The Obake Code by Makana Yamamoto: Review by Alexandra Pierce locusmag.com/review/...

2026 Hugo, Lodestar, and Astounding Award Finalists

Congratulations to the finalists!

www.lacon.org/hugofinalists/

Aaaaaaaa! @renay.bsky.social ! Congratulations!

Purple background, white text, which says Both novels, when considered alongside their audience and context, support a particular reading constructed through their speculative settings: those who control the lives of trans kids and keep them from the structures that support them can and should be rejected. "Trans Possibilities in the Speculative Works of Andrew Joseph White" -- Leo Astrum

In which Leo Astrum compares two works by Andrew Joseph White, looking at what options are available to the trans characters, and finds a common message for readers...

Read it now by subscribing: AUD30/yr gets you this and 11 other essays! (About GBP16 or USD22.)

www.speculativeinsight.com/subs

💯💯💯

Predator This is only the second time I’ve seen the film – and the first time was last year. I don’t even remember how it came up, then, that I had never seen it – and my darling was…

We started our John McTiernan watch-through with Predator. It was only the second time I'd seen it - and the first was last year...
(TL;DR I don't hate it! It's of its time but has some really cool aspects.)

randomalex.net/2026/04/21/p...

A geometric pattern of pentagons and flowers. Variations of purple.

Sneak peek at the cover for the Jan-June 2026 compilation of essays from Speculative Insight...

The Lord of the Rings: a(nother) re-read The year I turned 12, I had an extended reading competition with a friend. It was determined by both number of books (so I read lots of Babysitter Club books, which dates this competition to some d…

Jumping on the LOTR re-read bandwagon, but not talking about it to anywhere near the length or complexity of Abigail Nussbaum or Nick Hubble. Basically I'm reading along to better appreciate their commentary.

randomalex.net/2026/04/20/t...

The cover of Kindling by Kathleen Jennings. It features a matchbox with a match coming out of it. The box has a woman's face on it.

Favourite Australian thing to do? Walk down to the Bunnings sausage sizzle on a Saturday morning.

Favourite thing in Brisbane? Houses: the oldest Queenslanders with their coloured glass windows, but also the lovely little art deco houses like early airports. And, indeed, Archerfield airport.

The cover of Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings. It's a silhouette picture with a heart in the middle and vines and birds connected to it.

Is there anything typically Australian that sneaks into your work? Places and birds and flowers — Flyaway was set in Western Queensland, and Honeyeater, while in a fictional city and suburb, is very heavily based on my area of Brisbane, its floods and trees and Queenslander houses.

The cover image of Honeyeater by Kathleen Jennings, which has a girl with flowers and a bird in front of / making up her face

What’s new for you? My new Australian subtropical-suburban Gothic novel Honeyeater, about the ghosts of home and the memory of water, came out last year!

Where can we find you? tanaudel.wordpress.com; @tanaudel most other places - and I run @girlfleeshouse.bsky.social girlfleeshouse.tumblr.com

Photo of Kathleen Jennings, a woman with short brown hair. She wears a patterned blue shirt and a blue necklace. She stands in front of some trees.

Kathleen Jennings (@tanaudel.bsky.social) is an Australian writer and artist – and GoH at Swancon this year...

Where are you based? Brisbane!
Your work in brief: Gothic, Australian Gothic, fairy tales, and fairy-tale Gothic fiction and illustration.

John McTiernan On a recent re-watch of The Hunt for Red October, I realised that the director was John McTiernan – who also directed Die Hard. I am not someone who  pays much attention to directors, with a …

I learned two days ago that the director of Hunt for Red October was also the director of Die Hard. Thus an IMDB search and a new viewing project!

randomalex.net/2026/04/21/j...

It does look like this is going to become one of those conversation-provoking books that will help us all have healthy arguments for the year :D

* won’t get to it

Thank you for this thread, and the way it’s facilitating such fascinating conversations! Like Mondy I already suspect I don’t get to it, so it’s delightful to see these arguments happening external to my brain 😁

Very pleased to be on the Aurora @csffa.bsky.social finalist ballot with three works -- ONE MESSAGE REMAINS for related work, HUNTED TO EXTINCTION in short story, and THE FIRST THOUSAND TREES for novella! Thank you to all the nominators and organizers! 😍

www.csffa.ca/awards-infor...

Purple background, white text, which says Both novels, when considered alongside their audience and context, support a particular reading constructed through their speculative settings: those who control the lives of trans kids and keep them from the structures that support them can and should be rejected. "Trans Possibilities in the Speculative Works of Andrew Joseph White" -- Leo Astrum

In which Leo Astrum compares two works by Andrew Joseph White, looking at what options are available to the trans characters, and finds a common message for readers...

Read it now by subscribing: AUD30/yr gets you this and 11 other essays! (About GBP16 or USD22.)

www.speculativeinsight.com/subs

Tag @leoastrum.bsky.social

Purple background, white text, which says White's books are horror, and come with no genre-codified need for a happily ever after. With the situations the protagonists are forced into, more tragic possibilities present themselves than escape routes. This is not, however, the form these narratives take. The problem with Benji and Silas face is agency... "Trans Possibilities in the Speculative Works of Andrew Joseph White" -- Leo Astrum

Leo Astrum looks at two novels by Andrew Joseph White in this new novel - specifically, the choices available to two trans characters...

Subscribe now to read this and other essays! AUD30/year - about GBP16 or USD22!

www.speculativeinsight.com/subs

The Fifth Element.

And The Mummy.

The Lord of the Rings: a(nother) re-read The year I turned 12, I had an extended reading competition with a friend. It was determined by both number of books (so I read lots of Babysitter Club books, which dates this competition to some d…

Jumping on the LOTR re-read bandwagon, but not talking about it to anywhere near the length or complexity of Abigail Nussbaum or Nick Hubble. Basically I'm reading along to better appreciate their commentary.

randomalex.net/2026/04/20/t...

Tag @leoastrum.bsky.social 😊

My next series is spending a lot of time in and around the main library in the magical capital of Albion.

I spent a lot of this afternoon mapping it out and figuring out what the staffing numbers are.

I somehow seem to have more than sufficient shelving.

This is how we know this is a fantasy.

Purple background, white text, which says White's books are horror, and come with no genre-codified need for a happily ever after. With the situations the protagonists are forced into, more tragic possibilities present themselves than escape routes. This is not, however, the form these narratives take. The problem with Benji and Silas face is agency... "Trans Possibilities in the Speculative Works of Andrew Joseph White" -- Leo Astrum

Leo Astrum looks at two novels by Andrew Joseph White in this new novel - specifically, the choices available to two trans characters...

Subscribe now to read this and other essays! AUD30/year - about GBP16 or USD22!

www.speculativeinsight.com/subs

Purple background, white text, which says Social acknowledgement of the protagonists' genders is treated with paramount importance throughout the narratives of both [novels]... The speculative settings remove several possibilities from their trans characters, but this services the nuanced social webs contained within them. "Trans Possibilities in the Speculative Works of Andrew Joseph White" -- Leo Astrum

In which @leoastrum.bsky.social splits gender transition and affirmation into three categories, and examines whether they're feasible in the novels of Andrew Joseph White.

Subscribe now to read - AUD30/year (~GBP16 or USD22).

www.speculativeinsight.com/subs

Oh probably 😆

Tag @leoastrum.bsky.social

Thyme Travellers 2 An anthology of Palestinian Speculative Fiction

There’s a hundred backers already! Thank you for supporting this anthology of Palestinian fantasy, science fiction, and horror. www.kickstarter.com/projects/158...

A Newly Discovered Recording Lets You Hear Delta Blues Legend Robert Johnson in Stunning Clarity Great swathes of rock music since the nineteen-sixties would never have existed, we're sometimes told, were it not for the recordings of Robert Johnson. Certainly the likes of Keith Richards, Eric Cla...

Holy SHIT someone found the test pressing of Robert Johnson's Cross Road Blues and it is clear as a PIN www.openculture.com/2026/04/reco...