S&L Podcast #533 – Octavia Butler's Ghost

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The Hugo voting is open! The Guild is coming back! Is "best and most popular" actually fair? Is it right to defy a dead author's wishes? Tom risks Octavia Butler's ghost to explain. Plus, we share our opening thoughts on Slow Gods by Claire North.

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WHAT ARE WE NOMMING?

  • Tom: Spinach cream tortellini

  • Veronica: McVeggie

QUICK BURNS

Hugo Voting is Open! The online voting system is now available at nomnom.lacon.org. The voting packet is one of the best perks of being a voting member of WSFS. Thanks to specious_reasons and @BethMitcham for the heads-up.

The Guild is Coming Back! Check out the details at Launch Oracle.

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Jan shared via Locus Mag: Angel Down by Daniel Kraus has won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The jury described the book as a “breathless novel of World War I, a stylistic tour-de-force that blends such genres as allegory, magical realism and science fiction into a cohesive whole, told in a single sentence.” Read more at Locus Mag.

The "Best" Fantasy of the Decade Jan also noted a Screen Rant article crowning Circe by Madeline Miller as the "most popular" fantasy novel of the past decade based on Goodreads data (defined as books with the highest shelving and an average rating above 3.5 stars, published from 2017 to present). By the same metrics, Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros is the most popular Romantasy novel. Read the full list here.

Master Alvin Arrives Phil spotted that Master Alvin, the seventh and last book of the Alvin Maker series by Orson Scott Card, has finally been released—22 years after the previous book, The Crystal City.

Octavia Butler’s "Lost" Novel Seth shared that 40 years after Octavia Butler asked that her novel Survivor not be reprinted, a new edition is coming. This raises the question: how much control should an author’s wishes have after their death? Full story at LA Times.

BARE YOUR SWORD

On DNF (Did Not Finish) Etiquette Stephen asks: "Does the DNF shelf still give you the option to rate and write a review? I always just move the book from 'Currently Reading' to the 'To Be Read' shelf and then delete it from there—no rating at all. It makes me feel better because I’m not affecting an author's book rating or hurting their earnings, especially with self-published works. Also, sometimes my brain just does not want to deal with a specific story, but maybe in a couple of months things will change.

Also, this May brings a new Murderbot story and new Dungeon Crawler Carl. Doing a re-listen as Audible had all the DCC on sale a month ago. Tom can fill up May quick!"

On Podcast Ads Seth asks: "Anyone else get ads on this episode? I don't remember it being mentioned that Tom and Veronica were shifting to including ads—I might have missed it, or it could be an artifact of the move to a new platform? I'm in the UK if it's some local setting that might have an effect?"

BOOK OF THE MONTH DISCUSSION

Slow Gods by Claire North

Goodreads Threads:

ADDENDUMS

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