Strange Horizons

In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Samantha Murray's 'Coming Through in Waves' read by Jenna Hanchey

You can read the full text of the story, and more about Samantha, ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠ Content Warnings:

• Abortion/miscarriage
• Disregard for personal autonomy
• Cancer
• Mental health issues
• Sex

In this special episode of SH@25, editor Kat Kourbeti narrates 'Little Brother' by Bruce Holland Rogers, originally published on 30 October 2000. Hosted by producer Michael Ireland, with warm holiday wishes from the entire SH Editorial Collective.

• Read the story on the SH website.
• Want to leave us a happy birthday message? Click ⁠here to record an audio message⁠, and ⁠here for video⁠.
• Join our ⁠Patreon⁠ for early episode access, or donate through any other way to hear your name and message in our next episodes.
• Did you know SH@25 is eligible for the Best Related Work category in the Hugo Awards? Keep us in mind for your 2025 ballot!

In this episode of SH@25, Editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with Vivian (Xiao Wen) Li to discuss her foray into poetry, screenwriting, music composition and more, and also presents a reading of her two poems published in 2022, 'Ave Maria' and 'The Mezzanine'.

Links and things:

• Want to leave us a happy birthday message? Click here to record an audio message, and here for video.
• Join our Patreon for early episode access, or donate through any other way to hear your name and message in our next episodes.
• Did you know SH@25 is eligible for the Best Related Work category in the Hugo Awards? Keep us in mind for your 2025 ballot!

Episode show notes:

• Visit Vivian's website, or follow her on social media (Bluesky/Instagram)
• Read Vivian's poems 'Ave Maria' and 'The Mezzanine' in our archives
• Find more links to Vivian's work, along with links to everything we talk about in this episode, on the transcript page.

Leave us a comment and let us know what stories from the archives you'd like to hear next!

In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents E.M. Linden's 'A Cure for Solastalgia' read by Jenna Hanchey

You can read the full text of the story, and more about E.M Linden, ⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠.

Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: ⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠ Content Warnings:

• Disregard for personal autonomy
• Cancer
• Sexism/gender discrimination
• Spiders/insects
• Vomit

In the 5th episode of SH@25, editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with author E.M. Faulds to chat about her 2022 story, Broken Blue, combining Eldritch horrors with mundane moments, writing female characters, and bigging up your crew when you have the chance.

• Want to leave us a happy birthday message? Click here to record an audio message, and here for video.
• Join our Patreon for early episode access.
• Did you know SH@25 is eligible for the Best Related Work and Best FanCast categories in the Hugo Awards? Keep us in mind for your 2025 ballot!

Episode show notes:

• Visit E.M. Faulds' website and follow her on social media (BlueSky / Instagram)
• Read E.M.'s microfiction over your coffee break on her Ko-fi page (and throw her some change while you're there)
• Read E.M.'s story Broken Blue in our archives
• Buy a copy of Gallus, the 2024 Glasgow SF Writers' Circle anthology
• Check out Nova Scotia Vol II from Luna Press
• Check out Ada King, E.M.'s novel, and Under the Moon, her short story collection featuring all-female protagonists
• Find more links to E.M.'s work, as well as recommendations and links to other media we talked about, on our episode transcript page.

In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Susannah Rand's' 'Little Lila' read by Claire McNerney. You can read the full text of the story, and more about Susannah, ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.

Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: ⁠⁠Spotify Content Warnings

• Animal cruelty/death
• Body transformation
• Murder
• self_harm
• Shaming
• Violence/combat

In the 4th episode of SH@25, Editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with tabletop game designer and SFF critic Kyle Tam, whose young career has taken off in the last few years. Read on for an insightful interview about narrative storytelling from non-Western perspectives, the importance of schlock and trash in the development of taste, and the windows into creativity we find in moments of hardship.

• Want to leave us a happy birthday message? Click here to record an audio message, and here for video.
• Join our Patreon for early episode access.
• Did you know SH@25 is eligible for the Best Related Work category in the Hugo Awards? Keep us in mind for your 2025 ballot!

Episode show notes:

• Visit Kyle Tam's website for her full credits/bibliography
• Follow Kyle on BlueSky @percypropa.bsky.social
• Read Kyle's reviews for SH on her author page
• Back ⁠Devil's Due on Backerkit⁠
• Find more links to Kyle's work, as well as recommendations and links to other media we talked about, on the episode transcript page.

In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas' 'Embroidery of a Bird's Heart' read by L.W. Salinas. You can read the full text of the story, and more about Nelly, ⁠here⁠.

Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: ⁠Spotify

Content Warnings:

• Animal cruelty/death
• Blood
• Death/dying
• Scars/scarification

In the third episode of SH@25, editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with author Arkady Martine, for an in-depth interview on her multifaceted career, her review writing, and the history that inspired her two-time Hugo Award winning Teixcalaan Empire series.

We also present a reading of Arkady's poem, Cloud Wall, which marked her Strange Horizons debut, and remains to this day one of three poems she ever published, with reading by Kat Kourbeti and sound design by Michael Ireland.

• The music heard in the poetry segment is 'Uprising' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0.
• Want to leave us a happy birthday message? Click here to record an audio message, and here for video.
• Join our Patreon for early episode access.

Show notes:

• Read a full transcript of this episode
• Find Arkady Martine in the SH Archives, including her poem 'Cloud Wall', the story 'City of Salt', and her book reviews
• Follow Arkady Martine on BlueSky (@byzantienne.bsky.social)
• Buy Arkady's books through Bookshop.org
• A full list of Arkady's short fiction elsewhere can be found on her website

In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents KT Bryski's "Folk Hero Motifs in Tales Told by the Dead" read by Devin Martin You can read the full text of the story, and more about KT, here.

Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: Spotify

Content Warnings:

• Body transformation
• Child death
• Death/dying
• Drug use

In the first guest interview of this series, editor Kat Kourbeti sits down with author Kate Heartfield, whose 2015 story 'Limestone, Lye, and the Buzzing of Flies' marked a turning point in her publishing career.

• Follow Kate on social media @kateheartfield, or sign up for her newsletter on her website: https://kateheartfield.com
• For fuller show notes and to read the transcript of the interview: http://strangehorizons.com/podcasts/sh25-episode2-kate-heartfield/ ‎
• Read Kate's story "Limestone, Lye, and the Buzzing of Flies": http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/limestone-lye-and-the-buzzing-of-flies/
• Kate's 2017 fund drive essay "Expanding Ambitions": http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/azimuth/expanding-ambitions/
• Buy Kate's books through Bookshop.org: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/strange-horizons-25-guests

A Recipe for Life, A Tonic for Grief was originally published in the May 13th 2024 issue of Strange Horizons and is read by Emmie Christie.

You can read the full story here.

Content Warnings:

• Animal cruelty/death
• Blood
• Cancer
• Death/dying
• Drug use

Chris is a palliative care physician by day and a writer by night. He is a dad (cat and human), by his back-of-the-napkin calculations, approximately 32 hours a day. His short fiction has appeared in Galaxy’s Edge, Zooscape, and Stupefying Stories. Find him on Bluesky at chrisblake.bsky.social

Emmie Christie has narrated the sci-fi novel "Amaranth Chronicles: Deviant Rising" for Audible and other short stories. She has also been published in Flash Fiction Online, Infinite Worlds Magazine, and Daily Science Fiction. You can find her work on her website or follow her on Twitter/X @EmmieChristie33. 

Podcast Editor Kat Kourbeti and Producer Michael Ireland announce our brand new podcast project, SH@25, a year-long interview and feature series that will delve into the Strange Horizons archives, celebrate the work of past contributors and staff, and highlight the contributions of Strange Horizons to SFF publishing and the wider community.

A full transcript can be found ⁠on our website⁠.

Click here to leave us an audio voicemail for our episodes or video message for our socials.

For the curious, the narrator recruitment form can be found on this page. Shoot us an email with any questions at podcasts (at) strangehorizons.com.

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 of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Aisha and Dan discuss genre boundaries in texts and criticism: how they're used, where they fall ... and what, if anything, they're good for. Is science fiction is more of a technique than a genre? Might it help to think about all texts as sitting across modes and categories? In the course of the conversation, Dan and Aisha return on several occasions to ⁠a recent episode of the New Yorker podcast Critics At Large⁠.

A transcript of this episode can be found at the ⁠Strange Horizons website⁠.

In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Aisha and Dan discuss ⁠⁠a recent essay⁠⁠ by Jake Casella Brookins that appeared in the Ancillary Review of Books. "The vaunted prophylactic prophecy of science fiction—the ability to prevent an undesirable future by loudly predicting it—has consistently proven false," argues Brookins, and so Aisha and Dan ask themselves: 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 her new chapbook, And We Are Far From Shore , a set of poems about the television show Our Flag Means Death. Catherine reviewed the show for Strange Horizons less than a year ago, and discusses how reviewing and criticism feed into creative practice. There are also, of course, pirates.

The transcript of this episode can be found at the Strange Horizons website.

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 Maureen Kincaid Speller.

In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Aisha and Dan discuss what happens when books make you work. How does a reader know whether to persevere with a book when at first they're not sure of it? How can we decide if a book really isn't working on its own terms—or whether we're missing something and need to pay closer attention? And how can a critical reader check their own expectations to assess a text fairly? Expect discussion of Susannah Clarke, Yuri Herrera, Christopher Priest, Catherynne Valente, and more. A transcript of this episode is available in the June 19th, 2023 issue of Strange Horizons.

In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, we air an interview with the reviewer, editor, and critic Niall Harrison which Dan conducted at Conversation, the 2023 UK Eastercon, at which Niall was a Guest of Honour. Through a series of books from various parts of his life, Niall talks about how he began reading SF, why he started reviewing it ... and where criticism might or should go in the future. Niall Harrison is author of All These Worlds: Reviews and Essays (Briardene Books, 2023). Eastercon 2024 will be Levitation, hosted in Telford; Eastercon 2025 will be Reconnect, to be held in Belfast.

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?

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. You can read the episode transcript at our website.

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.

In the second episode of Critical Friends, reviews editors Aisha Subramanian, Dan Hartland, and Maureen Kincaid Speller discuss the role of trust in criticism: how is it built and lost, and how can the reader decide whether a particular piece of criticism is worth paying attention to? Read the full transcript on our website.

In this episode of the Strange Horizons podcast, editor Courtney Floyd presents "Bromelia" by Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez, read by the author. The full text of this story is available here.