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@billcap.bsky.social
110 followers 300 following 160 posts
writer of essays, stories, and plays; reviewer of fantasy/sci fi at fantasyliterature.com and (rarely) Tor.com, reader of just about anything, adjunct instructor, ultimate player, hiker, camper, devourer of worlds (or is that words . . . )
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A shout out to the great crew who put together the Anomaly Film Fest! Personal highlights:

By far my favorite was the brilliant Thai film A Useful Ghost. Several movies in one, it's absurdly funny, darkly powerful, deeply substantive, willing to veer 180° from where it begins. A must-see film.
November 10, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Best line tonight from a weather-reduced Halloween:
"This is my first time trick-or-treating. I get candy. And I get a book too? I love books!"
November 1, 2025 at 7:42 AM
The Anomaly Pass Association is highly recommended by all the best APA acronyms, including both the American Psychiatric Association AND the American Psychological Association. And those folks never agree!
anomalyfilmfest.com Anomaly Film Fest @anomalyfilmfest.com · 28d
✨The 7th Anomaly Film Festival is fast approaching!✨

Experience the best genre cinema from around the world, November 5-9, 2025 in downtown Rochester, NY! A full festival pass grants you access to ALL the films and events. And saves you $ too!

Get yours now! anomaly2025.eventive.org/passes/buy
Tall rectangle promo image. Background is a mossy forest floor. In the middle is a basket of mushrooms, with an Anomaly full festival pass resting inside. A shadowy hand reaches for the pass from the bottom right of the image. Text: 2025 full festival pass. Now on sale! Tall rectangle promo image. Background is a purple forest with small green fireflies. In the foreground is a 5x3 grid of posters for the feature films and shorts programs being shown at the festival: Dust Bunny, Night Stage, Cannonball, Friday Shorts, A Useful Ghost, Reflection in a Dead Diamond, Saturday Shorts, By Design, Mother of Flies, Obex, Anything That Moves, In the Mouth, Beyond the Drumlins, I Am Frankelda, and It Ends. Hovering around the poster images are several many-eyed potatoes, observing. Text: Anomaly 2025 festival. 13 feature films. 34 short films. 5 astounding days of genre films. November 5-9.
October 28, 2025 at 8:20 PM
great discussion here on when we want more or less from the works we read and why
danhartland.bsky.social Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · Oct 6
📣 NEW CRITICAL FRIENDS!

In a new ep of the @strangehorizons.bsky.social SFF criticism podcast, I talk with @redfernjon.bsky.social and Nileena Sunil about books that might be longer, and others that could be shorter.

How to read a text that offers too little, or too much, stuff? Some ideas.
Critical Friends Episode 16: Length and Breadth
Dan Hartland is joined by Redfern Jon Barrett and Nileena Sunil to discuss those novels that feel too sure or not long enough: what's behind that feeling we have that a text is lacking something, o…
strangehorizons.com
October 15, 2025 at 11:53 PM
I confess I did not have the US govt turning into a real-world merger of the Stanford Prison & Milgram Experiments writ large on my bingo card

(note for fellow pedants: I'm referencing the cultural awareness of these experiments, well aware of the scientific dispute over them)
October 14, 2025 at 9:08 PM
review: I've a short list of NF writers I will read no matter the topic: shapes of pasta, different hues of white paint swatches at Home Depot, Pi to various decimal points. Mary Roach has long been on that list, & her newest doesn’t disappoint
fantasyliterature.com/reviews/repl...

@wwnorton.com
Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews
fantasyliterature.com
October 10, 2025 at 11:50 PM
review: The prose is smooth, the pace quick-moving, the universe as fascinating as it has been through the novels. There’s also a wonderfully wry sense of humor throughout. My one issue is it felt more summative than I prefer ...

fantasyliterature.com/reviews/live...

@headofzeus.bsky.social
Lives of Bitter Rain: Entertaining novella to fill in some series gaps | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews
fantasyliterature.com
October 9, 2025 at 7:41 PM
Reposted
anomalyfilmfest.com
✨ LAST CHANCE FOR EARLY GHOUL PASSES ✨

Get yours by 10/10 and unlock full access to everything Anomaly has to offer AND save $20!

Hurry over to: www.anomalyfilmfest.com/tickets2025

#ROC #RochesterNY #FilmFestival #AnomalyFilmFest #AnomalyFilmFest2025
October 9, 2025 at 5:18 PM
review: Thematically, Wells explores the aforementioned impact of trauma ... the allure & danger of power, even if wielded for “good” intent, and — set against the idea of singular power —the benefits of community and coalition

fantasyliterature.com/reviews/quee...

@torbooks.bsky.social #booksky
Queen Demon: Often engrossing and nearly always enjoyable | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews
fantasyliterature.com
October 3, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Reposted
danhartland.bsky.social
There are three poems - count 'em! - in this week's 25th anniversary issue of @strangehorizons.bsky.social. Among them is a super fun collaboration across the SH staff, co-ordinated by the truly excellent @romiesays.bsky.social.

Ever wanted to go Behind The Scenes At Strange Horizons? Well.
Behind the Scenes at Strange Horizons
Call-and-response currents. Proseships drift on the tide.
strangehorizons.com
October 2, 2025 at 8:39 PM
review: sharply focused on fossils offering direct evidence of behavior such as predation/reproduction ... Lomax employs a nicely conversational tone ... enhanced by Bob Nicholls' artist renditions that bring the text’s stories to life

fantasyliterature.com/reviews/the-...

@deanrlomax.bsky.social
The Secret Lives of Dinosaurs: Unearthing the Real Behaviors of Prehistoric Animals | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews
fantasyliterature.com
September 28, 2025 at 7:46 PM
Reposted
strangehorizons.bsky.social
Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha
reviewed by William Shaw

Will This Be A Problem? The Anthology: Issue V edited by Olivia Kidula & Somto Ihezue
reviewed by Amritesh Mukherjee

Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake
reviewed by Subham Rai

Link to latest issue in bio!

#bookreviews
Left cover of Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha featuring the profile of a being with a white face, protuding back of the head, and a neck and shoulders made of connected wires, roots, gothic buildings and bones. Right REVIEWS Quote "...I am willing to bet that I will not forget “The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video” in a hurry, nor the extraordinary collection in which it appears. If you choose to read it, I doubt you will either. Ha has produced an engaging, kinetic, and profoundly well-crafted set of stories." reviewer: William Shaw 15 September 2025 Strange Horizons Left cover of Will This Be A Problem? The Anthology: Issue V edited by Olivia Kidula & Somto Ihezue featuring a black person wearing an orange suit and gold chainlink necklaces with a face wearing a helmet in the clouds above. Right REVIEWS Quote "Collecting such a chaotic, genre-defying constellation of stories, the anthology models a form of narrative rebellion. To witness these stories is to remember that other futures are possible, that inherited ideas about order, hierarchy, and belonging can be broken." reviewer: Amritesh Mukherjee 15 September 2025 Strange Horizons Left cover of Gifted & Talented by Olivie Blake featuring a picture of three people offset in equally distant sections of rippling. Right REVIEWS Quote "Olivie Blake’s Gifted & Talented is not just a story about such people; it is a scalpel-sharp dissection of the systems that commodify genius, the families that weaponize it, and the bodies and minds that crumble under its demands." reviewer: Subham Rai 15 September 2025 Strange Horizons
September 21, 2025 at 3:53 PM
review:
fantasyliterature.com/reviews/spec...

"a fascinating and definitely NSFW graphic novel that interrogates our glorification of and fascination with violence, particularly in contrast with our greater censorship of and concern over sexuality ... an excellent melding of story, art, and theme"
Spectators: Strong combination of art and story | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews
fantasyliterature.com
September 15, 2025 at 11:37 PM
review: These twin loci — the alien symbiotic life (the wonderfully weird mishmashes of creatures alone makes it worth the read) & the top-down, binary Mandate — are set in opposition but it was just a bit too on the nose for me ...

fantasyliterature.com/reviews/alie...
Alien Clay: A thought-provoking book that left me wanting | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews
fantasyliterature.com
August 31, 2025 at 12:15 AM
republicans said children must be sacrificed on the altar of gun rights, a heaping of tiny bodies to protect us from an evil govt that would put troops in our streets, end due process, & detain & disappear us. Turns out children died not to ward off the demon but summon it to ask for power & wealth
August 28, 2025 at 10:03 PM
review: "a lyrical, often moving story that packs a hefty punch despite its slim length and is, appropriately for a story about the designer of the labyrinth, filled with twists and turns along with its fair share of monsters."

fantasyliterature.com/reviews/daed...

#bookreview #booksky
the bottom half is a maze/labyrinth with a shadow of a minotaur in the central corridor. The maze seems to end in a head that take up most of the middle of the cover. The head itself seems to be formed out of the maze, with a prominent mouth, partial nose, and one eye and ear and the rest of the face made up of similar corridors as the maze below the head. The head itself is cut off just above the eye. A sun shines just over the jagged line where the head is cut off and a winged figure stands before the sun, backlit by it. The title, Daedalus Is Dead, floats above the sun and a bit of cloud above the sun. The author's name, Seamus Sullivan, is at the very bottom of the cover.
August 23, 2025 at 7:24 AM
review: "Politics comes more to the forefront (though it’s never too deeply buried in a Bennett work), not just with regard to the diplomacy but in a more basic exploration of authoritarian rule that comes with/ thoughtful complexity ... highly recommended"

fantasyliterature.com/reviews/a-dr...
A Drop of Corruption: A glorious magic act | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews
fantasyliterature.com
August 21, 2025 at 7:34 AM
review: "works at a high level both as a mystery and a fantasy, and that continues in book two. Which should come as no surprise to anyone who has read this author before, as he has been working for years now at an impressively, consistently high level."

fantasyliterature.com/reviews/the-...
The Tainted Cup: Two wonderful new detectives take the stage | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews
fantasyliterature.com
August 12, 2025 at 10:18 PM
Review: accessing/preserving memories is a fascinating concept, & different hostile paths — academic & religious — adds tension, while placing Key on both sides is a nice choice, deepened by the metaphor for Western museums plundering non-European cultures

fantasyliterature.com/reviews/the-...
The Memory Hunters: Ambitious themes, muddled execution | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews
fantasyliterature.com
July 30, 2025 at 5:29 PM
review: wonderfully entertaining mix of genres ... you’d think would come crashing down ... and to be honest, it does teeter somewhat towards the end but overall a witty, enjoyable ride that also has a number of serious things to say about serious things

fantasyliterature.com/reviews/the-...
The Ministry of Time: A (mostly) successful mix of genres | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews
fantasyliterature.com
July 26, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Reposted
strangehorizons.bsky.social
The reviews are in!

Jurassic World: Rebirth
by Tansy Gardam

The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
by Abigail Nussbaum

A Far Better Thing by H. G. Parry
by Anushree Nande

Link to the issue in our bio!

#fiction #speculativefiction #specfic #fantasy #sciencefiction #scifi #sff #bookreviews #moviereviews
Left poster of Jurassic World: Rebirth featuring a large dinosaur with mouth open over three people wading in water with one in the middle holding a gun and the one on the left holding a burning red flare. Right REVIEWS "The dinosaurs are bigger, the interaction between them and the humans has increased thanks to technological advancements, but the film is still trying to chase the feeling from thirty years ago." reviewer: Tansy Gardam 14 July 2025 Strange Horizons Left cover of The Incandescent by Emily Tesh featuring the golden outline of a Phoenix in flight. Right REVIEWS Quote "I would like more authors to pick up the gauntlet Tesh has thrown down, and think seriously about the magical school story as a story about education, and through it, class and power. For now, we have The Incandescent, a novel that is remarkable both in itself, and as a call to action." reviewer: Abigail Nussbaum 14 July 2025 Strange Horizons Left cover of A Far Better Thing by H. G. Parry featuring the title in gold framed by long curly stemmed flowers with an eye at the top. Right REVIEWS Quote "Parry doesn’t use Dickens as a crutch or even as a copy-paste structure; she has her own narrative agenda, a story to tell, her own clear but at times lyrical and emotive language that doesn’t try to copy her predecessor’s wordy and complicated prose." reviewer: Anushree Nande 14 July 2025 Strange Horizons
July 20, 2025 at 11:22 PM
review: Set against violence & subjugation are shining moments of kindness & gentleness ... whether they negate darker acts or willing complicity is a whole other question. One the characters wrestle with, as will the reader

fantasyliterature.com/reviews/the-...

@mosesoseutomi.bsky.social
The Memory of the Ogisi: A fitting, surprising, and thought-provoking close | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews
fantasyliterature.com
July 22, 2025 at 5:53 PM
review: hard to imagine anyone not picking up book 2 of this duology, The Witch Roads is that much fun, w/ vibrant characters, an intriguing world, & vivid detail, it’s one of my most enjoyable reads this year

fantasyliterature.com/reviews/the-...

@kateelliottsff.bsky.social @torbooks.bsky.social
background is a blue sky with pink crowds. Set against the sky is a structure with with three spire towers connected by bridges near their tops. Before the archway leading into the structure is a road lined by tall statues of animal-headed people clad in armor with some holding weapons. Two small human figures stand just before the arch
July 12, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Review: Relationships are often toxic, tainted by possessiveness & selfishness. It’s a horror novel not just via graphic physical violence but emotional violence as well, while presenting society as a horror setting thru the violence done to women’s autonomy

fantasyliterature.com/reviews/bury...
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil: Ambitious, atmospheric, and ultimately uneven | Fantasy Literature: Fantasy and Science Fiction Book and Audiobook Reviews
fantasyliterature.com
July 4, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Reposted
strangehorizons.bsky.social
The reviews are in!

Major Arcana by John Pistelli
reviewed by Catherine Baker

Bird Ornaments by Angel T. Dionne
reviewed by Paul Chuks

Dengue Boy by Michel Nieva, translated by Rahul Bery
reviewed by David Hebblethwaite

Find your next favourite book at the link to the latest issue in our bio!
Left cover of Major Arcana by John Pistelli featuring tarot cards in various colours, upside down on top and right side up on the bottom. Right REVIEWS "A reparative reading of Major Arcana would affirm there are somewhat generational differences between how queer and gender non-conforming people in North America think about fixed identities and labels." reviewer: Catherine Baker 16 June 2025 Strange Horizons Left cover of Bird Ornaments by Angel T. Dionne  featuring a black, slightly smudged bird's head. Right REVIEWS Quote "It is stern, it is beautiful, it is formidable, this collection. Its loaded seventy-five-poem horror package endears itself even to readers who might not have been familiar with surrealism." reviewer: Paul Chuks 16 June 2025 Strange Horizons Left cover of Dengue Boy by Michel Nieva, translated by Rahul Bery featuring a red, green, and pink mosquito surrounded by planets, trees and fire. Right REVIEWS Quote "When its supernatural elements come more to the fore towards the end, the book is torn free of conventional narrative plausibility, destroyed and remade anew. It’s exhilarating, but the echo of reality lingers." reviewer: David Hebblethwaite 16 June 2025 Strange Horizons
June 21, 2025 at 7:36 PM