Critical Mass March 18th: Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser

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.

Locus magazine publishes their recommended reading list

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/

Critical Mass Feb 18th: Imperial Subjugation and resistance

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

British Audio Awards

The Bookseller has announced the winners of the inaugural British Audio Awards. Categories, titles, and authors of genre interest include:

Science Fiction & Fantasy

  • WINNER: Queen B, Juno Dawson, narrated by Nicola Coughlan (Harper Voyager)
  • Count Zero, William Gibson, narrated by Alix Wilton Regan, Kyle Soller & Sebastián Capitán Viveros (WF Howes)
  • The Shadow Rising, Robert Jordan (Macmillan Audio)
  • Doctor Who: Agent of the Daleks, Steve Lyons, narrated by Nicholas Briggs & Maureen O’Brien (BBC Audio)
  • Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V.E. Schwab, narrated by Marisa Calin, Katie Leung & Julia Whelan (Tor)
  • Bee Speaker, Adrian Tchaikovsky, narrated by Rod Hallett, Gabrielle Nellis-Pain & Adrian Tchaikovsky (Ad Astra)

More details at Locus magazine

Reactor readers choose favourites

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

Critical Mass November 13th: Grace Chan

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 Huntington acquires library of Kim Stanley Robinson

  • The Huntington has acquired the papers and personal library of Kim Stanley Robinson, acclaimed science fiction author of the Mars trilogy and The Ministry for the Future.
  • The archive includes manuscripts, correspondence, notebooks, photographs, and Robinson’s personal reference library.
  • Highlights include drafts of nearly all of Robinson’s major novels and annotated works by authors who have shaped his thinking.
  • The collection will be processed with the goal of making it available to researchers by 2027. 

The Huntington announced today that it has acquired the papers and personal library of Kim Stanley Robinson, a New York Times bestselling author and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. 

Robinson is the author of more than 20 books, including his bestselling Mars trilogy—Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993), Blue Mars (1996)—and the widely praised 2312 (2012), Shaman (2013), New York 2140 (2017), and The Ministry for the Future (2020). 

“It’s a deep pleasure to have my archive go to The Huntington,” said Robinson. “I remember visiting from Orange County when I was in school; as a lifelong library lover, I was amazed there could be such a big and beautiful one. Since then, I’ve known The Huntington as the home of the Octavia E. Butler papers, and I’m proud to have mine join hers there. Science fiction is the genre best suited to expressing Southern California—as our work will show. I’m also honored to have my papers join the library that holds those of other authors I admire, such as Hilary Mantel and Thomas Pynchon.” 

More details: https://www.huntington.org/news/huntington-acquires-archive-and-library-award-winning-science-fiction-writer-kim-stanley

Discover Ijon Tichy…

“If you haven’t met star-traveler Ijon Tichy, clear a little room in your heart: he’s moving in.

Stanisław Lem is probably best known as the author of Solaris, but his stories about space voyager Ijon Tichy are his true gems. A critic in the ’70s wrote that Stanisław Lem was the most-read sci-fi writer in the world, and Lem is likely the most translated Polish sci-fi/fantasy author (though Andrzej Sapkowski, with the help of a certain white-haired Witcher, is rapidly closing the gap!).

But despite Lem’s enduring popularity, quiet Ijon—“Tichy” is a play on the word for “quiet” in Czech and Russian, stemming from an ancestor who remained silent throughout his own trial—remains a stranger to many readers today. And that’s a shame: Ijon Tichy is a lovable bumbler and a clear-eyed comedian. He represents the victory of a goodhearted, collegial comic over cynicism and solipsism. He may be more of a quiet observer than most heroes, but here are just a few reasons why Tichy is a sci-fi protagonist you’ll be very pleased to meet…”

Alex Przybyla, writing in Reactormag
https://reactormag.com/stanislaw-lems-greatest-character-an-introduction-to-ijon-tichy/

A good place to start is Lem’s Star Diaries