Asking the Wrong Questions

It seems that my life recently has been revolving around literary awards. The deadline to vote for the Hugo is in a few hours, I wrote a very scathing review of this year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and I've been named as a juror for next year's Otherwise Award. It's only fitting, therefore, that I guest on this week's episode of Critical Friends , the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, to talk about the purpose, effect, and nature of literary awards. Host Dan Hartland invited myself, in the wake of my review of Daniel Kraus's Angel Down , and Amritesh Mukherjee, whose review of Tashan Mehta's Mad Sisters of Esi just preceded the book being named on the shortlist of the Ursula K. Le Guin Award, to discuss the thorny subject. Dan Hartland: Yeah, and of course there have been quite a number of award-based controversies in recent years. And it's interesting to wonder how much of that is an increasing democratization of who's...

Being on an award jury has been a dream of mine for years. I suppose it's only to be expected; I spend so much time telling people which books they should or should not read, that naturally I would leap at the opportunity to do so with the imprimatur of an award behind me. This year, I finally got my wish, and was invited to be a member of the jury for the 2026 Otherwise Award . Over the next few months, I and the other members of the jury will be reading books, stories, and other works published in 2026, with the award list and honor list to be announced in the spring of next year. Formerly known as the Tiptree award, the Otherwise seeks to recognize works that expand and explore the definition of gender, a topic on which science fiction has always had a great deal to say, and all the more so in the 21st century. Members of the jury may request and recommend works for consideration, but so can members of the public. If you've read something that you think I and the other juror...

My June 2026 Locus column had a bit of an informal theme of considering the influence—acknowledged and unacknowledged—on the works under review. Plastic, Prism, Void , which I discussed earlier this month, was reviewed though the lens of how it fit—and defied—the category of romantasy. My two other reviews, both published online in the last week, are of works that seem to draw inspiration from more specific sources. Andrew Dana Hudson's debut Absence feels like a mashup of The X-Files , The Leftovers , and the MCU's "blip" arc. It imagines a world in which people disappear at random and with no apparent explanation, and follows two government agents who travel to a small town to investigate a woman who claims to be the first person to have returned from such a disappearance. Hudson takes these inspirations and makes them his own, but he also uses their fusion to craft a touching reflection on the recent pandemic and how it affected both institutions and indivisuals....

  Illustration by Morgan Rogers , 2020 'Are these magic cloaks?' asked Pippin, looking at them with wonder. 'I do not know what you mean by that,' answered the leader of the Elves. 'They are fair garments, and the web is good, for it was made in this land. They are elvish robes certainly, if that is what you mean. Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lórien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make. Yet they are garments, not armor; and they will not turn shaft or blade.' As The Fellowship of the Ring winds towards its conclusion, the company prepares to leave the haven of Lothlórien and venture back into the wild on their way south. "Farewell to Lórien" is a fairly uneventful chapter, whose focus is on reiterating yet again the majesty and wonder of the realm and the Lady who protects it, and the sadness of their inevitable diminishment. An awaren...

Violet Allen has been on my radar for years, since I read her transcendent short story "The Venus Effect" in Lightspeed Magazine . She's also a fun follow on BlueSky , which is where I learned that she was hard at work on her first novel. I've reviewed that novel , Plastic, Prism, Void , for Locus , and what I found in it more than delivers on the promise of that long-ago short story. Like "The Venus Effect", Plastic, Prism, Void is insouciant with a core of seriousness, experimental but also plotty. It follows a trans woman who may also be a witch, and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, a trans man who may also be a mech warrior, as they negotiate their relationship while saving (or is it destroying?) the world. It's also a novel that cheerfully demolishes every stylistic convention in existence, deploying multiple fonts, copious footnotes, and fourth-wall breaking interludes in a way that is delightful, but also invites readers to question the very f...

"Caras Galadhon" by Ray Shield , 2025 'I know what it was that you last saw,' she said; 'for that is also in my mind. Do not be afraid! But do not think that only by singing amid the trees, nor even by the slender arrows of elven-bows, is this land of Lothlórien maintained and defended against its Enemy. I say to you, Frodo, that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought. But still the door is closed!' Let's talk about women in The Lord of the Rings , now that we've met one. OK, that's an exaggeration. There have been four (4) female characters so far in The Fellowship of the Ring : Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, Mrs. Maggot the farmer's wife, Goldberry, and Arwen. Two of them even spoke! But Galadriel—lady of Lothlórien, princess of the Ñoldor, convener of the White Council, bearer of the great ring Nenya—is, obviously, of a different ...