fans of sf, fantasy, horror & whimsy
Currently screening on SBS is the SF classic Metropolis (note this is the newly restored version).
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city’s mastermind falls in love with a working-class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.
No prize for guessing which is the mad scientist…
The 2025 Aurealis Awards winners, recognizing the best in Australian speculative fiction, have been announced.
Best Science Fiction Novel
Best Science Fiction Novella
You can read anbout the winners in other categories in this article from Locus magazine:
https://locusmag.com/2026/02/2025-aurealis-awards-winners/
In the ancient city of Lankhmar, two men forge a friendship in battle. The red-haired barbarian Fafhrd left the snowy reaches of Nehwon looking for a new life, while the Gray Mouser, apprentice magician, fled after finding his master dead. These bawdy brothers-in-arms cement a friendship that leads them through the wilds of Nehwon, facing thieves, wizards, princesses, and the depths of their desires and fears.
The late Fritz Leiber’s tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser launched the sword-and-sorcery genre, and were the inspiration for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons.
“Fafhrd’s origins were easy to perceive in his near seven-foot height and limber-looking ranginess, his hammered ornaments and huge longsword: he was clearly a barbarian from the Cold Waste north even of the Eight Cities and the Trollstep Mountains.”
“The Mouser’s antecedents were more cryptic [than Fafhrd’s] and hardly to be deduced from his childlike stature, gray garb, mouse-skin hood shadowing flat swart face, and deceptively dainty rapier; but somewhere about him was the suggestion of cities and the south, the dark streets and also the sun-drenched spaces.”
[The] early stories are playful and fun, if occasionally a shade awkward, but the series from the high days of the 60s is a complete joy. Tales like Bazaar of the Bizarre, The Lords of Quarmall and Ill Met in Lankhmar have all attractions of their predecessors, but more sophistication, more complex and well-handled plots, and deeper characterisation.
— https://fantasy-faction.com/2012/fafhrd-and-the-gray-mouser-by-fritz-leiber by Nyki Blatchley
We invite you to read some of the stories about these two by Fritz Leiber. In particular, Ill met in Lankhmar deals with how the two met.
We meet at the Minor Works Building at 6:30pm, 18th March Adelaide time.
(There’s a passage between 50 and 52 Sturt Street which leads to the Minor Works Building)
For those who can’t make it in person, you can join us via zoom (6:30pm Adelaide, 7pm Melbourne, 8am London)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89652887061?pwd=YURTfj9YrsptbF5VhI7kEqjxYTJohl.1
Meeting ID: 896 5288 7061
Passcode: 916547
Welcome to the Locus Recommended Reading List…
We saw some fabulous books come out last year and are so pleased to let you know about them! Our recommendations are compiled annually by the Locus reviewers, editors, and columnists; outside reviewers; and other professionals and well-known critics of genre fiction and non-fiction. This year we looked at over 1,000 titles between short and long fiction.
Note: we know there will be books you loved that didn’t make it; any one of our voting group would have a different exact list, of course. The list we share is our combined sum of opinions, assessed with a great affection and care for the field. We did not see everything that came out last year (though we tried!) and there will always be books that didn’t make it. No one in the group is allowed to vote for any titles they worked on or acquired.
See the detailed list here: https://locusmag.com/2026/02/2025-recommended-reading/
There’s a very interesting essay at SpeculativeInsights called Lives under Empire, which looks at the politics of forever wars.
“The novella Lives under Empire by Premee Mohamed, two novelettes (“The Weight of What is Hollow” and “Forsaking All Others”), and the short story “The General’s Turn” each follow different subjects of the Treotan Empire, a militant dictatorship that has grown habituated to unceasingly waging imperial wars. This format gives Mohamed ample space in which to illustrate the impact of unceasing warfare on the daily lives of imperial subjects. The depth of each story also allows protagonists from diverse walks of life to ponder their relationship with the regime—and whether this relationship needs to change, and at what cost.”
— https://www.speculativeinsight.com/essays/lives-under-empire
I wonder if this essay by Eric de Roulet might lead to an interesting discussion at Critical Mass about dealing with Empire in the real world?
Jeff Harris has suggested another article on empire: I suggest reading the discussion of empires in science-fiction (see link below) is not only clearer and more readable, but relief from “lives under empire”‘s plodding quasi-academic style.
https://reactormag.com/side-eyeing-science-fictions-love-of-empire/
So for the Critical Mass meeting on February 18th at the Minor Works Building
(There’s a wide path between 50 and 52 Sturt Street which will take you to the Minor Works Building)
(A) We shall discuss the two articles on empire
and then (B) we each discuss a work of interest for 5 minutes — either an old SF work worth reading (pre 1980), or a new work which has impressed you (post 2020).
Critical mass Zoom meeting.
Time: Feb 18, 2026 6:30pm Adelaide / 7pm Melbourne / 10am London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84725647281?pwd=xOiFBfqxjaYVhDgYZxs1Ac5WeG5889.1
Meeting ID: 847 2564 7281
Passcode: 805107
The Bookseller has announced the winners of the inaugural British Audio Awards. Categories, titles, and authors of genre interest include:
Science Fiction & Fantasy
More details at Locus magazine
We’re gathering at ballaboosta at 7pm this Thursday, Jan 15th for dinner.
Come along and suggest what we should talk about this year, 2026.
If you wish to join us, and haven’t said you’re coming, please contact roman (websmith@internode.on.net) so that he can confirm the appropriate number of seats at the restaurant.
It’s Locus‘s 2025 Holiday Countdown of Staff Picks!
In case you missed it, Locus reviewer Alexandra Pierce chooses Honeyeater by Kathleen Jennings: A lush, gothic story about home and family and place and secrets.
Read Alexandra’s full review online or in the September 2025 issue of Locus. …Read More
Favourite Books of 2025
Favourite Short Stories of 2025
See reactor magazine for details about favourite films, TV shows and more in 2025 at Reactor Mag
“Every Version of You sneaks in some really hard, fundamental questions about the mind-body problem, what it means to be human, what we are willing to sacrifice for another, and what – if any – is the difference between living and being alive.”
—Locus Magazine
Our guest (via zoom) in November is Grace Chan, whose novel Every Version of You won several best book awards in 2022, including the University of Sydney People’s Choice Award at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Not just a literary novel, but an excellent work of science fiction as well.
Every Version of You was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and The Age Book of the Year. It was longlisted for the Stella Prize and the Indie Book Awards. It has been optioned for a film adaptation.
We will talk with Grace Chan for about 20 minutes, then open the discussion up for comments/questions from the audience.
Several shorter works are available via links on her website.
The meeting will be at the community room at Christie Walk from 6:15pm
— entry from 101 Sturt Street.
Zoom details:
Time: Nov 13, 2025 6:30pm Adelaide, 7pm Melbourne, 9am London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89371483403?pwd=VRKdKuDAjSxPIbOaNaUPecnbiofiD5.1
Meeting ID: 893 7148 3403
Passcode: 589451
The Adelaide Fan Review 
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