virtual reality, not real time travel.

This, from Anna's POV, is possibly a litmus test for who might enjoy this book:

Part of the trouble was that history mostly lists political developments, declarations, and documents. There's so little of the day-to-day or domestic.

"That's because history is masculine," Paisley said. "It doesn't deal in beauty, nature, family, the heart."

If this resonated with you, you may be the target audience. Time travel is a conceit, but it's not what the book is about--it's about relationships, and grief, and parenting. I suspect Moriarty may have started with the end in mind, then worked backwards to say "you know what would sort of make this feasible? Time machines."

On the other hand, if your reaction is to say "oh come on, there's a whole thing called 'social history' and plenty of scholarship that focuses on domestic life and family structures of the past," and roll your eyes, you may find this book overly twee. The first half or so is very cozy, and I use that term as a pejorative. Teddy does a lot of sitting around and talking (or texting) with his male friends who are there to help him emotionally process his wife's affair. Nobody ever gets boorish or off-color. I wouldn't quite call it "therapy speak," but in that vein. One character issues an ultimatum to another, "I need to cut you out of my life for my own health," a couple days later the second character turns up and they work together to rescue someone else in trouble with no repercussions.

Anna obsesses over Hodgson Burnett and designs twelve different tours of the past for clients before starting to branch out to other authors. I really don't think there are that many Frances Hodgson Burnett superfans in Sydney, especially if they're not convinced time travel is real. Her colleagues are always supportive and eating fun snacks. There's a mistaken-identity meet-cute that runs on for a while in an "I thought you knew that I was also X" "oh no, I didn't, how embarrassing!" way. And then there's a "troubleshooting" scene that's like, "if you get this error message, try entering this password. If this doesn't work, try the next one. And the next." And it's like...error messages do not work like that.

We're almost 60% through by the time this conversation happens:

Paisley said she'd had a customer who wanted to witness the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, and another who wanted to see Bloody Sunday in Ireland. What should we do, she wondered, about customers requesting close-ups of earthquakes, tsunamis, trench warfare, the Twin Towers?

"The question is whether it's like death porn to them," Joon suggested, "a snuff movie. Or they mean to watch from a respectful distance to...honor the victims?"

"Or as historical research," Paisley nodded.

I'm sorry, I can't suspend my disbelief that this would never have come up before. Just for "historical research" alone, is there no one interested in trying to solve historical mysteries? Witnessing the births of world religions and looking for evidence of "miraculous" events? The founder of time travel never shows up, she's always calling in via phone while cooking and sounding eccentrically distracted. When other scientists come to visit, she tries to explain her theories to them, but they can't follow her (it doesn't occur to her to try sending them in a time machine). Ultimately she winds up dispensing faux-profundity about how grief is necessary and we all have regrets because we're all just human. Yawn.

Anna and Jade both have thirteen-year-old girls who are starting secondary school and dealing with all the friendship drama that ensues. So the girls' cliques and troubles at school seem to be the impetus for drawing these characters' plotlines together. Things take a swerve, however, that I didn't see coming. So points for creativity.

There are at least a few funny cameos from historical figures:

"And Hemingway really tried to get you into bed?"

"I said I might consider it if he wrote multidimensional female characters and stopped taking himself so seriously."

(shades of "Midnight in Paris"!)

During that week I happened to be researching Virginia Woolf, who was genial when I met her in person, with a haughty, fluting voice and a sharp nose that actually suited her face perfectly--she was attractive. "And what happens to me in the end?" she inquired, having accepted that I was from the future in a glinting, "all right, I'll play along" way.

I told her it was against the rules to reveal an individual's destiny, and then I changed the subject, describing Zoom calls instead.

But there's also a lot of word salad:

He became a Scottish accent, and a word. (Forever after, the word ameliorate would cause a strange sensation of loss in him--it had held him like a soft shell.) He was a glass of lemonade poured over a head; he was the head itself, bent over and shaking with mirth; he was the strands of hair, sticky and wet, droplets flying as the head shook. An umbrella jammed, a drumstick growing mildew, a dislodged sliding wardrobe door, a sunburned back slapped hard. He was a lime wedge pushed into the mouth of a bottle of Corona. A cherry tomato rolling underneath a fridge, a pinch to the back of the neck, a flood, a shadow, a snake, a king, a basketball bounced against a brick wall.

Ultimately, I don't think I was the target audience for this book, and if you read a lot of time travel/SF, you probably aren't either. But someone out there is.

Bingo: Published in 2026, Cat Squasher (much of which is text messages, e-mails, travelers' reviews, so it reads pretty quickly for 500+ pages). Possibly a good Vacation Spot for some people.

I recently read “The spear cuts through water” and absolutely loved everything about it. It could really have been about anything, but I was just in awe of the execution of the story through the exposition and the prose and the deep care you can tell Jimenez put into this book. Really reads like something Ocean Vuong would have written if he delved into the genre imo (that is praise from me)

So I’m wondering if theres other queer fantasy stories that read the same, that feel bigger than life and has great prose that isn’t too purple. Not interested in YA, unfortunately. thank u

Link to my ranking of the first 10: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/1snb9qk/the_10_of_david_pringles_modern_fantasy_novels/

1: *The Bridge* by Iain Banks. I posted a more in-depth review of this one here https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/1vp9ico/the_best_sff_novel_ive_read_this_year_the_bridge/ but in short this is a journey into the interior of the mind of a man who has been in a car crash and he pieces together his life and desires from three distinct, fractured aspects of his consciousness. A really well-realised 'dream world' here that struck me as being like a mix between Terry Gilliam's *Brazil* and the works of Italo Calvino.

2: *The Crying of Lot 49* by Thomas Pynchon. This reminded me, more than anything, of Philip K. Dick's *Ubik* and in fact I think Dick owed a lot to this novel, which was only published a few years prior. A journey by Oedipa Maas to uncover the truth of a conspiracy theory surrounding a postal system. Silly and self-aware character names, as is the usual with postmodernist literature, I had a lot of fun with this. It also doesn't outstay its welcome which is appreciated with such experimental literature; I very much enjoyed it.

3: *The Green Man* by Kingsley Amis. This is a comic ghost story that follows Maurice Allington, the landlord of the titular, historic coaching inn that was once owned by a 17th Century deviant called Thomas Underhill. When Maurice's father dies (this happens in the first 10 pages, so not a spoiler. It's really the inciting incident), the inn's dark past starts to manifest and Allington has to try and protect his family, all the while attempting to arrange a threesome with this wife and his mistress. It is ribald and cheeky in the way Amis was known for and I genuinely laughed out loud on a couple of occasions, but without sacrificing the scares, of which there are some effective ones towards the end.

4: *Sweet Dreams* by Michael Frayn. A short but very good read that can easily be finished in a day. This follows the middle-class Englishman Howard Baker who finds himself in heaven after a car accident (evoking memories of *The Bridge*), only for him not to realise it at first because heaven in this novel turns out to be a stately, organised affair that resembles the inoffensive middle-class life he has just escaped, in which people go to work, attend dinner parties with friends, and select schools for their kids to go to. God has delegated all his duties out to a variety of departments and committees and Baker lands a job designing the Alps, and wins the admiration of all when he presents his design for the Matterhorn. But his high-minded social outlook is horrified by the fact that people keep trying to climb it and dying. I thought this novel had a lot to say about the pitfalls utopianism and trying to 'design' happiness and Frayn touches on a lot with such economy. The only possible strike against it I can think of is that it is written with a very English sensibility and as such not all the humour may translate.

5: *Cold Heaven* by Brian Moore. This one follows a lady called Marie Davenport who is in an unhappy marriage with her husband, Alex. She has been having an affair with one of his colleagues and intends to tell him the truth, however before she can, Alex is struck and seemingly killed by a speedboat whilst they are swimming (they are on holiday in the south of France). Alex is admitted to hospital, only for his body to mysteriously vanish overnight. This is where the novel really gets going into something resembling a slipstream thriller with a plot momentum that invites you to keep turning the page. References are made to a phenomenon that Marie witnessed in Carmel, California a year prior to the novel's opening, which becomes clear later on in the novel. This has elements of unreliable narration and the thin layer of uncanniness over an otherwise normal world reminded me in ways of some of Christopher Priest's work. I also thought the novel had a lot to say about how we rationalise odd occurrences. The second half doesn't quite keep up the tension of the first but was overall a very good story.

6: *Conjure Wife* by Fritz Leiber. I had a decent experience with this novella from Leiber after a not-so-great one with one of his short story collections. This is about a man called Norman, who works at a university in a comfortable suburban life. When he spots witchcraft paraphernalia in the kitchen, he demands his wife dispose of it and soon all the things he'd enjoyed and taken for granted in his life start to go wrong. His colleague's wives take advantage of this and it is up to Norman to learn the spells for himself in order to protect himself and his wife. This one reminded me in a lot of ways of *Rosemary's Baby* by Ira Levin and I think could actually be read as an interesting companion piece to that novel as an example of what we would now call 'urban fantasy', but of course done much earlier than that was even coined. It felt tightly constructed where every detail was relevant, which I appreciate (and explains why I *didn't* like a certain classic, as you will see at No.9...)

7: *Replay* by Ken Grimwood. This is one of the better-known novels on this list and I wish I could've liked it more. The premise here is often suspected to be what inspired the movie *Groundhog Day*, only here the main character lives the past two decades of his life again until his death from a cardiac condition in his 40s. While I do think the themes touched upon in this novel have universal relevance, in that no matter how much you 'improve' past mistakes, new ones will always crop up, the overall execution fell a bit flat for me. It does have some thematic overlap with the above *Sweet Dreams* in that tinkering to try and make the 'perfect' life or attain absolute happiness if often futile and this is the best bit, however I felt the ending was a bit of a cop-out and the myriad references to 70s US pop culture was largely lost on me.

8: *The Haunting of Hill House* by Shirley Jackson. This novel often does seem to polarise people and I unfortunately fell into the camp that didn't quite take to it. However, this is still the last novel in this ranking which I can say I didn't *dislike*. I liked Jackson's restraint, and how the personalities of the guests in the house interacted with each other's, but I rarely felt like I was getting pulled in. Oddly I almost preferred the parts before Eleanor even arrives at Hill House and she's talking to the aloof residents in the nearby town. The ending was kind of interesting though (which I won't divulge obviously, because of spoilers) as was the relationship between Eleanor and Theodora, which I felt was quite ahead of its time.

9: *The Shining* by Stephen King. I had somehow made it into my 30s without ever reading Stephen King. This was one of my spooky October reads alongside *Hill House* and *The Green Man* and by far my least favourite. I think a lot of it can be attributed to King's philosophy on horror, which is that to truly feel scared we have to understand the characters and setting as much as possible in order to heighten the effect of the supernatural (if I've got this wrong, please correct me, but this is what I gather from research). While I *did* like how the Torrance family's individual traits complemented (or compounded) the others', and the Overlook being a representation of Jack's alcoholism as he becomes increasingly violent and bellicose to even his loved ones, compared to the taut and lean horror of Matheson, Levin, and Leiber, I found this novel rather laborious, overwritten with pedantic detail, and undisciplined. (sorry internet)

10: *Cities of the Red Night* by William S. Burroughs. My firs time getting a peek into Burroughs' mind and I can't say I liked what I found there. Where to start explaining this novel? It's written in Burroughs' signature 'cut-up' style, so we get several different storylines against a background conceit of ancient cities that were irradiated in prehistoric times (hence the title) in a location approximate to the Gobi Desert. We have pirates attempting to settle their own colony in the Americas based on Captain James Mission, and an investigator trying to locate a missing boy. The second half of the novel shifts gears from this though as we get full-blown urban collapse, disease, anarchy and ejaculation (oh yes, there's a hell of a lot of that in this novel), as well as a total abandonment of plot. I found it rather intense and disgusting and while some of the descriptive writing was commendable in how it seared its way into my brain, I can't overall say this is something I wish to revisit, particularly due to some of Burroughs' more uncomfortable fixations. Until now, Philip Jose Farmer's *A Feast Unknown* was the most shocking thing I'd read from Pringle's list (though I did like that more than this), but this may have taken the cake.

Hi, can I please get some recs for something besides ASoIaF that has that deep medieval setting, focused on high court / royal politics, drama and romance? — (has romance but not of the Romance genre, so also not ACoTaR. Has sex but is not erotica).

Preferably something immersive and indulgent, with some action, duels, what have you, but more about the soap opera. Also preferably a lengthy, epic saga.

Hi. Looking for some fantasy robinsonade, idealy more similar with Jules Verne The Mysterious Island. Especially first half of it. More focused on routine survival/progression/exploring, rather than action. There's not much of this subgenre, so i read a lot of something with part of it in russian, including self publishing and bad books. (Schepetov, Kamenistiy, Chekrygin, Kalashnikov, etc)I try almost everything that i can find with this tropes. I have no problem reading in english, maybe i get some recommendations of self pub/not well know book and autors. I have no problem with litRPG, if it not about playing MMO.

Sorry for my english, while reading a lot in english i haven't a lot of practice in writing/talking.

I just recently picked up ‘Freedom and Necessity’ at a used bookstore having zero expectations and I ended up absolutely loving it. It’s a historical fantasy epistolary novel by Steven Brust and Emma Bull that revolves around the 1848 Revolutions and feels SO much like 19th century/Victorian literature be it through the prose, narrative structuring, etc just as Jonathan Strange does (though more in the vein of Wilkie Collin’s, Arthur Conan Doyle and George Elliott while JS is more Jane Austen).

What are other fantasy books out there that feel like homages to classic world lit? I love Books of Babel which feels like a love letter to Jules Verne, HG Wells, Lewis Carroll and Borges

Familiar references pile up early: ramen, sushi, Noh masks, kintsugi, Totoro. At no point did this feel like a portrait of real, lived-in Japan.

And that might be all right if the rest of the novel hadn’t felt equally…inexpert. The dialogue: too few contractions, too much expository dialogue. The world-building: too little attempt to make us suspend our disbelief through believable details. The pacing, especially early on, is bizarre; we’re constantly dragged into flashbacks, slowing the forward momentum.

There are interesting ideas here, but interesting ideas aren‘t enough to make a good novel.

A few of my favorite books / series as reference: Stormlight Archive, Mistborn (both eras), The Sun Eater series.

King Sorrow was maybe my first official "horror" book, and I found it underwhelming. I got the overall message and thought that was well done, but the character development was really lacking for me. The human "villains" particularly, felt very one-dimensional. I mean, I was somewhat, but not really surprised when it came to Colin. There were a LOT of clues showing that something was up. When he was killed off though, I didn't really care. When reading a villain, I like one that is more nuanced, where you can see where they are coming from to the point that maybe you actually feel bad when they are defeated. I didn't feel this way about this character. In fact, I was disappointed that character met his end in such a quick way. The other villain, if you can even call her that was Jayne's mom. I could almost sympathize with her in the reason she wants to get back at the group, but for Pete's sake, when she mentions murdering Jett, her own grandson, just to get back at Tana, I have zero pity for her when she meets her fate. King Sorrow is obviously a villain, but I don't see him as such. He is one-dimensional and is supposed to be; I'm fine with that, but I want my human villains to have a bit more to them.

I felt is was odd how one character, Robin, became a major character, whereas Arthur's mom, kind of fell out of the story. I'm supposed to believe that Allie and Van met this one character on a plane and suddenly they are so bonded, Robin becomes nearly one of the crew? Meanwhile, Arthur's mom, who is the reason this all kind of started, is relegated to speaking at weddings and funerals? I mean, Robin wants to help in the end so much because she feels guilty about not being there for Arthur at his end, but what about Arthur's mom? I think it would be so fascinating to see how a woman who is a minister and a pacifist deals with the fact that her son was murdered by his "friend." Even then, Arthur's mom believes he is missing and then declared dead, and we never read her reaction? It's just strange. I mean, I don't mind Robin as a character, it just seems odd how easily she became part of the group, meanwhile more prominent characters were basically dismissed.

I was actually kind of irritated that Gwen lived at the end. Don't get me wrong, I liked her character, but then why mention 10x how fatal this wound was only for her to live at the end?

Overall, I liked the horror parts, but just felt some things didn't make sense with the characters. It felt like some them grew hardly at all and then made huge revelations as the end, Donna and Allie in particular. I mean, both of them lived pretty much the same way for 30+ years and then changed in the last 5 minutes? Okay. Some parts felt really dragged out as well. I felt the book could have been 100-200 pages less.

The only other thing that was kind of a letdown, although is was foreshadowed 10x, was how King Sorrow met his end. He ate himself?! Ugh, I get that it makes sense thematically, but it just wasn't as fun to read. Honestly, they had mentioned a few times that another way to defeat a dragon is by knowing its true name. When Gwen was doing the crossword, I was SO hoping that King Sorrow's true name would be revealed in the crossword and Gwen could defeat him that way, but nope. He ate himself until he popped into oblivion. Boring!

Okay, one small question: Where / how did Donna get the dragon tears at the end? I'm assuming she was lying to the group when she said that they were lost... which would mean she was planning on doing what she did at the end?

Thanks for reading my thoughts. I know a lot of people LOVE this book, so maybe I just missed a lot.