News Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Strange New Worlds Season 4 Episode Titles Include an Intriguing Next Generation Reference Whose Enterprise is it anyway? By Matthew Byrd | Published on July 17, 2026 Photo: Paramount+ Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Paramount+ The episode titles for the fourth season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds were just released, and wouldn’t you know that they include an incredibly tantalizing Next Generation Easter egg. For reference, here are the 10 upcoming episode titles in order of release: 1: “Valles Marineris”2: “The Griffin Incident”3: “Human Best Friend”4: “A Case of Chiaroscuro”5: “Level-Five Transporter Accident”6: “Off-Hour”7: “Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass”8: “Orders of Magnitude”9: “Once La’An a Time”10: “Tomorrow’s Enterprise” While there are a few notable names on that list (Could “Level-Five Transporter Accident” be the puppet episode? What’s up with “Once La’An a Time?”) the early standout is undoubtedly “Tomorrow’s Enterprise.” On the surface, it is at least a callback to the beloved Season 3 episode of The Next Generation (“Yesterday’s Enterprise“), which showed an alternate timeline and a different version of the Enterprise. Naturally, the similar episode titles have sparked speculation that the Strange New Worlds‘ Season 4 finale could pull off a similar feat of timeline jumping. However, just to throw a reasonable dash of cold water on some of the more optimistic speculation, it’s likely that the episode title is just a cute reference. For that matter, it’s also possible that the wording refers to some kind of event that brings us closer to the events of Star Trek: TOS. We know the series is gradually heading in that direction, and a giant leap forward would certainly make for an appropriate finale that sets up the show’s fifth and final season. Still, one shouldn’t lose hope for another wild timeline manipulation adventure that sees the Strange New Worlds crew just get weird with it ahead of the end of all things (relatively speaking). It is, after all, what they often do best.[end-mark] The post <i>Strange New Worlds</i> Season 4 Episode Titles Include an Intriguing <i>Next Generation</i> Reference appeared first on Reactor.

News God of War God of War Will Have a New Lead After Ryan Hurst’s On-Set Injury Who will step into Kratos’ powerful boots? By Molly Templeton | Published on July 17, 2026 Credit: Justin Lubin/Prime Video Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Justin Lubin/Prime Video This is a huge change for Prime Video’s God of War adaptation: After star Ryan Hurst’s on-set injury last month, the video game adaptation will recast the lead role of Kratos. As Deadline reports, Hurst tore a bicep, a serious injury that required surgery and will involve months of recovery. Deadline writes that “while Hurst’s full recovery is a priority, the period required for it was longer than the production shooting schedule could accommodate, leading to the difficult decision to recast the role.” Hurst had reportedly gained 40 pounds of muscle for the physically demanding role; as the character description says, “Kratos is Spartan by birth, and a god by nature. Raised in a martial culture, he rose to command armies in service of his homeland until one day he made a fateful deal with Ares, the Greek God of War and lost his soul in exchange for being victorious in battle.” Deadline says that four episodes had been completed when Hurst was injured—and now those will all have to be reshot with a new lead. That lead will join Callum Vinson, who plays Kratos’ son, along with castmates Mandy Patinkin (Odin), Ed Skrein (Baldur), Max Parker (Heimdall), Sonya Walger (Freya), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Thor), Teresa Palmer (Sif), Alastair Duncan (Mimir), Jeff Gulka (Sindri), and Danny Woodburn (Brok). God of War is expected to resume production this fall.[end-mark] The post <i>God of War</i> Will Have a New Lead After Ryan Hurst’s On-Set Injury appeared first on Reactor.

Books Science The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding What do cheetahs and genetic bottlenecks have to do with interstellar colonization? Glad you asked… By James Davis Nicoll | Published on July 17, 2026 Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Well-timed synchronicity is a wonderful thing. There’s nothing quite like the intellectual zing one experiences when one scientific presentation casts an unexpected light on a seemingly unrelated theory or idea. I was the beneficiary of this phenomenon last week, when scarcely twenty-eight years1 after reading Geoffrey Landis’ “The Fermi Paradox: An Approach Based on Percolation Theory,” a Lindsay Nikole video essay on an entirely unrelated matter suggested an interesting embellishment. But first! A quick background on the Fermi Paradox and on Percolation Theory as applied to it, for those of you who can’t be bothered to click the relevant links above. The Fermi Paradox isn’t really a paradox so much as a question for which we currently lack a compelling, satisfactory answer. Back of the envelope calculations suggest that even modest propulsion technology should be sufficient for a single technological species to spread throughout the galaxy in a geological instant. However, when we look around, there is no evidence that this has ever happened2. Thus, Enrico Fermi’s “But where is everybody?” Landis’ proposed explanation centred on the fact that even for technologically sophisticated species, interstellar colonization is likely to be difficult and expensive. Not every civilization will bother to invest scarce resources in projects that by the nature of light-speed lag and distance can do them no direct good. Furthermore, light-speed lag and distance mean that child civilizations must be functionally independent of parent cultures. That could be a full stop to further expansions, as there’s no guarantee that colony worlds will want to invest in spawning their own colonies. If the likelihood that colonies will be colonizers is low, then the effort peters out very quickly. Even when there is a civilizational commitment to colonization, the vagaries of chance will produce a patchy network of settled systems. Large swathes of space would remain unsettled. Perhaps an example is in order. For convenience, consider the Stellar Database entry for Sol. Suppose for the sake of argument that the longest practical distance for colonization is 6 light-years. There are at present two stellar systems within 6 light-years of Sol: Alpha Centauri and Barnard’s Star. The only stellar system within 6 light-years of Alpha Centauri is Sol. The only stellar systems within 6 light-years of Barnard’s Star are Sol and Ross 154. The only star within 6 light-years of Ross 154 is Barnard’s Star. Thus, the poor Solarians can only reach four systems before their technology is no longer up to the task3. Fans of the venerable tabletop roleplaying game 2300 AD know that increasing the maximum practical distance slightly (to 7.7 light-years) produces an interesting stellar road map where stars that are comparatively close to Sol while being farther than the maximum practical distance can only be reached via a circuitous chain of intermediary systems, if they can be reached at all. Tau Ceti, for example, is only about 12 light-years away but a ship limited to 7.7 light-year legs ends up covering 60 light-years as it dog-legs from system to system. This is merely a plot-enabling inconvenience in 2300 AD, which features faster-than-light travel. In a world where there is no FTL, where every intermediate system needs to be settled and developed before a flotilla can be dispatched further down the line, the chain of colonies might peter out well before reaching Tau Ceti. OK, so what does that have to do with Lindsay Nikole, who as you know is a zoologist and author with a colorful vocabulary whose interests, while expansive, appear to be entirely terrestrial? (That we know of.) Among Nikole’s interests: cats, big and otherwise. Thus, videos discussing various feline species. Thus, a video about cheetahs. Thus, a video titled “How cheetahs became genetically f***ed.” How did cheetahs become genetically f***ed? Long version, watch Nikole’s video. Short version: bottlenecks. Cheetahs experienced diverse catastrophes (see what I did there?) that left remnant populations with much smaller genetic diversity. Repeated catastrophes led to new bottlenecks, each of which further reduced overall species genetic diversity. This lack of diversity makes cheetahs vulnerable. Any disease that kills one cheetah will likely kill them all. We can apply Landis’ argument to interstellar colonization here: Each colonization is a genetic bottleneck. The first colony is a subset of the whole population of the mother world. The second one is limited to a subset of the first colony. The third… well, you can connect the dots. Let’s do some math. We’ll assume the colonizers aren’t idiots trying to emulate the Ptolemaic Dynasty… IN SPACE!4. Say they manage to preserve 90% of the genetic diversity of the species available to them. What does this look like in practice? Colony% of original diversity remaining1902813734665596537488439391034 Extend the sequence far enough and you probably get populations that are functionally so closely related you could do skin grafts between random individuals. While that would be tremendously convenient for the skin graft industry, it would leave the colonists in the same situation as cheetahs—so uniform that any circumstance that imperils one individual would imperil every member of their species on that planet. Which is bad. Maybe there’s a fix. If there isn’t—if genetic bottlenecks are an intractable problem—then what Landis called “percolation probability” would be low. To quote Landis, “For P<Pc, colonization will always terminate after a finite number of colonies.” Which is consistent with what we see.[end-mark] I often consider events that play out over geological time frames, so twenty-eight years is nothing. ︎We also don’t see any evidence of radio-based interstellar communication, something that is quite doable even with our modest technology. ︎At least for the moment. Stars move. ︎I hear the eugenicists protesting that this would be an excellent chance to select the very best genes, ensuring a planet of superhumans ten or twenty links down the line. But if we actually look at our own history, we note that the products of aristocratic inbreeding have fallen very short of superhuman. Second, which traits are desirable depends on context. The same traits that allow one to flourish in Toronto will serve you very badly at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. ︎ The post The Fermi Paradox, Percolation, and Inbreeding appeared first on Reactor.

News What to Watch What to Watch and Read This Weekend: The Air Is Smoke, the Lettuce Is Bad, but the Vampire Is Lestat Plus: Major outlets are apparently still shocked that women read fantasy By Molly Templeton | Published on July 17, 2026 Image Credit: Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Comment 0 Share New Share Image Credit: Image: Sophie Giraud/AMC Friends on the other side of the country, I am so sorry. I know exactly what it’s like to try to go outside and be stymied by unbearably smoky air. Wear your masks, run your air purifiers, and maybe, you know, stay indoors as much as you can? It’s vile out there. As if this year has not been difficult enough, this summer has taken a hard turn into bonus-level terrible, what with the exploding diarrhea virus and the unbreathable air, and the knowledge that some of these things could be stopped—or at least ameliorated—if, as a nation, our priorities were different. (That’s about as diplomatic as I can be on that front.) While you’re avoiding the outside this weekend, perhaps you want to hang out with some vampires, or go to space, or think about hungry stars? As always, hug your friends, call your reps, and—given that it’s summer—stay hydrated, okay? Seven Episodes Is Not Enough: The Vampire Lestat In this house it is The Vampire Lestat Finale Week which means I am tearing my way through The Queen of the Damned—which had better be this show’s fourth season, goddammit! I need renewal news!—and buying Calvino novels (those two Calvino references have to mean something, right?) and also considering spending much of my Saturday rewatching the first six episodes of this all-too-short season. It’s like watching two long Marvel movies! I can do it! And I guess what I’m saying here is that you could, in theory, make time to do the same. The finale arrives Sunday on AMC/AMC+ and given the tumultuous events of last week’s episode, I am ever so slightly frothing at the mouth to see where this wild series goes, and how they wind it all up, and did I mention I need renewal news like, yesterday? I have a feeling they’ll make any big announcements next weekend at San Diego Comic Con. But I am impatient. “This Star Just Ate a Planet” This one both is and isn’t the plot of a novel: “This Star Just Ate a Planet, and It’s Not Done Yet” is the headline of a fascinating New York Times article about … well, it does what it says on the tin. “For many planets, it is their cosmic fate to one day become engulfed within their own stars, then slowly melted down into their constituent elements,” writes Becky Ferreira. Isn’t this what happens (in part) in Slow Gods? I admit I was so invested in the characters of that book that I may have glossed over the planetary mechanics. Anyway! It’s always kind of neat—and maybe a little terrifying—when these things happen close enough (relatively speaking) that our little (in the grand scheme of things) human tools and minds can witness them.  Speaking of Stars, Planets, and Drama… … Strange New World returns to our happy little screens next Thursday! While the show’s last season was frustrating, I remain eternally enthusiastic about hanging out with this cast, and eternally hopeful that maybe, just maybe, Paul Wesley will still get a show starring his version of Captain James T. Kirk. Given all the changes at Paramount, that might not be likely—but one can still hope. My specific hope for this season is that it does not spend a lot more time shoving various interesting characters at Spock in the hope that some love interest sticks. And also that La’an gets a lot of screen time. And also Pelia. And also … you know, honestly, it doesn’t matter; I’m going to watch it regardless. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is back on Paramount Plus on July 23rd.  Apparently Women Just Discovered Fantasy This week, the usually quite good Guardian newsletter tackled romantasy, which was totally fine and good except when they wrote of the genre: “It also gives women an access point to fantasy, a traditionally male-heavy genre, both in authorship and fandom.” With all due respect to romantasy—which I do think has brought new readers into SFF!—I don’t think I have to tell Reactor readers that women have been writing and reading fantasy for as long as there has been fantasy. A statement like this erases a ton of work from a laundry list of incredible writers. So here’s my weekend suggestion for you: read a fantasy novel by a woman published at least 30 years ago. And for bonus points, look past the biggest names! I grew up almost exclusively reading fantasy by women, obsessed with authors like Jo Clayton, Melanie Rawn, Barbara Hambly, Diane Duane, Patricia Kennealy, Jennifer Roberson, Pamela F. Service, and Patricia McKillip. (I will note that in the mall bookstore in the ’80s and ’90s, one mostly found fantasy novels by white women. The diversity was not great.) There are so many more names; if you need a list to pore over, you might investigate James Davis Nicoll’s “Fighting Erasure” posts.  Honestly, twenty years ago I thought we were maybe finally through with the “Ooh, women have discovered genre!” conversation. But apparently not.[end-mark] The post What to Watch and Read This Weekend: The Air Is Smoke, the Lettuce Is Bad, but the Vampire Is Lestat appeared first on Reactor.

Books reading recommendations Five Books About Battling Doubles, Doppelgängers, and Clones From evil twins to alter egos that take on a life of their own, you’re always your own worst enemy… By Lorna Wallace | Published on July 16, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share Science fiction, fantasy, and horror books can be filled with foes of all kinds—from aliens and orcs to ghosts and slashers. But there’s something uniquely and horribly unsettling about having to battle a version (or multiple versions!) of yourself—be they a double, doppelgänger, or clone. Facing off against a double is a fairly common problem in the world of superheroes, with everyone from Superman to Captain America having gone toe-to-toe with themselves. Such mirror matches usually play out the same way: the characters are a physical match, but something about the hero’s idiosyncratic identity—be it their tenacity, heart, or past experiences—gives them the extra boost needed to defeat their alternative (often evil!) self. Outside the world of comic books, however, dealing with doubles can get a little more complicated. Not only do doppelgängers and clones often bring a character’s inner demons to the surface, but defeating them can also be a little trickier—as the five books below demonstrate. The Dark Half by Stephen King (1989) Thad Beaumont has made a successful career out of being a novelist—but not under his own name. All of his best-selling books—which are ultra-violent crime novels—have been written under the pen name George Stark. The story starts with Thad deciding to retire the pseudonym, which he does by staging a fake funeral for his alter ego. But Stark doesn’t want to be killed off and literally claws his way out of the grave to enact bloody revenge on anyone who had a part in his death. The Dark Half is clearly a personal book for Stephen King, who wrote a few novels under the pen name Richard Bachman. So it makes sense that there’s a good deal of introspection about personal and authorial identity in the story, but it’s also full of gruesome kills thanks to Stark’s murder spree (which lands Thad in hot water because while they aren’t 100% superficially identical, the two do share fingerprints and DNA). The Dark Half might not be one of King’s best books—it’s admittedly hard to top masterpieces like The Stand (1978) and IT (1986)—but it is one of his most underrated. Dark Matter by Blake Crouch (2016) Dark Matter is a sci-fi thriller that works brilliantly when you go in knowing absolutely nothing. Since it’s on this list, I’ve already revealed that there’s some sort of double or doppelgänger shenanigans going on, but what form that takes can still be a surprise (and won’t be revealed in the description below!). The book starts with physics professor Jason Dessen being knocked out while walking home one night and then waking up to a changed world. His wife claims they never married, his teenage son doesn’t exist, and he’s apparently been working on an experimental physics project. All Jason wants is to get his family back, but achieving that might not be so easy. The journey that Jason goes on in Dark Matter is hectic, twisty, and mind-bending. That isn’t exactly ideal for our main character, but for the reader it results in a fast-paced plot that barrels breathlessly forward. The Murders of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson (2017) In some sci-fi stories, clones get on fairly well with each other, but The Murders of Molly Southbourne is not one of them. Molly Southbourne has a bizarre condition: every time she bleeds a clone of her is created, and that clone will eventually try to murder her. The novella starts with one of these clones—which Molly refers to as “mollies”—waking up chained to a wall in a basement. She’s confused and can’t remember how she got there, and then Molly comes in and tells her the story of her life. Tade Thompson manages to pack a lot into this compact novella. The tale that Molly tells is strange, engrossing, and, as would be expected from the premise, very bloody. Such Lovely Skin by Tatiana Schlote-Bonne (2024) Teenager Viv has had the summer from hell, but her life is about to get even worse. She accidentally killed her little sister and then lied about it and she’s been wallowing in a pit of grief and guilt ever since. With school about start up again, she decides to try to get back to some sense of normality by doing her first Twitch stream—which is how she makes money—in months. While doing an offline run-through of an indie horror game, Viv reveals the truth of her sister’s death to an NPC (non-playable character). But telling this secret allows an evil mimic to latch onto her. The demonic doppelgänger starts causing mayhem, but Viv is only able to convince one person that she isn’t the culprit: Ash, an outcast boy who she’s previously spread nasty rumors about (unbeknownst to him). I found Viv’s self-obsessed personality to be a little bit grating, but the visceral horror imagery throughout the book more than makes up for that. The Other by Annie Neugebauer (2026) I’m a sucker for any story that takes place in the woods (and I just recently put together a list of horror stories set in jungles and rainforests!) and The Other makes great use of its nature setting. Elise and Logan are at a crossroads in their marriage, so they’ve gone on a multi-day hike in the woods to give them space to think and talk through their relationship. It’s initially a quiet retreat, but then they come across another couple on the trail who look eerily like them. Although a little unsettled by the coincidence, they’ve already set up camp and it’s rapidly getting dark so they decide to stick it out. But then they wake up the next morning to find that the other couple are now not only identical to them, but they’re also claiming to be them. The Other is the kind of fast-paced novella that can be read in just a couple of sittings. It’s an incredibly stressful premise—Elise and Logan aren’t even sure of each other anymore, but they know that they can’t let their doppelgängers get back to the car at the trailhead—and it’s made all the more tense by the isolated setting. There are surely plenty of other books out there that feature someone having to battle an alternate version of themselves. Be it a classic or something more modern, feel free to leave your suggestions and recommendations in the comments below![end-mark] The post Five Books About Battling Doubles, Doppelgängers, and Clones appeared first on Reactor.