Column Science Fiction Film Club Under the Skin: A Brilliant and Disturbing Alien Point of View This film is a perfect distillation of everything I love about alien-on-Earth stories. By Kali Wallace | Published on February 25, 2026 Credit: StudioCanal/A24 Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: StudioCanal/A24 Under the Skin (2013) Directed by Jonathan Glazer. Written by Walter Campbell and Jonathan Glazer, based on the novel of the same name by Michel Faber. Starring Scarlett Johansson. In her 1974 book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard describes walking along a creek looking for frogs. She finds one that doesn’t startle and jump away as she expects. It doesn’t move at all, and as she watches something peculiar happens: “And just as I looked at him, he slowly crumpled and began to sag. The spirit vanished from his eyes as if snuffed. His skin emptied and drooped; his very skull seemed to collapse and settle like a kicked tent. He was shrinking before my eyes like a deflating football.” The frog is being devoured by a giant water bug (Lethocerus americanus), an aquatic insect that hunts by injecting digestive enzymes into its prey and sucking out the liquified insides. Like many American high school students, I read this well-known and oft-quoted passage in English class long before I read the rest of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I don’t know how other students reacted to it, but I was instantly enamored. Not with giant water bugs—I don’t think I’ve ever met one, I’m sure they’re very nice bugs—but with the descriptive writing in those few paragraphs. The matter-of-fact clarity and vivid similes with which Dillard describes the scene, the tone that carries a muted sense of both awe and horror, the acknowledgement that parts of the world can be both very natural and totally alien to everyday human experience—all of this lodged in my brain and never let go. It sits there among the small number of specific pieces of writing that made me want to be a writer. I kept thinking about the giant water bug while I was watching Under the Skin. Mostly, yes, because of the eerie, amazing scene where the aliens give the giant water bug treatment to one of their human victims and suck his insides out in a slurry to leave a floating, folding, weirdly graceful skin husk behind. But it’s also because the film made me think both “I’m fascinated by how this movie is telling its story” and “I want to learn how to do that.” I hadn’t seen Under the Skin before watching it for this column, because I had somehow gotten the impression that it was more of a traditional horror film. I’m not sure where I got that idea, but it was wrong. The film is deeply, deeply unsettling, but it’s not scary in the way that jump-scare horror movies are. It’s also brilliant. Several critics have called it a masterpiece, and I’m inclined to agree that it deserves that designation. It’s beautiful and strange and unnerving. It’s so very good. I’m glad I finally watched it. The movie is a very loose adaptation of the novel Under the Skin by Michel Faber, which I haven’t read. It didn’t start out as a loose adaptation; it started out as something a lot closer to the book. Jonathan Glazer read an early and very faithful script in 2004, a few years after the book was published. In an interview with The Guardian for the film’s 2014 release, he described his reaction: “I knew then that I absolutely didn’t want to film the book. But I still wanted to make the book a film.” That’s an interesting distinction, and it helps explain why it took so long for the film to come together. Glazer first worked with screenwriter Milo Addica (with whom he had collaborated on his 2004 film Birth), but eventually he began working with Walter Campbell, who isn’t a feature film screenwriter at all but somebody Glazer had worked with in his other filmmaking career: advertising. Because Under the Skin was a much buzzed-about critical favorite, and because Glazer’s 2023 film The Zone of Interest won an Academy Award, it’s easy to forget that he really only makes movies about once a decade. The bulk of his work has been in advertising and music videos; examples include the famous Guinness “Surfer” commercial and music videos for Blur’s “The Universal” and Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity.” Glazer and Campbell rewrote the script several times, and after a certain point they weren’t really adapting the novel at all. Campbell has said he never even read it. And they certainly never consulted with Faber, although according to Campbell somebody involved in the rights deal read the script and said, “Oh, I really love it. And I also love the fact that I can still sell the rights to Under the Skin.”   Before you get angry on the author’s behalf, it’s important to note that while Faber hasn’t said much about the film over the years, what little he has said makes it clear that he views adaptation as an act of creating a wholly separate work, and he doesn’t feel remotely precious about or slighted by the film’s approach. In a 2014 interview he said, “A mediocre or weak adaptation that tried to be faithful would have upset me; a strong adaptation that took wild liberties made me very happy.” And he went on to emphasize his point: “For me, the ideal book-into-film adaptation of all time was Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Ruthlessly unfaithful and yet true to the essence.” I don’t know if Under the Skin qualifies as “ruthlessly unfaithful.” From the bits I’ve read of the book and the synopsis it doesn’t seem to go quite as far as something like Apocalypse Now. What it does is pare the premise down to its bones and leave a very lean, ambiguous story in its place. The book is explicitly about extraterrestrials from a stratified corporate society who come to Earth to harvest humans for food, focusing on one alien character whose views on this work change as she does it. The movie not only removes any details about the alien society, but it removes all of the science fictional context to focus instead, minutely and obsessively, on a single character’s perspective as an outside observer in the human world. That character, played by Scarlett Johannson, doesn’t have a name. None of the characters have names. We don’t know if this is her job. We don’t even really know if she’s an alien, where she comes from, how she got here, what she wants. It’s not a great leap of logic to assume she’s hunting her victims for food, although it’s never stated outright. There’s a lot of implication and a lot of suggestion between the film’s very limited dialogue, but nothing is explained—and the film is all the more powerful for it. Any explication would detract from the film’s impact, because this is not a movie designed to let sci fi fans feel clever while deciphering the worldbuilding. It’s a film designed to make the audience feel very, very uncomfortable. Under the Skin was also filmed in an unusual way, or at least an unusual way for a movie that stars one of the most recognizable actors in the business. (Under the Skin premiered at festivals in 2013, but in 2014 it went into wide release on the exact same day as Captain America: The Winter Soldier.) Because Glazer and cinematographer Daniel Landin wanted to capture natural reactions to Johannson’s character approaching men on random roadsides, they filmed those prowling scenes with hidden cameras and unsuspecting members of the public. They built cameras into the van and hid the film crew in the back while Johannson drove around Glasgow. Sometimes Glazer would point out somebody for her to approach; sometimes she would veto the choice and approach somebody else instead. The film crew let her decide where to drive and how to start the conversations, and apparently she was almost never recognized, which is a fine demonstration of humankind’s impressive inability to recognize famous faces out of context. Glazer, who is English, has also joked that Johannson, who is American but was using an English accent, was much better at understanding the strongest Scottish accents, so he wasn’t even always sure what they were saying. That’s almost certainly a humorous exaggeration, but I like the idea of a director crouched awkwardly in the back of an unmarked van while his lead actor carries on conversations he only partly follows. Similarly, many of the scenes where the character is moving through public places, such as walking through the shopping center or tripping and falling on the street, were filmed with hidden cameras and members of the public. In the shopping center, they put the camera in a mop bucket to follow Johannson as she walked along. The purpose was to capture ordinary people reacting to the character in ordinary human environments, not extras on a controlled set being told how to act. After the initial approach and interaction, they did, of course, tell the participants what was going on and explain what would be expected if they were to be in the film. And there are a few professional actors in the movie, such as Kryštof Hádek as the swimmer at the beach and Paul Brannigan as the man in the club. Adam Pearson, who has neurofibromatosis that results in facial tumors, had worked in television as a presenter and researcher, but Under the Skin was his first acting role. When casting the other alien hunter, they didn’t need him to say anything, they just needed him to look intimidating and drive a motorcycle around the rainy Scottish countryside safely, so they brought on professional racer Jeremy McWilliams. Dave Acton, who plays the forestry worker who assaults Johansson’s character at the end of the film, was actually the owner of a plot of land near Loch Lomond where some of those scenes were filmed. In a short clip from the film’s Blu-ray release, casting director Kathleen Crawford talks about working with Acton to get a non-actor comfortable with filming such violent scenes. (The bothy itself is Rowchoish Bothy on the West Highlands Way.) (You now have “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond” stuck in your head but I’m not sorry.) Under the Skin doesn’t look or feel like a film filled with candid scenes and amateurs. It’s a very polished, deliberate, thoughtful film, with beautiful cinematography and a deliberate, fully realized atmosphere. There are also artful practical effects in those creepy black room scenes, which they filmed using a lot of on-set trickery, lighting, and darkness, while having the men actually walk down steps into a filled pool. So the goal of the hidden cameras and non-actor cast members was not to mimic a documentary or cinéma vérité style of observational filmmaking. The movie isn’t trying to make the audience feel as though we are a fly on the wall watching events unfold. What it’s doing instead is centering us in the point-of-view of this character, this alien who has quite literally donned a human suit in order to hunt humans, and all that entails—which is quite a lot. It matters that she moves through the world as an exceptionally beautiful woman picking up men, because her tactics are dependent on certain assumptions about who gets to move safely through the world and who does not. She knows what questions to ask to determine if a man has people who will notice he’s missing, but the way she asks them is not quite natural. She’s reciting practiced conversation prompts and being a bit awkwardly invasive about it. It shouldn’t work, just as bringing the men to a damp, disgusting abandoned house for sex shouldn’t work, but the human suit she’s wearing does not present as a threat to the men she targets. The scenes that most firmly establishes the alienness happen quite early in the film. They are also my favorite scenes, because they’re among the best scenes I’ve seen in any film, and the most disturbing. I’m talking about the sequence of events at the beach, when Johannson’s character is talking to a lone man (Kryštof Hádek) to size him up as a victim. Elsewhere on the beach two parents and a baby are enjoying what looks like a fairly normal day out, but things take a dangerous turn when the woman (Alison Chand) races into the dangerous surf to rescue the family dog. The man (Roy Armstrong) tries to swim after her, and when he struggles the swimmer (Hádek) tries to rescue him. But the man runs right back into the water, and both parents drown. Johannson’s character watches all of this from a distance, with no visible emotion or reaction. When the swimmer crawls back to shore, she hits him with a rock to kill him and drags his body toward her van. That’s what she came here for, after all, and the deaths of two people were only a distraction. She doesn’t spare a glance for the couple’s baby, now left alone on the beach. Nor does her motorcycle-riding fellow hunter (McWilliams) when he returns to the beach that night to clean up. Neither of them reacts to the crying child at all. There is only cold indifference, which forces us, the audience, to helplessly watch events play out while all of our instincts are screaming against what’s happening in screen. These are brilliant scenes. There’s minimal violence and no gore, and the impact is all the more powerful for it. It’s immediately disorienting, because even if we are complete inured to the kind of violence that comes from adults luring other adults into vans, we aren’t expecting this. We’re now firmly in the alien perspective, and we hate it. We just want somebody to help that baby. (For the record: The baby was unharmed in real life. I didn’t even realize that was a concern people had until I saw some of the most bizarre online arguments in decade-old comment threads.) That scene serves as a starting point, and the rest of the movie follows along as the character wears the human suit for so long she starts looking into the mirror and doubting what she sees. That’s when things begin to falter. She meets Pearson’s character, who is treated inhumanely by other humans, and can’t bring herself to kill him. She lets him go and tries to abandon the hunt. She tries to be human for a while. Tries mundane human experiences: eating food, riding the bus, watching TV, having sex. The trial fails, of course. It was doomed before it really began. She can’t eat what humans eat. Nothing inside her human suit has changed except for how she feels, and that’s not enough. Outside of the controlled environment of her van and the encounters she engineers, she’s vulnerable to a very common human predator: a man who sees women as objects for his sexual gratification. The ending is sad, quiet, and inevitable. I love this movie. I love everything about it. It’s brilliant, it’s upsetting, and it’s so, so well made. It’s a perfect distillation of everything I love about alien-on-Earth stories, with the unfamiliar perspective, the isolation, the strangeness. It’s about both observing humans and being human, about the assumptions we make and the violence we live with and the imperfect rituals we perform when we interact. All art is, on some level, about humanity examining and attempting to understand ourselves, and I love that this film embraces that theme without trying to offer any easy, comforting answers or explanations. What do you think about Under the Skin? How does it sit in relation to the other movies we’ve watched about alien visitors among us? Does anybody who’s read the book have thoughts on this type of adaptation?[end-mark] March Moon Madness Sci fi movies have been going to the Moon since the very earliest days of cinema, so we’re going to do a little survey of Moon visits throughout the month of March. March 4 — Woman in the Moon (1929), directed by Fritz Lang This is the movie that Lang made between the more famous Metropolis and M. It’s about going to the Moon. Watch it online, plus a quick search brings up several alternative uploads. Watch a clip here. March 11 — Destination Moon (1950), directed by George Pal This one is also about going to the Moon. Watch it online. View the trailer. March 18 — First Men in the Moon (1964), directed by Nathan Juran You’re not going to believe it: This is about going to the Moon, this time with creatures made by Ray Harryhausen. Watch it online. Trailer. March 25 — Moon (2009), directed by Duncan Jones This one is not about going to the Moon. It’s about already being Sam Rockwell on the Moon and thinking you get to leave soon when things turn… weird. Watch it online. Trailer. The post <i>Under the Skin</i>: A Brilliant and Disturbing Alien Point of View appeared first on Reactor.

Books Five Books About Five Fantasy Books Featuring Class Difference Romance These novels craft compelling romances — perfect for reading between episodes of Bridgerton! By Markelle Grabo | Published on February 25, 2026 A Fragile Enchantment cover art by Kelly Chong Comment 0 Share New Share A Fragile Enchantment cover art by Kelly Chong Dearest gentle reader, if you’re anything like me, you’re anxiously awaiting the release of Bridgerton Season 4 Part 2 after binge watching all of Part 1 (despite promising to pace yourself this time). Episodes should be released weekly to avoid this problem but, alas, I’m just an author, not a streaming executive. At least while we wait for Sophie and Benedict to grace our screens again, we have books to fill the void. We have fantasy books featuring class difference romance, to be exact, where the characters are divided by society but not what lies in their hearts. In my opinion, there’s nothing more compelling than lovers who refuse to bend to class expectations and are determined to be together against all odds. Not only does this make for a dashingly romantic story, but the writer can explore complex themes like class privilege, power dynamics, and what ultimately connects us as humans. (Or non-humans. This is a fantasy novel rec list, after all.) I’m a writer exploring such themes. My upcoming gothic fantasy, The Redwood Bargain, features a sapphic romance between a kitchen maid and the noble lady she’s agreed to impersonate in a deadly bargain with a forest creature. It’s a love letter to those who yearn, but also a story about power—who wields it and in what ways, and how the choices made by the powerful can irrevocably change the lives of those caught in the fallout. If that sounds intriguing, then you’ll love these five fantasy books also featuring class difference romance: A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft In this romantic fantasy, magical dressmaker Niamh is commissioned to design the wardrobe for a royal wedding, only to find herself caught in a scandal when her undeniable chemistry with the groom, Kit, makes her the target of a gossip columnist.   Featuring a Regency-England inspired fantasy setting with queer representation; a gossip columnist akin to Lady Whistledown; and a nuanced, swoon worthy grumpy/sunshine forbidden romance, A Fragile Enchantment checks so many boxes for fans of Bridgerton. Yet Saft takes things a step further by giving the gossip columnist motivations beyond, well, gossip. As unrest brews amid the working class, the mysterious writer blackmails Niamh to help uncover the royal family’s secrets, which threads themes of social inequality, political intrigue, and court drama into this dreamy tale. The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall In this swashbuckling queer fantasy, genderfluid pirate Florian and the high-born Lady Evelyn Hasegawara hail from completely different worlds but are nevertheless drawn together as they set sail on the pirate ship, Dove. Florian is part of the crew while Evelyn is a passenger on her way to a dreaded arranged marriage, but they share a yearning to defy their given roles in life. Amid a turbulent voyage, they fall in love and orchestrate a daring escape.  Florian and Evelyn’s romantic arc plays an essential part of the novel’s critique of colonialism and imperialism as well as its exploration of gender and identity, with each character helping the other learn important truths about the world and themselves. The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea is for those who are enjoying Bridgerton season 4’s foray into class commentary but would like to wade into deeper waters.  An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole Class difference romance doesn’t always have to involve royalty/nobility. In the modern dark academia fantasy, An Arcane Inheritance, the societal division between rivals-to-lovers Ellory and Hudson is centered on wealth and family history. They attend the same elite university, but Ellory is an immigrant and a scholarship student, while Hudson is a legacy student from a wealthy Connecticut family.  Something I love about their slow-burn romance is that even though Ellory and Hudson begin as academic rivals, as soon as they partner up to investigate the university’s occult origins, their barriers begin to break down, and any outside forces trying to keep them apart are no match for the strength of their connection. Cole does a great job portraying the complexities of Hudson’s privilege, and Ellory discovers she has more in common with him than she thought. But since mystery lies at the heart of this story, I won’t spoil any of that here.  Malice by Heather Walter Malice is a sapphic retelling of “Sleeping Beauty” that follows the POV of the “evil sorceress”—known as Alyce in this version. The nobles who pay her to brew hexes also deem her a monster, but not the beautiful (and cursed) Princess Aurora. She wants Alyce to be proud of her gifts. But Aurora is meant to wed the prince who saves her with true love’s kiss, not a commoner. But could Alyce be the one to lift Aurora’s curse and keep her from dying on her twenty-first birthday? You’ll have to read Malice (and its sequel, Misrule) to find out, but I love the complexity, beauty, and darkness surrounding Alyce and Aurora’s romance. Alyce is as villainous as the world pushes her to be, and her and Aurora’s views as women from different backgrounds are satisfyingly challenged and reshaped by their love affair and the events of the duology.  Liar’s Kingdom by Christine Calella It’d be remiss of me not to include a “Cinderella” retelling in a list inspired by Bridgerton season 4, so let’s end with Liar’s Kingdom, in which the girl who fits the glass slipper is not actually the girl the prince met at the ball.  In this twist on a fairy tale classic, Ell decides to let Prince Bayard believe she is the mystery girl he’s fallen in love with to escape her cruel stepfamily. Yet while Ell is drawn to Bayard’s kindness, she can’t ignore his dashing best friend, Maxim. Romance isn’t the novel’s dominant force, but Ell’s newly privileged place at court as Bayard’s betrothed grants her opportunities to advocate for castle servants and the less fortunate. She, Bayard, and Maxim begin the novel with assumptions about one another that are proven to be more nuanced, and I think readers will see a lot of Sophie in Ell’s journey of healing and empowerment.[end-mark] Buy the Book The Redwood Bargain Markelle Grabo Buy Book The Redwood Bargain Markelle Grabo Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget The post Five Fantasy Books Featuring Class Difference Romance appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts gothic fantasy Read an Excerpt From Innamorata by Ava Reid Once there was an island where the dead walked the earth, and seven noble houses ruled by the arcane secrets of necromancy. By Ava Reid | Published on February 24, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Innamorata by Ava Reid, the first part of a dark gothic fantasy duology publishing with Del Rey on March 17. Once there was an island where the dead walked the earth, and seven noble houses ruled by the arcane secrets of necromancy.A conqueror’s blade brought them low, burning their libraries, killing their lords, and extinguishing their eldritch magic.But defiant against the new order stands the House of Teeth and its last living members: beautiful Marozia, the heiress to the House, and her cousin, the uncanny Lady Agnes.Though she has not spoken a word in seven years, Agnes is the true carrier of the House’s legacy. And she has her orders. She must recapture the secrets of death magic and avenge her family’s fallen honor. She must arrange the betrothal of her beloved cousin Marozia to Liuprand, heir to the conqueror’s throne, for access to the forbidden library in his grotesquely grand castle.Revenge burns in Agnes’s heart but so do stranger passions—and it is Liuprand, the golden prince, who speaks to her soul. This passion is as treasonous as it is powerful, poisoning the kingdom’s roots and threatening to tear the already shattered realm in two.For Agnes’s final order is the gravest: She must not fall in love. There was very little left of Adele-Blanche’s body now. None of what remained was the inheritance of any great house, yet by Article III of the Covenant, it all must be obliterated immediately. The Covenant also restricted the methods of expunging it: There could not be a pyre; vultures could not be permitted to feast upon it; it could not be sent out to sea; and, of course, it could not be buried. So here at last was the paramount duty of the Most Esteemed Surgeon. Both Swallow and Wrestbone helped the Surgeon down from his dais and allowed him to grip their arms for balance as he maneuvered toward the very last remains of their departed mistress. The Most Esteemed Surgeon wore heavy wooden clogs. Holding on to Swallow and Wrestbone, he stomped Adele-Blanche’s entrails into the mud. Thudding, squelching, like he was mashing grapes for wine, until the red matter of her grandmother was reduced to invisible bits and mixed with the dirt so as to be completely, utterly irretriev­able. The rain spent itself, and the clouds broke apart to show strips of hoary light. Marozia nudged Agnes meaningfully, and Agnes stepped down from the pew onto the sodden earth that infected her flesh with goosebumps. She raised a hand to help her cousin descend, and Marozia followed her down primly, nose wrinkling as her feet met the same cold ground. “Come on, come on,” Marozia urged. “He’s going to leave.” Marozia never rushed. This manner of locomotion did not befit a noble lady. But the impatience in her cousin’s voice had Agnes stum­bling forward, half tripping over her muddy skirts, desperately trying to blaze a trail for Marozia, newly anointed Mistress of Teeth. It would not do for Marozia to be observed faltering and fumbling. Particularly by Thrasamund, Master of Eyes, who, congruous to his title, had the perception of a carrion bird. He steepled his hands over his stomach and watched Agnes’s awkward efforts. Fortunately, the gray mass of guards did not move. Each stood as straight as an upright sword and, clad as they were in armor and mail, looked more metal than man. Agnes bent down to brush some of the mud from Marozia’s skirt, taking this moment to catch her breath. From inside the mass of sol­diers came a stately voice: “Part.” No sooner had the command left the mouth of their master than the guards each took one step to the side, forming a gap through which the prince was at last revealed. Agnes stood quickly, not wanting to be perceived in such a cowed position, but when she turned her eyes toward the prince, she had the sensation of being cowed twice over, in fact almost blinded. It was more so the contrast between the prince’s emanation and the dismal surroundings than anything innate to His Highness, though it could not be denied that he was an inordinately and surpassingly beautiful man. Gold was his hair, but a dark gold, like sunken treasure. His face appeared carved, with the adoring, if not slightly lascivious, ministrations of a master sculptor, one who took great care in shaping its aquiline nose and august brow, who caressed the statue’s high, prominent cheekbones as though it were a lover. He wore a doublet of midnight blue, banded with opulent braids of gold, a cape held to his shoulders with gilded epaulets. The prince trod the path created for him by the Dolorous Guard and stopped be­fore Agnes and Marozia. With this proximity, Agnes could properly appreciate his stature. He was of a greater height even than Thrasa­mund, but he had none of the latter’s adipose indulgence. His broad figure was led by bone and muscle rather than by fat and flesh. And with the grace that Thrasamund had ascribed to him earlier, he smiled down at his subjects. “My good ladies,” he said. “I did not have the occasion to meet your grandmother, but I grieve the loss of such a distinguished woman.” “Thank you, Your Highness,” Marozia said. “I will endeavor to fill her slippers.” “It is a great honor to meet the new Mistress of Teeth so early in her incumbency.” He turned and looked Agnes directly in the face. “And who else do I have the pleasure of meeting today?” He was Liuprand, eldest and only son of Nicephorus the Slug­gard, heir to the throne of Drepane, already well loved by his sub­jects, already affixed with half a dozen potential epithets: the Golden, the Great, the Just, the Illustrious, the Fair, the Ready. He had no reason to know her. “My dear cousin,” said Marozia, touching the small of her back. “Agnes.” “Agnes,” Liuprand repeated. “You must be mourning the great old woman as well. I have heard she was especially attached to her grand­children. How is your heart?” Buy the Book Innamorata Ava Reid Buy Book Innamorata Ava Reid Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget “Aggrieved, Your Highness, of course,” Marozia said. She gave Agnes’s back a soothing pat. “But your attendance honors our house and warms our cold spirits.” The smallest of furrows ran along Liuprand’s noble brow. His eyes left Agnes briefly, flickered to Marozia, then returned to her. “And you, Lady Agnes?” The bile of nervousness rose in her throat. The prince’s gaze was not malicious, but it was probing. Quickly, before the silence could stretch on too unpleasantly, Marozia took her hand. “Aggrieved as well, Your Highness,” she said. Her voice was smooth, cloaking any strangeness the prince might have observed. It would not do to have him unnerved or suspicious. They were meant to be mend­ing the bridges Adele-Blanche had broken, treating the old wounds she had inflicted, draining the moats she had dug around the House of Teeth. When still Liuprand regarded Agnes in that rather puzzled manner, Marozia hastened to say, “But she, too, is cheered by your presence.” “I am glad,” he said, finally lifting his eyes from Agnes’s face. The furrow, however, did not disappear from his brow. “Perhaps when your grief is not so fresh, we may discuss the future of your house’s rela­tionship to the Crown.” A joyful flush filled Marozia’s cheeks. “Yes,” she said. “I would like that very much.” “I mean no disrespect to your grandmother’s memory, of course. But with the House of Teeth under the purview of a new mistress, there may be a path forward yet untrodden.” “It is to be my first act as Mistress of Teeth,” Marozia said. She squeezed Agnes’s hand in a very significant way that almost hurt. “If it please Your Highness, I will visit Castle Crudele within the month to discuss these arrangements.” “It would please me very much, Lady Marozia.” Liuprand nodded at her. And then he looked to Agnes again. His eyes were a water-bright blue but seemingly without depths, such that they reflected her own countenance back at her. These two cerulean mirrors showed a blanched oval face, thin dark eyebrows, and imperturbable lips. “Lady Agnes.” She dipped her head in acknowledgment and performed a half curtsy. It was a perfect gesture that would have pleased her grand­mother enormously. Acquiescent enough to satisfy the superior being, yet still withholding complete submission. As he turned, the Dolorous Guard were inspired to life again, form­ing a phalanx around the prince. Now only the crown of his golden head could be seen, rising atop the bobbing gray helmets. He was es­corted into the waiting carriage, which was made of a splendorous soldered metal that seemed not to show the mud that must have ac­cumulated on its wheels and its belly as it clambered up the mountain to Castle Peake. Marozia was standing on her tiptoes to watch his departure, one hand braced on Agnes’s shoulder. Agnes stood flat on her feet and felt the mist creep around her with a cold, solicitous grip. On the top step of the carriage, Liuprand looked back. He had a curiously unimposing gaze for a prince. It was an intense gaze, to be sure, but it did not demand. It seemed merely to ask. And for a reason Agnes could not comprehend, his gaze lay not upon the black tree branches that fingered into the flat gray air, nor upon the mud pit that contained her grandmother’s infinitesimal matter, nor upon beautiful Marozia in the deep-red gown that impressed her on the world like a passionate stain of blood, but upon her. Silent, grim Lady Agnes, wearing bruise-colored silk. His stare could not have rested there for more than a quarter min­ute, yet it felt the length of hours. Then without warning, Liuprand ducked into the carriage, and a member of the Dolorous Guard stepped forward to close the door behind him. Innamorata copyright © 2026 by Ava Reid. Used by permission of Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. All rights reserved. Cannot be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Innamorata</i> by Ava Reid appeared first on Reactor.

News Spider-Man Sony’s Spider-Man Universe Is Dead. Long Live Sony’s Spider-Man Universe Sony Pictures’ CEO confirmed that the Spider-Man Universe will be rebooted By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on February 24, 2026 Screenshot: Sony/Marvel Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Sony/Marvel Even after the box office (and critical) horrors of Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter, it’s not surprising that Sony can’t quit making more Spider-Man films: the IP is just too big! But given those major Sony Spider-Man flops, it’s even less surprising that the powers that be at the company want to wipe the slate clean and start anew. Tom Rothman, the CEO of Sony Pictures, effectively said as much during an interview on The Town (via /Film). Rothman confirmed that the live-action Spider-Man Universe is not dead, but when host Matt Belloni asked if the universe would be a “fresh reboot” with “new people,” Rothman agreed in the affirmative. (Rothman also joked that Belloni should audition for the Marvel character they own called Mr. Negativity when the host called the agreement for Disney’s Marvel to have Spider-Man in their Cinematic Universe a “tail between the legs” moment for Sony, but I digress.) When will we see a new Sony Spider-Man Universe? It’s unclear, but Rothman had this to say about the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s recent downswing, which seems relevant here. “Scarcity has value—you’ve got to have the audience miss you.” I don’t know if time will make me fonder of Jared Leto’s Morbius, but with the clean slate Rothman is promising, it sounds like that won’t be a problem. [end-mark] The post Sony’s Spider-Man Universe Is Dead. Long Live Sony’s Spider-Man Universe appeared first on Reactor.

News God of War Ed Skrein to Play Baldur in God of War Prime Video Series The news suggests more than one game will be pulled from for the Prime Video show By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on February 24, 2026 Ed Skrein photo credit: Bob Wolfenson; Baldur image courtesy of Sony Interactive Entertainment Comment 0 Share New Share Ed Skrein photo credit: Bob Wolfenson; Baldur image courtesy of Sony Interactive Entertainment The cast for Prime Video’s God of War series is expanding. Today, the streamer announced that Ed Skrein (Jurassic World Rebirth, Rebel Moon, Alita: Battle Angel) will take on the role of Baldur. Here’s a description of the character, for those not familiar with the games: Baldur may be the youngest son of Odin, but he’s his father’s most dangerous weapon. Charismatic, unpredictable and armed with a razor-sharp tongue, Baldur lives by his own rules. As a boy, Baldur was cursed; this curse denied him the ability to feel pleasure and physical sensation. This fuels an insatiable anger and bloodlust in Baldur, who favors a brawling fighting style that blends his immense power with the raw impact of his fists. Above all else, he longs for an opponent that can truly match his prowess in battle. An opponent that can finally make him feel something. The inclusion of Baldur in the Prime Video series strongly suggests that the show will initially focus on the events from the 2018 PlayStation 4 game, God of War, and that Baldur will serve as the series’ antagonist, at least early on. It also means that we might not see much of Thor and Odin (played by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson and Mandy Patinkin respectively) until later in the season, as those characters were more prominently featured 2022’s God of War Ragnarök. Or, perhaps more likely, showrunner Ronald D. Moore has added some scenes or moved the storyline around, so we see Thor and Odin earlier. Skrein, who also will appear in Simon West’s World War II espionage action-adventure film Fortitude with Ben Kingsley and Nicolas Cage, joins a stacked cast. In addition to Ólafsson and Patinkin, the show also includes Ryan Hurst as Kratos, Callum Vinson as Atreus, Max Parker as Heimdall, Teresa Palmer as Sif, Alastair Duncan as Mimir, Jeff Gulka as Sindri, and Danny Woodburn as Brok. No news yet on when we’ll see God of War on Prime Video. [end-mark] The post Ed Skrein to Play Baldur in <i>God of War</i> Prime Video Series appeared first on Reactor.