In 2024, introducing this special issue, is it enough just to say, “We still believe this”?
The prohibitions of my situation were clear enough: going out, meeting people, traversing the Atlantic, or coming within two metres of supermarket cashiers were all out. But under what conditions could I make my literary escapes? What might I find on the other side of these doors?
In this conversation, Martin Petto and Electra Pritchett discuss reading Prophet from within the traditions of SFF—but also what its relationship to that literature and community means more broadly for literature’s approach to the quotidian and science fictional, to audiences of different kinds, and to form itself.
Nicole Beck, ML Clark, Shinjini Dey, and Catherine Rockwood review a volume of career-spanning criticism—and then review themselves.
satire, sarcasm, parody, paradox, code, metaphors, allegories, irony, riddles
Only jeweled words / should escape our lips / Nothing that hisses
The maw / Of oblivion consumes all, in time.
How and when do animals in SF stories become characters?
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?
Strange Horizons is looking to add an additional social media editor and accessibility editor to our editorial collective. These roles will entail working in tandem with our existing social media and accessibility editors.
