In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Aisha and Dan discuss the knotty question of "the canon": what is it, how is it formed, who is it for? They do so in conversation with the critic Abigail Nussbaum, whose new reviews collection, Track Changes, has just been published by Briardene Books.

In this episode, Aisha and Dan discuss genre boundaries in texts and criticism: how they're used, where they fall; what, if anything, they're good for.

What good, and bad, might SF do? And when we find a piece of good criticism such as this essay, how can it help us think better about its questions?

In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Aisha and Dan talk to critic and poet Catherine Rockwood about how reviewing and criticism feed into creative practice. Also, pirates.

In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, the critic and reviewer Paul Kincaid joins Aisha and Dan to discuss how and why critics persevere in their work, what changes about it as the platforms and delivery mechanisms that surround criticism shift, and the challenges that face those writers who seek to collect or look back on their previous work. He also discusses A Traveller In Time, the forthcoming volume of reviews and essays by the late Maureen Kincaid Speller, a founding critical friend—and Paul’s wife of more than thirty years. Alongside memories of Maureen and her critical practice, Paul remarks on the work of John Clute, Jared Shurin’s definitions of cyberpunk, the book as object ...

What are the tools that we apply to figure out why the glaciers are melting in this novel?

In this episode, we air an interview with the reviewer, editor, and critic Niall Harrison.

In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Reviews Editors Aisha Subramanian and Dan Hartland are joined by Abigail Nussbaum to tackle one of the thorniest issues in criticism: the negative review. What makes for a good bad review? Why do reviewers feel driven to write them? And are we now in an age where the hatchet job has had its day? Transcript Critical Friends Episode 5 [musical introduction] Aisha Subramanian: Welcome to Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast. I’m Aisha Subramanian. Dan Hartland: And I’m Dan Hartland. In every episode of Critical Friends, we’ll be discussing SFF reviewing: what it is, why we do it, how it’s going.

In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Reviews Editors Aisha Subramanian and Dan Hartland talk to novelist, reviewer, and Strange Horizons’ Co-ordinating Editor, Gautam Bhatia, about how reviewing and criticism of all kinds align—and do not—with fiction-writing and the genre more widely.

In this special episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, reviews editors Aisha Subramanian and Dan Hartland introduce audio from a 2018 recording for Jonah Sutton-Morse’s podcast Cabbages and Kings which included Maureen Kincaid Speller discussing with Aisha and Jonah three books: Everfair by Nisi Shawl, Temporary People by Deepak Unnikrishnan, and The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar.