Editorial
Editorial: The Editor’s Page
by Trevor Quachri, Emily Hockaday & Kevin Wheeler
I recently finished The Bright Sword, by Lev Grossman (Viking Press, 2024, 688 pp): I had been meaning to get to it for some time, but I wasn’t actively intent on doing so until its nomination for a World Fantasy Award in 2025. Overall, it’s excellent: satisfyingly long, but dramatically paced (and mercifully: a single volume, with no obvious dangling threads to allow for sequels), imaginative, with well-drawn versions of some of the more minor characters of Arthurian myth. It’s not perfect: the Big Bad reveal doesn’t land perfectly; anyone even casually familiar with Tolkein will see a certain moment coming a mile away; and it can feel too modern at times for my taste—but then, that’s no unforgivable sin: that was Steinbeck’s express purpose when he began writing one of my favorite books of all time, his unfinished The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights; to take Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur and update it for modern readers. So in spite of not directly nodding to Steinbeck, his influence is felt here, and Grossman’s growth as writer since his breakout The Magicians is apparent. Recommended.
On the flip side of the coin, I’ve recently begun How to Be a Stoic, by Massimo Pigliucci (Basic Books, 2017, 277 pp). I was passingly familiar with that school of thought thanks to Philosophy survey courses in college, but I hadn’t done much additional reading on it, specifically. Contrary to the popular idea that it’s somehow about “toughing it out,” it’s far closer to Zen detachment or Niebuhr’s “Serenity prayer” than anything else. The book starts off leaning more heavily on anecdotes than Classical quotations, but they serve to illustrate that our understanding of “the things we can change” and “the things we cannot” (per Niebuhr) is often different from the ancient Stoics’ in practice, even if the principle remains the same. Time will tell if the book contains enough thought-exercises for me (what is science fiction, if not the ultimate thought exercise?) but Pigliucci’s background, with PhDs in genetics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy has me optimistic.
—TQ
I am a maniac when it comes to reading. I’m usually reading three to four books at once, and they run the gamut from dense artsy literature to fluffy garbage romance, so my recommendations will also run the gamut. Somehow I’d never read The Left Hand of Darkness, so that was one of my recent consumptions. It’s fascinating, and having heard tons about it didn’t detract at all from my enjoyment. I grew up on LeGuin’s Catwings books and read some of her other novels and short fiction, so it wasn’t a risk. I’ve also been reading Freya Marske’s magical romance series, with A Restless Truth in my recently read pile. (Freya Marske appeared in Analog with “What We Named the Needle” in the July/August 2019 issue). If you like a mashup of mystery, magic, queer romance, and historical fiction, this series is for you. It’s really fun.
Another fun magical romp—this time decidedly more apocalyptic—is Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World by Mark Waddell. The title kind of gives it away: meet Colin, who is ambitious but not very brave, has bad luck with romance and a chip on his shoulder, and works for an evil corporate overlord similar to Angel’s Wolfram & Heart. Despite the darkness, this one’s a delight and kept me very entertained on the elliptical machine at the gym.
In the world of SF, I recently reread Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro for the book club I’m in. It was just as entertaining the second time around, and I do feel like I caught more this time. I’m still not sure what the pollution machine is though—can anyone tell me? Please write in to Brass Tacks. My book club had lots of guesses.
I have an eight-year-old, so my reading also includes middle grade novels. Right now we’re in the middle of Carlos Hernandez’s Sal and Gabi Break the Universe, and we are loving it. Full of heart, mischief, SF, and good-natured chaos, this book has both me and the kiddo cracking up regularly. The child is already eyeing the sequel at our local library.
Another SF novel I recently enjoyed was Ray Nayler’s Where the Axe Is Buried. This one is authoritarian SF. As long as you’re prepared for the world you’re entering into, you’ll love it. As usual, Ray delivers gorgeously wrought prose and a host of interesting characters.
—EH
Recently I was looking for a bit of a fiction slump-breaker, since the only two books I had going were nonfiction doorstoppers that have been taking me forever to finish. As a result, I turned to my copy of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, an author whose clean, semicolon-free prose has always gone down for me like some cool, healing tonic that reminds me why I started reading in the first place.
—KW
What We’re Watching:
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Tron as a franchise. Tron is only science fiction in the loosest sense (it has more in common Isekai anime than Neuromancer; it’s science fantasy at best) but most of the movies are just so damn stylish, I hardly mind, and Tron: Ares is no different. It’s dumb even by the standards of that franchise, but the visuals are impressive at a time when too many big budget spectacle popcorn movies are releasing with crummy Unreal Engine-driven special effects; the NIN soundtrack is good (though not quite at the level of the Daft Punk soundtrack from the previous installment), and Jared Leto . . . makes a convincing sentient computer program. Attempts to try to rationalize things fall flat—3D printing a program doesn’t really make more sense than them having “hard light” bodies, really, and I would have appreciated a bit more use of the hard light trails in the fight scenes, but yes, in the end, I would watch another Tron movie (not that I expect them to make one any time soon, after the box office performance of this one).
—TQ
What I’ve been watching lately includes Star Trek: Enterprise, the early 2000s show starring Scott Bakula and Jolene Blalock. I’m sure many of you readers have already watched this series. As an “elder” millennial, I find it an odd series and certainly a product of its time being produced in post-9/11 America. The series grows and matures, and many of the principles the lead characters espouse are later deconstructed as the series goes on. Do I wish we got more Hoshi and Mayweather? For sure. Do we get way too much Malcolm (sorry Malcom Stans)? Yes. But in general, I was pleasantly surprised by this series. The excruciating theme song was not a good harbinger for things to come—even its jaunty rebrand in season 2—but I find myself fully invested now. Highlights of the series include the eminently lovable Dr. Phlox, the baffling T’Pol (lots of threads here that just don’t get picked up again, for the good of the show), and of course, a beagle and the only dog aboard a Star Trek ship. I recommend watching it, not just for entertainment, but also as a philosophical and anthropological exercise.
In the Trek verse, we are also watching Starfleet Academy, which—after an oddly toned introduction giving background on the lead characters—has been good fun so far. I grew up on Buffy, so you’ll never hear me complaining about young adult drama. (I do hear those complaints, though—totally valid for those who don’t enjoy it!) Holly Hunter is an artist, although I must admit she is abusing the furniture in the show. I can’t wait to see what she does to future settees, armchairs, and stools.
That’s about all the TV I’ve had time for lately—although I did manage to take in Pluribus, a show that I worry will back itself into a corner. It’s addictive, though, and I’m committed.
—EH
What We’re Playing:
Part cozy fishing game, part cosmic horror lite, Dredge (Windows, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch) has you piloting your rickety fishing vessel up to an Innsmouth-esque island community, to work and pay off repairs to your boat by, well, dredging up nets of fish and crab pots from the deep. But it quickly becomes apparent that all is not right, whether your first clue is finding aberrant variations of normal fish, late night hallucinations, or even just the meter that measures whether something unseen is looking for you. At E10+, it’s not the most graphic horror game ever made, but the simple art style more than does its job when a massive dark shape passes under your ship while out at sea. Recommended.
—TQ
My stress-relief media is Hello Kitty Island Adventure, a game that my spouse and child started playing in the fall of 2024 on an iPhone and iPad respectively. I was stubborn and waited for the Switch version to come out, so inevitably I was playing catchup. This game is super relaxing, and unlike Animal Crossing, if you take a couple weeks off you aren’t plagued by cockroaches and angry island inhabitants. Highly recommend for people who just want to grow virtual flowers and bake virtual pies and make friends with cute Sanrio characters. Maybe to offset any dystopias we find ourselves immersed in? I mean fictional, of course.
—EH
Before the start of 2026, I was merely your humble associate editor at Analog and Asimov’s. But now, theoretically, I am also a five-foot humanoid rabbit (a “harengon”) who can morph into a wolf and harness the power of starlight to attack his admittedly few enemies and help his friends. This transformation has fully kicked off a journey that never truly launched back during a springtime evening in 2007, when I sat in a dimly lit room, surrounded by curious figurines and strange tomes filled with images of hideous, fantastical beasts.
No, I didn’t grow older and suddenly think, “Actually, I think I’d like to go through with this weird netherworld pact to become a (part time) druidic rodent.” I just started playing Dungeons & Dragons.
Even though my friends and I bought the starter D&D books about nineteen years ago, we didn’t have the time, space, or, frankly, attention spans to properly begin a campaign. Our first night trying to play shifted from a display of genuine curiosity and eagerness to . . . picking out random creatures to fight against or explore with. Eventually, we ended up creating a scenario based around an absurd congregation of gelatinous cubes, dragons, something called a “soarwhale,” i.e. a flying whale, along with random hired companions from our Arms and Equipment guide. Even if this night was a one off, we all agreed it was fun.
Now, all in our early thirties, we’ve calmed down a bit, but we all live a little further apart than we did in high school, so it’s nice to share a new activity that lets us see each other on a bi-weekly basis to explore the ever-expanding world of corrupt nobles, environmental mysteries, surly wizards, and more that our dungeon master has created for us.
For our Brass Tacks column, do any of you play a tabletop RPG? I think I’d like to introduce my group to a science fiction RPG on top of our D&D campaign. Would any of you, our readers, happen to recommend one in particular?
—KW