iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Marisa Mercurio

Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Always glad to carry a review from @marmercurio.bsky.social - here she is on M. Jane Worma's Of Beasts, a book which "strives to examine an entanglement of religious hypocrisy, duty, and queer desire". The review is a great study in how to write carefully about fiction that doesn't quite hold up.

strangehorizons.com

Of Beasts by M. Jane Worma

Worma is obviously interested in complex ideas. Of Beasts?, however, cannot contain them.

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Ancillary Review of Books @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org · 30/04/2026

We're 75% of the way to our first stretch goal! Big thanks to everyone who's already contributed, and we'd love your help spreading the word to push ARB to the next level!

kickstarter.com

Ancillary Review of Books: Year 7!

Questioning power, imagining possibility: ARB provides thoughtful criticism of speculative fiction. Help us pay our writers and staff!

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Marisa Mercurio @marmercurio.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Victorian Egyptomania! Gender-fluid bugs! Cults! And… lots and lots of transportation.

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Marisa Mercurio @marmercurio.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Not usually one for promoting donating to alma maters, but I genuinely had a wonderful experience with the faculty. They advocate for their grad students more than I experienced anywhere else. Support the English dept. here if you can. tol-edo.org/english

tol-edo.org

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A Meal of Thorns @mealofthorns.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

ICYMI: Marisa Mercurio of HOWEVER IMPROBABLE (@marmercurio.bsky.social) joins to discuss Richard Marsh's THE BEETLE, a melodramatic Gothic horror about shape-shifting cultists and imperial anxieties that reads a bit like DRACULA's louder sibling! ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2026/01/12/a...

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Marisa Mercurio @marmercurio.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Victorian Egyptomania! Gender-fluid bugs! Cults! And… lots and lots of transportation.

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A Meal of Thorns @mealofthorns.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

If you read Dracula & thought “I like the ancient shapeshifting nemesis & the homoerotic subtext, but I don’t like how subtle the sexual & national anxieties are,” you’re in luck! Editor, reviewer, & scholar @marmercurio.bsky.social talks us through Richard Marsh's THE BEETLE:

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

A Meal of Thorns 41- THE BEETLE with Marisa Mercurio

If you read Dracula and thought: “I like the ancient shapeshifting nemesis and the homoerotic subtext, but I don’t like how subtle the sexual and national anxieties are,” you&rsqu…

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

😱 NEW CRITICAL FRIENDS 😱 📚 With @marmercurio.bsky.social and Shannon Fay, on the flat affect of cosy horror. 🎢 "Horror is a series of, like, stasis, stasis, stasis, spike, right? And if it's not being delivered, then that becomes a generic problem for the novel."

strangehorizons.com

Critical Friends Episode 19: On Cosy Horrors

In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Dan Hartland is joined by Shannon Fay and Marisa Mercurio to discuss horror, and especially its cozy variety.

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

🎧 Also out with this week’s issue of @strangehorizons.bsky.social:🚨the latest episode of the Critical Friends podcast.🚨 This time I’m joined by @marmercurio.bsky.social and Shannon Fay to discuss horror, the gothic, and coziness: what can, should and do reviewers look for in these texts? And why?

strangehorizons.com

Critical Friends Episode 19: On Cosy Horrors

In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Dan Hartland is joined by Shannon Fay and Marisa Mercurio to discuss horror, and especially its cozy variety.

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Reposted by Marisa Mercurio

Strange Horizons @strangehorizons.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

The reviews are in! Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby reviewed by Marisa Mercurio Link ⬇️ strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no... #speculativefiction #specfic #sff #bookreviews

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cover of Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby featuring a female doll in 18th century dress sitting in a birdcage.

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REVIEWS
Quote
"Notably, during these years contestations of the nature of womanhood bubbled up to the surface of cultural discourse; Rushby’s intent on writing a feminist interpretation of mid-century life—and how it haunts us today—is therefore apt."
reviewer: Marisa Mercurio

15 December 2025
Strange Horizons

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The H-Net Book Channel @hnetbookchannel.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

"When we embrace genAI without examining the domino effect it will have on library workers and users, we fail to do our jobs," writes @marmercurio.bsky.social for #FeedingTheElephant. How has the embrace of AI affect publishing, research, and teaching. Find out! ➡️ networks.h-net.org/group/discus...

networks.h-net.org

Feeding the Elephant | H-Net

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Marisa Mercurio @marmercurio.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Let's get vegetable Gothic going as a subgenre. Bunnicula takes first spot.

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Wednesday's review is the excellent @marmercurio.bsky.social on Margie Sarsfield's Beta Vulgaris. She goes in excited to discover the vegetable gothic, and finds surprises: "readers of Strange Horizons should know that Beta Vulgaris might not fulfill your expectations of a horror novel."

strangehorizons.com

Beta Vulgaris by Margie Sarsfield

These beets aren’t destined for dinner plates.

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Joe Katz @joekatz45.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

They're trying to kill Rumeysa Ozturk for writing a fucking op ed

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Today at @strangehorizons.bsky.social, @marmercurio.bsky.social on Marx and horror in the Pacific Northwest. “Carson Winter shapes his horror novella around the friction between the bourgeoisie and proletariat.”

strangehorizons.com

A Spectre is Haunting Greentree by Carson Winter

Carson Winter shapes his horror novella around the friction between the bourgeoisie and proletariat.

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