Journal: 136

My intention this week was to post a review of Uprising (2026) by Tahmima Anam, a fable about a rebellion by women sold into prostitution and held with their girl children on a small, slowly disappearing island in the mouth of a river in Bangladesh; but I have run out of time.

I spent this past weekend at Denmark on my daughter’s bush block, variously minding grandchildren, watching my older grandson’s soccer game on a country football ground in the mud and the rain, and socializing with Milly. On the way down I listened to Uprising and on the way back last night to Thirst Trap by Grainne O’Hare – a sad story of 3 Irish women in Belfast, living together, turning 30 after a decade of grog, drugs and sex, and all they have in sight for the forseeable future is more of the same (Kimbofo and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year judges disagreed with me).

Tomorrow I’m loading to go north. I think I’ll listen to The Nix by Nathan Hill. That’s 22 hours, so depending on where I load home from that might keep me going for the whole trip.

Over the past three or four years I have found that the Ursula K le Guin Prize for Fiction shortlists have suggested some great new innovative writing. Marcie (BIP) and I try to stay ahead of the shortlist announcement but I certainly haven’t read anything the judges have selected this time. My two tries were Dengue Boy by Michel Nieva and Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei. I thought Dengue Boy – a Kafkaesque story about a boy who is a mosquito – was a shoo-in. I didn’t bother to fill in a nomination, but I should have.

So here is the 2026 shortlist for fiction published in the spirit of le Guin, in the US, in 2025 (publisher in brackets). I must write to ‘Dave’ who runs Neon Hemlock and see if he’ll send me a review copy again.

Audition by Pip Adam (Coffee House Press)
Pip Adam is a NZ author, which makes me think one of you has already reviewed this. Audition is published in Australia by Giramondo (and in the UK by Peninsula) so it should be easy to obtain.
“Pip Adam’s uncategorisable new novel, part science fiction, part social realism, asks what happens when systems of power decide someone takes up too much room – about how we imagine new forms of justice, and how we transcend the bodies and selves we are given.”

Sunward by William Alexander (Saga Press)
Alexander is Cuban American, this is his first go at SF. The novel “follows a planetary courier training adolescent androids in a solar system grappling with interplanetary conflict after a devastating explosion on Earth’s moon”.

Call and Response by Christopher Caldwell (Neon Hemlock)
Fantastic short stories which “unravel the complicities of personhood and gender, slavery and war.”

Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur (Algonquin)
Bora Chung is a South Korean writer and translator. She appears to specialise in Slavic languages. Midnight Timetable is a work of SF Horror published in Australia by Scribe.
“In a labyrinthine research facility … the guard shares another tale of cursed objects and lives unspooled by vengeance, sorrow, or revelation. But these are not mere ghost stories. They’re warnings. Lessons. Or, perhaps, confessions … Our protagonist starts to suspect that the building itself is alive with malevolent intent.”

The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes (Tor Books)
Ennes is a writer from the US West Coast. Three years ago they “burst onto the speculative scene with the startlingly original and compelling post-apocalyptic sci-fi, gothic suspense, and body horror mash-up, Leech” (Grimdark Magazine)
“As an exterminator, Guy hunts the uncanny pests that crawl up from the river. These vermin are all strange, and often dangerous. His latest quarry is different: a worm the size of a dragon with a deadly venom and a ravenous taste for artwork… its toxin reshapes the future of the city.”

Notes from a Regicide by Isaac Fellman (Tor Books)
Available from Pan Macmillan Aust
“A trans family saga set in a far-off, familiar future, which goes beyond the concept of found family to examine how deeply we can be healed and hurt by those we choose to love.”

Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta (DAW Books)
Tashan Mehta is from India. This is her second or third SF novel.
“Myung and her sister Laleh are the sole inhabitants of the whale of babel. They roam within its cosmic chambers, speak folktales of themselves, and pray to their creator, the Great Wisa. For Laleh, this is everything. For Myung, it is not enough.

One Message Remains by Premee Mohamed (Psychopomp)
Premee Mohamed is an Indo-Caribbean scientist and speculative fiction author based in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada). She has written a number of SF novels and novellas.
This is “a collection of three brand new stories set in a morally ambiguous world of war and magic.”

Slow Gods by Claire North (Orbit)
Published in Australia by Hachette.
Catherine Webb (1986- ) is a British author. As Kate Griffin, they write fantasy novels for adults. As Claire North, they write SF and novels based upon the work of Homer.
“Slow Gods is proper science fiction… Set in the far future and spanning a galaxy, it remains a high-concept effort full of delight and invention.” Mawukana na-Vdnaze (Maw for short) was born into debt, and charged for his birth. Every breath taken, every bit of sustenance consumed, in the ultra-capitalistic world of the Shine has a fee attached. (Strange Horizons).

That’s not a bad mix of men and women writers, Americans and others. I’m not sure why the prize is conditional on publication in the US, and I can’t tell how restrictive that is for non-US authors, bearing in mind that the first winner was from Kenya (The House of Rust), the second from Canada (Arboreality) and last year’s was from Sri Lanka (Rakesfall).

Official UKLG Prize 2026 site (here)