Shuten Order
Spike Chunsoft’s new title *Shuten Order* blends mystery thriller storytelling with five distinct gameplay genres, each tied to a government minister’s investigation. Players assume Rei Shimobe, the resurrected Founder, using the “Power of God” to uncover her murderer while navigating visual‑novel, stealth‑action, and dating‑sim routes. The game explores gender ambiguity, using genre conventions to force Rei into both masculine and feminine roles, and interrogates religious authority through its speculative world‑building. Though pacing and some mechanics falter, the narrative depth, art direction, and thematic ambition earn it a place among top mystery VN experiences.
Monsters in the Archive by Caroline Bicks
Caroline Bicks, holder of the Stephen E. King Chair at the University of Maine, spent a year examining Stephen King’s personal archives—the first scholarly access ever granted. Her new book, *Monsters in the Archives*, dissects drafts of five early King...
The Iron Garden Sutra by A. D. Sui
A. D. Sui’s *The Iron Garden Sutra* follows Iris, a death‑monk of the Starlit Order, as he investigates a murder mystery aboard the ancient generation ship *Nicaea*. The story intertwines a sprawling, forest‑filled spacecraft, a hostile AI, and a clash of faith...
Beings by Ilana Masad
Ilana Masad’s debut novel *Beings* weaves three interlocking narratives—a modern archivist, the 1960s Betty and Barney Hill UFO abduction case, and a semi‑epistolary queer coming‑of‑age story of writer Phyllis Egerton—into a single triptych. Each chapter shifts perspective, linking characters through...
When Among Crows and To Clutch a Razor by Veronica Roth
Veronica Roth’s first two Curse Bearer novellas, *When Among Crows* (2024) and *To Clutch a Razor* (2025), reimagine Polish folklore within a contemporary urban‑fantasy framework. The books follow Dymitr, a Polish‑American Knight of the Holy Order, as he confronts monsters...
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
Grady Hendrix’s *Witchcraft for Wayward Girls* uses horror to expose the systemic oppression of women during the Baby Scoop Era, when unwed pregnant teens were confined to maternity homes and forced to surrender their children. Set in a 1970s institution,...
Crisis at Proxima by Travis S. Taylor and Les Johnson
Travis S. Taylor and Les Johnson’s *Crisis at Proxima* attempts to revive classic hard‑science storytelling, but the review finds it mired in technobabble, shallow world‑building, and dated cultural tropes. The novel’s plot—centered on a fertility crisis and an awakened Atlantean...
The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains by Reena McCarty
Reena McCarty’s debut, The Tricky Business of Faerie Bargains, fuses American frontier myth with fae lore, following Poppy Hill, a century‑old returnee thrust into the modern legal world of faerie contracts at Carter Lane. The novel details a post‑World‑War legal...
This Brutal Moon by Bethany Jacobs
"This Brutal Moon" concludes Bethany Jacobs' Kindom Trilogy, a multi‑planetary space‑opera that follows the Jeveni laborers' revolt against a corrupt tripartite Kindom. The narrative centers on characters like Chono and Six, whose personal moral choices drive the political intrigue. Jacobs...
Podcast: I Wish You Died Laughing
Strange Horizons released a new fiction podcast episode titled “I Wish You Died Laughing” on March 9, 2026. The story, written by speculative‑fiction author Lio Abendan, is narrated by Jenna Hanchey and presented by Michael Ireland. It appears in the magazine’s Fiction...
ECO24: The Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction Edited by Marissa Van Uden
ECO24, edited by Marissa van Uden, is the first annual collection of the year’s best speculative ecofiction. The anthology leans heavily toward grim, dystopian visions that expose environmental collapse, unequal responsibility, and the erosion of empathy. Through stories ranging from...
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu
Kim Fu’s new novel, The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts, follows Eleanor Fan as she uses an inheritance to buy a dilapidated house in a rain‑soaked, terraformed valley. The story blends personal grief over her mother’s death with the broader anxieties...
The Inescapable March by Hana Carolina
Hana Carolina’s novella *The Inescapable March* traps warrior‑mage Arran and flamboyant actor Hyacinx in a magical time‑loop that forces them to relive a siege and their own deaths repeatedly. The story’s non‑linear structure—chapters that jump between “The End” and “The...
The House of Illusionists and Other Stories by Vanessa Fogg
Vanessa Fogg’s new collection, The House of Illusionists and Other Stories, compiles a decade’s worth of her speculative fiction, previously featured in venues such as Lightspeed and Podcastle. The stories are united by a preoccupation with tragic endings, collapsing societies,...
New Meat in a Clean Room Edited by Ira Rat
*New Meat in a Clean Room* is a tightly curated horror anthology edited by Ira Rat, featuring six stories that fuse post‑punk alienation, splatterpunk violence, and hauntological motifs. The collection’s aesthetic—sterile clean rooms turned filthy—serves as a metaphor for bodily...