I forgot to bring my own time-travel thriller to the market. Not sold out—forgot to order it. Which is impressive, considering I wrote it. If you like high-stakes time travel, moral consequences, and science that actually matters, this is your reminder.
“Romantasy.”
Even typing the word makes me twitch.
It sounds like something invented during a marketing meeting that ran out of coffee and started smashing syllables together for sport. And yet here we are — romantasy dominating sales charts, fracturing into micro-niches, and now apparently flirting with pirates.
Is it about to die?
Or is it simply growing up?
A writer’s mind doesn’t stop at a strange thought — it follows it past the point most people turn back. Somewhere along that drift, reality starts to feel negotiable… and a story begins to breathe.
Why do indie author books never show up on “Most Anticipated” lists? It’s not about quality—it’s about how the indie world works. From short release timelines to direct-to-reader communication, indie publishing plays a different game entirely. Here’s why that’s actually a very good thing for readers who love immersive series, creative freedom, and stories that don’t wait for marketing schedules.
After 35 years, On Spec magazine is closing its doors—a loss not just for Canadian science fiction, but for the speculative fiction world at large. Based in Edmonton, On Spec championed stories with a uniquely Canadian voice and offered a home for emerging and established writers alike. Its final issue, The Final Voyage, marks the end of an era and raises the ever-relevant question: is this just another case of magazine churn, or a sign of the times?
There are two kinds of readers in the world.
The kind who says, “Just one more chapter,” and resurfaces hours later dehydrated and emotionally compromised.
And the kind who prefers the slow burn—one episode a week, time to speculate, time to argue, time to savor.
The internet insists one of these is correct.
They’re wrong.
This isn’t a format war. It’s a control issue—and Credible Threat is about to give both camps exactly what they want.
Brandon Sanderson is stepping into science fiction with Tailored Realities, and at the same time, I’ve been watching Daredevil: Reborn — a superhero story that feels a lot more like fantasy than you’d expect. It got me thinking: where do superhero stories fall in the speculative spectrum? Is sci-fi and fantasy really a spectrum at all? This week, I’m diving into how genre boundaries are shifting, and what that means for readers, writers, and masked vigilantes alike.
There’s a place in the Pacific Ocean so remote, the closest humans are often aboard the International Space Station. Known as Point Nemo, this eerily empty stretch of ocean is where dead spacecraft go to die—and it sounds exactly like the kind of setting you’d expect in a science fiction novel. In fact, it’s sparked more than a few story ideas already…
Alien: Earth doesn’t just mimic Ridley Scott’s industrial horror vibe—it builds on the franchise’s core themes with chilling relevance. Expect corporate overreach, synthetic humans with suspect motives, and alien lifeforms that are somehow even grosser than the originals. With standout performances (hello, Timothy Olyphant as a philosopher-soldier), tight character arcs, and a gritty, claustrophobic setting, this series delivers more than just jump scares. It’s a smart, unsettling evolution of a classic universe.
Two original stories from Taylen Carver—Roots of the Storm and Sylvalight—are eligible for the 2026 Hugo, Nebula, Aurora, and Dragon Awards. If you’re nominating this year, here are the details.
