Space Cops, Stolen Books and the End of the World: SF & Fantasy News Round-Up (17 Aug 2026).
The science fiction, fantasy and horror worlds have been unusually busy over the past ten days, presumably because everyone realised August was halfway over and there were still several books to publish, priceless first editions to steal, superheroes to send to Nebraska and enormous conventions to organise.
Let us begin with books, where civilisation continues its curious habit of imagining dreadful futures while simultaneously appearing determined to manufacture several of them.
On 11 August, Nadia Afifi’s A Fugitive’s History of the Known Universe arrived from Flame Tree Press. It returns to Afifi’s far-future Nabatea setting, with fugitive Azad hunted across the galaxy by the Vitruvian Authorities after exposing some distinctly unsavoury truths about his world. Revolution is on the menu, along with space pirates, historical secrets and the perennial problem of trying to overthrow an oppressive galactic system when most of the population would rather stay indoors and hope it goes away. Frankly, very relatable.
D.J. Molles also released The Peace Child through Blackstone, in which aliens have conquered Earth, killed roughly half of humanity and put much of the remainder into what might generously be described as highly involuntary accommodation. Resistance fighter Master Sergeant Sol Winters then finds himself lumbered with an alien princess who claims she wants peace. Unfortunately, almost everybody would prefer to shoot her. This is what happens when interstellar diplomacy neglects to circulate the agenda beforehand.
Perhaps the most intriguing oddity among the week’s new arrivals is Michael Bettendorf’s Midwestern Chrome from Tenebrous Press, a collection rooted in a grubby near-future Nebraska of body augmentation, broken dreams and mechanical noir. Its central novella, Our Bird Trills Mechanical, gives a burnt-out detective the severed head of an android which speaks in the voice of his dead wife and appears to possess her memories and personality. At SFcrowsnest magazine we regard this as exactly the sort of technological innovation which would make Apple’s annual product launch considerably more exciting. “One more thing…” Clunk.
More seriously, one piece of news will make collectors of rare genre books wince. Specialist dealer L.W. Currey suffered another break-in at his New York state premises on 14 August, reportedly the third such theft. Approximately fifty books were taken, some unique and highly valuable. Currey says the combined losses from the thefts now exceed a quarter of a million dollars, and that the thieves appear to know precisely which authors and types of material they are targeting. The New York State Police are investigating, while details of the missing material have been circulated through stolen-book databases. This does not sound like somebody opportunistically leaving Waterstones with a paperback tucked down their trousers.
The disturbing thing about stealing rare books, apart from the obvious criminality, is that sufficiently distinctive copies can become remarkably difficult to sell. The very qualities which make an unusual signed edition, association copy or rarity valuable can also make it recognisable. One hopes the missing books eventually find their way home rather than disappearing into a private collection where they will spend the next thirty years being admired by somebody who really ought to know better.
Over in horror, the Horror Writers Association has entered a new publishing partnership with the gloriously named Raw Dog Screaming Press. More precisely, Raw Dog Screaming will publish and distribute the HWA’s Poetry Showcase Volume XIII and future editions of the annual series, which promotes established and emerging writers of horror, dark fantasy and speculative poetry. Volume XIII, edited by Colleen Anderson, is scheduled for October 2026. This is pleasingly appropriate. If your publishing company is called Raw Dog Screaming Press and you are not publishing horror poetry in October, somebody in marketing has fallen asleep at the pentagram.
Meanwhile, DC’s attempt to convince us that the Green Lantern can work on live-action television has achieved something previously thought almost as unlikely as finding affordable popcorn in a West End cinema.
Lanterns premiered on HBO and HBO Max on 16 August, with Kyle Chandler playing veteran Lantern Hal Jordan opposite Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart. Rather than immediately drowning viewers in glowing green space architecture, giant alien heads and exposition concerning Sector 2814, the series has gone down the prestige-crime route. Its two intergalactic policemen investigate a murder in the American heartland, with the resulting concoction frequently described as Green Lantern via True Detective. Somewhere, a Warner Bros executive has finally discovered that the secret ingredient in every prestige television pitch is apparently “Nebraska”.
The gamble appears to have worked. As of 17 August, the first season stands at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes from 42 reviews, while Metacritic has it at 72 from 26 critics. Reviews have particularly praised Chandler and Pierre together, although not everybody is convinced that grounding one of DC’s most flamboyantly cosmic concepts quite so firmly on Earth is automatically a virtue. Still, after the infamous 2011 Ryan Reynolds film, the Green Lantern franchise has known darker nights. Considerably darker. Possibly visible only with specialist astronomical equipment.
Tomorrow, 18 August, brings C.A. Fletcher’s The Two of Us at the End of the World from Orbit, returning to the post-apocalyptic territory of A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World. The new novel follows Mouse, who has grown up knowing only Cat in the overgrown ruins of an almost empty world, while another strand travels nearly two centuries backwards to a couple falling in love during civilisation’s collapse. They discover that they are among the few people still capable of having a child, which naturally attracts the attention of the authorities. Because nothing says romance quite like the end of humanity followed by government paperwork.
And looming over the end of the month is the mothership. LAcon V, the 84th World Science Fiction Convention, descends upon Anaheim, California, from 27 to 31 August. The convention takes over the Anaheim Convention Center and neighbouring Hilton and Marriott, with guests and programme participants spanning writers, artists, scientists and assorted people who can explain the difference between a supporting membership and an attending membership without consulting an ancient scroll.
The Hugo Awards ceremony takes place on Sunday 30 August at 8pm Pacific time in the Anaheim Convention Center Arena, with Ursula Vernon, also known to readers as T. Kingfisher, performing toastmaster duties. The ceremony will also be streamed online. Worldcon’s programme is already live, alongside its film festival, makerspace, science and technology events and the traditional WSFS machinery which allows organised science fiction fandom to demonstrate that parliamentary procedure can be considerably more complicated than hyperspace physics.
We will naturally be keeping an eye on the Hugos, Worldcon and whatever else emerges from Anaheim. Five days containing thousands of science fiction fans, writers, publishers, cosplayers, scientists, dealers and committee members cannot possibly pass without generating news. Even if nothing goes wrong, somebody will certainly propose an amendment.
So that was the genre world since 6 August: revolutions against galactic dictatorships, alien invasions, android heads, stolen rare books, horror poetry, Green Lantern detectives and the imminent gathering of Worldcon.
Compared with the actual news these days, frankly, science fiction is beginning to look rather restful.
