tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-142415392026-08-14T23:08:31.041+03:00Abigail Nussbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08562462228380637583noreply@blogger.comBlogger1184125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14241539.post-58413879807427354042026-08-11T18:18:26.209+03:002026-08-11T18:18:26.209+03:00

"Argonath" by Naci Caba'Begging your pardon,' said Sam. 'I don't think you understand my master at all. He isn't hesitating about which way to go. Of course not! What's the good of Minas Tirith anyway? To him, I mean ... he knows he's got to find the Cracks of Doom, if he can. But he's afraid. Now it's come to the point, he's just plain terrified.'At long last, we have arrived at the end of The

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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

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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

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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

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 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

Abigail Nussbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08562462228380637583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14241539.post-69927139200966072092026-07-19T19:53:41.431+03:002026-07-19T19:53:41.431+03:00

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

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"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,

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Earlier this year, the literary and genre fiction communities were startled by the announcement that Daniel Kraus's Angel Down, a fantasy-horror novel in which a squad of WWI soldiers discover an angel on the killing fields of 1918 France, had won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. This is not the first time that a novel in the fantastical genres had won this award—it is preceded by books like The

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"Flame of Udûn" by Weirling, 2025The last thing that Pippin saw, as sleep took him, was a dark glimpse of the old wizard huddled on the floor, shielding a glowing chip in his gnarled hands between his knees. The flicker for a moment showed his sharp nose, and the puff of smoke.After failing to cross the mountains that separate them from Mordor, the fellowship of the Ring decide to go underground,

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Sometimes I make very odd reading decisions. For example, in late March of this year, a time when I was regularly running for shelter ahead of Iranian missiles, I made the inexplicable choice to read Francis Spufford's latest novel Nonesuch, which takes place during the London Blitz. But although there were moments during my reading when I found myself wondering why I'd done this to myself, for

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"The Fellowship" by Robin Robinson, 2024'We cannot go further tonight,' said Boromir. 'Let those call it the wind who will; there are fell voices on the air; and these stones are aimed at us.''I do call it the wind,' said Aragorn. 'But that does not make what you say untrue. There are many evil and unfriendly things in the world that have little love for those that go on two legs, and yet are not

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"The Council of Elrond" by Cor Blok, 1960'Then,' said Erestor, 'there are but two courses, as Glorfindel has already declared: to hide the Ring for ever; or to unmake it. But both are beyond our power. Who will read this riddle for us?''None here can do so,' said Elrond gravely. 'At least none can foretell what will come to pass, if we take this road or that. But it seems to me now clear which is

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I had three reviews in the April 2026 issue of Locus, and they are now all online. First up, I reviewed Samantha Mills's collection Rabbit Test and Other Stories. The title story was one of the most talked-about pieces of SFF short fiction of the last few years, racking up multiple award wins due both to its topicality—it is a story about America backsliding on reproductive health published just

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Publicity still for Lego Rivendell'You have done well to come,' said Elrond. 'You will hear today all that you need in order to understand the purposes of the Enemy. There is naught that you can do, other than to resist, with hope or without it. But you do not stand alone. You will learn that your trouble is but part of the trouble of all the western world. The Ring! What shall we do with the

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"Rivendell" by J.R.R. Tolkien'I hear all kinds of news, from over the Mountains, and out of the South, but hardly anything from the Shire. I heard about the Ring, of course. Gandalf has been here often. Not that he has told me a great deal, he has become closer than ever these last few years. The Dúnadan has told me more. Fancy that ring of mine causing such a disturbance! It is a pity that

Abigail Nussbaumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08562462228380637583noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14241539.post-26264237181477933832026-04-21T20:10:00.000+03:002026-04-21T20:10:49.181+03:00

Illustration from the Swedish translation of The Hobbit, by Tove Jansson, 1962[A previous version of this essay appeared on Asking the Wrong Questions in October 2010]The most that can be said for the dwarves is this: they intended to pay Bilbo really handsomely for his services; they had brought him to do a nasty job for them, and they did not mind the poor fellow doing it if he would; but they

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I've made no secret of my admiration for Ancillary Review of Books's podcast A Meal of Thorns. In every episodes, host Jake Cassella Brookins invites a guest—an author, critic, or academic—to discuss a single book. Selections range across genres (a recent episode focused on Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep), discussing books new and old, famous and obscure. I guested on A Meal of Thorns last year

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"Ringwraith" by Anato FinnstarkImmediately, though everything else remained as before, dim and dark, the shapes became terribly clear. He was able to see beneath their black wrappings. There were five tall figures: two standing on the lip of the dell, three advancing. In their white faces burned keen and merciless eyes; under their mantles were long grey robes; upon their grey hairs were helms of

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Reviewing every installment in a series is a rare accomplishment, even for a prolific critic. Reviewing every installment in a series by Adrian Tchaikovsy, who routinely publishes multiple novels and novellas every year, is surely an accomplishment worthy of note. Few series, however, reward this sort of sustained engagement as much as Tchaikovsky's Tyrant Philosphers series, which I strongly

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Every year, when Hugo nominations open, I put together a preliminary ballot. I jot down the titles of the things that blew me away in the previous year, and the perennial nominees like Strange Horizons (and more recently, the Ancillary Review of Books). I look over the Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom for titles I might have forgotten or good ideas, and I send that ballot in. Then I put together another

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"The Prancing Pony" by Tomás HijoThere were also many families of hobbits in the Bree-land, and they claimed to be the oldest settlement of Hobbits in the world, one that was founded long before even the Brandywine was crossed and the Shire colonized. They lived mostly in Staddle though there were some in Bree itself, especially on the higher slopes of the hill, above the houses of the Men. The

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Some Recent Reading Roundups have a theme or a common thread. Some are just grab-bags. This one—the first in quite some time—is definitely the latter. It includes two historical novels that both gesture at the Gothic, but in very different ways and to very different ends. A science fiction novel whose attempts to "solve" the problem of crackdowns on reproductive health through technocratic means

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It's been a long time since I read a novel by Ian McEwan. Some combination of his dwindling reputation among readers in my general vicinity, and plot descriptions that I found unappetizing kept me away from an author who was once one of my gateways to literary fiction. What We Can Know, the 2025 novel through which I've chosen to become reacquainted with McEwan, is a potent reminder of the skill

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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

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"The Barrow Wight" by Michael Herring, 1981'No!' said Frodo; but he did not run away. His knees gave, and he fell on the ground. Nothing happened, and there was no sound. Trembling he looked up, in time to see a tall dark figure like a shadow against the stars. It leaned over him. He thought there were two eyes, very cold though lit with a pale light that seemed to come from some remote distance.

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