Islam’s debut novel tells of Hedayat, the "glossolalist" narrator born on a flying carpet in the skies above an obscure land whose leader has manufactured the ability to hear every unspoken utterance of the nation. He records the contents of his citizens’ minds onto tape reels for archival storage.

After having just experienced another American Thanksgiving, in which the turkey is seen as bounty rather than sacrifice, I did not come to Michel Faber's new novel The Book of Strange New Things with much sense that I was about to mount a horse of a different colour.

I promise I've checked the math.

In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Anaea Lay presents poetry from the December issues.