A new report points to 2025 being the biggest year for speculative fiction ever, thanks to the ongoing boom in romantasy fiction

Hidden secrets, uninhabitable planets, secret worlds, and quite a bit more to check out

Open the iris!

The 42nd Damon Knight Memorial Grandmaster

John Scalzi's return to his Old Man's War series is a timely, optimistic story of unity in a violent universe

Coming to a close in 2026

Garrett M. Graff’s The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making & Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb is a deep dive into past that we shouldn’t look away from, and one that we should continue to remember

The latest SF/F stories to check out this November

Lots of sequels, continuations, and fantastical adventures

Susana M. Morris's Positive Obsession is an intimate and tragic look at the life of Octavia E. Butler

R.F. Kuang's Katabasis is a gripping quest about the pitfalls of academia and finding one's true self

Star Wars: The Hunt for Ben Solo appears to have been pretty far along before Disney canceled it

An excellent event

The title wave continues with new horror, science fiction, and fantasy books to add to your TBR

Preserved for future scholars

But are these special limited editions really just the new dust jacket refresh?

More books to add to your TBR this October

Join me in Burlington to talk about science fiction with John Scalzi!

"Deficiency Agent" is coming soon to Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination Future Tense Fiction series

Another title wave

Two books examine our place — and responsibility in a changing world

Here's the latest installment of Table of Contents, which rounds up this month's short fiction releases. You can check out the list of stories from September here (which I've updated with new links) and past installments of this series here. Here are the short stories coming out this month: * * * ## _Clarkesworld Magazine_ __(October 2025, Issue 229) Subscribe here. ### Fiction * "Wire Mother" by Isabel J. Kim * The Cancer Wolves" by Fiona Moore * Crabs Don't Scream" by H.H. Pak * Understudies" by Greg Egan * Giant Grandmother" by Liu Maijia, translated by Blake Stone-Banks * The Job Interview" by Carrie Vaughn * In Luck's Panoply Clad, I Stand" by Phoebe Barton ### Nonfiction * Space Bears and Engineering the Next Generation of Astronauts by Gunnar De Winter * Memory, Loss, and Memory Loss: A Conversation with Rich Larson by Arley Sorg * Technology as a Language: A Conversation with Ken Liu by Arley Sorg * Editor's Desk: Nineteen by Neil Clarke * * * ## _The Dark_ (October 2025, Issue 125) Subscribe here. ### Fiction * "The Island at the End of the World" by __ S.L. Harris * "Through the Woods, Due West" by __ Angela Slatter * "Enselfening" by __ NM Whitley * "Down to the Roots" by __ Neil Williamson * * * ## _Dark Horses Magazine_ (October 2025, Issue 45) ### Fiction * "The Twisted Tale Of Prancess: A Modern Fairy Tale" by Jennifer Foxhoven * "One Last Time For Marti" by Steven Roisum * "Say All Before" by Mack W. Mani * "The Swamp Devil" by Jim Wright * "The Devil Drives A ‘66" by Wayne Kyle Spitzer * "Swarm" by David Castlewitz * "The Gram Directive" by Mike Scofield * "The Invalid And The Cave" by Ginevra House * "The Poison Dwarf’s Comeuppance" by George Larson * "The Highest Court" by Jarek Tomszak * * * ## _Fantasy Magazine_ (Autumn 2025, Issue 98) ### Fiction * _"__All of Our Mothers are Dead_" by Eleanor Ball (9/26) * "The Memory Breach" by Christian Emecheta (10/3) * "The Dragon and the Bog" by Sunwoo Jeong (10/10) * Fear is a Dagger" by Mateo Perez Lara (10/17) * Knife Plus" by Tracie McBride (10/24) * They Return" by Eleanna Castroianni (10/31) * * * ## _Flash Fiction Online_ (October 2025, Issue 145) Donate here. ### Fiction * “To Breach a Citadel” by Jeannie Marschall * “A Touch of the Wild” by Anne Wilkins * “Mushroom Aesthetic” by Aggie Novak * “Woodsong” by Arthur H. Manners, and * “This Is What Mouths Are For” by Parker M. O’Neill ### Nonfiction * Editorial: Mother Nature Can Be a Bitch by C.R. Langille * * * ## _GigaNotoSaurus_ __(October 2025) ### Fiction * "A Good King" by Sarah McGill * * * ## _Lightspeed Magazine_ (October 2025, Issue 185) Subscribe here. ### Fiction * "O Mechfighter, O Starsinger" by Osahon Ize-Iyamu (10/9) * "At the Bottom of the Bonfire" by Martin Cahill (10/9) * "The Porniest Porn in Porntown" by Stephen Graham Jones (10/16) * "Dirge and Gleam" by Micah Dean Hicks (10/16) * "Everyone Hates the Auditor" by Megan Chee (10/23) * "Dating Fortune" by Sean McMullen (10/23) * "Thaw" by An Owomoyela (10/30) * "Drosera regina" by A.L. Goldfuss (10/30) ### Nonfiction * Editorial: October 2025 by John Joseph Adams (10/9) * Author Spotlight: Osahon Ize-Iyamu by Phoebe Barton (10/9) * Author Spotlight: Micah Dean Hicks by Delia Cullity (10/16) * Book Review: _All That We See or Seem_ by Ken Liu by Melissa A Watkins (10/16) * Book Review: _Signos: A Fiction Anthology of Filipino Supernatural_ by Tilde Acuña, John Bengan, Daryll Delgado, Amado Anthony G. Mendoza III, and Kristine Ong Muslim, eds. by Arley Sorg (10/23) * Author Spotlight: An Owomoyela by Mayookh Barua (10/30) * Author Spotlight: A.L. Goldfuss by Phoebe Barton (10/30) * Book Review: _The Lost Reliquary_ by Lyndsay Ely by Chris Kluwe (10/30) * * * ## _Nightmare Magazine_ (October 2025, Issue 157) Subscribe here. ### Fiction * "Courtney Lovecraft’s Book of the Dead" by Sam J. Miller (10/8) * "Stillborn" by Shantell Powell (10/15) * "Body? Glass" by Osahon Ize-Iyamu (10/22) * "The Versions of Yourself That You’re Better Off Without" by Aimee Ogden (10/29) ### Nonfiction * Editorial: September 2025 by Wendy N. Wagner (10/8) * Author Spotlight: Sam J. Miller by Devin Marcus (10/8) * The H Word: Horror Needs Hoodoo by Beatrice Winifred Iker (10/15) * Author Spotlight: Osahon Ize-Iyamu by Devin Marcus (10/22) * Interview: Carson Faust by Alex Puncekar (10/29) * * * ## _Reactor_ __(October 2025) ### Fiction * "Model Collapse" by Matthew Kressel * * * ## _Uncanny Magazine_ (September / October 2025, Issue 66) Subscribe here. ### Fiction * "Seven Minutes in Heaven with the Electric Seraphim" by Juliet Kahn (10/7) * "Wend-Way-Go" by Tim Pratt (10/7) * "The Shadow on the Nest" by Alaya Dawn Johnson (10/7) * "Caesar Says, Earthquakes Aren’t So Manifest From Space" by Jasmine Leng (10/7) * "Dear Saturn," by Susan L. Lin ### Nonfiction * Interview: Juliet Kahn by Caroline M. Yoachim (10/7) * The Evolution of the Vampire Image, from Nosferatu to Sinners by Del Sandeen (10/7) * Solace in Fantasy Monster Romances and My Trans Body by Theo Kane (10/7) * * * Check back at the end of the month: I'll update the links to the stories that haven't come out at the time of publication.

One last book list for the month

David Baron's The Martians is an engrossing story of speculation and obsession about life on Mars

Kathryn Bigelow's upcoming film A House of Dynamite looks like a timely warning about the dangers that the world's nuclear weapons pose to the world