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Warning: contains spoilers for Avengers Academy: Marvel's Voices Infinity Comic #19The Marvel Universe has some iconic power absorbers, like the X-Men Rogue and Synch, but one of the newest Avengers students, the mutant known as Escapade, just became a truly god-tier superhuman by absorbing the powers of an entire team of her Avengers Academy peers. To save her crush, Bloodline, from the clutches of the villainous Emplate, Escapade swaps powers with Kid Juggernaut, Red Goblin, Moon Girl, Bloodline, and Captain America of the Railways, evolving past her original abilities with a power-up from the M'Kraan Crystal.

Shela Sexton, who first debuted as Escapade in 2022's Marvel's Voices: Pride anthology, is a fan-favorite trans X-Men hero introduced with the power to "swap" locations, abilities, or possessions with anyone in a 7-foot radius, but her recent feat has proven that this is just the beginning of her ability.

Avengers Academy: Marvel's...

Marvel's most iconic queer couple, Mystique and Destiny, are revealed as the biological parents of Nightcrawler, bringing depth to their characters and retconning a controversial plotline. The story explores themes of queer love, betrayal, and sacrifice, deepening the lore around Mystique and Destiny's long lives. Mystique and Destiny's future remains uncertain, but their complex and tragic relationship continues to be a focus, offering opportunities for redemption and further storytelling.

Marvel's most iconic queer couple - the antiheroic X-Men Mystique and Destiny - just made history, taking center stage in one of the most impressive and thoughtful retcons in comic history. Finally, after years of fan theories and controversial origins, X-Men Blue: Origins establishes that Raven and Irene are the biological parents of the beloved hero Nightcrawler, retconning away the much-derided "Draco" plotline and giving Mystique and her wife Destiny incredible new depth.

Mystique and Destiny quickly became central figures in...

Sarlaccs are migratory creatures that drift through space until they find a planet to settle on, such as Tatooine in the Star Wars universe. The sarlacc that Jabba the Hutt uses as an execution tactic was once adrift in space and could have ended up on any world it floated past. The sarlacc's journey to Tatooine highlights its desire to live in harmony with the planet's citizens, rather than being used as a death sentence, adding a melancholic subtext to its role in Return of the Jedi.

First introduced in Return of the Jedi, the sarlacc pit was presented as one of the more horrifying aspects of the Star Wars universe. However, thanks to a new collection of short stories from Lucasfilm Publishing, the sarlacc is finally getting the attention it deserves. From A Certain Point Of View: Return of the Jedi is a new anthology of short stories that...

Tatooine, the iconic Star Wars planet, was confirmed to have been a lush paradise in its ancient history before becoming a desert planet. The confirmation comes from a short story that describes Tatooine's landscape as a tropical paradise with sparkling oceans and lush jungles. While the transformation of Tatooine's climate is still unexplained, the confirmation hints at a potential explanation in future Star Wars media, like a second season of The Book of Boba Fett.

The ancient history of Tatooine has officially been confirmed by Star Wars in canon. The planet has easily become Star Wars' most infamous and certainly one of the most visited by all kinds of characters. Tatooine has earned its place in history with it being the first planetary landscape explored in Star Wars: A New Hope, and now an affectionate joke among viewers thanks to being well-traveled and containing lots of Anakin Skywalker's least...

Everybody loves a good crossover — even those which are just wishful thinking and fan fiction — and to celebrate Valentine's Day Marvel's writers and editors for X-Men played multiverse matchmaker with characters from Star Wars and more. These matches prove that love knows no boundaries or genre restrictions.

The incredible and unexpected pairings come courtesy of Aipt's Valentine's Day interview with the talented minds behind the current range of Marvel’s X-Books. For instance, writer Alex Segura pairs one half of X-Men’s most famous couple, Jean Grey, with Resistance pilot Poe Dameron. The pairing makes sense, because as Segura points out, “Poe has a little of Wolverine and a little Cyclops in him,” which for obvious reasons is the perfect match for the telekinetic redhead. Meanwhile, the influence of Jean could help to stabilize Poe from making brash and wrongheaded decisions.

The Heroes of X-Men & Star Wars Would Get Along...

If there’s one thing that unites this month’s science fiction picks, it’s an interest in journeys. These books might be about journeys to other planets, to alternate versions of the same world, or to the perspective of a being almost entirely unlike oneself. Here are our top picks for the best new science fiction books in February 2023.

Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo

Type: Novel

Publisher: Tordotcom

Release date: March 14

Den of Geek says: Neurological implants are a great science fiction staple, but they’re usually used to ask questions about human existence and memory. Mandelo addresses animals instead in this bloody-looking experiment.

Publisher’s summary: What does it mean to “be-in-kind” with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon’s case, to be in-kind with one of the last remaining wild wolves? Using a neurological interface to translate her animal subject’s perception through her own mind,...

Whenever the tech industry rolls out a new innovation, they always quote some great work of science fiction --- but Silicon Valley doesn't really understand the stories they're reading and watching. That's why the three-time Hugo Award-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct is launching a new miniseries called "Silicon Valley vs. Science Fiction," to explore all the ways that tech companies have misinterpreted or misunderstood the great works of the genre, in order to create marketing hype.

The first episode is a deep dive into some unexpected science fictional inspirations of today’s AI products such as ChatGPT – and reveals some of the extremely unsavory underpinnings of Silicon Valley’s AI philosophy. Future episodes will explore how mad scientist stories fueled the “difficult genius” myth among tech CEOs, and how Ayn Rand’s work is implicated in the gig economy.

Our Opinions Are Correct is a biweekly podcast from bestselling...

The 34th annual GLAAD Media Awards has announced its nominees for media that accurately and inclusively represent LGBTQ+ stories. Among the nominees are a number of ongoing comic books and anthologies, including a number of landmark 2022 series from DC and Marvel.

The nominations for the 34th Annual GLAAD Media Awards honoring queer media from 2022 were announced on Wednesday, January 18. Among the categories announced online are "Outstanding Comic Book" and "Outstanding Original Graphic Novel/Anthology." The nominees for these two comic-focused categories, including the creative teams, are as follows:

Outstanding Comic Book Immortal X-Men, by Kieron Gillen, Lucas Werneck, Michele Bandini, David Curiel, Dijjo Lima, Clayton Cowles (Marvel Comics) New Mutants, by Vita Ayala, Danny Lore, Charlie Jane Anders, Danilo Beyruth, Rod Reis, Jan Duursema, Guillermo Sanna, Alex Lins, Alberto Alburquerque, Ro Stein, Ted Brandt, Dan Brown, Ruth Redmond, Carlos Lopez, Tamra Bonvillain, Travis Lanham (Marvel Comics) Poison Ivy, by G. Willow Wilson,...

Warning: contains spoilers for New Mutants #33The longtime X-Men villain and current hero Mystique is most famous for her manipulative shape shifting ability, but a recent exchange in New Mutants #33 revealed Raven's funny side, with a surprisingly hilarious Yoda prank pulled on her wife Destiny, who has clearly never seen Star Wars.

Destiny and Mystique are quite literally "old souls," both having been born sometime in the 1800s and the two lovers even being the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler in official Marvel canon. While Mystique is quite adaptable - partly because of her powerful mutant ability - her wife Destiny is still very "classical" in her thinking, and was also famously dead for years in comics, meaning it was incredibly easy for Raven to prank Irene with a Yoda-based joke, since it is an almost guarantee that she has never seen Star Wars.

The X-Men's beloved New Mutants are heading into an exciting new adventure, as the youngest group of Krakoan mutants teams up with their mentors in the upcoming miniseries New Mutants: Lethal Legion. The New Mutants are one of Marvel's most famous mutant-led team outside the standard X-Men, and originally consisted of Xavier's second class of students, the mutants Dani Moonstar, Wolfsbane, Karma, Sunspot, and Cannonball.

The New Mutants have had some of the most consistently great stories in the Krakoan Era - particularly Vita Ayala and Rod Reis' arcs about the Shadow King and Magik - and Lethal Legion is going to be a spin-off of the current New Mutants arc, both written by Charlie Jane Anders. In an announcement by Marvel Entertainment New Mutants: Lethal Legion will apparently be a 5-issue miniseries, "...which will pit Escapade and the New Mutants against an all-new team of Super Villains called the Lethal Legion.

Warning: Contains spoilers for New Mutants #32The beloved New X-Men (2001) series written by acclaimed storyteller Grant Morrison introduced the bacterial drug "Kick" to the world of the X-Men, and in the pages of New Mutants #32 the drug is making a huge return, with a deadly, horrifying upgrade.

The Destiny of X era of the X-Men's current Krakoan Age has seen a huge return of one of mutantkind's most horrifying and deranged enemies. The sentient bacterium that calls itself Sublime has recently reappeared in many different stories, featured most prominently in the ongoing Marauders (2022) and New Mutants (2019). Sublime, who sometimes goes by John Sublime, was the key protagonist of Grant Morrison's seminal New X-Men run, and his return to Marvel bodes horribly for the future of the X-Men.

Related: X-Men Fanart Proves An Original Team Member Was Born To Be A Villain

New Mutants #32 - written...

Warning: Spoilers for New Mutants #31!The Krakoan era has been a widely successful reinvention of the X-books line, and the prevailing critique claiming that the X-Men have drifted too far from their humble roots has been tacitly tackled in the most recent New Mutants story. Sovereignty for mutantkind was such a revolutionary shift in status and remains ever ripe with further story potential. However, even among the wide array of fresh storytelling opportunities that Krakoa offers, a vocal minority of readers feel a detachment from the Xavier School stories that started it all. While the X-Mansion itself no longer hosts Marvel's merry mutants, the X-Men have not forgotten the importance of educating younger mutants.

The matter of Krakoan education has been an ongoing theme in the relaunched New Mutants title for a good while now. Once the classic New Mutants became more settled on the island they were quick...

Warning: spoilers for New Mutants #31, Marauders #7, and Sabretooth & the Exiles ahead!The sentient bacterium known as Sublime, perhaps the most insidious villain in X-Men history, is making a huge return to Marvel Comics as the sadistic being features in upcoming stories in New Mutants, Marauders, and the yet to be released Sabretooth & the Exiles. Sublime - known by various names such as John Sublime or Doctor Sublime - is a sentient bacterium that was born billions of years ago, and has been influencing the future of mutantkind since mutants first came into being. First introduced in 2001's New X-Men Annual, John Sublime debuted as the disturbing leader of the organ-harvesting U-Men, and was the villain who removed Martha Johansson's brain from her body, leading to her being known as No Girl for decades before her recent rebirth as Cerebella.

Sublime is not just a sentient bacterium, he is also capable...

Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society and Amazon have brought on Gennifer Hutchison to serve as showrunner on the series “Victories Greater Than Death.”

Variety has learned exclusively that Hutchison, in addition to showrunning, will also write and executive produce on the series, which is based on the Charlie Jane Anders novel of the same name. It was reported as being in development at Amazon in September 2021.

Hutchison most recently worked as an executive producer on the highly-anticipated Amazon series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.” She is best known for her time as a writer and executive producer on four seasons of AMC’s “Breaking Bad” spinoff series “Better Call Saul.” She was also a writer on “Breaking Bad” prior to that, and worked with “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan on “The X-Files.” Her other writing and producing credits include the FX series “The Strain.” She...

Marvel Comics’ “ Women of Marvel” #1, available March 9, 2022, is written by Charlie Jane Anders, Mirka Andolfo, Jordie Bellaire, Rhianna Pratchett, Preeti Chhibber and illustrated by Zoe Thorogood, Jen Bartel, Marguerite Sauvage, with covers by Mirka Andolfo, Ernanda Souza, Audrey Mok, Lauren A. Brown and Ashley Witten:

“…celebrate the phenomenal women of ‘Marvel’ with tales spun from the greatest minds in comics. The talented women creators who have made Marvel the powerhouse that it is take on fan-favorite female characters within the ‘Marvel Universe’.

“From seasoned veterans to up-and-coming talent, this cast of writers and artists gives their own spin on beloved heroines, showing the fire, mystery, grace and joy that makes them all phenomenal…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

A close-knit crew of wildly different people ride around on a spaceship having adventures. If you’re a sci-fi fan, there are very good odds that this synopsis describes one of your hooks into the genre. That crew might be a dysfunctional band of space criminals and revolutionaries, or a clean cut team of scientists, diplomats and soldiers serving a galactic Space Un, but there is a core appeal to this set up across the genre.

“Ensemble crews are one of the quickest and most powerful ways to forge a found family. A foundational example for me was Blake’s 7,” says Paul Cornell, who has written stories for the Star Trek: Year Five comic series among his many speculative fiction credits. “They haven’t been recruited, they have relative degrees of distance from the cause, they’ve been flung together. The most important thing is that they’re all very different people.

Tor Books & Den of Geek Present:

TorCon 2021

In partnership with Tor Books, we are thrilled to announce the return of TorCon, a virtual convention launched in 2020 to bring the entertainment and excitement of live book conventions into the virtual space. From Thursday, June 10 through Sunday, June 13, Tor Books, Forge Books, Tordotcom Publishing, Tor Teen, and Nightfire are presenting ten panels featuring over 30 of your favorite authors in conversation with each other—and with you!

Join authors including James Rollins, Charlie Jane Anders, Joe Pera, Catriona Ward, Gillian Flynn, Tj Klune, Alix E. Harrow, Seanan McGuire, Nghi Vo, and many more for four days of pure geekery, exclusive reveals, sneak peeks, giveaways, and more… all from the comfort of your own home!

Visit the TorCon Bookstore here.

Check out the full lineup below, featuring moderation from Den of Geek Editor Kayti Burt and Den of Geek Contributor Natalie Zutter, and save...

Today sees the launch of The Literary Tarot campaign on Kickstarter, pairing some of the world's best authors and artists for a great cause: the Brink Literacy Project!

This project tasked authors with pairing a tarot card with a seminal book that embodies the meaning of the arcana and we are exclusively revealing horror authors that are taking part in this project, along with the novel and card they have chosen:

Guggenheim Fellowship recipient Victor Lavalle (The Changeling) pairs The Tower with H.P. Lovecraft's "The Outsider"

Bestselling horror writer Stephen Graham Jones (The Only Good Indians) pairs Three of Quills (Swords) with W. W. Jacobs’s seminal, supernatural short story Monkey's Paw

Isaac Marion (the author of the bestselling Warm Bodies series) pairs The Hermit with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Bestselling Mexican Gothic novelist Silvia Moreno-Garcia pairs The Lovers with Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence

Brink Literacy...

Charlie Jane Anders is making her first foray into YA with Victories Greater Than Death, a space fantasy adventure about a teen girl named Tina who happens to be the clone of a legendary alien captain and is faced with saving the universe from an alien organization known as the Compassion. Luckily, Tina isn’t alone. She’s got her best friend Rachael, a group of brilliant teen humans from around the world, and what’s left of the Royal Fleet, a Starfleet-like space organization on its last leg.

While the Compassion may be Tina’s main nemesis, she also has the internal struggle of living up to the very high expectations set by both the members of the Royal Fleet and herself. Raised by her adopted mother on Earth, Tina has always known the story of her out-of-this-world origin, and that she would one day be called upon to...

After years of talk amongst fans, Jensen Ackles will finally be (the voice of) Batman in the upcoming Batman: The Long Halloween: Part One.

“At long last, a collective dream has come true and Jensen Ackles is playing Batman. Yes, after literal years of jokes and connections to Bruce Wayne on screen and off, Ackles will voice Batman in the upcoming animated feature Batman: The Long Halloween: Part One.”

Read more at The Mary Sue.

Prince Albert Victor, grandson of Queen Victoria, was a Jack the Ripper suspect thanks to an article by one Dr. Thomas Stowell.

“In November 1970, The Criminologist published an article by Dr. Thomas Stowell, an octogenarian surgeon with some thoughts about the identity of Jack the Ripper. In his youth, Stowell was friends with Caroline Acland, the daughter of a royal family physician named Sir William Gull. According to Acland, her father had treated a young gay man with syphilis,...

A good audiobook narrator becomes a collaborator in the storytelling process, which is why which voice actor reads a novel can be so important. The stakes become even higher when it is a much-anticipated title, such as Victories Greater Than Death, the YA debut for Charlie Jane Anders, who is one of our favorite active writers of speculative fiction.

Victories Greater Than Death is a young adult space fantasy set against the backdrop of an intergalactic war, and it’s set to drop in both print and audiobook formats on April 13th. Such an auspicious debut deserves an audiobook narrator to do the story justice, and Macmillan seems to have found that person in the very talented Hynden Walch, whose voice you may recognize from her voice work as Princess Bubblegum in Adventure Time, and Starfire in both Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go! Walch will act as the narrator...

We need hopeful, critical, and empathetic voices in speculative fiction now more than ever, and Charlie Jane Anders is one of the best. The io9 co-founder who has gone on to write Hugo-nominated speculative fiction novels All the Birds in the Sky and The City in the Middle of the Night, is coming out with her first young adult novel, and we couldn’t be more excited. The upcoming science fiction adventure is called Victories Greater Than Death, and it’s being billed as perfect for fans of Star Wars (us) and Doctor Who (also us). We’re honored to bring you an exclusive excerpt from the novel—but, first, the synopsis:

The Universe Is Calling—and time is running out.

Tina has always known her destiny is outside the norm—after all, she is the human clone of the most brilliant alien commander in all the galaxies (even if...

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America(Sfwa, Inc.) is pleased to announce the winners of the 55th Annual Sfwa Nebula Awards.

Originally scheduled to take place in Woodland Hills, California, a decision was made to create a virtual conference in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Aboard the virtual flagship zeppelin, The Nebula, on Saturday, May 30, 2020, Toastmaster Aydrea Walden presided over the award ceremony which featured a star-studded lineup of science fiction and fantasy luminaries as presenters.

Novel

✬ A Song for a New Day, Sarah Pinsker (Berkley)

Novella

✬ This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Saga; Jo Fletcher)

Novelette

✬ Carpe Glitter, Cat Rambo (Meerkat)

Short Story

✬ “Give the Family My Love”, A.T. Greenblatt (Clarkesworld Magazine 2/19)

Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

✬ Good Omens: “Hard Times”, Neil Gaiman (Amazon Studios/BBC Studios)

Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction

✬ Riverland,...

The world may be upside down, but the Hugo Awards are forever! The Hugos are the longest-running fan-voted awards in the genres of science fiction and fantasy, first bring presented in 1953. The awards are generally given out during the World Science Fiction Convention, which is in a different host city every year. Sadly, the 78th Worldcon, aka CoNZealand, set to take place in (you guessed it) New Zealand, will have to be virtual this year. The Hugo ceremony will therefore also take place online.

Today, CoNZealand announced the finalists for this year’s Hugos, voted on by 1,584 people, who submitted 27,033 nominations. Those who were members of last year’s Worldcon, An Irish Worldcon, and members of this year’s Worldcon, CoNZealand, were eligible to vote, however, only CoNZealand members will be able to vote on the final ballot and choose the winners. You can still purchase a Supporting Membership on...

Independent bookstores aren’t just places to peruse and buy your new favorite books, they’re also community spaces in a time to gather, discuss, and share. And, in this time of “social distancing,” they are one of the many vital cultural and community institutions that are in danger.

Some have started taking action to ensure that indie bookstores aren’t left behind in this health and economic crisis. Speculative fiction authors, io9 co-founders, and co-hosts of the Hugo Award-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct, Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz are part of a group that is organizing fundraisers for their local (Sf/Bay Area) indie bookstores, and they’ve got some pretty cool events lined up.

First up? A conversation between Star Trek: Picard Season 1 showrunner Michael Chabon and fellow Picard writer Ayelet Waldman. (The two also happen to be married.) Chabon and Ayelet will be chatting on April 8th.

Den of Geek is hosting this giveaway in partnership with Tor Books.

The City in the Middle of the Night was one of our absolute favorite books of 2019. Set on a tidally-locked planet named January generations into humanity’s future, it follows two protagonists named Sophie and Mouth as they try to navigate survival and community on the planet’s two cities-in-decline.

First, we have Sophie, a working class student living in the rigidly-structured city of Xiosphant. When Sophie takes the fall for her friend and classmate, she is exiled into the cold night outside of the city, only surviving because she is rescued by one of the crocodile-like telepathic aliens the citizens of Xiosphant fear.

Next up, we have Mouth, the only surviving member of a nomadic people known as the Citizens, who made their lives in the wilderness outside of January’s two human cities. Now, Mouth exists...

Exclusive: Sony Pictures Television has optioned The City In The Middle Of The Night, Charlie Jane Anders’ praised sci-fi novel, for series development, with Sharon Hall’s Mom de Guerre Productions, which is under a first-look deal with Spt.

The novel, published by Tor Books in February, is set on an inhospitable alien planet. The synopsis: Generations ago, the settlers of the planet January created a civilization on the edge of endless environmental extremes, between frigid pitch black and blinding, scorching brilliance. The city of Xiosphant functions with tyrannical precision, enforcing its citizens to work, eat, and sleep in specific blocks of time mandated “day” and “night.”

Sophie was a college student before being exiled from the city on suspicion of treason. Driven into January’s glacial night side to die, she is rescued by the planet’s native inhabitants. Long hated and hunted by humans as animals,...

A formal proposal from the Trump administration Friday would roll back Obama-era protections for transgender people, which Lgbt advocates warn could prompt health care providers to discriminate against transgender and gender-non-conforming people.

Roger Severino, the director of the Department of Health and Human Services, said the proposal would remove “gender identity” as a factor in laws prohibiting health care providers from discriminating against patients.

The rollback is a reversal of a provision in the 2016 Affordable Care Act, in which the Obama administration determined that laws banning sex discrimination in health...

Kayti Burt Mar 5, 2019

In The City in the Middle of the Night, Charlie Jane Anders uses a tidally-locked planet to imagine a better way forward for us all.

In an op-ed appearing in The Washington Post in January, Charlie Jane Anders wrote: "Sen. Kamala D. Harris was half right in her speech launching her 2020 presidential campaign when she said we need to address climate change based on 'science fact, not science fiction.' The truth is, we need both."

This belief is more than just lip service for the woman who co-founded (alongside Annalee Newitz) io9.com, a website formed with the mission to keep readers informed about the latest news in both the science and science fiction worlds.

These days, Anders is using a different medium—the speculative fiction novel—to think radically, critically, and empathetically about our present and, perhaps more importantly, all of our potential futures. The...

Alana Joli Abbott Sep 4, 2019

From A Memory Called Empire to Star Wars IX, here are all of the space operas, on screen and on the page, we're looking forward to in 2019.

Here at Den of Geek, we love a good space opera: that delightful subgenre of science fiction that combines action, adventure, romance, and melodrama and sets it all in space.

Between now and the end of 2019, fans of space opera have a lot to look forward to. Whether or not you're excited about the December 20, 2019 release of Star Wars Episode IX, the year should be a good one for space opera—especially for novel readers, but with a few films and comics thrown in for good measure.

Here are the space operas (and some stories that are space opera-adjacent) we've already consumed or are most looking forward to consuming at Den of Geek...

January

Fire Fury Frontier by Amanda...

If you’ve ever played Myst—the 1993 video game with zero exposition—you already know what it’s like to read The City In The Middle Of The Night. Instead of marooning you on a mysterious island, Charlie Jane Anders drops you into a city on another planet. Like Myst, it’s disorienting at first, fascinating when the…...

hen the first “Twilight” movie premiered at Comic-Con in 2009, it spawned protests. Multiple fans wandered the San Diego Convention Center holding signs with captions such as “Twilight has ruined Comic-Con!” One attendee, when asked by L.A. Weekly if his characterization of “Twilight” fans as “screeching girls” was sexist, countered that “girls have been making fun of fanboys for years, calling them nerdy and smelly.”

The inclusion of the “Twilight” films was a “watershed” for the convention, according to science-fiction writer Charlie Jane Anders.

“All of a sudden there were all these female fans who showed up for ‘Twilight’ who would actually get in line for Hall H,” says Anders, co-founder of the website io9. “But the amazing thing was that even after there were no more ‘Twilight’ movies, it felt like the attendees never went back to the way they had been. It felt like a lot of women...