News Ursula K. Le Guin In Your Spare Time: Ursula K. Le Guin Podcast Brings Her Entire Blog to Your Ears Yes, even the blog posts that are primarily cat photos By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on April 2, 2026 Image by Wes Guderian, 1970 | Courtesy Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation Comment 0 Share New Share Image by Wes Guderian, 1970 | Courtesy Ursula K. Le Guin Foundation In addition to writing seminal novels, Ursula K. Le Guin also maintained a blog from 2010 to 2017. About a third of her posts there were made into the book, No Time to Spare, and starting this year, each post will also get its own episode on the podcast, In Your Spare Time: From the Blog of Ursula K. Le Guin. Almost every episode/post is read by a different person, and readers include authors, librarians, artists, critics, editors, and friends of Le Guin’s. After reading her post, the reader then shares their relationship to her work and how the specific post speaks to our time and/or their imagination. Some of the readers are David Mitchell, adrienne maree brown, Omar El Akkad, Emily Wilson, Rick Riordan, Luis Alberto Urrea, Robin Hobb, John Darnielle, Darcie Little Badger, Molly Gloss, Vajra Chandrasekera, Becky Chambers, and Karen Joy Fowler. “Over the years, many readers have told me they wish they could hear Ursula’s blog posts read by her. I do too, but for me, this is the next best thing—to hear so many fascinating people, connected to my mother in many different ways, bringing the blog into current conversation,” Theo Downes-Le Guin, Le Guin’s son, literary executor, and podcast co-producer, said in a statement. The first episode of In Your Spare Time will come out on April 8, 2026, with new episodes releasing weekly on Wednesdays well into 2028 (an audio trailer is already up, if you want to listen). The podcast was co-produced by Downes-Le Guin, Molly Templeton, and Richard Stuart Perkins. Check it out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Libsyn. [end-mark] The post <i>In Your Spare Time</i>: Ursula K. Le Guin Podcast Brings Her Entire Blog to Your Ears appeared first on Reactor.

News Dungeon Crawler Carl Seth MacFarlane to Adapt Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl for Peacock No news yet on who will play Princess Donut By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on April 2, 2026 Seth MacFarlane image from vagueonthehow from Tadcaster, York, England, CC BY-SA 4.0 Comment 0 Share New Share Seth MacFarlane image from vagueonthehow from Tadcaster, York, England, CC BY-SA 4.0 It’s been over a year since we first heard that Fuzzy Door, Seth MacFarlane’s production company, had picked up the rights to adapt Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl books. Today, we found out via Variety that the project is moving into development as a live-action television series at Peacock. That’s right, we’re getting closer to seeing Carl and Prince Donut’s televised apocalyptic journey… on television. Here’s the official logline for the project, which hews closely to the first book: An alien invasion has wiped out most of humanity and any survivors are forced to fight for their lives on a sadistic intergalactic game show. Sounds bad, right? Now try doing it with bare feet and a stuck-up, self-centered, tiara-wearing talking cat as your partner. Welcome to Dungeon Crawler World: Earth, where the apocalypse will be televised… and Coast Guard vet Carl finds himself stuck with his ex-girlfriend’s award-winning show cat, Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk, as they try to survive the end of the world, fighting monsters, aliens, an insane A.I. and even other survivors… all for the sake of good TV. Survival is optional. Entertainment is not. Dinniman and MacFarlane will serve as executive producers on the project, with Chris Yost (Thor: Ragnarok, The Mandalorian, Cowboy Bebop) also on board as writer and executive producer. The project is still in its early days, so there’s no news on casting for Carl and/or Princess Donut. Dinniman did say in a previous interview with Variety, however, that he was confident in how the show’s fantastical elements would look in live action. “We’re not going to do it if it’s gonna look like absolute shit,” he said. “And they will do CGI testing on Princess Donut and stuff like that. And that’s all I can say, I think. It’s all gonna hinge on what it looks like. But Fuzzy Door, specifically, if you watch Ted or The Orville, you’ll see that they know what they’re doing when it comes to this. So I would say, don’t knock it till you try it.” [end-mark] The post Seth MacFarlane to Adapt Matt Dinniman’s <i>Dungeon Crawler Carl</i> for Peacock appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts fantasy Read an Excerpt From The Killing Spell by Shay Kauwe In a future where language magic reigns, a young Hawaiian woman must solve a murder to clear her name. By Shay Kauwe | Published on April 2, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from The Killing Spell by Shay Kauwe, a new fantasy novel publishing with Saga Press on April 14th. Kea Petrova is dealing with more than her fair share of trouble.At just twenty-five years old, she’s the youngest of five Hawaiian clan leaders living on the Homestead in outer Los Angeles. Nearly 200 years ago, when a catastrophic flood submerged the Hawaiian islands and unleashed magic into the world, these clans forged a treaty with the city, establishing a new Hawaiian homeland. But that treaty is about to expire.Kea struggles to keep her small clan afloat, scraping together rent each month through odd jobs and selling her own crafted Hawaiian language spells. While her talent for language magic is her saving grace, she feels like a shadow of those who came before her. Just when she thinks things can’t get any more complicated, the murder of Angelo Reyes—LA’s most prominent Filipino activist—turns her world upside-down.Angelo was killed by a death spell—something that, due to the properties of each school of language magic, can only exist in Hawaiian. With independent spellsmithing being technically illegal, Kea quickly becomes the prime suspect, known for her spellwork on the Homestead. To clear her name, she must unravel the mystery behind Angelo’s murder and confront LA’s most powerful (and dangerous) players, each wielding their own type of magic. The clock is ticking—can Kea save herself, her clan, and the Homestead before it’s too late? LA CITY ORDINANCE #11358 As decreed by the Los Angeles Board, all prospective Guild members of any vocation, including Caster and Smith, must pass a licensing examination in order to practice magic within city territory. The examination shall be administered in the chosen regulated language: Latin, French, Italian, or Spanish. Regulation shall be decided upon by the Board and reviewed every three years to include any language with a history of proven merit to be considered for advancement. A language may be considered three times for regulation before being permanently disqualified. * * * AMENDMENT 1: Arabic has passed its second attempt at regulation and been graded exceptional due to its profound influence on global literature. The language’s proclivity toward storytelling, narration, and documentation is deemed invaluable to the study of magic. One seat has been opened on the Board for a licensed Arabic speaker of a recognized clan. * * * AMENDMENT 2: Cantonese, Mandarin, and Japanese have passed their first attempt at regulation and been graded noteworthy due to their contributions to culture and art. Cantonese and Mandarin’s effects on good fortune and Japanese’s manipulation of the human body are deemed worthy of further study. Two seats have been opened on the Board for licensed Cantonese, Mandarin, or Japanese speakers of recognized clans. * * * Tagalog has failed its first attempt at regulation. No amendment will be made. Chapter 1 Kea, I need you. I flinched at the sound of the voice in my head. Makani’s sympathetic talent of telepathy, though benign, was always unsettling, like a pinch right at the temple. Closing my eyes, I focused on sending him a response. Your chores better be done if you’re goofing off. Something followed me into the coop. In a heartbeat, my irritation turned to ice-cold fear. I dropped the plastic basket of wet sheets I was holding and ran to the backyard, which overlooked the ocean. Our usually small house felt like a gigantic barrier as I sprinted across the dry grass toward the garden. The coop came into view, a ramshackle construction made of weathered wood, and one of our hens, Fiona, flopped out. She clucked disapprovingly at me; her leg twisted at a funny angle as she hobbled away. The chalk of the ward around the entrance had been wiped off by the door, leaving a smudge of grayish residue on the wooden planks. Clearly Makani’s handiwork. I swore under my breath. I’d told him a thousand times to stop pestering the birds. I’m scared. There was no time to be mad. I hadn’t been expecting a fight, so I was stuck only with a leiomano in my back pocket. While relatively strong for a woman of my height, I wasn’t that strong. If something big had gotten into the shed, I had little hope of success in beating it to death. I gently tapped the door with my left shoulder while pulling out the flattened oval club, holding it at an angle in front of me. The sheen of polished wood and sharp shark’s teeth looked intimidating, but it wasn’t a hunting weapon. In the shed, I wouldn’t have the space to move freely or build power into a good swing. I’d need to get it, whatever it was, out. The door cracked open a hair’s width, and I peered inside. A pair of hazel eyes stared back at me from my cousin jammed under the birds’ perch. Feathers, blood, and dead chickens lay everywhere. A low, guttural hiss emerged from the darkness, irritated by the thin stream of light I had let in. The air, speckled with dust and fluttering pieces of stray hay, was heavy and hot. Makani’s chest rose and fell with quiet, strangled breaths. He squeezed his eyes shut and shot me a message. It’s behind the door. Buy the Book The Killing Spell Shay Kauwe Buy Book The Killing Spell Shay Kauwe Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Not daring to startle the thing, I twisted my head to look at the spaces between the bolts and spied a patch of scales hidden in the shadows. Stretching from the frame of the door to the wall, the creature was too large to be any normal animal. It had to be a magi. The hissing stopped as the beast shuffled. I lost sight of it and became acutely aware of the blood rushing through my veins. Tensing my muscles, I leaned closer to the door, desperate to figure out what kind of magi it was. A black iris flashed in the empty space, narrowing in on me, and the hissing turned to a growl. I sent Makani back a single command. Move! He crawled from his hiding place just as the magi lunged for him. I slammed my shoulder into the door as hard as I could, sending the beast squealing as it was knocked against the back shelves. Makani screamed. He squirmed forward on his stomach to the side of the perch that was protected by a metal grate. The magi’s head swiveled to focus on his retreating figure. “Hey, ugly!” I shouted, stomping my feet to attract its attention. The beast snarled, stepping into the light from the open door. A mo‘o. About five feet long, the lizard creature had sharp teeth made for rending meat, and smooth scales covered its entire body in a sickly Granny-Smith green that faded to pale white around its lower belly. Just a baby one. I could take care of it. Figuring my forearm would hurt less, I dragged the sharpest tooth of the leiomano down the front of my arm, wincing as I pressed in deeper to scratch up the skin. A trickle of blood welled to the surface and dripped down in a thin line. The mo‘o raised its head so that its bulging, white neck flared like a balloon. It sniffed the air. Once its beady black eyes found the source of blood, it stilled and turned its undivided attention onto me. Good boy. Magi might be born from magic, but ultimately, they were just animals. They couldn’t reason or use logic the way a person could. No talking dragons, or singing unicorns, or any of those other stupid stories you read about in fantasy books from before the Flood. Magi were dangerous but dumb. I turned my back to it and ran. Feral instinct took over as the magi smelled blood on my retreating figure. Prey. Hunt. Food. It rushed after me. Running down the hill toward the beach wouldn’t work as my blood would likely attract more creepy-crawlies from the water, so the front of our property was the best bet. My bare feet slammed against the dry grass as I lured it to the front lawn, but I wasn’t fast enough. The mo‘o was on my heels. My palms got sweaty around the wooden handle of the leiomano, and I swore to arm myself better next time I did the laundry. Waving my arms wildly to keep the mo‘o from ascending the back stairs onto the porch, I ran parallel to the rickety frame of our house. As I rounded the corner, I banged on the walls to make noise, releasing a shower of chipped dry paint in my wake. Sun-bleached flakes rained down around me, filling the air with the dissipating scent of sour milk. It worked. The mo‘o slithered in my direction with its mouth wide open, ready to chomp down as we made it to the front lawn. If it sunk its teeth into me, I’d get a nasty cut. But we didn’t have any money lying around for stitches, so I wasn’t looking to take chances. I’d have to cast something. My jaw locked as I planted my feet and pivoted to face the mo‘o. Breathing deeply, I ran through a list of words I could use that could make this damn thing stop moving. Russian could work. It was simple and effective when there was an obvious target and I didn’t need to bother with definite articles, but I needed a word that rhymed with begat. Maybe run was the wrong idea though. Did lizards really run? At eight feet away, it certainly felt like it. Scratch Russian. I didn’t have time to figure out a rhyme to make the spell work. My other trusty language, English, was always a no-go on the fly. Any attempt on my end to be poetical fell flat no matter how many Shakespearean arts, thous, or foes I threw in, even though it was an established fact that a good sonnet would work wonders. Emphasis there on good. Hawaiian it had to be. Six feet away now, the mo‘o crawled closer, a furious pace infecting its approach. Five feet. Hawaiian was so vague though. A simple stop might work, but it also might stop all the internal organs in both my body and the mo‘o’s from functioning. Only four feet left. Three. There was no time. Keeping eye contact with the beast, I crouched low and dug my fingers into the lawn, entwining brittle blades of grass in my grip. With my other hand I dropped the leiomano flat to the ground and pressed hard on top of it for balance. The mo‘o was nearly right in front of me, its breath warming the air so close that I could feel the heat on my nose. Reaching for the mana from my core, I said the first word that came to mind. “E ho‘opa‘a.” Stick. Magic surged out of my hands and into the ground around us, rising up like a sudden breeze from the dirt. The lizard stopped moving. It writhed, tossing itself back and forth, but its efforts to escape were futile. My spell kept its legs glued firmly to the earth around it. I breathed out a sigh of relief. One-word spells weren’t supposed to work, but they always had for me. Sort of. They had an effect, that was enough. Call it a quirk of my mana, an unexpected benefit to being absolute crap at all other kinds of magic. I tried to lift my left hand off the leiomano so that I could finish the job and found that my spell had worked a little too well. I was also firmly stuck to the ground. Dammit. I really should have stopped using one-word castings years ago, but when in a pinch, I had a bad habit of saying whatever popped into my head. The joke was on me, though, since they rarely worked how I wanted them to. The mo‘o spat at me, struggling against my magic’s hold as I strained my neck toward the house. “Sisi!” I could hear the TV blaring inside. Giving it a minute, I baked in the afternoon heat, three feet away from a floundering giant lizard. “Sicilia!” I yelled again, louder. The screen door on our porch swung open and Sisi, my teenage sister, appeared. Her hands were on her hips, and there was an irritated crease carved through the sun-freckled skin of her forehead. With Sicilia’s light-brown waves and emerald-green eyes, people usually did a double take when I explained that we were related, though I never really understood why. She and I looked a lot alike. We both had deep-set, almond eyes that turned down slightly at the ends, wide, flat noses, and full lips. Our features were nearly identical, but we were different in our coloring. While Sisi was fair, I had brown everything. Brown skin, brown hair, and dark-brown eyes that could only be described as penetrating. Sicilia was chewing a piece of bubble gum, apparently oblivious to the spitting mo‘o on our lawn. “A little help?” I asked. The gum snapped in her mouth, and she shot a disdainful glance at the magi. “What am I supposed to do about that?” “Kill it,” I explained through gritted teeth, trying not to let my irritation bubble out. Sisi’s gaze fell on the weapon below my left hand. “You do it.” “I can’t,” I stressed. Sicilia’s hair was wound into a lazy topknot that spilled precariously to the side. The tita bun was a nice complement to her attitude. “Doesn’t look like that to me.” I didn’t have the patience for this. “I’d love to take care of this myself, but I cast something and if I release the smithing, I’ll end up unsticking the mo‘o too. I’d be right back where I started.” To emphasize how bad that would be, the mo‘o made a snarling noise and gnashed its teeth together, trying to lunge forward. Its feet didn’t budge, but the beast did spit some of its saliva onto my cheek, making me recoil. Unfortunately, my spell held tight, and the only thing I could manage to do was jerk my head back a few inches. Gross. My magic had a track record of fighting against every good intention I threw at it. At ten, I’d tried a common Latin spell to find my grandmother’s lost keys and ended up with every pin, screw, and nail in the house flying at my face. I quickly learned that the only way to tame my magic into doing what I wanted was by using spells I’d smithed myself, but that took time, patience, and talent. Sadly, I was in short supply of all three. Sicilia gave an exaggerated sigh. “Let me get my crossbow. I’m not getting lizard guts all over my favorite shorts.” The screen door slammed shut and I was left alone. Excerpted from The Killing Spell by Shay Kauwe. Copyright © 2026. Reprinted by permission of Saga Press at Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>The Killing Spell</i> by Shay Kauwe appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV The Blue Trail The Blue Trail Examines Aging Amidst an Ageist Dystopia A thoughtfully-paced treatise on age, freedom, and self-discovery. By Reuben Baron | Published on April 2, 2026 Image: Vitrine Filmes Comment 0 Share New Share Image: Vitrine Filmes We finally found it: the one near-future dystopia premise that viewers in the United States can safely watch in 2026 and say with at least 80% confidence and relief, “That’s not gonna happen here any time soon.” In the sci-fi Brazil of Gabriel Mascaro’s The Blue Trail (a winner of multiple awards at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival), all senior citizens aged 75 and older are taken away from their homes—by force in the “wrinkle wagon,” if necessary—and sent to spend the rest of their lives in a “Colony” from which no one returns. What happens in the Colony is left to our imaginations, but from the humiliating and darkly comic travel preparations we’re shown, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s looking forward to the trip (I choose to imagine it as the Near Death Star from Futurama). I couldn’t tell you how plausible this scenario is from a Brazilian perspective. I can tell you that, given how much of the leadership in both of the United States’ major political parties would be past due for this forced retirement, this particular situation is probably unimaginable here… except, perhaps, as a “revenge of the youth” against said leadership gone horribly wrong… or maybe if there was a clearer class double standard of power for the elderly rich and punishment for the elderly poor (which is already implied if not fully explored in The Blue Trail, with its plot points about elderly characters working to purchasing their freedom)… Look, we can’t predict anything with complete certainty, but unlike 99% of dystopian movies, I at least wasn’t watching this one filled with anxiety about its relatability to the present! The film’s protagonist, Tereza (Denise Weinberg), is 77 years old and still working at an alligator meat processing plant when the forced retirement age drops from 80 to 75. She’s presented with a medal recognizing her “national living heritage” while being given a deadline to leave for the Colony. With the time she has left, her last wish is to fly in an airplane for the first time in her life. However, buying a commercial airline ticket requires permissions her daughter and conservator (Clarissa Pinheiro) refuses to grant her—so Tereza sneaks onto a boat heading up the Amazon River towards Itacoatiora, where private pilots conduct their own illegal flights. At first, one might assume the title The Blue Trail is a description of the Amazon River itself. While Tereza is traveling with the boat captain Cadu (Rodrigo Santoro), a different sort of “blue trail” gets introduced—the “drool” of a snail that, when dropped into one’s eyes like eyedrops, makes you hallucinate visions of your future. This is the first of a few points where The Blue Trail shifts from grounded realistic social science fiction into a more fanciful sort of magical realism. Cadu’s trip on the snail drool leaves him unable to steer his ship, and Tereza proves adept at taking over the responsibility—two Chekov’s guns ready to go off later in the film. With its beautiful imagery (the Amazon rainforest makes a gorgeous backdrop for Guillermo Garza’s carefully composed cinematography) and gently quirky music (courtesy of Memo Guerra), The Blue Trail play out as a more relaxing experience than you’d expect from a film about going on the lam in the dystopian future. Truth be told, it might be too relaxing. There were some points in the middle of the film where I struggled a bit to stay awake, and based on other reactions after my screening, I don’t think it was just me. The pacing is on the slow side, and the picaresque storytelling gets meandering. I love the energy Weinberg brings to Tereza, but when she’s bouncing between episodes with different co-stars, it sometimes feels like the character’s personal journey gets lost. I found myself connecting more with the film once Roberta (Miriam Socarrás) entered the picture, becoming Tereza’s companion and by far the feature’s most interesting supporting character. An atheist who makes a living posing as a nun and selling digital Bible tablets from her houseboat, Roberta was able to buy herself freedom and prizes it above all else. The friendship between the two strong-willed septuagenarians becomes passionate and, at times, physically intimate; it’s not much of a stretch to view their connection as the much-fabled “old woman yuri.” The movie’s climax, set at a casino where Tereza bets everything she can for her own freedom, brings in more of the magical realist and psychedelic elements to strange and captivating effect. I dare not spoil the casino’s big game, but it had me asking “What am I watching?” both in terms of the weirdness of the event itself and in terms of what filmmaking tricks were employed to present it. The place where the film cuts off before the credits feels a little bit sudden, and I can’t say for sure whether I fully “got” the purpose of such abruptness on this viewing, but thinking on it, the final images do leave a solid enough emotional impression. The Blue Trail finds evocative ways to get across the horrors of its world—planes flying ironic statements of how “The future belongs to everyone,” graffiti messages pleading to reunite with grandparents—while keeping to its own chill rhythms as a warm story of self-discovery. While the setting could be fleshed out in greater detail, and some questions remain about the believability of the central conceit, it succeeds in presenting emotional truths about struggles of age discrimination and raising thoughtful questions about potential endpoints to capitalism’s obsession with “productivity.” As senior citizen adventure films go, I personally preferred the more down-to-Earth yet also more exciting Thelma from a few years ago, but I’m glad I saw The Blue Trail. If you’re in the right frame of mind for something slow and a little strange, Mascaro knows how to take you on a trip.[end-mark] The post <i>The Blue Trail</i> Examines Aging Amidst an Ageist Dystopia appeared first on Reactor.

Books book reviews Home of Dreams and Nightmares: The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu A different take on the haunted house novel. By Tobias Carroll | Published on April 2, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share In the beginning was the haunted house, and it was scary. Consider the primal aspects of the concept of home: If we’re talking in Hobbesian terms—yes, I’m making use of those political science courses I took years ago—the “state of nature” is a place of constant unrest. Presumably, a home is intended as a break from all that, a metaphorical and literal shelter from the storm. And yet there’s a flip side to that: the fear that comes from realizing that the place you thought was a safe harbor is every bit as dangerous as the parts of life you sought to escape. Or, to put in terms of early humans looking for a place to settle down and faced a rude awakening: There’s something that was in the cave first, and it’s bigger than you, and hungrier, and has very sharp teeth. In the beginning was the haunted house, and it was enough. But there’s also the desire of every storyteller to see just how expansive they can make things, to test the limits of the boundary of this particular subgenre and see how it can be altered, shifted, and edited into something new. In this space in the last year and a half, I’ve written about Rivers Solomon’s Model Home and Cherie Priest’s It Was Her House First. Both of them could be described as haunted house narratives; they are also both radically different from one another. See also Juan Martinez’s Extended Stay (technically about an uncanny hotel) and The Handyman Method by Nick Cutter and Andrew F. Sullivan. And so we come to Kim Fu’s The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts, which is also a haunted house novel of a sort, and yet feels like nothing like any of the books that I mentioned elsewhere in the paragraph. The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts begins in a mysterious place: with its protagonist Eleanor on the roof of a house. The reason why isn’t entirely clear, but the section ends on an especially ominous note: If only, that first day Eleanor saw the house, she’d hesitated longer, made a lower offer. If only one of Matt’s kids had woken up that morning with the flu, or an accident had blocked off the highway, or the rains had started sooner, washing out the mountain road. If only. Matt, it turns out, is a realtor Eleanor is working with to buy a house. Though Eleanor has been looking for one for a while, she hasn’t been working with him long; he’s filling in for his colleague Mary, who’s taking parental leave. Gradually, Fu reveals more about Eleanor. Her mother, Lele, recently died. Eleanor works as a therapist, though her career options are limited due to leaving her PhD program early. She had an excellent reason for doing so: namely, the predatory behavior and actions of her mentor. Eleanor is a challenging character to have at the center of a novel like this, as she’s enduring a deep depression, both from her mother’s recent death and from the lingering effects of the first years of the pandemic. (Some of Eleanor’s conversations with her colleagues are about their preferences for in-person versus virtual therapy sessions.) Her efforts to buy a house place her in a proactive place, but she’s also fulfilling her mother’s wishes by doing so. And despite the fact that Lele dies before this book begins, she is a major presence in the book, from the inheritance she left Eleanor, intended for a down payment, to the way that she and her daughter prepared for her death. If the initial allusions to this event seem sparse in Fu’s telling, there’s a reason for that: Gradually, a fuller picture emerges of how those days went, and precisely how they affected Eleanor. Buy the Book The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts Kim Fu Buy Book The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts Kim Fu Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget These early scenes also establish that Eleanor is already someone with a fraught relationship to the idea of “home.” Lele is an overprotective parent, as the parents of only children often are. (Full disclosure: I am an only child.) One of the people tasked with educating her instead betrayed her. Another colleague of hers, Teddy, seems affable enough, but also appears to harbor an attraction to Eleanor, which makes their friendship that much more fraught. There’s also the matter of the house that Eleanor ends up buying, a new building that was initially created as part of a residential community that stalled out. If you assume that there’s a story there, and that that story is not a good one, you would be correct. There’s a perfect storm of events that lead to a worrisome outcome: Mark urging Eleanor to make an offer on the house right away and to forgo some due diligence in making an offer. It isn’t clear if this is him providing sound advice or trying to sell a potential lemon; in the end, it doesn’t matter. Once Eleanor moves in, flaws with the structure become impossible to ignore. There’s also the matter of Lele’s presence lingering there. That last one is meant literally. Lele’s ghost sure seems to be a presence in Eleanor’s new home—which is dissonant in its own right, as she presumably never set foot in the place during her lifetime. That new home has a terrible history all its own, as well as a striking visual: a model home directly across from it that provides a surreal mirror to the building where Eleanor is trying, desperately, to settle in and begin healing. Lele’s visitations are treated less as occasions for dread and more as mysteries unto themselves. Given the degree to which this novel remains in Eleanor’s head, it’s also possible that Lele’s appearances should not be taken literally. However, Fu’s matter-of-fact prose finds a good balance between describing someone whose perception of the world is askew and the genuinely uncanny things that they witness. This time, when [Eleanor] emerged from the dream, finding herself back in bed, when she called out for Lele, she was there. She sat at the foot of the bed, facing away from Eleanor, the hair at the back of her head patchy and grey, the orange flowers spilling down her spine. Lele stood and made her way to the bedroom door without ever showing her face, her back always to Eleanor, her steps stately and measured. One of the interesting elements of The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts is that, title notwithstanding, the most overt ghost in it—i.e. Lele—isn’t vengeful at all. It’s reminiscent, of all things, of the film Crimson Peak, where the restless dead aren’t trying to harm the protagonist, but are instead trying in their way to warn her about the very alive murderer with designs on ending her life. There’s a moment early on in the novel when Matt urges Eleanor to “waive inspection” that’s the home ownership version of Chekhov’s gun on the mantlepiece. The consequences of that action are both absurd and horrific, prompting disquieting images of a pristine home turning increasingly unfamiliar. This scene also establishes one of the running themes of the novel: A substantial number of characters’ interactions are rooted in simple economics, with little chance that they will ever become something deeper.  If there’s a flaw here, it’s that Fu has placed a lot of elements into a relatively short novel. Eleanor’s grief for her mother and her reconnection to an old flame represent one thread; her economic precarity is another, as are her attempts to navigate life on her own without Lele’s active involvement in her life. There’s also the matter of Lele’s ghost and the accumulation of disasters in her house, as well as her professional travails; Fu has a knack for the way people can use therapeutic language in both appropriate and fraught situations. But there’s also a sense that this book could have been even more effective had it been longer; there’s plenty taking place here, but not all of it feels fully resolved by the conclusion. What Fu does especially well is finding a way to make this kind of narrative feel urgent in 2026. Why are we seeing an uptick in riffs on haunted houses now? I’d point to the lingering effects of the Great Recession on homeownership and, more broadly, to a growing sense of economic precarity throughout society. A 2017 New York Times Magazine article by Matthew Desmond bore the headline “How Homeownership Became the Engine of American Inequality,” and if that isn’t a scary story in its own right, I’m not sure what is. There are plenty of causes for dread and fear in The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts. It’s telling that the most prominent ghost among them is not high on that particular list.[end-mark] The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts is published by Tin House.Read an excerpt. The post Home of Dreams and Nightmares: <i>The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts</i> by Kim Fu appeared first on Reactor.