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TOR.COM


SCIENCE FICTION. FANTASY. THE UNIVERSE. AND RELATED SUBJECTS.


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 * Original Fiction


THE STAR-BEAR

Michael Swanwick
Wed Jun 7, 2023 9:00am 10 comments 10 Favorites [+]

A Russian émigré poet living in Paris is visited by a mysterious bear with an
agenda…

Read More »

 * Original Fiction


PRETTY GOOD NEIGHBOR

Jeffrey Ford
Wed May 24, 2023 9:00am 2 comments 10 Favorites [+]

There are worse things than a local gangster’s cronies lurking in New Jersey’s
wetlands…

 

Read More »

 * Original Fiction


THE PUPPETMASTER

Kemi Ashing-Giwa
Wed May 10, 2023 9:00am 7 comments 30 Favorites [+]

A banished warrior teaches her treacherous uncle that once made, some oaths
cannot be broken…and some monsters cannot be chained.

Read More »

 * Original Fiction


COUNTING CASUALTIES

Yoon Ha Lee
Wed Apr 26, 2023 9:00am 5 comments 25 Favorites [+]

Commander Niaja vrau Erezeng is up against an enemy that doesn’t just destroy
all the beings, ships, and planets in its path, but also consumes their greatest
arts, somehow scratching them from existence everywhere…

 

Read More »

 * Original Fiction


SALT WATER

Eugenia Triantafyllou
Wed Apr 12, 2023 9:00am 3 comments 25 Favorites [+]

While all her friends’ fish are changing into mermaids, is 12-year-old Anissa’s
fish becoming something else?

Read More »

 * Original Fiction


THE RIVER AND THE WORLD REMADE

E. Lily Yu
Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:00am 3 comments 16 Favorites [+]

When the waters rose, the people who stayed on the River learned they weathered
the storms best together, but what happens when one of their own becomes curious
about the Land?

Read More »

 * Original Fiction


THE DARK HOUSE

A.C. Wise
Wed Mar 15, 2023 9:00am 1 comment 25 Favorites [+]

A photographer’s obsession with an unsettled subject exposes two friends to a
darkness that won’t be contained by frames…

Read More »


HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE BLOG

 * list
 * Science Fiction


FIVE WORKS ABOUT INTELLIGENT BEINGS WHO ARE THEIR OWN WORST ENEMIES

James Davis Nicoll
Wed Jun 14, 2023 11:00am 23 comments 7 Favorites [+]

As far as can currently be determined, we are the only technological
civilization in this universe…at least the only one of which we are aware. There
are many explanations as to why this would be so. The explanation that sparks
the plot in the following five works is that of a great filter—some reason that
any life that emerges elsewhere will fall prey to some kind of bottleneck and
stagnate or die before it reveals itself to our instruments. This essay focuses
on one proposed bottleneck: intelligent tool-using. Put simply, bright
tool-users are better at creative disruption than they are at foreseeing and
surviving the consequences.

This explanation gives humanity an excuse for our possible self-extinction
(whether due to climate change, nuclear war, death by microplastics, etc.).
Calamitous misjudgment isn’t a uniquely human flaw! It’s inherent to tool-using
intelligence itself. At worst, we’re just a demonstration case.

Read More »

 * Column
 * Mark as Read


HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND EMBRACE THE TBR PILE

Molly Templeton
Thu Jun 15, 2023 11:00am 4 comments 10 Favorites [+]

I subscribed to Oliver Burkeman’s newsletter just in time.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t previously aware of Burkeman—I loved his Four Thousand
Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, which I’ve written about in this column
before—but in the way of the internet, I didn’t know he had a newsletter. (Who
can keep track?) Upon discovering it, I signed up, and the first thing to land
in my inbox contained this extremely-pertinent-to-my-life string of words:

“I think you should treat your ‘to-read’ pile not as something you have to get
through, but as something you get to pick from.”

Did the same bells just ring in your brain?

Read More »

 * Fantasy
 * list


ALL THE WAY DOWN: FIVE OF THE GREATEST TURTLES AND TORTOISES IN FANTASY

Cole Rush
Thu Jun 15, 2023 10:00am 38 comments 2 Favorites [+]

They’re slow. They’re steady. They win races against arrogant bunnies. Turtles
and their tortoise brethren have long been fabled creatures—they may be seen as
purveyors of wisdom, or transport characters to new worlds. In some myths (and
some newer stories as well), they hold parts of the world (or all of it) aloft.

Once, these creatures carried the weight of Aesop’s pithy morals. Now, they
shoulder so much more, and our fantasy stories are often better off with turtles
and tortoises in the mix. Here are five of my favorite turtles and tortoises in
fantasy, and I hope you’ll add your own in the comments below!

Read More »


 * trailers


TEASER FOR 3 BODY PROBLEM GIVES US A FIRST LOOK AT ADAPTATION, AND RELEASE DATE

Vanessa Armstrong
Sat Jun 17, 2023 6:00pm Favorite This


We’ve known that Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, along
with Alexander Woo, are adapting Cixin Liu’s sci-fi series, The Three-Body
Problem, for almost three years. Today, however, is the first time we’ve seen
anything from the show, Weiss and Benioff’s first project since Game of Thrones
ended. 

Read More »

 * television


THE PENULTIMATE OUTLANDER THEME SONG MAKES THE FAMILIAR SOUND NEW AGAIN

Natalie Zutter
Fri Jun 16, 2023 12:30pm 2 comments 2 Favorites [+]
Screenshot: STARZ

> Sing me a song of a lass that is gone
> Say, could that lass be I?

The first time I saw the opening lyrics to Outlander’s theme song posted on a
friend’s Facebook post, I thought it sounded ridiculous, way too on-the-nose to
start every episode by acknowledging the series’ premise. YES WE GET IT CLAIRE
YOU DISAPPEARED.

That was before I actually listened to it, and watched the title sequence—and
then, like Claire at Craigh na Dun, I fell hard. Now, I forbid my husband from
fast-forwarding through the credits every time we watch… and considering that we
binged a season at a time to get caught up in a matter of weeks, that means I’ve
got it well memorized. But why do I find this particular TV opening so
compelling?

The answer, I think, is that it presses all of my nerd buttons: It’s a remix of
a mashup, with an excellent invocation of Rule 63. It is the platonic ideal of a
TV theme song, reinventing itself each season so that it is always familiar but
never predictable.

Read More »

 * book recommendations


7 THRILLING SFF MURDER MYSTERIES

Elisa Shoenberger
Fri Jun 16, 2023 12:00pm 2 Favorites [+]

Photo: Virginia State Parks (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)

I have loved murder mysteries since I was in fifth grade. I started with these
thriller books from Joan Lowery Nixon, then found the wide and wonderful worlds
of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and others. I’ve never looked back. I’ve
always been particular about the location of the book, whether it was British
country estates, an art museum, or a tea shop.

But in the past few years, I’ve learned the wonders of murder mysteries taking
place in entirely new worlds, space or fantasy worlds overlaid on our own.
Unlike mysteries grounded in the “real world,” these mysteries have magic and
magical beings, advanced technologies that can make plots even more creative and
deeper. Personally, it’s all about the clever murder mystery. This list of seven
books combines the genre of murder mysteries with that of fantasy and science
fiction, whether it’s the locked room mystery but in space, or innovative
retellings of the British manor history.

Read More »

 * Terry Pratchett Book Club


TERRY PRATCHETT BOOK CLUB: THE WEE FREE MEN, PART I

Emmet Asher-Perrin
Fri Jun 16, 2023 11:00am 14 comments 4 Favorites [+]

“We willnae be fooled again!” —Roger Daltrey, probably.

Read More »


SERIES: TERRY PRATCHETT BOOK CLUB

 * list
 * Superheroes


CELEBRATING 10 OF THE BEST DADS IN SUPERHERO TV AND MOVIES

Joe George
Fri Jun 16, 2023 10:00am 7 comments 3 Favorites [+]

In real life, loving and supportive fathers run the gamut from fun-loving and
goofy to serious and insightful, stay-at-home to daily commuters, biological to
chosen, cis to trans, happy-go-lucky to dour and moody.

But in superhero stories, dads tend to fall into one of three categories:
emotionally distant, actually evil, or dead. Thor’s father Odin and Iron Man’s
father Howard Stark both hide their emotions from their children. Batgirl’s
father Commissioner Gordon is too busy cleaning up Gotham to notice that his
daughter is Batgirl. The respective fathers of Invincible Mark Grayson, all of
the Runaways, and Gamora and Nebula either reveal their evil plans in an
unwelcome surprise or taunt their kids with their twisted philosophies. The
fathers of the three most iconic superheroes, Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man?
They’re all dead.

So it’s pretty exciting when a superhero story not only gives us dads who are
alive and not evil but are actually pretty good at being dads. Bucking the
trend, some superdads are present for their kids, supportive, and emotionally
available.

Read More »

 * Excerpts


READ AN EXCERPT FROM THE DEEP SKY

Yume Kitasei
Thu Jun 15, 2023 3:00pm Post a comment 3 Favorites [+]

They left Earth to save humanity. They’ll have to save themselves first.

We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei, a science
fiction thriller about a mission into deep space that begins with a lethal
explosion that leaves the survivors questioning the loyalty of the
crew—publishing with Flatiron Books on July 18.

Read More »

 * book review


THE MOUNTAIN IN THE OCEAN: ASCENSION BY NICHOLAS BINGE

Sarah McCarry
Thu Jun 15, 2023 2:30pm 1 comment Favorite This

In the 17th century, cooling temperatures pushed the Bossons Glacier to a small
settlement outside the French village of Chamonix, swallowing whole farms and
houses. The terrified villagers of Chamonix, convinced the glacier was infested
by demons, hired the Bishop of Annecy to exorcise it. Classical and medieval
Europeans, notes Eric Wilson in The Spiritual History of Ice, regarded the
Alps—and alpine regions in general—as terrifying places, full of demons,
dragons, monsters, witches, and ghosts. But a few outliers—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
among them—saw a different set of spirits in the lofty peaks and rarefied air.
Early mountaineers believed heights gave them access to the sublime, a
strengthened connection to the mystery and magic of the universe.

Read More »

 * trailers


TRAILER FOR ANIMATED FILM BABYLON 5: THE ROAD HOME GIVES US EXACTLY WHAT WE’VE
BEEN YEARNING FOR

Vanessa Armstrong
Thu Jun 15, 2023 2:23pm 10 Favorites [+]


Babylon 5 is back! The animated feature Babylon 5: The Road Home is coming ever
closer to its premiere, and Warner Bros. Entertainment put out a trailer today
that gives us our first glimpse of many of the original cast members returning
to voice their characters.

Read More »

 * Column
 * Teen Horror Time Machine


FUN, SUN, AND MURDER: THE DEAD LIFEGUARD AND HIGH TIDE 

Alissa Burger
Thu Jun 15, 2023 2:00pm Post a comment 1 Favorite [+]

The cover of Richie Tankersley Cusick’s The Lifeguard (1988) has become iconic,
with a buff, blonde lifeguard glowering from atop his chair and behind his
mirrored sunglasses. Cusick’s The Lifeguard was a predecessor of the ‘90s teen
horror trend and set the stage for many of the narrative patterns to come. While
the beach getaway of The Lifeguard seems to promise fun and sun for the novel’s
protagonist, Kelsey Tanner, the ominous cover image and the tagline that advises
“Don’t call for help. He may just kill you” let readers know differently before
they even get to the first page. The sand, the sun, and a vacation from the
predictability and pressures from home sound like the recipe for a really fun
summer. But looked at from another angle, it could just as easily be a scary
one: there are dangerous tides, big waves, the threat of drowning, and sharks.
Those sun-tanned strangers could be potential new friends or romantic partners,
or they could be murderers, it’s really anybody’s guess. And if—let’s face it,
when—something goes wrong, these teens find themselves trapped between the
threat of human violence and a watery grave. 

While Cusick’s lifeguard is scary, a summer job on top of that chair isn’t all
fun and games in other ‘90s teen horror novels, including R.L. Stine’s The Dead
Lifeguard (1994) and High Tide (1997), both Fear Street series Super Chillers.
In both of these books, the protagonists leave Shadyside to get summer jobs,
Lindsay Beck at the North Beach Country Club pool in The Dead Lifeguard, and
Adam Malfitano at sea-side Logan Beach in High Tide. 

Read More »

 * trailers


WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS SEASON 5 TRAILER TEASES GUILLERMO’S BIG TRANSFORMATION

Vanessa Armstrong
Thu Jun 15, 2023 1:48pm 1 Favorite [+]


It’s confirmed, folks. The latest trailer for Season Five of What We Do In The
Shadows reveals that everyone’s favorite familiar Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) has
apparently gotten what he wished for, though he’s still got a lot to learn.

Read More »

 * Star Trek
 * TV review


SUPPORTING CAST — STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS: “THE BROKEN CIRCLE”

Keith R.A. DeCandido
Thu Jun 15, 2023 1:30pm 127 comments 5 Favorites [+]
Photo Credit: Michael Gibson/Paramount+

I want to start my review of the second-season premiere of Strange New Worlds
with the last bit of it: at the very end of the episode before the credits, we
get a black screen with the words:

> For Nichelle
> who was first through the door
> and showed us the stars
> Hailing frequencies forever open…

I’ll give you all a second to get the dust out of your eyes…

Read More »

 * cover reveal


REVEALING SEANAN MCGUIRE’S NEXT WAYWARD CHILDREN BOOK: MISLAID IN PARTS
HALF-KNOWN

Tor.com
Thu Jun 15, 2023 1:00pm 6 comments 2 Favorites [+]
Photo credit: Beckett Gladney

Portals and danger, and a girl who can find both in the latest book in the Hugo
and Nebula Award-Winning Wayward Children series.

We’re thrilled to share the cover of Seanan McGuire’s Mislaid in Parts
Half-Known—forthcoming January 9, 2024 from Tordotcom Publishing.

Read More »

 * Tor.com 15th Anniversary


FATHERHOOD AND MASCULINITY IN STAR WARS: ATTACK OF THE CLONES

John Manuel Arias
Thu Jun 15, 2023 12:00pm 2 comments 3 Favorites [+]
Screenshot: LucasFilm

There’s an incredible, indescribable moment when you first witness yourself
represented in fiction. It’s a curious validation of your existence—that your
image, personality, and gestures could spring forth from someone else’s
imagination. That someone found you worthy of thinking up. Then there’s a
sibling moment, one just as incredible and indescribable, when you first witness
a loved one represented in fiction. It’s a cathartic Ah-ha! Someone you love is
also in multiple dimensions at once. They too have a phantasmagorical reflection
worthy of someone else’s imagination, along with their breathing, physical body
right next to you.

I experienced the latter moment when my father took me to see Star Wars: Attack
of the Clones a few weeks after its release in 2002. I was newly eleven, and
immeasurably ecstatic. He was forty-five, and hated almost every second.

Read More »

 * Column
 * Mark as Read


HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND EMBRACE THE TBR PILE

Molly Templeton
Thu Jun 15, 2023 11:00am 4 comments 10 Favorites [+]

Photo: Carles Rabada [via Unsplash]

I subscribed to Oliver Burkeman’s newsletter just in time.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t previously aware of Burkeman—I loved his Four Thousand
Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, which I’ve written about in this column
before—but in the way of the internet, I didn’t know he had a newsletter. (Who
can keep track?) Upon discovering it, I signed up, and the first thing to land
in my inbox contained this extremely-pertinent-to-my-life string of words:

“I think you should treat your ‘to-read’ pile not as something you have to get
through, but as something you get to pick from.”

Did the same bells just ring in your brain?

Read More »

 * Fantasy
 * list


ALL THE WAY DOWN: FIVE OF THE GREATEST TURTLES AND TORTOISES IN FANTASY

Cole Rush
Thu Jun 15, 2023 10:00am 38 comments 2 Favorites [+]
"The Tortoise and the Hare" illustration from Childhood’s Favorites and Fairy
Stories (1927)

They’re slow. They’re steady. They win races against arrogant bunnies. Turtles
and their tortoise brethren have long been fabled creatures—they may be seen as
purveyors of wisdom, or transport characters to new worlds. In some myths (and
some newer stories as well), they hold parts of the world (or all of it) aloft.

Once, these creatures carried the weight of Aesop’s pithy morals. Now, they
shoulder so much more, and our fantasy stories are often better off with turtles
and tortoises in the mix. Here are five of my favorite turtles and tortoises in
fantasy, and I hope you’ll add your own in the comments below!

Read More »

More Posts
opens in a new window


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 * Reading The Wee Free Men, Part I
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 * Reading The Path of Daggers (Part 4)
 * Star Trek: Enterprise Rewatch: “E2”

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