Hugo/Locus/Le Guin award finalist novella* The Past is Red by Cat Valente is Β£1.99.
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08GZW6KF3/
(* - arguably it's a collection of two stories, the first being a previously published novelette you can read here: clarkesworldmagazine.com/valente_03_1... )
#UKSFFBookBargains
TIL "nominatees" is a word, although it doesn't seem to differ in meaning from "nominees".
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nominatee
Particularly galling is that it's written by someone who (unknowingly) caused me to waste the best part of an hour a month or so ago, because they didn't bother to do something far more trivial than the "tweaks" that they "suspect that it canβt be that much more complicated than [something else]".
Wondering if I should respond to the naive and Dunning-Krugerish rage bait blog post that I've just seen.
#UKSFFBookBargains
This one just came up as a "Top picks for you", dunno if it's a monthly deal - Julia by Sandra Newman: www.amazon.co.uk/Julia-Sandra...
One of two 1984 feminist retellings/reimaginings/side stories that came out in 2023. (The other was Katherine Bradley's The Sisterhood.)
Also Three-Body Problem trilogy for Β£2.89 (so marginally cheaper than buying the individual volumes when they go on sale)
www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Body-P...
Screengrab of the linked page from the Troubador Publishing website, listing example prices for services they offer to authors
Apropos of something....
troubador.co.uk/pricing
The novella Light Chaser by Gareth L. Powell and Peter F. Hamilton has just dropped to Β£1.99.
(The Amazon UI tells me that it was Β£8.54 when I added it to my wishlist, but I think it's often been around Β£3.)
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B088Q9CQZ4/
www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/...
#UKSFFBookBargains
You gone through the ISFDB tags? There look to be a few by women in that period.
www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/tag....
www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/tag....
("robot" singular has been much less tagged than "robots"; haven't checked "cyborg", "AI" or other potentially relevant terms)
Red Plenty is also in the sale, and was a BSFA Award Non-Fiction finalist. It looks interesting enough that I'd previously added it to my Amazon wishlist, although I'm not clear on if it's really SFnal...
www.amazon.co.uk/Red-Plenty-F...
I believe Light Perpetual is also arguably alt-history.
A Guardian article with the headline "Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple β and more" Just below the byline is highlighted a link to "Prefer the Guardian on Google"
Errm....
(Source: www.theguardian.com/technology/2... )
(You might need to open the full image to see the headline, which is somewhat at odds with the bit I've highlighted)
Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan is 99p in today's deals - seems to be literary SF? (The blurb comps to Station Eleven)
www.amazon.co.uk/Awake-Floati...
www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/...
#UKSFFBookBargains
This is a very good piece.
www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
Screen grab of the opening section of the linked Wikipedia page about "If Day"
Screen grab of part of the "Events" section of the linked Wikipedia page about "If Day"
Screen grab of part of the "Events" section of the linked Wikipedia page about "If Day"
Screen grab of part of the "Events" section of the linked Wikipedia page about "If Day"
Interesting article linked from the "On this day in history" section of Wikipedia today, somewhat alt-history LARPing
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Day
I remember thinking around the time of publication that Lee Evans could have been good as the comedian protagonist in an adaptation.
Screengrab of the top part of the linked NetGalley page for the novel "Fabricants" by Scott A Young
Screengrab of the opening part of the Michael Fabricant Wikipedia page
First part of the "Use of social media" section of Michael Fabricant's Wikipedia page
Closing part of the "Use of social media" section of Michael Fabricant's Wikipedia page
I feel the title of this recent SF novel has rather different connotations for UK readers than the author expected...
www.netgalley.co.uk/catalog/book...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael...
Screengrab of the copyright page of Chen Jiatong's White Fox in the Forest (via Amazon's preview), with question marks where the information about the original publication year, publisher and Chinese title should be.
Well, this is super-unhelpful in trying to get the correct details of the original Chinese publication into ISFDB.
(Source: www.amazon.co.uk/White-Fox-Fo... )
Sympathy Tower Tokyo maybe?
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...
Or maybe this:
www.reddit.com/r/books/comm...
I read it late last year, after picking it up for a similar price in an Amazon First Reads promotion.
I don't recall anything that could be controversial about it; it's a relatively "mainstream" thriller with SFnal elements.
Screengrab of the linked Baidu wiki page for the anthology ζΆι΄ηε©ε
Screengrab of a machine translation of the linked Baidu wiki page for the anthology ζΆι΄ηε©ε
@prograft.bsky.social and/or @heavenduke.bsky.social can hopefully provide confirmation, but I think that Chinese Children of Time cover image is for a different book - I don't believe a cover has yet been published for yours.
baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%97%...
csfdb.cn/books/11392?...
Screengrab of the Bluesky UI telling me that my post that this is replying to has been reposted once, but also "No reposts yet / Nobody has reposted this yet. Maybe you should be the first!"
Schroedinger's repost???
Ann Leckie's Hugo, Locus and Nebula finalist Translation State is 99p in the ebook deals today - it's been out for a couple of years now, but I think this is the first time it's been on sale.
www.amazon.co.uk/Translation-...
www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/...
#UKSFFBookBargains
Screengrab from part of the linked article from The (Evening) Standard from September 2022. Text reads: During a speech announcing the shortlisted books, the director of Booker Prize Foundation, Gaby Wood, introduced the various book clubs to an audience of writers, publishers and journalists. Wood heaped particular praise on a group from Lincolnshire called the Scunthorpe Pageturners for having βa steelworker and a dinner lady among your midstβ. She then chuckled, as did some in the crowd. βAnd a man! Thatβs the other thing β much more rare,β she added, triggering more laughter from the audience. A short video of this part of her speech has been posted online, drawing angry comments. There has been consternation at Woodβs apparent surprise that people with these jobs are keen readers. Kerry Wilkinson, a British author, branded the incident βembarrassing, condescending - and exactly how much of the industry sees the working classβ.
Outside the context of the rest of your thread - which is utterly WTF!?! - I think a concern about the what's an acceptable social background for book club members isn't completely unfounded, given that shit like this happens...
www.standard.co.uk/news/londone...
Amazon preview of the title page of the ebook edition of Hiero's Answer, the third book in Sterling Lanier's Hiero Desteen series, albeit not really credited to him
After numerous missed publication dates, this finally does seem to actually exist as a product you can buy!?!
www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FF9P8JTV
Per this comment on Tor.com (as was), a "final edit" was "recently finished" way back in 2020...
reactormag.com/a-post-apoca...
Minor correction: there are 13 First Novels recommended - one that was in the SF list when I first saw the list early this morning UK time has moved.
(I've got the original and current versions of that page open in different browser tabs, so I can see it has changed, rather than me miscounting.)
I just looked at how many First Novels Locus recommended the past few years:
2022: 25
2023: 25
2024: 23
2025: 12
I also just ran some rough stats for some of the main US publishers, and I don't see that there were fewer debut novels from genre imprints than in previous years.
#UKSFFBookBargains
www.amazon.co.uk/Vivid-Worlds... (showing as Β£1.77 for me)
Doesn't seem to be available on Kobo.
Although the "First Novels" category seems to be (a) very short (12 works), & (b) mostly comprised of novels published by non-genre imprints, neither of which strike me as positive signals for the health of the genre(s).
(Also new category for Translated novels, which maybe explains the previous?)
Locus recommended reading list: locusmag.com/2026/02/2025...
I need to go through it more closely, but I noticed last year that nearly half the SF recs were from non-genre or indie/small press/selfpub imprints, but this year seems to have a higher ratio of trad genre imprints.
I thought the same when I read the blurb, but from the other stuff I've read, I think that might be misleading, and it's actually a <rot13>zhygvirefr</rot13> story, although that maybe doesn't come fully into play until the sequel?
