A childhood experiment with a homemade Ouija board unleashed unsettling phenomena—from phantom footsteps and a vanishing toy to a black mass that haunted the sister years later. What began as an innocent fascination quickly spiraled into fear, ending only when flames consumed the board."When I was y...

An exhausted artist awoke from a nightmare to find a glowing red, mask-like face hovering in his room—its serpent-like eyes and sharp teeth accompanied by an eerie chorus of chanting voices. As the apparition faded, two glowing red eyes lingered in the corner, leaving him to question whether he had ...

While driving near Branch, Newfoundland, three friends witnessed a towering, hairy, ape-like figure illuminated by headlights—its green-reflective eyes locking with theirs before it strode effortlessly into the woods. The chilling encounter, confirmed by all present, left no doubt in their minds: th...

Movies & TV Alien: Earth Alien: Earth Works it out in the Remix: “In Space, No One…” In which human greed (and stupidity) has predictably disastrous results… By Leah Schnelbach | Published on September 3, 2025 Credit: Hulu Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Hulu And we’re back with another chest-bursting episode of Alien: Earth! Episode Five is titled “In Space, No One…” and was written and directed by Noah Hawley, and it’s, well… We spend the whole episode trapped on the Maginot with a whole mess of aliens! I loved all the alien action, and got really annoyed by most of the human action. Let me explain. Let’s Dissect a Still-Quivering Facehugger This week’s episode takes us back to the Last Days of the Maginot. We primarily follow Morrow, as he’s woken from cryosleep and learns that their Captain, Dinsdale, and another crewmember, Bronski are dead—Bronski has a facehugger attached to him, while the Captain was splashed with alien acid while trying to help Bronski. The aliens escaped because of a fire on the ship, but… how could there have been a fire, when everyone’s been in cryosleep pods? And why is the Nav system messed up? It’s clear, to Morrow at least, that there’s a saboteur aboard. Zaveri is now in charge, and clearly overwhelmed. Morrow attempts to take control of the ship from her, citing her forbidden romance with Bronski but, unwisely, settles for reminding her that the cargo is the top priority here. Rather than immediately consulting with MUTHR, she takes time to say goodbye to Bronski, who is now frozen in cryosleep with a facehugger still affixed. She pours soil helpfully labelled “Utah” over his pod while musing over happier times… in bed. Which is a REALLY bad idea because suddenly he has the facehugger attached in her memory of him, but it’s a fun thing to intercut with scenes of Morrow watching the security footage of the two of them having sex. After this she finally talks to MUTHR, who, like Morrow, tells her that the cargo is the top priority and insists she acknowledge that. Meanwhile Shmuel and his apprentice, Malachite, try to fix the ship, Teng wanders around being a fucking creep, and Morrow goes through security footage looking for evidence of escaped aliens and/or sabotage, before taking a break to sit in his quarters and read the mail he’s received during cryosleep, which is how he learns his daughter has died in an accident. He remembers the two of them together on the beach, as he tells her that whenever she wants to talk to him she can look right up into the sky and know that he’s thinking of her. Credit: Hulu But we don’t get to spend too much time with Morrow’s emotional wreckage, because there’s a quarantine breach. Obviously a little frozen cryosleep isn’t going to stop a determined chestburster. And this is where things really started to split for me. For some reason, even after the quarantine breach, Dr. Chibuzo decides to work, alone, in the lab, with the Leech Aliens and Eyeball Octopus. And she’s eating a sandwich and drinking from a thermos as she does this. This is hilarious—as a person who doesn’t get squicked out by anything, really, it always amuses me when stories set up en-squickening scenarios. In this case, she’s explicitly testing whether the Leeches will only eat living, oxygenated blood, or if they can get hungry enough to eat, say, a long-dead rat. She’s been starving them. She knows very little about this lifeform, and chooses not only to taunt them with her own food, but also risk contamination by eating during this test. So what happens. Leech #2 figures out how to wiggle the top on its tank, Eyeball Octopus notices this and distracts Dr. Chibuzo by banging on the wall of its tank, and Leech #2 escapes and spits ummm Leechpoles (???) into Dr. Chibuzo’s water, and THEN it wiggles into her sandwich while she’s putting Eyeball Octopus back on its shelf. Teamwork, baby! When this show hits it really hits. But just then Dr. Rahim walks in, spots Leech #2, and grabs it with a pair of tongs. But wait! Acting Captain Zaveri has called a meeting, and Dr. Chibuzo brings her thermos with her. We may yet see the triumph of Leech & Octopus. And thus we come to the most annoying scene of the episode. Teng insists on smoking even though it annoys Dr. Chibuzo. Acting Captain Zaveri repeatedly yells at everyone to “shut up” and “focus” as she attempts to explain what’s going on, but they just… keep talking, interrupting her, and joking around even though their Captain is dead, another crewmember is dead, specimens have escaped, and everyone in the room knows it. Like I get gallows humor, believe me, but this isn’t that. This is just people who are trapped on a ship with an alien acting like middle school class clowns with a substitute teacher. Zeveri finally docks the Apprentice Engineer Malachite’s pay, but this barely registers because—stay with me—he puts a comically large pile of seasoning on the pasty he’s about to eat, it makes him cough uncontrollably, and he grabs Dr. Chibuzo’s thermos and chugs her water. Yes! Infection! Morrow interviews the crew, gets some extremely obvious information from Teng (perhaps the person sneaking around and sabotaging them is faking cryosleep to avoid suspicion!) He sifts through the newly restored logs, and finds the saboteur: Petrovich, who’s talking to none other than Boy Kavalier. Boy Kavalier bribed a Maginot crewmember to set a collision course with alien wackiness? Man it’s like you can’t trust trillionaires who have no sense of human empathy. But this snaps the first half of the season into focus: Morrow knew he had to survive at any cost, because he’d be the only one who could expose Boy Kavalier. There was no advance warning to New Siam because its barefoot jerk of a ruler didn’t want there to be any warning. And the aliens weren’t a sudden distraction from the Transhumanism Project—he was already planning alien experimentation behind the rest of his researchers’ backs. He just jumped on Wendy’s suggestion that the crash site also become a test site. But hang on, we can’t dwell on the Boy Kavalier reveal, the rest of the crew are doing stupid shit again. Credit: Hulu Poor Malachite vomits blood and is taken to the Med Bay. The doctors scan him and see a bunch of the little alien larvae things all over his organs, Morrow yells at them to stop, Zeveri and Shmuel yell at them to operate, and they decide to crack the kid open and operate without so much as slapping masks over their faces. WHAT. FUCKING WHAT. The second Dr. Rahim tries to remove one of the larvae, it emits a burst of poison and both doctors are dead. Morrow finally takes control of the ship, goes off to hunt Petrovich with his assistant Clem, and tells Former Acting Captain Zaveri to work with Shmuel to try to keep the ship from crashing into New Siam. Clem doesn’t last long, but Morrow is able to stab Petrovich with his sword arm. Former Acting Captain Zaveri is frozen with fear and grief outside the Med Bay, and by the time she pulls herself together to join Shmuel the Xenomorph has found her. It chases her through the halls, she reaches Shmuel, but, alas, his left Eyeball looks an awful lot like our Octopus friend. The Alien, annoyed, leaves—which I found kind of hilarious. Even more hilarious is the next moment when Morrow pops out of a vent like a Whack-A-Mole, having waited for the coast to be clear. The Xenomorph comes in after Shmuel/Eyeball Octopus and kills the host body (RIP Shmuel, you were the only genuinely nice person on this ship I think) and then Eyeball Octopus slithers out of Shmuel’s eye socket and fucking leaps at the Xenomorph’s face. Respect. Morrow assesses the alien clusterfuck, ducks around them both, and dashes down to MUTHR as the episode joins up neatly with the opening moments of the premiere. Poor Former Acting Captain Zaveri wakes up to what is both an objectively terrible and objectively awesome situation. How often in life do you get to watch two aliens fight? I mean, granted, it’s the last thing she gets to do in life, but it’s still kinda neat. But now we know why Morrow welded himself into the panic room alone: (a) he had to make sure people on Earth knew of Boy Kavalier’s treachery, and (b) his crewmates were all the STUPIDEST PEOPLE WHO HAVE EVER LIVED AND HE NEEDED TO GET AWAY FROM THEM. In This Space, Everyone Can Hear My Opinions Credit: Hulu Here we have something of a remake of the original Alien, with a few elements from the prequels stirred in. This episode is taut and, when it wants to be, really frightening. I love it when the show becomes a full horror. As ever, Babou Ceesay’s performance as Morrow is excellent, and I loved Amir Boutrous’ chaotic energy as Dr. Rahim, Karen Aldridge’s deadpan Chibuzo dealing with the aliens, and Andy Yu’s fucking creepiness as Teng. Shmuel’s genuine care for his apprentice, Malachite, was a bright spot of compassion in this often bleak fictional universe, and Michael Smiley and Jamie Bisping sell the hell out of the relationship. Most of all, seeing Octopus Eyeball and Leech #2 work together to escape the lab, and then later, seeing Octopus Eyeball launch itself at a whole Xenomorph was fantastic. But there are some elements of the prequels dotting this episode—and they happen to be the things that annoy the crap out of me. While I have gradually come to appreciate some elements of Prometheus (largely the enormous conversation about whether a Creator God would ever want to speak with Their Creation, and, sidenote, whether said Creator God retains Right of Repair, and can pull the plug if They decide the Creation isn’t up to snuff. [I leaning farther and farther toward “Yes” on that second one with each passing day]) and Alien: Covenant (largely David 8 in general, and his relationship with Xenomorphs in particular), I maintain that those movies don’t work for me for three big reasons: the annoyingly aggro leadership of Charlize Theron’s Meredith Vickers in the first one, the annoyingly milquetoast leadership of Billy Crudup’s Acting Captain Oram in the second, and the BRAIN-BURSTING STUPIDITY OF EVERYONE IN BOTH OF THEM. And I’m divided on this week’s episode because while I loved a lot of it, and found a lot of the human reactions realistic, it also just bugs me when people make this many stupid decisions. A few stupid decisions I can understand—these people are underpaid gig workers in an incredibly stressful situation. But when everyone on the ship, the scientists, the Acting Captain, everyone, acts like they were, I don’t know, raised in a Truman Show-style suburb where nothing bad ever happened and then got dropped into the ship? And have the combined survival instincts of a newborn fawn? At least fawns know how to burrow into fucking leaves. (I also don’t know if I buy that Formerly Alive Former Acting Captain Zaveri could outrun a Xenomorph as well as she did, but also that scene was tense and fun and the show needed to get her up to MUTHR’s door, so she could die right outside the window while Morrow sealed himself in.) And now we know that that shoeless scamp Boy Kavalier was behind all this, and Morrow’s planning to hunt him down like a Xenomorph after its prey, which promises a fun second half of the season. On Immort(AI)lity Credit: Hulu The whole reason Petrovich agrees to sabotage is because Boy Kavalier has promised to upload him into a synth body. Now all he has to do is survive the part WHERE HIS SPACESHIP CRASHES INTO A BUILDING. THESE FUCKING PEOPLE. Boredom’s Not a Burden Anyone Should Bear I choose to believe that Dr. Chibuzo quoted Pee-Wee Herman to the Eyeball Octopus. Vera Lynn’s 1939 classic “We’ll Meet Again” plays as Morrow learns of his daughter’s death, and this is both a genuinely touching moment, and a reminder of the awesomeness of Bioshock. This week’s end credits song is Smashing Pumpkins’ “Cherub Rock”, from their second album, Siamese Dream. David 8 Was Right Dr. Rahim makes a snippy comment about Morrow being a cyborg, but, well, I notice Dr. Rahim didn’t make it to the end of the episode, did he? Whatever Happened to “Save the Cat”? I’ll quote Morrow here: “Nothing matters except the cargo. Not you. Not me. Not the fucking cat.” This is extra shitty because the only time we see the cat, who seems perfectly nice and friendly, they’re hanging out in Morrow’s quarters. Scattered Transmission in the Void of Space! Credit: Hulu WHERE did they recruit these people??? Both the Apprentice Engineer and Morrow’s assistant seem like college interns who were, I don’t know, lured into the ship via a trail of candy or something! I understand that Acting Captain Zaveri is thrown into a terrible situation, while grieving, but didn’t she get any training that made her second-in-command in the first place? What is UP with Teng? Why hasn’t he been put back into cryosleep until he can stop being a creep to his sleeping crewmates? Why does he smirk at Morrow in a way that seems to scream “It is I, the saboteur you seek!” during an interrogation? When he says the thing about faking cryosleep, are we meant to infer that he’s been up to, uhhh, shenanigans, too? Cause I don’t want to think about that! You know what’s great? Every single time Morrow uses the sword embedded in his arm. Quotes! Dr.  Chibuzo, to the Eyeball Octopus: “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” Boy Kavalier promises to make Petrovich the richest man in the “cousin-marrying shithole you fuck cows in.” Petrovich: “What if I don’t survive the crash?” [ed note: IF???? FUCKING IF????] Boy Kavalier: “Well that would suck for you, wouldn’t it.” Petrovich: “They want their monsters? Here they come.” [ed note: OK, at least you went out with a good line.] [end-mark] The post <i>Alien: Earth</i> Works it out in the Remix: “In Space, No One…” appeared first on Reactor.

Books new releases All the New Fantasy Books Arriving in September 2025 Gnomes, werewolves, aerialists, and witches all feature in September’s haul of new fantasy titles! By Reactor | Published on September 3, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Here’s the full list of fantasy titles heading your way in September! Keep track of all the new SFF releases here. All title summaries are taken and/or summarized from copy provided by the publisher. Release dates are subject to change. September 2 Bad in the Blood — Matteo L. Cerilli (Tundra Books)In the city of Puck’s Port, where motorized vehicles fill the streets and new technological marvels abound, something rotten is lurking under the surface. A violent murder at the docks seems to point to a fey killer, igniting a powder keg of distrust between the city’s humans and its fey inhabitants—folks who wield wonderful but often uncontrollable magical power. Gristle Senan Maxim Junior finds himself caught in the middle. Forced into the reluctant role of private investigator, like his late father, he’s working to solve the mystery of this fiery murder… mainly because his sister, Hawthorne Stregoni, is a fey herself with an unfortunate penchant for setting things ablaze. Hawthorne is part of an experimental study to control feyism but struggles to keep her powerful magic in check in a country that hates what she is. Can she and Gristle work together to find the true instigator of the murder before it’s too late? The Shattered King — Charlie N. Holmberg (47North)The kingdom of Cansere is on the brink of war. Young men are conscripted from their homes, and a royal decree from the queen has made healing the only legal form of craftlock. Nym, a healer and beekeeper, is the sole provider for her family of seven now that her younger brother has been sent to the war front. But when a letter comes from the queen, summoning Nym to the palace to heal Prince Renn, the kingdom’s ailing shut-in, Nym finds herself making the tumultuous journey from her family’s apiary to the capital city. Nym is determined to fail the queen’s mission and return to her younger siblings as soon as she can. But escaping the castle’s hold isn’t as easy as failing a simple test. Prince Renn is cold and distant, and his illness is like nothing Nym has ever seen before, nothing she could ever imagine treating. In a moment of connection with Prince Renn, Nym manages to remedy the faintest symptom of his ailment—only to discover that no healer before has made such progress. Forced to become the prince’s official healer and a ward of the castle, and with her only hope of returning to her family hinging on the prince’s recovery, Nym must navigate the castle’s cruel and twisted court and uncover the haunting truth behind Prince Renn’s illness—even as she finds herself irrevocably drawn to him. Honeyeater — Kathleen Jennings (Tor Books)Sub-tropical Bellworth is founded on floodplains and root-bound secrets. And Charlie, remarkable only for vanished friends and a successful sister, plans to leave for good, just as soon as he deals with his dead aunt’s house. Then Grace arrives, desperate, with roses pressing up through her skin, and drags Charlie into the ghost-choked mysteries of Bellworth, uncovering the impossible consequences of loss and desire—and a choice Charlie made when he was a boy. But peeling back the rumors and lies that cocoon the suburb disturbs more than complacent neighbors and lost souls. And Charlie and Grace are forced to a decision that threatens not only their lives, but all they believed those lives could be. Making History — K. J. Parker (Tordotcom Publishing)Seeking war with his neighbor, the tyrannical ruler of Aelia convenes several of his kingdom’s professors for a chat. First Citizen Gyges only just invaded Aelia a few years back and, naturally, his public image can’t take the hit of another unjustified assault. His totally sane solution? Simple, really. These scholars must construct a fake ancient city from scratch to verify Gyges’s apocryphal claims. Now these academics must put their heads together to make history. Because if they don’t, they’ll lose their heads altogether. Black Tie and Tails (Black Wolves of Boston #1) — Wen Spencer (Baen)Joshua Tatterskein’s life has been strange. He’s become a werewolf and lives with a three-hundred-year-old vampire named Silas Decker and a ginger kitten called Trouble. Then things get even weirder when he encounters a talking penguin who wants to hire him for a job. Joshua just wants to graduate from his new high school. The school is owned by Boston’s werewolf pack, and while the teachers might not realize the owners are wolves, all the kids with special abilities—the Goths—know. The good news is the Goths are happy to help Joshua, but the bad news is one of them has gone missing. Silas Decker has been waking up earlier than normal—very odd after three hundred years of being dead to the world when the sun is up. He enjoys the change – but what does he have to do for it to continue? Elise Grigori’s day starts bad: her angelic family has discovered that she’s dating Jack Cabot, Thane to the Wolf King. It gets worse when Central Office calls to say that her cousin Francis is missing from his Vermont monastic retreat. He’s a Power, God’s strength manifested in flesh, which means he’s a walking nuke. His car is in Boston, which is very bad news for Boston. Seth Tatterskein is just trying to hold his life together until he’s old enough to leave the Wolf King’s castle in New York and return to Boston as its Prince. His departure requires keeping his emotions in check—not an easy thing to do when your brother starts texting things like, “What kind of penguin talks?” The Burial Witch (Threadneedle) — Cari Thomas (Harper Voyager)At home one memorable summer, Miranda unearths a mysterious suitcase in her attic that once belonged to her late grandmother. Inside, she finds a strange and unopenable wooden box. Determined to discover what’s inside, she ends up enlisting the help of Maya, the owner of a local spiritualist shop, and is drawn into a world of witchcraft, magic and temptation. As she tries to keep up appearances as the perfect daughter, her discovery threatens to tear everything apart, putting everyone around her in danger. Can she find a way to stay in control or would the box have been better left buried? September 9 The Hexologists: A Tangle of Time (The Hexologists 2) — Josiah Bancroft (Orbit)As the nation’s foremost investigators of the paranormal, Isolde and Warren Wilby are accustomed to bumping up against things that go bump in the night. They have made quite a name for themselves as the Hexologists: detectives of the uncanny, the monstrous, the strange. After a decade of wedded bliss and dozens of fantastical adventures, there is little in the world that can still surprise them. But when a famous artist dies under suspicious circumstances, Isolde finds herself investigating a murder that may not have happened, and a crime scene that seems to shift beneath her feet. Not one to be easily thwarted, Isolde is compelled to take greater and greater risks in pursuit of her elusive answers. Meanwhile, the laws that govern magic appear to be breaking, and those cracks are spreading to the everyday world. The mystery will carry the devoted duo to seedy underworlds, enchanted gardens, and subterranean military zoos. Old friends will come to the Wilbies’ aid as they infiltrate secret societies, battle vicious imps, and flee from a pack of venomous wolves. Equipped with Isolde’s hexes, Warren’s muscle, and an enchanted bag full of magical relics, the Hexologists will have to risk life and limb to unravel the riddle at the heart of A Tangle of Time. Gnomes of Lychford (Witches of Lychford #6) — Paul Cornell (Tordotcom Publishing)Ok, they’re gnomes. That’s not a spoiler: you worked it out from the title. When an ancient prophecy clashes with an unfortunate modern design aesthetic, the people of Lychford must band together to put out fires (both literal and metaphorical) to save their town before the king of the Gnomes (King Greg, and it’s dangerous to laugh at a gnome) calls in the terms of an old promise. Trouble is: no one knows what the promise is, nor how to fulfil it. It’s going to be a long night. Tiger’s Trek (Tiger’s Tale) — Colleen Houck (Blackstone)Five unlikely companions are thrust into the dreamworld, a realm teeming with shadowy monsters and dangerous mysteries. To save their empire from the ruthless Death Draughtsman—a centuries-old collector of magic—they must confront their deepest fears, gather their strength, and unlock the secrets hidden in their hearts. The stakes have never been higher. The Draughtsman’s growing power threatens not only the citizens of the empire but also the untamed Siberian plain ruled by the Nomadic Alliance. Hope lies with the reappearance of the ancient protectors—the tigers. If the tigers and their human allies can unite in time, they might stand a chance at breaking the curse and restoring balance. But courage comes at a cost. Twin tsarevnas and their companions—a meticulous hunter, a defiant priest, a restless outcast, and a guarded soldier—must decide if they’ll risk everything to fight for their people, or turn their backs in order to save themselves. Their intentions are noble. But heroes aren’t remembered for their intentions—they’re remembered for their sacrifices. Pantomime — L.R. Lam (DAW)Micah runs away from a debutante’s life at home and joins the circus, harboring two secrets–one: he was born between male and female, and two: he may have powers last seen in mysterious beings from an almost-forgotten age. Micah discovers the joy of flight as an aerialist, courting his trapeze partner, Aenea, and confiding in the mysterious white clown, Drystan. He finally feels free. But the circus has a dark side, and Micah’s past isn’t done with him. Meanwhile, the strange ‘ghost’ of a woman with damselfly wings whispers to Micah that only he can help magic return to the realm, and he fears she may be right… Micah has much to learn, and he must do it quickly—before his past and future collide, with catastrophic consequences. The Maiden and her Monster — Maddie Martinez (Tor Books)As the healer’s daughter, Malka has seen how the wood’s curse has plagued her village, but the Ozmini Church only comes to collect its tithe, not to protect heretics with false stories of monsters in the trees. So when a clergy girl wanders too close to the forest and Malka’s mother is accused of her murder, Malka strikes an impossible bargain with a zealot Ozmini priest. If she brings the monster out, he will spare her mother from execution. When she ventures into the shadowed woods, Malka finds a monster, though not the one she expects: an inscrutable, disgraced golem who agrees to implicate herself, but only if Malka helps her fulfill a promise first and free the imprisoned rabbi who created her. But a deal easily made is not easily kept. And as their bargain begins to unravel a much more sinister threat, protecting her people may force Malka to endanger the one person she left home to save—and face her growing feelings for the very creature she was taught to fear. A Fellowship of Games & Fables (Adenashire #3) — J. Penner (Poisoned Pen Press)Jez, a grumpy fennex, wants nothing to do with the winter games descending on Adenashire. She’d rather sleep through winter than deal with the snow, the noise, or the swarm of visitors in town. But a drunken boast lands her smack in the middle of the festivities and, even worse, fake dating her endlessly cheerful friend, Taenya, a woodland elf. Plagued by chronic fatigue and past heartbreak, Jez has long guarded her heart. Not to mention she has a secret she’d rather not share. Yet Taenya’s warmth and patience begin to melt her icy exterior. Together, the two women tackle challenges—from ice sculpting to scavenger hunts—and their reluctant partnership becomes something deeper, built on laughter, trust, and a shared love of cozy corners and quiet moments. With the help of her quirky friend group and the magic of a town that thrives on togetherness, Jez begins to open up—not just to the festivities but to the possibility of healing, connection, and maybe even joy. September 16 The Formidable Miss Cassidy — Meihan Boey (Pushkin Press)Miss Cassidy is no ordinary governess. She can tutor the most wayward child, tell stories in several languages and fix any household crisis. But she also has the power to deal with problems of a far more dark and dangerous kind. Arriving in 1890s Singapore, this formidable Scotswoman soon finds herself (among other duties) ridding a house of a bloodthirsty demon and raising a spirit from the dead. When she is hired by the wealthy Chinese widower Mr Kay, whose family are suffering from a terrible curse, she must battle forces far more ancient and powerful than any she has encountered before—not to mention dealing with the unexpected yearnings of her heart… Audition for the Fox — Martin Cahill (Tachyon)Nesi is desperate to earn the patronage of one of the Ninety-Nine Pillars of Heaven. As a child with godly blood in her, if she cannot earn a divine chaperone, she will never be allowed to leave her temple home. But with ninety-six failed auditions and few options left, Nesi makes a risky prayer to T’sidaan, the Fox of Tricks. In folk tales, the Fox is a lovable prankster. But despite their humor and charm, T’sidaan, and their audition, is no joke. They throw Nesi back in time three hundred years, when her homeland is occupied by the brutal Wolfhounds of Zemin. Now, Nesi must learn a trickster’s guile to snatch a fortress from the disgraced and exiled 100th Pillar: The Wolf of the Hunt. Thor & Loki: Epic Tales from Marvel Mythology — Delilah S. Dawson (Black Dog & Leventhal)It’s a beautiful day in New York City and the Avengers have arranged a surprise birthday picnic for Peter Parker in Central Park—but the celebration is violently interrupted when a menacing rainbow suddenly crystalizes in the sky, dumping a shellshocked Thor and Loki into the middle of the party with a loud crash. The Avengers swiftly decamp to Stark Tower, where Doctor Strange freezes time to give the heroes a chance to regroup and formulate a plan. Thor and Loki warn the group that Ragnorok, the end of the world, has come, but before they can take action against it, they must understand how the world began. Thus, the brothers begin the age-old Norse tradition of storytelling. As they verbally joust, spar, and one-up each other over who can spin the most outlandish yarn, Thor and Loki weave the sagas of their people including: The Creation of Man, How Odin Lost His Eye, The Theft of Thor’s Hammer, Freyja’s Beautiful Necklace, Thor and Geirrod the Giant, Sif’s Golden Hair, and many more. They recount the ancient stories of the Nine Realms, the first humans Ask and Embla, and the sacred tree, Yggdrasil. In recounting each tale, the brothers aim to bring the cosmos closer to salvation. The Faerie Morgana — Louisa Morgan (Redhook)To the other priestesses of the Nine, a powerful council at the Lady’s Temple, Morgana is haughty and arrogant as she performs feats of magic no human should be capable of. Rumors start that she must be a fearsome fae. To King Arthur, Morgana is a trusted and devoted advisor, but his court is wary of her and her prodigious talent at divination. But his wife sees Morgana as a rival and a malevolent witch. To Braithe, Morgana’s faithful acolyte, she is simply the most powerful priestess Camelot has seen. Morgana doesn’t know why she’s so different from everyone else, and she doesn’t much care. But when she aids Arthur to ascend the throne before his time, she sets off a series of events that will change everything Morgana believes about her power. The Summer War — Naomi Novik (Del Rey)Celia discovered her talent for magic on the day her beloved oldest brother, Argent, left home. Furious at him for abandoning her in a war-torn land, she lashed out, not realizing her childish, angry words would become imbued with the power of prophecy, dooming him to a life without love. While Argent wanders the world, forced to seek only fame and glory instead of the love and belonging he truly desires, Celia attempts to undo the curse she placed on him. Yet even as she grows from a girl to a woman, she cannot find the solution—until she learns the truth about the centuries-old war between her own people and the summerlings, immortal beings who hold a relentless grudge against their mortal neighbors. Now, with the aid of her unwanted middle brother, Celia may be able to both undo her eldest brother’s curse and heal the lands so long torn apart by the Summer War. To Clutch a Razor (Curse Bearer #2) — Veronica Roth (Tor Books)A funeral. A heist. A desperate mission. When Dymitr is called back to the old country for the empty night, a funeral rite intended to keep evil at bay, it’s the perfect opportunity for him to get his hands on his family’s most guarded relic—a book of curses that could satisfy the debt he owes legendary witch Baba Jaga. But first he’ll have to survive a night with his dangerous, monster-hunting kin. As the sun sets, the line between enemies and allies becomes razor-thin, and Dymitr’s new loyalties are pushed to their breaking point. Family gatherings can be brutal. Dymitr’s might just be fatal. Among the Burning Flowers (Roots of Chaos) — Samantha Shannon (Bloomsbury)Yscalin, land of sunshine and lavender, will soon be ablaze. It has been centuries since the Draconic Army took wing, almost extinguishing humankind. Marosa Vetalda is a prisoner in her own home, controlled by her cold father, King Sigoso. Over the mountains, her betrothed, Aubrecht Lievelyn, rules Mentendon in all but name. Together, they intend to usher in a better world. A better world seems impossibly distant to Estina Melaugo, who hunts the Draconic beasts that have slept across the world for centuries. And now the great wyrm Fýredel is stirring, and Yscalin will be the first to fall… A Ruin, Great and Free (Convergence #3) — Cadwell Turnbull (Blackstone)It has been nearly two years since the anti-monster riots. The inhabitants of Moon have been very fortunate in the intervening months. Inside their hidden monster settlement, they’ve found peace, even as the world outside slips into increasing unrest. Monsters are being hunted everywhere, forced back into the shadows they once tried to escape from. Other secret settlements have offered a place to hide, but how long can this half-measure against fear and hatred last? Over the course of three days, the inhabitants of Moon are tested. The Black Hand continues to search for them and the Cult of the Zsouvox wants to make Moon the last stand in their war against the Order of Asha. This is more than enough to reckon with, but the gods have also placed their sights on Moon—and they bring with them a conflict that may either save or unravel the universe itself. The Alchemy of Fate  (Invisible College #3) — Jeff Wheeler (47North)For now, the centuries-long war between mortalkind and the Aesir is quiet. Yet not over. With the coming of winter, a season in which the Aesir thrive, they will resurface. Only two people, united by magic, can stop them. But first they’ll have to survive more imminent threats to their lives. Robinson Hawksley is of the tragic belief that his beloved wife, McKenna, has perished in a sorcerer’s fire—just as he is about to ascend to the highest rank in the magic order of the Invisible College. But as Robinson navigates political machinations, deception, and betrayal, not everything is as it seems. McKenna, a woman of uncanny mysteries, has been abducted as an offering to the Aesir that promises to end the invasion once and for all. Now she is running for her life. To reunite, Robinson and McKenna have so much to learn about themselves and each other. Amid secrets, sacrifices, and long-dormant memories restored, they still hold the power to save the world. September 23 Thief of Night (Charlatan #2) — Holly Black (Tor Books)There’d always been something wrong with Charlie Hall. Crooked from the day she was born. Never met a bad decision she wasn’t willing to double down on. She may be good enough to steal a shadow from a tower, but will she be good enough to steal back a heart? The Unfathomable Curse (Undetectables #3) — Courtney Smyth (Titan)The summer after the events of The Undead Complex, the unthinkable finally happens—Cornelia’s money is running out. Estranged from her family, furious at her parents following recent revelations, the Broadwick heir finds herself living on her own resources for the first time. Meanwhile two crimes are rocking the Apparent community. The Wrackton Digger is stealing bodies from the cemetery, and a new serial killer—the Wickermere Reaper—has emerged. But when the Reaper snatches their next victims—Cornelia’s twin sisters—she must return to her family’s home, and seat of the Ghoul Council, to conduct the search. With their resources split, and a ticking clock on the race to save the twins, The Undetectables must do what they do best—solve the strangest, most well-hidden magical mysteries to save the people they love. A Sword of Gold and Ruin (Sword of Bronze and Ashes #2) — Anna Smith Spark (Flame Tree Press)Kanda and her family are on a quest to rebuild the glory that was Roven. Mother and daughters stand together as a light against the darkness. But mother and daughters both have hands that are stained red with blood. They walk a path that is stranger and more beautiful than even Kanda dared imagine, bright with joy, bitter with grief. Ghosts and monsters dog their footsteps – but the greatest monsters lie in their hearts. September 30 Falling in a Sea of Stars (Green Rider #8) — Kristen Britain (DAW)After Sacoridia’s victory over Second Empire, Karigan G’ladheon’s life as a Green Rider should have settled into an ordinary routine. But her father’s abrupt departure to rescue Laren Mapstone, leader of the Green Riders and the woman he loves, from the far distant land of Varos, has left Clan G’ladheon’s business in disarray and Karigan’s hands full. Even as Karigan tries to sort out the clan’s mess, a darker, more perilous crisis casts its shadows over her: Mornhavon the Black has reawakened. Moreover, he has freed two undead wraiths from their imprisoning tombs to hunt Karigan down and bring her to him in Blackveil Forest. In a deadly confrontation with one of the wraiths amid the frivolity of the Harvest Ball, Karigan is left vulnerable to the intrigues of another old adversary she thought destroyed long ago. Haunted by the unceasing rhythm of the dance, she falls endlessly through the frigid dark of the heavens, and even Westrion, god of death, cannot save her. King Zachary, bereft and hopeless, keeps vigil for her safe return. If they are not reunited, her loss may destroy him—and any chance Sacoridia has of overcoming Mornhavon’s dark designs. Fate’s Bane — C.L. Clark (Tordotcom Publishing)The clans of the fens enjoy a tenuous peace, and it is all thanks to Agnir, ward and hostage. For as long as she can remember she has lived among the enemy, learning their ways, growing strong alongside their children. When a burgeoning love for the chieftain’s daughter lures them both to a hidden spring, a magic awakens in them that could bind the clans under one banner at last—or destroy any hope of peace. By working their intentions into leather, they can weave misfortune for their enemies… just like the Fate’s Bane that haunts the legends of the clans. Ambitions grow in their fathers’ hearts, grudges threaten a return to violence, and greedy enemies wait outside the borders, seeking a foothold to claim the fens for themselves. And though their Makings may save their families, the legend that gave them this power always exacts its price. The Sovereign (Magic of the Lost #3) — C. L. Clark (Orbit)Luca is the new queen of Balladaire. Her empire is already splintering in her hands. Her uncle wasn’t the only traitor in the court, and the Withering plague will decimate her people if she can’t unearth Balladaire’s magic. The only person who can help her wants the only thing Luca won’t give—the end of the monarchy. Touraine is Luca’s general. She has everything she ever wanted. While Luca looks within Balladaire’s borders, Touraine looks outward—the alliance with Qazal is brittle and Balladaire’s neighbors are ready to pounce on its new weakness. When the army comes, led by none other than Touraine’s old lover, Touraine must face the truth about herself—and the empire she once called home. A storm is coming. Touraine and Luca will stand against it together, or it will tear them apart once and for all. Silver and Lead (October Daye #19) — Seanan McGuire (Tor Books)Something is rotten in Faerie. In the aftermath of Titania’s reality-warping enchantment, things are returning to what passes for normal in the Kingdom in the Mists—until it’s discovered that the royal vaults have been looted, and several powerful magical artifacts are missing. None are things that can be safely left unsecured, and some have the potential to do almost as much damage as Titania did, and having them in the wrong hands could prove just as disastrous. At least the theft means that Sir October “Toby” Daye, Knight errant and Hero of the Realm, finally has an excuse to get out of the house. Sure, she’s eight and a half months pregnant, but that doesn’t mean she can’t take care of herself. But with the sea witch offering to stand godmother to Toby’s child, maybe there are greater dangers ahead for Toby and her family than it appears… Old enemies will resurface, new enemies will disguise themselves as friends, and Queen Windermere must try to keep her Hero on the case without getting herself gutted by the increasingly irritated local King of Cats. Sometimes, what’s been lost can be the most dangerous threat of all. Crossroads of Ravens (Witcher #9) — Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit)Before he was the White Wolf or the Butcher of Blaviken, Geralt of Rivia was simply a fresh graduate of Kaer Morhen, stepping into a world that neither understands nor welcomes his kind. And when an act of naïve heroism goes gravely wrong, Geralt is only saved from the noose by Preston Holt, a grizzled witcher with a buried past and an agenda of his own. Under Holt’s guiding hand, Geralt begins to learn what it truly means to walk the Path—to protect a world that fears him, and to survive in it on his own terms. But as the line between right and wrong begins to blur, Geralt must decide to become the monster everyone expects, or something else entirely. This is the story of how legends are made—and what they cost. Daedalus Is Dead — Seamus Sullivan (Tordotcom Publishing)Daedalus of Crete is many things: The greatest architect in the world. The constructor of the Labyrinth that imprisoned the Minotaur. And the grieving father of Icarus, who plunged into the sea as father and son flew from the grasp of the tyrannical King Minos. Now, Daedalus seeks to reunite with Icarus in the Underworld, even as he revisits his own memories of Crete, hoping to understand what went so terribly wrong at the end of his son’s life. Daedalus will confront any terror to see Icarus again—whether it’s the cruel punishments of Tartarus, the cunning Queen Persephone, or the insatiable ghost of the Minotaur. But the truth, stalking Daedalus in the labyrinth of his own heart, might be too monstrous for him to bear. The Shocking Experiments of Miss Mary Bennet — Melinda Taub (Grand Central)Awkward, plain, and overlooked, Mary Bennet has long been out of favor not only with her own family but with generations of readers of Pride and Prejudice. But what was this peculiar girl really doing while her sisters were falling in love? As, one by one, Mary’s sisters get married, she hatches a plan. If the world won’t give this fierce, lonely girl a place, she’ll carve one out herself. In a desperate bid to avoid becoming a burden on her family or, worse, married to a controlling man, Mary does what any bright, intrepid girl would do. She takes to the attic and teach herself to reanimate the dead. If finding acceptance requires a husband, she’ll get one… even if she has to make him herself. However, Mary’s genius and determination aren’t enough to control the malevolent force that she unwittingly unleashes. Soon, her attempts to rein in the destruction wreaked by her creations leads her to forge a perhaps unlikely friendship with another brilliant young woman unlike any she’s ever known. As that friendship blossoms into something passionate and all-consuming, Mary begins to realize that she may have to choose between the acceptance she’s always fought for and true happiness. A Philosophy of Thieves (Carnarvier #1) — Fran Wilde (Erewhon)The Canarviers are the premier performance thieves in New Washington, blending astonishing acrobatics, clever misdirection, and daring escapes to entertain their rich patrons. As King Canarvier has always told his children, their work is art. Who else could titillate audiences with illicit history lessons and tease them through the gaps in their much-prized security? Now that they’re adults, King’s children feel their divisions more than their bonds. Roosa attends an exclusive finishing university, blending in so well she’s unsure where she belongs. Her brother Dax craves a chance to prove himself, stifling under his father’s caution. Then King disappears. With only days to buy mercy before their father is lost forever, Roo and Dax must compete in a high-stakes Grand Heist, pushing down their resentments to work together. Against a technocrat wagering more than he can lose, a security chief with a taste for pain, and a society beauty with secrets of her own, any misstep promises catastrophic ruin. But Canarviers are artists. And they perform best when the pressure is on… The post All the New Fantasy Books Arriving in September 2025 appeared first on Reactor.

Last week, just days into the new school year, a 23-year-old transgender gunman targeted a Minneapolis Catholic school that he used to attend, opening fire on students through the windows of the church where they’d gathered for a special mass. He killed two students and wounded nearly two dozen additional victims before taking his own life. Here are three of the most uncomfortable truths about school shootings in the wake of this latest tragedy. It feels like school shootings are a common occurrence. They’re not. When mass shootings take place on school campuses, we remember them. They are uniquely devastating events that strike deeply at our most basic sense of public safety. And, in their aftermath, they leave a wake of heated and politically charged rhetoric that all but ensures the trauma will be dragged back into the headlines for months or even years after the killing has stopped. The highly salient nature of school shootings makes it easy to assume that they are responsible for hundreds of deaths every year or that, at the very least, it’s statistically likely that any particular student or teacher will be victimized by a school shooter on any given day. And yet, the actual statistics indicate that the nation’s students and teachers are remarkably safe from gun violence while at school. This is true even when using the broadest possible definition of what constitutes a “school shooting.” Consider the database maintained by Everytown, a well-known gun control advocacy group, which tracks every time that a person fires a gun on school-owned property, regardless of context. According to that database, between Aug. 1, 2024 and Aug. 1, 2025, only 125 “incidents of gunfire” occurred at any one of the more than 130,000 public and private K-12 schools across the nation. As a result of these “incidents of gunfire,” 34 people died and another 83 sustained injuries. Even taken at face value, these numbers are extraordinarily low considering that, last year, 60 million Americans spent a significant portion of their waking hours on an elementary or secondary school campus, either as a student, educator, administrator, or support staff member. A closer review of the circumstances of these shootings shows that 40 of them (nearly one-third) not only occurred outside of the school building and well outside of classroom hours, but were completely unrelated to the school, its students, or its ordinary functions. None of the individuals involved in, killed or injured by, or even reasonably endangered as a result of the gunfire in these incidents was present at the school for any purpose remotely connected to the school’s educational mission, including school-specific extracurricular events. One “incident of gunfire,” for example, involved a woman who was shot in the foot in the parking lot of a Vancouver, Washington, elementary school at 3 a.m. in the middle of the summer after participating in a pre-arranged fight with another woman. The “victim” had flown across the country to resolve an interpersonal feud, and no one involved in the physical altercation or subsequent shooting had any connection to the school. Meanwhile, five of the campus gunfire injuries recorded in the database stemmed from a single 3 a.m. shootout in a school parking lot that erupted during an unauthorized summer gathering of more than 100 people, many of whom were juveniles violating an 11 p.m. curfew. In some cases, the “campus gunfire” didn’t even endanger a human being at all. Two instances, involved individuals in rural communities shooting deer overnight on school property, including one where the police report specified that the hapless “hunter” fired his gun after midnight in a school-owned open field roughly 75 yards away from the nearest building—aiming in the opposite direction. In another case, school officials at a rural Nebraska high school returned after summer break to find the football stadium’s scoreboard pockmarked with bullet holes.  Many of the remaining incidents of gunfire occurred outside of “classroom” hours and did not reasonably implicate “school safety” concerns. Of the incidents that did reasonably implicate “school safety,” the most common threats were unintentional gun discharges and targeted shootings that stemmed from interpersonal disputes. Only five “instances of gunfire” could be characterized as actual or attempted mass shootings, in which an armed individual sought to harm victims indiscriminately. These active shooters killed seven people (excluding any perpetrator deaths) and injured 20 more victims. That’s not to suggest there’s any such thing as an “acceptable” number of school-related shooting deaths, or that these deaths and injuries aren’t worth mitigating. It’s simply to state an objective reality: School shootings are not even remotely close to being a significant factor in child mortality. The statistical rarity of school shootings should make us feel better. It doesn’t. From a purely rational standpoint, we know that the nation’s students and teachers are several orders of magnitude more likely to die in a car crash on the way to or from school than to be shot while in a classroom. If facts alone directed our fears, we’d hold more legislative hearings over pools and bathtubs, knowing that unintentional drownings present far more of a danger to children under 18 than bullets fired on a school campus. Every piece of mortality data tells us that schools are, quite literally, among the places where Americans are least likely to be endangered by gunfire—a mathematical miracle, given the amount of time we spend there. And yet, statistics bring no comfort to families that grieve very unlikely—but still very real—deaths. Facts and figures hold enormous informational value for public policy experts, but they cannot heal either shattered bones or shattered communities. Sometimes, hard data doesn’t untangle the persistent knots in our stomachs. A gunman fired 116 rounds through stained-glass windows to murder children as they prayed during mass. No amount of statistical analysis can lessen the horror wrought by that sentence.   It’s natural to look for an easy scapegoat. There isn’t one. One of the most natural temptations in the face of inexplicable tragedy is to find a scapegoat. Scapegoats promise us straightforward explanations and simple solutions. It would be easy, for example, if the problem was “just” a lack of strict gun laws and the solution was “just” to impose universal background checks, bans on so-called “assault weapons,” or any of the other gun control measures that advocates assure us will magically solve school shootings. Never mind that here, as with so many of these mass shootings, not a single one of these measures would have reasonably had the capacity to save a single life. It would be easy, too, if school shootings were simply a product of radical gender ideology, as some commentators seem to believe, given their hyper-fixation on the shooter’s transgender identity. Yes, modern transgender ideology is incredibly problematic, particularly when it is weaponized against women’s sports or when it’s used to justify the permanent mutilation of still-developing children. And yes, gender dysphoria is undoubtedly one of many conditions capable of triggering the severe psychological and emotional distress so often evidenced by mass shooters. It seems, at least in this case, to have exacerbated the gunman’s serious mental health struggles and dictated the general target of his violence. But the reality is that, irrespective of any specific demographic traits, the overwhelming majority of people—straight, gay, transgender, or otherwise—will never commit acts of violence against themselves or others, much less acts of mass violence. We can’t solve this problem by fixating on the shooter’s gender identity any more than we can solve it by fixating on his use of a pistol-gripped rifle surreptitiously deemed an “assault weapon.” It’s easier to blame specific types of guns than to ask serious questions about how we can turn schools into harder targets—but only the latter is proven to save lives. Derisively faulting an entire community for the sins of an outlier bad actor may generate social media clicks, but it doesn’t really help us prevent future mass shootings. The horrific nature of school shootings predisposes us to want to do something—anything—to stop them, regardless of how uncommon they are or how unlikely our kids are to be victimized by them on any given day. That instinct is noble and good—but only if it’s used the right way. The post Three Uncomfortable Truths About School Shootings After Minneapolis Tragedy appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. On August 25, a group of executives, bureaucrats, and risk managers sat in a confidential meeting room somewhere in Japan to discuss why some people who make comics and games can no longer get paid. The meeting wasn’t on the official calendar. You won’t find a press release. But according to Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Taro Yamada, it happened. And the people who showed up represented the international financial bottleneck that now determines which legal businesses are allowed to function. “We held an inner meeting of the Film Industry Strategy Promotion Research Group to discuss the credit card issue,” Yamada posted on X. “We gathered international brands, acquirers, payment processing companies, merchants, relevant government agencies, and others to freely and openly discuss the causes of the situation that can be described as financial censorship, specific solutions, and other matters.” Yamada described the gathering as “frank” though it was conducted under a confidentiality agreement. Yamada came away feeling optimistic. “Under the condition that specific attendees and details would be kept confidential to facilitate frank opinion exchange, we conducted straightforward discussions. The perceptions of the stakeholders from their respective positions became much clearer, marking significant progress. We will continue to address the resolution of credit card issues.” In other words, a handful of companies with global financial influence were brought together to explain why they keep cutting off payment processing to legal Japanese creators. No public explanation, no record, no specifics, but we’re told progress was made. The problem isn’t a new one, but it’s grown louder. Platforms that distribute manga, adult games, and independently produced fiction have spent the past few years quietly disappearing from payment networks. The issue doesn’t come from the Japanese government. It comes from the payment stack, the maze of card brands, processors, acquiring banks, and opaque “compliance partners” who get to decide what kinds of lawful content should be flagged. Last month, Mastercard insisted it had nothing to do with it. After a wave of games were delisted from platforms like Steam and Itch, the company released a statement on August 1. That version of events didn’t match what publishers had already experienced. The terms of the warning were never public. There was no explanation for who selected the flagged keywords, how the review was conducted, or what the content violated. The only detail that mattered was the deadline. Delete the material, or lose access to Mastercard, VISA, and the rest of the global payment web. Yamada has built his reputation around defending financial freedom and opposing censorship. He has criticized major payment processors like Visa and Mastercard for using internal compliance programs to pressure platforms into restricting legal content, warning that such practices are nothing more than financial censorship. In 2024, he even traveled to Visa’s headquarters in San Francisco to challenge the overreach into lawful transactions involving Japanese citizens and creators. Yamada has also campaigned for legal reforms to protect expression in manga, anime, and digital content. There’s still no official record of what was said in that closed-door meeting on August 25. But the stakes are clear enough. A handful of foreign companies are shaping the boundaries of lawful expression in Japan, not through legislation, but through payment systems. And unless that changes, creators will keep losing their livelihoods, with no explanation and no recourse. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Japanese Lawmaker Taro Yamada Confronts Financial Censorship appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

CNN: Dems Claim Trump Will Cancel Elections and We Must Discuss It

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Since their parent company Disney was beholden to the Chinese Communist Party, even giving a “special thanks” to those carrying out a genocide against Uighurs in the credits of Mulan, ABC foreign correspondent Britt Clennett beclowned herself and the network during Wednesday’s Good Morning America. With prime seating in Tiananmen Square, Clennett had a huge smile on her face as she was overcome with awe at the military equipment and being able to lay her eyes on Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. “Yeah, just a remarkable sight to see here in Beijing. China very much flexing its military muscle, with the latest generation of ballistic missiles and drones in a carefully choreographed parade designed to show its patriotism and power,” Clennett boasted to co-host Michael Strahan a head of the video portion of her report. Touting the parade as Xi’s “grand show of force,” she fawned over the pageantry of the event: Marking 80 years since the end of World War II with its biggest ever military parade. We were there as the crowd of more than 50,000 waived Chinese flags, cheering as thousands of soldiers marched in perfect unison. Several hundred ground weapon systems on display, over 100 aircraft and jets ripping through the sky above Tiananmen Square. The guests of honor, Russian president Vladimir Putin, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un with Xi, together for the first time watching over the parade from the balcony. “The crowd is clapping, XI Jinping is flanked by Putin and Kim just over there in an extraordinary show of unity,” she beamed from her prime seat overlooking the point where the soldiers would pass in front of Xi.     She also rhetorically applauded how this was a chance for Xi “to unveil his country's newest military hardware to the world.” “We are seeing hypersonic missiles, stealth fighters, drones. This is about Chinese President Xi Jinping showing his military is modern, that it is advanced and ready for combat,” she said. Further proving which side Disney and ABC were on, the only time Clennett soured was when addressing the criticism of the event from President Trump. Despite the fact that the event was attended by many of America’s adversaries, she put on a skeptical and critical tone when Trump called out the event as a way to “conspire” against America. She even gave weight to Kremlin talking points: President Trump's tariffs putting a strain on relations with China. Trump lashing out on social media accusing Xi of conspiring against the U.S., saying: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against the United States of America.” [Cuts back to live] Now, the Kremlin has rejected any accusations that it's conspiring against the United States, but they also said the three leaders did not even have that in mind. Contrast Clennett with how NBC foreign correspondent Janis Mackey Frayer, on Today, disclosed China’s totalitarian preparations for the parade. “Security controls for this event were intense. School was canceled city wide, people couldn't look out a window if it faced the parade route, and in some areas there was a ban on cooking breakfast this morning to cut down on smoke. All for a 70-minute show,” she informed viewers. She even described the nations that gathered in Beijing as “the Axis of Upheaval” and didn’t offer the kind of defense Clennett did against Trump’s criticism. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s Good Morning America September 3, 2025 7:09:47 a.m. Eastern MICHAEL STRAHAN: Overseas now, to the high-stakes summit in China. China's President XI hosting Vladimir Putin and, overnight, holding a parade showing off China's military might with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un in attendance. Our foreign correspondent Britt Clennett is in Beijing for us. Good morning, Britt. BRITT CLENNETT: Good morning, Michael. Yeah, just a remarkable sight to see here in Beijing. China very much flexing its military muscle, with the latest generation of ballistic missiles and drones in a carefully choreographed parade designed to show its patriotism and power. [Cuts to video] This morning, China's President XI Jinping with a grand show of force. Marking 80 years since the end of World War II with its biggest ever military parade. We were there as the crowd of more than 50,000 waived Chinese flags, cheering as thousands of soldiers marched in perfect unison. Several hundred ground weapon systems on display, over 100 aircraft and jets ripping through the sky above Tiananmen Square. The guests of honor, Russian president Vladimir Putin, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un with Xi, together for the first time watching over the parade from the balcony. The crowd is clapping, XI Jinping is flanked by Putin and Kim just over there in an extraordinary show of unity. And for Xi, a chance to unveil his country's newest military hardware to the world. We are seeing hypersonic missiles, stealth fighters, drones. This is about Chinese President Xi Jinping showing his military is modern, that it is advanced and ready for combat. President Trump's tariffs putting a strain on relations with China. Trump lashing out on social media accusing Xi of conspiring against the U.S., saying: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against the United States of America.” [Cuts back to live] Now, the Kremlin has rejected any accusations that it's conspiring against the United States, but they also said the three leaders did not even have that in mind. Robin. ROBIN ROBERTS: All right, Britt. Thanks to you for your reporting there.