Locus News

The shortlist for the Waterstones Book of the Year 2025 has been announced. Titles and authors of genre interest include:

• Universality, Natasha Brown (Faber & Faber)
• Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
• The Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Alice With a Why, Anna James, illustrated by Matthew Land (HarperCollins)
• Katabasis, R.F. Kuang (HarperCollins)
• So Long, See You Tomorrow, William Maxwell (Vintage)
• The Café at the Edge …Read More

John Clute, co-founder of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, has announced the release of a Substack site associated with the online database, which will host both short free-access posts and longer posts for subscribers. Posts on the site will include essays, news updates, reflections, and more, intended to clock the sf world as it changes, and more particularly how SFE records and honours these changes.

Clute said,

Most of …Read More

The Canadian Children's Book Centre (CCBC) has announced the winners for the 2025 CCBC Book Awards, celebrating outstanding literary achievement with seven children's book awards. Awards of genre interest include:

Arlene Barlin Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy

• WINNER: The Headmasters, Mark Morton (Shadowpaw)

• Fledgling, S.K. Ali (Kokila)
• Lockjaw, Matteo L. Cerilli (Tundra)
• Waking the Dead and Other Fun Activities, Casey Lyall (Greenwillow)
• Where the …Read More

Updated 11/3/25: Colette H. Fozard and The Development Center for Chengdu Worldcon, Inc. announced on November 2 that they will begin to reach out to 2023 Hugo Award winners to gather information to deliver trophies.

Updated 10/28/25: Fozard and DCFCW have shared in a press release that DCFCW and Chengdu Worldcon have accepted a commitment of action by Dave McCarty to ship the remaining Hugo trophies, made after he …Read More

Seattle Worldcon 2025, the 83rd World Science Fiction Convention, received 1,962 valid ballots, down from 3,436 at Glasgow 2024. 1,338 nominating votes were cast electronically (another two sent by surface mail arrived too late to count); that's down from 1,720 in 2024.

The procedure for counting nominations remains the E Pluribus Hugo, or EPH, system. The rather complicated system gives a single point to each voter's ballot, dividing that point …Read More

The Huntington has acquired the personal library and papers of Kim Stanley Robinson, including drafts of novels, annotated works, photographs, and more. All told, The Huntington describes the collection as 50 linear feet of papers, photographs, and manuscripts as well as thousands of digital files. The Huntington stated that their goal is to make the material available to researchers by 2027.Robinson said the acquisition was a deep pleasure... I've known …Read More

Shadowpaw Press has announced that it intends to continue publishing On Spec in annual anthologies, following the announcement of the magazine’s closing.

The current plan is to Kickstart an On Spec 2026 anthology early in 2026, with the goal of opening to submissions after that and publishing the book in the fall. If the Kickstarter succeeds, the aim would be an annual anthology thereafter.

The anthology will be open to ... Read More

Artist Drew Struzan, 78, died October 13, 2025. He had Alzheimer’s disease.

Struzan was born March 18, 1947 in Oregon City OR. He attended the ArtCenter College of Design, graduated, and traveled to Los Angeles CA to illustrate album covers for musical artists including the Beach Boys and Bee Gees. He began work in movie advertisements in the 1970s and found acclaim for his 1978 Star Wars poster, after which ... Read More

The Bookseller has announced Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan (Doubleday) as the winner of the inaugural New Adult Book Prize. The prize is “the first award of its kind to recognise and affirm new adult fiction as an established space for books,” and the list “showcases some of the best writing in fantasy, romance and contemporary literary fiction.”

Other shortlisted titles of genre interest include:

• Sorcery and Small Magics,

The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) has announced the inaugural online Quasar Conference, taking place November 15 and 16, 2025: A “weekend of panels, workshops, seminars, office hours, and special presentations dedicated to professional and professionalizing writers in speculative fiction.” Admission to Quasar was included in the cost of the 2025 Nebula Conference membership. For those who did not attend the conference, the early-bird sign-up rate for the ... Read More

Clarion West‘s nine-month online Novel Writing Workshop is open for applications for its 2026 year. Karen Lord will be the instructor. The workshop will include class sessions, office hours, one-on-one meetings, and guest lectures.

The workshop will be held virtually from March 9 to November 23, 2026. Applications are open from October 13 to November 13, 2025. The supporting tuition is $3,200 and the Helping Hands tuition for those in ... Read More

The Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust has announced Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera (Tordotcom) as the winner of the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, awarding a $25,000 cash prize “to the author of a book that reflects the concepts and ideas that were central to Ursula’s own work.”

The selection panel, including Matt Bell, Indrapramit Das, Kelly Link, Sequoia Nagamatsu, and Rebecca Roanhorse said the book

funnels genre, ... Read More

The winner of the 2024 Endeavour Award has been announced. The award recognizes “a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book written by a Pacific Northwest author or authors and published in the previous year.”

• WINNER: Relics of Ruin, Erin M. Evans (Orbit)

• The Rain Artist, Claire Rudy Foster (Moonstruck)
• Tidal Creatures, Seanan McGuire (Tor)
• Better Living Through Alchemy, Evan J. Peterson (Broken Eye)
• Heavenbreaker, Sara