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The fifteenth annual Women in SF&F Month continues with three new guest posts this week, starting tomorrow with an essay and book giveaway (with one print copy for a US reader and one digital copy for someone outside the US). Thank you so much to last week’s guests for a wonderful start to the month! The new guest posts will be going up on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday this week, but before announcing the upcoming schedule, here are last week’s […]

The post Women in SF&F Month: Week 2 Schedule & Week in Review first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

Alex Carter book 5

Wildlife biologist Alex Carter takes a job in Hawaii monitoring the nesting sites of endangered Hawksbill Turtles. While there she finds herself dealing with wildlife traffickers and even worse. As a hurricane descends on the nesting beach threatening the eggs laid there a group of criminals are also heading in her direction.

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Book 5 of this series once again delivers a suspenseful adventure with a gentle education in conservation. I love this series, I love that the author doesn’t really try to moralise. She has done her research and taken a side and she puts that on the page.

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me Series: Maggie the Undying #1
Published by Tor Publishing Group on March 31, 2026

Outlander meets Game of Thrones in this blockbuster new epic fantasy series from the #1 New York Times bestselling author duo Ilona Andrews.

When Maggie wakes up cold, filthy, and naked in a gutter, it doesn't take her long to recognize Kair Toren, a city she knows intimately from the pages of the famously unfinished dark fantasy series she's been obsessively reading and re-reading while waiting years for the final novel.

Her only tools for navigating this gritty world of rival warlords, magic, and mayhem? Her encyclopedic knowledge of the plot, the setting, and the characters' ambitions and fates. But while she quickly discovers she cannot be killed (though many will try!), the same cannot be said for the living, breathing characters she's coming to love—a motley band that includes a former lady’s maid, a deadly assassin, various outrageous magical creatures, and a dangerously appealing soldier. Soon, instead of trying to get home, she finds herself enmeshed in the schemes—and attentions—of dueling princes, dukes, and villains, all while trying to save them and the kingdom of Rellas from the way she knows their stories will end: in a cataclysmic war.

For fans of Samantha Shannon, Danielle L. Jensen, Sarah J. Maas, and isekai and portal fantasy, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me is the beginning of the most epic adventure yet from genre powerhouse author duo Ilona Andrews.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Pages: 368 GoodreadsGenres: Fiction / Fantasy / Epic, Fiction / Fantasy / Romance
ISBN: 9781250377272
By: Ilona Andrews
Series Rating:

Also by this author: Kate Daniels, #8, Burn for Me, Sweep in Peace (Innkeeper Chronicles, #2), Magic Stars (Grey Wolf Book 1), Magic Binds (Kate Daniels, #9), One Fell Sweep (Innkeeper Chronicles Book 3), White Hot (Hidden Legacy, #2)

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I wasn’t sure I was going to like this one. I’ve loved most of the author’s other series, but this felt a bit different. While it had plenty of intrigue, it also came with a lot of cliffhangers and unanswered questions. By the end, you’ll definitely be hoping there are more books in the series to continue the story.

Technically, the first thing I finished reading was Anton Chekov’s The Seagull for my theatre history class. I’d read both the play and the short story the first time I was in college 100,000 years ago, and didn’t like them then. I decided to give the dang thing a chance again. Still didn’t like it, but I understand it now. Also, the prof mentioned in passing that we should read the play with Hamlet in mind. I did, and wow, that helps. It also explains why I don’t like The Seagull (besides, you know, the symbolism, the suicide, the unlikeable characters). Hamlet is my least favorite Shakespeare play. Reading a later play based on Hamlet does not make me like that story any better. (Sigh.) So yes, I’m not recommending it…

I am still reading a very long, very dense novel that I’m loving, but it blocked my easy reads of lighter fare for most of the month. I read a few other things that aren’t worth recommending and are, in fact, quite forgettable. 

So…here’s what I liked in March.

 

March, 2026

Abramovich, Seth, “The History of Mel Brooks, Part One,” The Hollywood Reporter, January 29, 2026. Full disclosure: I’m not the biggest Mel Brooks fan. His humor is too broad for me. Dean has tried to make me like Blazing Saddles as long as we’ve been together, and I just don’t. I saw it when it was released, I saw it with him when we were first together, and then later, he made me watch it again. The famous fart scene? Not funny to me. This is not my kind of humor. However, I do like some of his films. Young Frankenstein is a personal favorite as is Silent Movie (which no one ever mentions), particularly the scene with Marcel Marceau. I saw The Producers on Broadway because I adore Nathan Lane. We saw the show the very first week, scoring tickets through magic. And while I found it funny, I found it funny the way I usually find Mel Brooks’ material funny: I understood the joke and wished it would make me laugh.

That said, I admire the crap out of Mel Brooks. He’s 99 now, still creating, and still moving forward. This interview is all about risk and reward, about taking chances and about staying true to your vision. The introduction says this of Brooks’ work:

Across nearly a century, Brooks has repeatedly tested the limits of taste, commerce, politics and patience. He has offended studio executives, television censors, foreign governments and polite society at large, often all at once. He also has reshaped the grammar of American comedy, leaving behind a body of work that includes The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, History of the World, Part 1, High Anxiety and Spaceballs. Several of those films were dismissed or misunderstood on arrival, only to be adored later. Others were instant detonations. All of them bear the same unmistakable fingerprint: an artist who believes that nothing is sacred except the laugh itself.

 Read this interview. It’s amazingly wonderful.

Armstrong, Kelley, Watcher in the Woods, Minotaur Books, 2019. This is the fourth Rockton novel and it does not stand alone. It starts shortly after the previous book ends. If I could have read something this dark before bed, I would have finished this book in one of those all-night marathon sessions. As it was, I read it when I could, and finished quickly. The unique setting and strong characters make both for good thrillers and fascinating reading. Start with City of the Lost and have fun.

Carter, Ally, Cross My Heart And Hope To Spy, Little, Brown, 2016 edition of a 2007 book. I love the Gallagher Girl Books. Set in a secret school for girls who are going to grow up to be spies, these books are delightfully adventurous. This time, Carter adds some rather mysterious teenage boys to the mix and a few teachers who might or might not be what they seem. This is my bedtime reading. It doesn’t usually keep me up (although the ending of this one did), but it is memorable and the characters are grand. (Btw, Books2Read malfunctions more than not for me, so you might have to find the book on your own.)

Carter, Ally, Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover, Little, Brown & Company, 2016 edition of a 2009 book. I blew through this book even though it’s my nighttime, don’t-stay-up-late read. Instead of one chapter, I probably read three or four per night, and then hurried through the ending because I just had to know. Carter introduces a Big Bad in this book that will factor into future books. (I know this because I’m deep in the next one.) I love the relationships the girls have with each other, and this school sounds like a great deal of fun. Books2Read malfunctioned again for me, so I don’t know if it’s the book or if it’s Books2Read (which seems to have gone downhill), but I was only able to get two links for you. If you prefer to shop elsewhere, you’ll have to look up the book on your own. Believe me, it’s worth the time.

Neville, Stuart, “Juror 8,” Ink and Daggers, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, Titan, 2023. I’m still working my way through this volume. It’s heavily noir, which I like mostly, but occasionally the stories have left me cold. Which is why I love this Stuart Neville piece. Yes, noir. Yes, dark. But the voice is marvelous and the characters so dang real. I have several Stuart Neville books on my TBR shelf and I avoid them because he is so dark. But maybe now I’m feeling up to them…

Pirandello, Luigi, Six Characters in Search of an Author, multiple publishers, first published in 1921. Well, I’m remarkably consistent. I loathed The Seagull when I read it as a twenty-year old, and I loved Six Characters back then. I love it now. It was a fun read for my theatre history class. The other students were baffled as hell by it, but I love metafiction and this is one of the first well known pieces of metafiction. It was fascinating to learn that Pirandello was friends with Mussolini. (It was also fascinating to hear the prof, who is as liberal as they come, try to justify that friendship.) The discussion was glossed over in class, but it got me thinking about the age-old argument—do you judge the author by what they do or what they’ve written. I know with Rowling, I will not support anything of hers, because she’s doing active ongoing harm at the moment. Reading an old Pirandello play, aware of all the things Mussolini would do after the two men got to know each other…well, I just want to avert my eyes. In other words, I have no justification for recommending a play from someone who was a fascist, and yet, here I am, doing it.

Start charging interest on missed sales due to delays on their part? *wink*

Seariously, it is rediculous but I guess you can use the time on book 5.

Clair Obscur Expedition 33, developed Sandfall Interactive and published by Kepler Interactive April 24, 2025

So… if you are an enthusiast of single player RPGs and have not spent any time thoroughly engrossed in this modern masterpiece, you’re either buried under a pile of rubble or not allowing yourself enough time for brilliant escapism.

In either case, you’re missing out on what was unequivocally the 2025 GOTY.

I’ll work up a proper review at some point but am simply too busy playing this stunning piece of interactive art with all of my spare time to do so now.

Fighting the giant head in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

My very short take, aside from the above, is that this is essentially the game that Square Enix has been wishing they could have produced over the last two decades. I truly do not remember the last time I played a game that checked every box I have on my list of desired qualities after a lifetime of video games.

Fresh, engaging mechanics, sumptuous visuals, deeply developed world-building, top shelf voice acting, brilliant writing with staggering emotional depth, and the most phenomenal score since Final Fantasy VII.

All from a tiny French studio with barely more than 30 team members, most of whom are Ubisoft refugees.

Buy it, play it, support Sandfall Interactive. But even if they never produce another game again, their debut masterwork will prove to be an enduring legacy in the field for decades to come.

Joshua Dinges’s last game review for Black Gate was Return of the Obra Dinn.

Nautical Novels – All Aboard for Danger on the High Seas! Search on Bookshop.org One-Way,…

The post 6 Nautical Novels Drowning In Suspense appeared first on LitStack.

In reply to Sean.

My current guess is about 10.

How many books are anticipated for this series?

No, I don't consider any deleted scenes canon — I deleted them for a reason! I think they're interesting to see in terms of what stays in a book and what gets cut, but I don't think of it as canon (nor do I think of answers I give on social media as canon, because sometimes I'm talking about things that are not yet written and the details can always change!) The Shadowhunters Wiki is very good about marking what details are book canon (anything in the books, short stories, extra content if it's not "deleted") and what's not (me rambling, details that are corrected in later book versions, even.) I do my best to give you accurate answers and if the book has already been shipped off to the publisher (like LKOF) it's going to be accurate barring some tragic printing mistake. But for unwritten material, I have to allow myself to change something that isn't working, even if I talked about it before. I hope that makes sense!

I’ve often said that writing humour (sorry, American readers: ‘humor’) is HARD. The difficulty is, as I understand it, that writing humour means that it doesn’t come across in the same way as a spoken one-liner. Perhaps more problematical is that a person’s sense of humour is not the same as another’s. What can seem…

I was about to write a longer answer but Holly said, "What about him would make people think he was straight?" She also suggested he could have gotten heterosexuality from his demon side, and I thought that was pretty funny so I'm sharing it. I don't think any faeries are really straight, though they can certainly lean more toward being attracted to one gender presentation or another. Some are aro/ace, but Ash is not. I do think he has a very very very hard time falling in love, as that requires trust and his has been broken many times.

It's not scrapped. :) Delayed? Unusual? Complicated?

Maybe it’s an April Fool’s joke?

Yes! It was very interesting writing what is a very very weird aunt/nephew dynamic. Interesting and fun. :)

They definitely discuss the whole "How long will you be mad" "I'm also mad" stuff, they kind of can't not discuss it. They do decide to put it aside in the pursuit of what they need to find, but that's temporary, as it has to be. If the kitchen scene gets a mention it is quite small as I think they definitely have much bigger emotions about other things.

He doesn't know . . . yet.

Today’s Women in SF&F Month guest is artist and author Elaine Ho! Her illustrations, which can be found on her website and Instagram, include “Bones to the Wind” from the eponymous book cover jacket, “Harmony” from the Gen Con 2024 program cover, “Wall of Roses” from Uncanny Magazine Issue 46, and scenes from her debut novel. Her dark political fantasy book released late last year, Cry, Voidbringer, explores “how identity is reshaped under empire” and the question “Why do post-colonial […]

The post Women in SF&F Month: Elaine Ho first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

You asked for an art roundup guide to the main players of Kair Toren.

We’ve put our best agent on the case. Please don’t tell her any spoilers in the comments.

Unless otherwise specified, all art will be available as bookmarks, vellum inserts, and other goodies in the merch store when it reopens in mid-April.

Happy Friday, and happy (re)reading This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me! If you haven’t grabbed your copy yet, you can find retail links here.

Sushi art by Jenn Munson

I am stelka.

Maggie calls me Soo’sshi.

I know secrets.

Also fish.

The fish men complain. They make signs about me.

This means I am thriving.

You want all the humans in one place. So you can understand them.

I already do.

But I will show you. Watch closely.

Maggie art by @luisapreissler for OwlCrate special edition

This is Maggie.

She did not wake.

I fixed it.

This one is bright.

I stay. I watch the dark places.

Now she is mine.

She has den. I added fish.

Den is better now.

We keep each other.

Solentine Dagarra art by @helena.illustrated

Would steal fish.

Sharp teeth inside smile.

This one kills clean.

No mess.

No noise.

Like biting the back of the neck.

Hands smell like metal and endings.

I would sit close.

But not that close.

Sun Margrave art by @helena.illustrated

This one stands.

Like stone that remembers.

Keeps pack from tearing one another apart.

Does not bend.

Does not break.

Teeth stop here.

If gone –

too much blood.

Clover art by @helena.illustrated

This one runs the den.

Counts. Fixes. Decides.

No teeth.

But all things move when she moves.

Even the tall dangerous ones.

She lives where food is.

Calls me vermin. I hiss.

Keeps everything in place.

Man from the Garden art by @helena.illustrated

Human from garden.

This one is quiet danger.

Like a hunter who already chose.

I do not like being chosen.

Pretty. Not safe.

Watching.

Would not nap near.

Would not share fish.

Would not bite first. Maybe second.

Sleepless Duke art by @luisapreissler for OwlCrate special edition

Humans should be simple.

This one is not.

He feels like story.

Stories bite.

This one is above hunters.

Above teeth.

This one is storm.

He burns bright.

Many fish. Many hiding places.

Doran Arvel art by @helena.illustrated

This one shines.

Like fresh meat in the sun.

Wants to be watched.

Always watches too.

Mostly Maggie.

Teeth still sharp.

Like trap.

I stole his fish. I go where I want.

Tasted like flowers.

For a better Stelka-to-human translation and a tour of Kair Toren locations (including the full map of the Kingdom of Rellas) you can revisit Ilona’s kingdom art reveal post here.

The post An Accurate Stelka Guide to the Humans of Kair Toren (Character Art Roundup) first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

P. Schuyler Miller

Peter Schuyler Miller was born on February 21, 1912 in Troy, New York. He earned a Master of Science from Union College and worked as a technical writer for General Electric and the Fisher Scientific Company.

Miller had a lifelong interest in archaeology and was a member of the New York State Archaeological Association.

His first published short story “The Red Plague,” appeared in the July 1930 issue of Wonder Stories. Based on the cover of the magazine’s January issue, it was the first winner of a contest Wonder Stories ran, earning Miller publication and $150. Sam Moskowitz described the story as “more of a well-written plot synopsis for a novel than a short story.”

Miller participated in multiple collaborations. In the early 1930s, he wrote two stories with Walter Dennis and Paul McDemott: “The Red Spot of Jupiter” and “The Duel on the Asteroid.” These two stories were the only fiction Dennis and Dermott published, but Dennis was the co-editor, with Raymond A. Palmer, of The Comet, often cited as the first fanzine.

Wonder Stories, July 1930, Cover by Frank R. Paul

In 1934, he took part in the collaborative novel Cosmos, for which he wrote “Chapter 14: The Fate of the Neptunians.” In 1950, he collaborated with L. Sprague de Camp on the 1950 novel Genus Homo, which took advantage of Miller’s interest in archaeology. In late 1933, he began publishing the 11 part serial “Alice in Blunderland” under the pseudonym “Nihil.”

Willy Ley attacked Miller’s 1931 story “Tetrahedra in Space” for its scientific inaccuracies and Miller responded that the physical chemistry described in the story was accurate. Everett F. Bleiler had a low opinion of Miller’s stories in general, suggesting that his 1936 story “The Chrysalis,” published in Astounding was his only story worth reading.

After 1951, Miller became best known for writing reviews for Astounding’s “The Reference Library” until his death om 1974. He had very little fiction output once he began reviewing books. His reviews tended to look for the good in the stories and novels he was reviewing, often including mini essays of this historical and literary context of the works under review. In 1963, he won a Special Hugo Award for his book reviews.

Miller died in Parkersburg, West Virginia on October 13, 1974 while on an archaological tour of the Fort Ancient culture and was buried in the Elmwood Cemetery in Schaghticoke, New York.

His papers formed the bases of the P. Schuyler Miller Memorial Library at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

 

Steven H Silver is a twenty-one-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference numerous times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.