Stories

  1. A Guide to the Best Poetry Collections for Fantasy and Sci-Fi LoversSpeculative fiction lives and breathes inside poetry in ways that slip past readers who only think of the form as a quiet ritual. Long before Tolkien sat down…
  2. The Bone Season Series: A Must-Read for Dystopian Fantasy FansWhen Samantha Shannon first unveiled her vision of a clairvoyant underworld in 2013, she did more than launch a debut — she kicked open a door that other…
  3. Science Fiction Novels That Marry Noir Grit With Cyberpunk EdgeThe most exciting books in speculative fiction right now refuse to sit neatly within a single category. Readers in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, and Perth are…
  4. How to Build Better Bookshop.org Lists for Your ReadersA thoughtfully curated book list can do more than gather attractive covers in one place. It can guide a reader towards a particular mood, genre, theme, or…
  5. Fantasy novels where animal companions steal the showAustralian fantasy readers know that the bond between a protagonist and their animal counterpart can carry more emotional weight than any human relationship on…
  6. Doppelgangers and stolen selves: horror novels that haunt the mirrorThe human face is the first thing we learn to read, long before we master written language. When that face appears twice, or when it shifts beneath our…
  7. The Quiet Magic of Literary Fantasy Prose Worth RediscoveringThere is a particular pleasure in reading a fantasy novel where the sentences themselves feel like they belong in a poetry collection, where the writer trusts…
  8. The weird, wonderful world of Guerdon: a look at The Gutter PrayerThe Gutter Prayer, the opening volume of Gareth Hanrahan's Black Iron Legacy, has been quietly earning its reputation as one of the strangest, most rewarding…
  9. New adult science fiction with coming-of-age stories that resonateThe bookish world has spent the last decade arguing about where YA ends and adult fiction begins, and in that gap a strange, exciting genre has quietly taken…
  10. Building a monthly themed TBR that keeps readers coming backA themed TBR is one of the simplest ways to give your book blog structure, personality, and a sense of momentum. Instead of scrambling through whatever catches…