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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 50m

I think I've gotten better over time! So I should have some credit in the bank

Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 53m

In theory it needs to be about 1,200 *words* or less, but I think I'm going to have to throw myself on the mercy of the editor...

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 58m

Three quarters done, perhaps 120,000 words to go, I don't think I could read anything else if I tried: it has completely taken over my thinking. I'm starting to feel the edges of what I want to say in the eventual review, how I will exorcise myself.

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 2h

(and then to think about Ice, where I have no idea about its publishing history, but which despite extensive philosophising becomes more genre-coded as it goes on)

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 2h

... this, which was almost next to it in my feed and seems to be a much more "genre-coded" novel even though it is still not from a specialist genre press. bsky.app/profile/danh...

Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 3h

Wednesday’s review, gang: Dawn Macdonald on Jacob Szamalek’s Inner Space, in a translation by Kasia Beford for HarperVia. “Character work and the quotidian is key to the novel,” she argues as she takes a look at this space station-set contemporary SF.

Inner Space by Jakub Szamalek, translated by Kasia Bedford

Astronauts are extraordinary people: masters of self-control, willing to sacrifice everything in their lives for the chance to undertake Science Fair-type experiments with lettuce and snails, so lo…

strangehorizons.com

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 2h

Interesting to pair this, which makes the point that most translated SF is from non-genre-specialist publishers, which has an impact on the types of SF that get translated (a point I broadly agree with), with ...

Ancillary Review of Books @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org · 4h

Pilgrims of Time, Pilgrims of Memory: for the latest Small Press Dispatch, @chloroformtea.bsky.social looks at boundaries of life, death, format, and language in and around Mai Ishizawa's THE PLACE OF SHELLS, translated by Polly Barton (@sceptrebooks.bsky.social/@ndbooks.bsky.social)

Small Press Dispatch: Pilgrims of Time, Pilgrims of Memory

Roseanna Pendlebury The Place of Shells by Mai Ishizawa, translated by Polly Barton, is about not one, but several journeys. Or, no perhaps not even that. It is about travel, in all of the senses—t…

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 1d

Good review (and lots of other interesting books covered too). My review of this is in the October Locus, won't be online for a bit, but I liked it a lot.

Mandy-Suzanne Wong @mandysuzannewong.bsky.social · 1d

For ASYMPTOTE I wrote about Eva Meijer’s soft-spoken disaster novel, SEA NOW, translated from the Dutch by Anna Thompson Melo, published by @twolinespress.com and Peirene Press.

www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/10...

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 1d

Even with Tesla?

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 1d

There is certainly an element of truth to this with Ice bsky.app/profile/phdh...

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 2d

I don’t think a long book is even primarily about plot, or character, or any of the patterned information on its pages. A long book is practicing over time a way of being in the world. Reading even a very good summary is not the same as giving over some portion of your own life to that practice.

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Reposted by Niall Harrison

Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 2d

I'm interested in the question here about post-Broken Earth books. Opening suggestion: The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed. Science fantasy, distinctive voice and strong sense of argument/viewpoint, narrative marries personal and (world/society-scale) political.

Kate Nepveu @katenepveu.bsky.social · 4d

anyway I found METAL FROM HEAVEN so frustrating that I had to dust off the booklog to get it off my chest: steelypips.org/weblog/2025/...

still looking for post-Broken Earth suggestions!

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 2d

It is possible that I am starting to show symptoms of Long Book Stockholm Syndrome, but I think this city-section really is remarkable; partly a function of how large the canvas is, but it's just incredibly rich, so much layered detail, almost overwhelming.

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 2d

we have moved from "journey on the trans-Siberian railway during which intellectual furniture is carefully arranged" to "intrigue in the destination city at the heart of frozen Siberia".

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 2d

Behold, I have passed the half way mark!

A splayed-open copy of Ice by Jacek Dukaj, such that you can see that slightly more of the 1177 pages have been read.

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 2d

I'm interested in the question here about post-Broken Earth books. Opening suggestion: The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed. Science fantasy, distinctive voice and strong sense of argument/viewpoint, narrative marries personal and (world/society-scale) political.

Kate Nepveu @katenepveu.bsky.social · 4d

anyway I found METAL FROM HEAVEN so frustrating that I had to dust off the booklog to get it off my chest: steelypips.org/weblog/2025/...

still looking for post-Broken Earth suggestions!

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 5d

(Wolves is sort of "A History of the Twenty-First Century, With Illustrations". Willed hope.)

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 5d

It's the last paragraph that really gets me.

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 5d

Also I found the Translator's Note quite helpful about explaining some of the style/form choices

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 5d

I would be curious to know how many hours your ecopy thinks you have to read (assuming it is on a device that estimates reading time)

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 5d

in fact to be fair I have a physical ARC and it's not one you can easily pick up full stop.

ARC of Ice by Jacek Dukaj, all 1177 pages of it, sitting on a scales. It weighs in at approximately 1.2kg.

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 5d

I have literally cleared my schedule, including taking a couple of days off the day job. It's not one you can easily pick up and read five pages in a break!

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 6d

Very upset, I did not need another entry on the list of things I really want to read before the end of the year

Abigail Nussbaum @abigailnussbaum.bsky.social · 6d

New blog post: on Jordan Prosser's delightfully gonzo debut novel Big Time, which crosses Almost Famous with 1984 and a drug that can make you see the future, and asks: what power does art have during times of fascism? wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2025/10/rece...

Recent Reading: <i>Big Time</i> by Jordan Prosser

There's something almost irresistibly appealing about the musical biopic. It combines melodrama and genuine accomplishment. It conveys profo...

wrongquestions.blogspot.com

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 7d

Took me a while to get through this episode (two hours!), but this is a great set of interviews with some of the people behind the current incarnation of SH (including Gautam)

Gautam Bhatia @gautambhatia88.bsky.social · 12d

For @strangehorizons.bsky.social 25th anniversary, I spoke about my (almost) decade at the magazine, its anarchic nature, changes in the genre space, editing SFF non-fiction, and how the extractivism special issue came to be imagined (starts at 1 hr 24 mins):

strangehorizons.com/wordpress/po...

Celebrating 25 Years with The Strange Horizons Editorial Collective

In this special episode of Strange Horizons at 25, Senior Podcast Editor Kat Kourbeti and Editor Michael Ireland welcome current members of the Strange Horizons Editorial Collective for a series of…

strangehorizons.com

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 7d

And this is an indirect connection, but the discussion of hope made me think of KSR's "A History of the Twentieth Century, with Illustrations", which rather miraculously is still online at InfinityPlus: www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/hist...

A History of the Twentieth Century, with Illustrations - a novelette by Kim Stanley Robinson

The Twentieth Century: an age of mass destruction and suffering. Frank Churchill: a historian, an author charged with summing up this period. A powerful reflection on what we have been, what we are an...

www.infinityplus.co.uk

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 7d

Great piece. What I particularly like in here is the discussion of the novel's balance between witnessing and acting as responses to things in the world.

Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 7d

I only finished it yesterday but When There Are Wolves Again by E. J. Swift was so good (and so singular), I couldn't help but write about it immediately.

When There Are Wolves Again – E. J. Swift

The new novel from the author of The Coral Bones1, When There Are Wolves Again follows two women in Britain from the present, stretching out across the years into the future of the late 21st centur…

readerofelse.wordpress.com

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 8d

I apologise for doubting

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