Review: The Misheard World by Aliya Whiteley, at Locus

Readers of this blog will know how much I admire the writing the of Aliya Whiteley, not least because of how varied it is. She has written fungal horror (The Beauty), satire (Greensmith), planetary romance (Skyward Inn) and much else. And even within those genres, her writing is often hard to pin down, taking strange and unexpected turns and refusing an easy summation. I reviewed Whiteley's latest novel, The Misheard World, in last month's issue of Locus, which also gave me an opportunity to tease out a common thread that is becoming apparent in much of her writing.

It's common, in the genres of science fiction and fantasy, to say that a certain work is about the power of storytelling. Often what's meant by this is something rather misty-eyed: the power of stories to inspire, to give meaning, to imbue the world with magic and wonder. In a career that has spanned some ten novels and novellas in a range of genres and styles, Aliya Whiteley has returned often to the theme of storytelling, but from a more distrustful position. In her writing, stories have the power to control, to manipulate, and to suborn their listeners into certain actions. Whiteley's latest novel, The Misheard World, returns to the idea of storytelling’s baleful influence, this time from the perspective of the story's subjects. What does it do to people to become part of someone else's story?

Like much of Whiteley's writing, The Misheard World is full of twists and turns, and readers will take a while to find their legs and begin to understand the kind of story they're reading. I hope they give it a chance, however—and that my review encourages readers to discover the book—because this was the first great SFF novel I read in 2026, and it sets the bar high for the rest of the year. 

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