News Angel Down Daniel Kraus to Adapt Angel Down Into a Feature Film The author also co-wrote the script for the adaptation of his book Whalefall, set to come out later this year By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on January 26, 2026 Daniel Kraus photo by Lyndon French Comment 0 Share New Share Daniel Kraus photo by Lyndon French Daniel Kraus’ latest novel, Angel Down, came out last year to critical acclaim. The story takes place on the battlefields of World War I and follows a private named Cyril Bagger who, along with four other grunts, is sent on a mission to No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded soldier. There, they find a fallen angel instead. That celestial being may be the key to ending the war, but only if the soldiers work together for the greater good rather than their selfish desires. The novel is told as one long sentence (think Faulkner), and has been described as a brutal but good read. Today, Deadline reported that Kraus will be adapting the novel for the big screen with Imagine Entertainment. Kraus has previously worked with Imagine to adapt his other novel, Whalefall, a book about a boy swallowed by a sperm whale trying to survive and also reconcile his feelings about his dead father (who also might be the whale). “I had a dream experience with Imagine on Whalefall, so when it came to Angel Down, there was only one home I wanted for it,” Kraus told Deadline. “This is precisely the sort of script I want to be writing, one that uses deep historical research to excavate a genre-shredding story that goes in wildly unexpected directions. This script goes all-in, and I’m happy to have Imagine going all-in too.” “Daniel Kraus is one of the most distinct voices and extraordinary talents we’ve come across in recent memory,” Imagine Entertainment producer Allan Mandelbaum added. “His ability to blend bold, high-concept genre stories with deeply human characters is second to none, and Angel Down is no exception. All of us at Imagine had an incredible experience working with Daniel to bring Whalefall to life, so we’re thrilled to be collaborating with him again on his outstanding and urgent new novel.” The project is still in its early days, so no news yet on if or when the project will move forward into production. Given the unique setup of the novel, I’m curious to see how Kraus translates his work to the screen. Given he’s also collaborated with Guillermo del Toro, I’m also excited to see how the angel is portrayed. The production, in short, will no doubt be a big swing, and I’m curious to see the final result. [end-mark] The post Daniel Kraus to Adapt <i>Angel Down</i> Into a Feature Film appeared first on Reactor.

Books book reviews Home Like A Haunting in Victor Manibo’s The Villa, Once Beloved The Villa, Once Beloved is a taut microcosm of one of the Philippines’ most formative modern horrors. By Maya Gittelman | Published on January 26, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share For it wasn’t history, was it? All was in the here and now, happening again, happening continuously, because it never stopped. Not the plunder, not the atrocities, not the constant evasion of consequences and denial of justice. The title promises a halcyon thing, and indeed we meet the Sepulveda patriarch at his messy end. Emblematic of his family villa’s former glory, Raul Sepulveda dies suddenly and strangely, found dead in his bed with dirt-stained hands in a scene that plumbs darker depths as the story unfolds in his aftermath. Cut to two days later, we meet our main POV character, Sophie, as she journeys on a Gulfstream with her boyfriend of two years, Raul’s grandson Adrian, from Stanford to the Philippines. She’ll be staying at his ancestral family home Villa Sepulveda, designated a “Heritage House” by the National Historical Institute, here to support him through his grandfather’s funeral and to spend more time with his family, who she’s only met once before.  Sophie’s also the only person who knows Adrian is working on a documentary film about his family. While they are close with the Marcoses, one of the families most culpable for political violence against the Filipino peoples, Adrian rejects those politics (though it’s through his family’s privileges that Adrian has access to things like Stanford, private jets, and bringing weed gummies to a country notorious for the extrajudicial execution of people purported to possess drugs). Adrian’s family disparages his choice of major, and Sophie understands his project as an act of rebellion. His mentor thinks he might make it to Sundance.  Sophie herself is Filipino, but what other diaspora Filipinos may know—a private jet with her own little cabin and a shower is an unheard of version of the homeland voyage, for one, even business class is prohibitively pricey—goes in part over her head. Not only is this Sophie’s first trip to the Philippines, this is her first time on a plane. Born to a Filipina who died getting her to the States, Sophie was adopted and raised by a white Midwestern couple in a small town in Nebraska. She did not grow up around other Asian people, and drove herself to Stanford as soon as she could. Sophie thinks of her parents with a distance that evidences the barriers to their connection. The reader understands early on that Sophie craves a connection to her Filipino culture which she never got until she joined some Filipino-American clubs at Stanford and met Adrian.  Adrian Sepulveda was born to Enrique “Eric” Sepulveda and a blonde white American mother. He has introduced Sophie to almost everything she knows about her Philippine heritage, and all he’s ever known of Villa Sepulveda are lovely vacations with his grandparents. There is much about his grandfather and the rest of his family he does not learn until Raul Sepulveda dies. There is also much he has always known, and chosen either not to believe, or not to shoulder.   Their trip and the novel take place over a two week span, encompassing the Holy Week of Easter, the prayer-heavy funerary days following a Filipino Catholic’s passing, and Stanford’s junior year spring break. As the now-scattered Sepulveda clan gathers to bury their patriarch, the usual typhoons hit early and extra hard this year. Sophie finds herself, the Sepulvedas, and their staff sequestered in the villa’s secluded mountain town of Maalin, in Leyte province. There in those two weeks, the household unfurls secret details of Raul’s death and the life that came before it. Like so many powerful men, Raul Sepulveda found himself deeply concerned with controlling his legacy, only to helplessly cede all control in death.  With him gone, all that’s left is the truth. Buy the Book The Villa Once Beloved Victor Manibo Buy Book The Villa Once Beloved Victor Manibo Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget The Villa, Once Beloved is a taut microcosm of one of the Philippines’ most formative modern horrors. It’s true horror, and it’s also very funny, which is also very Filipino. Manibo asks you to consider perspective: Who is telling the story, and who is receiving it? The book features a varied cast of characters with different relationships to their Filipino identity. The core point-of-view characters are: Javier, first gen Filipino-American, raised by his family in California; Sophie, Filipino but raised in the Midwest by white parents; and Remedios, the Villa Sepulveda caretaker, who was born to the previous caretaker, and has never left.  Within those fateful two weeks, many secrets claw their way to light. Who is entitled to story, eulogy? Who is entitled to shape their own legacy? Who is forced to tend to terrible secrets like one might tend to a house or garden, so that others may live in comfort?  Every character is at war with themself in some way. The “Philippine identity” diaspora Filipinos might search for, the poetic hope of a homelike belonging to a place you are from though are not of—that identity has so many ties and tangles to imperialism. It continues to be deeply striated by class and proximity to whiteness, which encompasses anti-indigeneity, violent capitalism, and all the horrors that entails.  As a mixed white Filipino-American myself, with the bulk of my mother’s family born and raised in the Philippines, not a word of this book rings anything other than strikingly, painfully true. That’s the thing with seeking solace and community in your Philippine birth country when you grew up American: We inherit great loveliness, but for those of us on the privileged side of diaspora, we discover at some point that we also inherit great guilt and grief.   Centuries of dehumanization at the hands of colonizers made the more privileged Filipinos—the ones with enough generational resources to outsource the manual labors of construction, cooking, cleaning, farming—eager to assert their Filipino identity and prove their power over their countrymen, country-people, kapatid. We see this in so many places ravaged by imperialism; inequity breeds inequity, and those with a smidge of power can be quick to centralize it. The corruption of Philippine officials goes almost without saying for Filipinos, as does the uncomfortable, persistent, pernicious reality that if you are of a certain class—and it doesn’t need to be “affords private jets or even first class” class—you are probably fewer than three degrees of separation related to an oppressor.  I’m oversimplifying slightly—and this is my own interpretation of my own experiences with privilege, class, and proximity to whiteness. But the facts are clear and the resonance is uncanny. As a diaspora person, a mixed person, an American—what is and is not my story to tell? Adrian sets out to make a documentary, highlighting Philippine trauma in part caused by his family while giving himself the academic remove of a filmmaker.  This is perhaps my favorite element of this book: its varied and deeply felt Filipinoness. So many different Filipinos in one family and their surroundings, so many different experiences lived in the people pressed up against them, tangled in their web. Of course American and Spanish imperialism is a looming presence, informing the story (in why the Filipino military officers are so liable to corruption, why the Spanish names and the violent strive for sovereignty), but this is a story about and between Filipinos.  At its core, The Villa, Once Beloved is about how violent capitalism is at the core of most if not all systemic evil, and how laborers suffer when landowners and capitalists put profit over people, dehumanizing the very people they use to build and harvest their wealth. At first I found the ending nearly too tidy, but upon reflection it works with the genre—and it does feel like the only way this book can end. As satisfying as it possibly could be.  This is also a horror story about how a bad secret can be made worse by truth’s avoidance over time. The demons that come to plague the Sepulvedas are a direct result of their actions and their relationship to the fallout. Manibo weaves Filipino folklore into the Gothic genre to literalize this beautifully, violence made manifest into something twisted and rooted in the specificity of the land. An ingenue in the midst of a raging storm, her world narrowed to one family’s dominion and its specific horrors. A rotting corpse within the proverbial floorboards, a gaping wound in the flesh of the family, left to fester and attract monsters. The way death can unmoor one’s very ecosystem, the way rituals of grief can sometimes be reassuring, sometimes horribly discordant. Ghost as in subverting a natural relationship to place and time, a monstrous breaking through of violence—or, perhaps, a response to monstrous violence itself. Manibo’s biting humor and deep compassion shape the story, wrestling with means and modes of grief and guilt, family duty, national identity, and nonbelonging. Diaspora sometimes as an opportunity for escape, as the privilege of avoidance, and what we lose or inherit when that ocean’s been crossed. You cannot undo what you have inherited, no matter how violent the legacy. Generational cruelty, marrow-deep shame. It is awful to reckon with, to survive, to remember, but it is the least you can do. You can choose not to uphold that legacy, but you can never not be from it.  May death not be a reprieve for those who considered themselves masters of death for innocents. Some reputations, some houses, maybe even some grandfathers, are too rotten to save.  Manibo conjures true magic here, a thick and tender tale with a hopeful sort of justice as a system of belief. True and necessary work, thoroughly imagined and expertly executed, flaying and vindicating and terribly inviting. I love this one. Read it.[end-mark] The Villa, Once Beloved is published by Erewhon Books.Read an excerpt. The post Home Like A Haunting in Victor Manibo’s <i>The Villa, Once Beloved</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms The Jousting Begins in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: “Hard Salt Beef” Dunk gets by with a little help from Targaryen princes and smallfolk alike… By Tyler Dean | Published on January 26, 2026 Credit: Steffan Hill/HBO Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Steffan Hill/HBO The second episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms continues the premiere’s winning streak with a compelling blend of humor and action (including some of the most intricately choreographed and dynamic jousting scenes ever put on film!) as we follow our titular hedge knight’s quest to become the champion of the tourney at Ashford Meadow. As always, there may be mild spoilers for the general world of Game of Thrones and the Song of Ice and Fire books, but no spoilers for this show beyond episode 2. Let’s get started!  Opening Titles: [File Not Found] Obviously, the dynamic globe and astrolabe of the original Game of Thrones credits are an iconic sequence, perhaps the apotheosis of the HBO opening credits artform that arguably began with The Sopranos and Sex and the City. When House of the Dragon reused Ramin Djawadi’s opening theme, it was a bit of a disappointment even if its opening title visuals are, ultimately, a spectacular improvement on the high bar set by the original series. The decision to eschew opening titles entirely in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is one that feels slightly disappointing but is probably to the overall benefit of the show. It’s a smaller affair with a different vibe, focused on less grandiose moments in history (and with a shorter runtime than the hour-long dramas), and it makes sense to tamp down anything that might overstuff the series or make it feel too tonally similar to the other entries in the Game of Thrones universe. The Title The second episode title, “Hard Salt Beef,” refers to the poverty food that bookends the episode. It’s also, cheekily, a pretty good descriptor for Dunk (Peter Claffey) himself. The name feels apt, seeing as this episode really focuses in on the giant differences between the life of a hedge knight and the life of a royal prince, or even a knight from a noble line.  The Targaryen Delegation Credit: Steffan Hill/HBO This episode finally introduces the bulk of the Targaryens we’ll meet in the course of this season. Bertie Carvel (who you may know from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and The Crown) plays Baelor Targaryen, who is the eldest son of King Daeron II and the current hand of the king. As I mentioned in my explainer for episode 1, Daeron II finally brought Dorne into the Seven Kingdoms by marrying Myriah Martell. As a result, Baelor has dark hair like his mother.  We also meet Maekar Targaryen, the youngest of Darron’s four sons. He’s played by Sam Spruell (who played the transcendently weird immortal assassin, Ole Munch, in Fargo season 5). Maekar, who is at least sixth in line for the throne, is upset about his missing sons, Daeron (named his grandfather) and Aegon. We encounter another of his sons, Aerion (True Detective: Night Country’s Finn Bennett) who treats Duncan with contempt, much like his father. Incidentally, Maekar has a fourth son, Aemon, currently in training at the Citadel and who, in eighty or so years, will become the same Master Aemon who tutors Jon Snow at Castle Black. We also get a brief shot of Prince Valarr Targaryen (Oscar Morgan), Baelor’s eldest son and second in line for the throne.  In this golden age of Westeros, the Targaryens are somewhat diminished from the height of their power (House of the Dragon is the story of that fall from grace) and are trying to shore up their own reputation and power now that they no longer have access to the dragons that made them kings. You can see this in the fact that King Daeron has sent half his sons to a middlingly important tourney at Ashford Meadow. You can see it in the ways the notably cheaper-looking Kingsguard armor has been painted white rather than enameled. You can even see it in the fact that they now marry outside their line in an attempt to shore up alliances.  Baelor seems to understand the assignment. Whether or not he truly lives up to the chivalric ideal that Dunk places on him, he does seem to know that taking an interest in the concerns of the smallfolk and remembering their deeds is a sure way to become beloved and help keep the Targaryens aloft. Maekar and his sons, by being so low in the line of succession, are not saddled with that same pressure and the show is effortlessly good at highlighting that difference.  The Shadow of War Credit: Steffan Hill/HBO Of course, the thing that hangs over this Golden Age and darkens the Targaryen prospects is not just the absence of the dragons. They have been extinct for fifty or so years (the books reveal that Ser Arlan of Pennytree had gone to see the last dragon shortly before its death, when he was around ten). But this story takes place about thirteen years after the First Blackfyre Rebellion.  Daeron II’s father, Aegon IV (Aegon the Unworthy) had many bastard children and, in a vague allusion to King Lear, had all his children declared legitimate on his deathbed. This led the newly minted Targaryen heirs to challenge Daeron and his trueborn siblings for the throne. These Targaryens eventually settled on the name “Blackfyre” (because they inverted the Targaryen banner colors—a black three-headed dragon breathing black fire on a red field) and tried to seize the throne. While Daeron won a decisive victory against them, numerous Blackfyre scions went into exile or escaped imprisonment, leading to more rebellions after the events of this season. Even in the era of Game of Thrones, Martin insinuates that characters like the spymaster, Varys (Conleth Hill) might be Blackfyre descendants. It’s truly the end of Targaryen legitimacy, and lends just a bit of credence to the idea that the Targaryens’ incestuous practices might have helped keep them in power even as it drove them to madness.  The show alludes to the Rebellion a couple of times in this episode. Egg, all jazzed up on the adrenaline of the first joust, shouts “Die, Blackfyre bastards!” while playfully swordfighting the air. And Dunk, in his paean to Lord Hayford, mentions that Ser Arlan fought alongside him at “the Redgrass.” This references the Battle of Redgrass Field, the decisive final skirmish between Targaryen and Blackfyre forces in 196 AC.  Kinds of Kindness Credit: Steffan Hill/HBO The real heart and magic of this show, at least thus far, lies in how good it is at being sincere about its valuation of simple kindnesses. Martin has always taken a dim view of humanity and tends to write about the ways that power corrupts and goodness is trampled. The reason that Ned Stark’s death in that first book is so affecting is precisely because Ned would be the beleaguered hero of most other fantasy epics. His plot armor should have kept him alive to eventually win back the day, but as we quickly learn, this is not that kind of story. Fifteen years after Game of Thrones became a TV staple, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is pushing back against that bitter vision of the world. Martin is still Martin, and so good intentions and a noble heart are never actually going to be enough to win the day—a fact hilariously underscored when Egg disabuses Dunk of the notion that Ser Donnel of Duskendale (Bill Ward) was born a lowly crabber and not the wealthy son of a crabbing magnate—but Dunk’s simple forthrightness inspires people around him to want to treat him well. Whether it’s the artist and puppeteer Tanselle (Tanzyn Crawford), or Steely Pate (Youssef Kerkour), the armorer who gives him a discount, or Prince Baelor Targaryen himself, the show feels pretty dedicated to reminding us that there is good in Westeros and that community matters. Even the show’s depiction of Ser Arlan (Danny Webb) in flashback seems much kinder and more nuanced than the abusive old fool depicted in the season premiere. It’s surprisingly heartwarming, and something I didn’t fully expect from a Westeros-based show. Odds and Ends Credit: Steffan Hill/HBO When describing Ser Arlan’s deeds to Lords Florent, Hayford, and Tyrell, Dunk uses the phrase “he held no lands and sired no children.” That is the exact phrasing of the vows of celibacy and non-partisanship that Westeros’ cloistered orders take. Septons, Maesters, Knights of the Kingsguard, and members of the Night’s Watch all vow to hold no lands and sire no children. This metaphorically makes Ser Arlan into something of a more fabled questing knight, taking holy orders and devoting himself in service, not to secure his legacy, but for the good of the realm as a whole.  In The Hedge Knight, Ser Arlan dies of pneumonia following a brutal rainstorm en route to the tourney at Ashford Meadow. This episode seems to suggest that he died of an infected wound on his arm, which we see him trying to hide in his final days. I love how sanguine and untroubled he looks, even as he is clearly succumbing to his injury.  The fanfare played when the Targaryens enter Ashford Hall is the same theme used on House of the Dragon at Aegon II’s coronation. That, in turn has the little opening trill (used in tonight’s episode) followed by a simplified version of King Robert’s theme from the original series. Its little details like that which really make Westeros feel so storied and lived-in.   Steely Pate the armorer is in a long tradition of Westerosi Pates. Spotted Pate is a legendary folk hero: a swineherd who always outsmarts princes and knights, humbling the nobility. Consequently, there are a lot of lowborn Pates running around Westeros. Notably, in A Feast for Crows, the POV of the prologue follows Pate, a novice at the citadel who is murdered by Jaqen H’ghar, who subsequently wears his face and becomes Samwell Tarly’s roommate. But “Pate” is also one of the names Martin throws in when discussing various commoners, making it something of an in-joke.  I spoke about how great the musical continuity was above, but there’s no better illustration of the show’s attention to detail than the joust itself. It’s wonderfully shot and thrilling—and, for the book readers among us, it also goes out of its way to make sure all ten knights are the ones mentioned in The Hedge Knight’s initial bout. Even if you cannot see their faces or hear their voices, they’ve absolutely made sure that the combatants are identifiable as Medgar Tully, Damon and Tybolt Lannister, Androw and Robert Ashford, Leo Tyrell, Humfrey Hardyng, Lyonel Baratheon, Valarr Targaryen, and Abelar Hightower. It really feels like the ideal use of Easter eggs: environmental storytelling that exists neither to gatekeep nor to serve as a fourth wall-breaking wink at the audience, but rather speaks to great attention to detail and a love of the source material, without a slavish devotion to it. I’m glad that showrunner Ira Parker seems as dedicated to this as Bryan Cogman and Ryan Condal have been in the past. In Conclusion So, please chime in and tell me what you thought of the episode in the comments: Do you like the show’s scope and pacing? Are you as delighted as I am with the continued queer coding of Ser Lyonel? How great were Egg’s flummoxed little hand gestures when Dunk stopped his life lesson mid-anecdote? Are you looking forward to next episode, “The Squire,” which, for book aficionados seems like it will contain some of the most consequential events of the novella? Let me know![end-mark] The post The Jousting Begins in <i>A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms</i>: “Hard Salt Beef” appeared first on Reactor.

Books Martha Wells Book Club Martha Wells Book Club: Fugitive Telemetery In which Murderbot solves a murder mystery… By Alex Brown | Published on January 26, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share I have been counting down the days to when Fugitive Telemetry would pop up on my book club reread. When I finally sat down to reread it, I initially planned to squeeze in a few minutes before bed then read the rest over the weekend in a few days. Instead I ended up staying up way too late and consuming the entire thing in one sitting.  We open with a dead human. The body is in the concourse on Preservation Station, and no one knows who the person was. Murderbot and Mensah are stuck in a holding pattern. They’re waiting for GrayCris to make their inevitable move, and that tension makes it difficult for them to get comfortable or make plans for the future.When the corpse turns up Senior Officer Indah is ill-equipped to handle the investigation on her own. As a SecUnit, Murderbot has handled its fair share of murder investigations, and as an entertainment feed fanatic, it has consumed an ungodly number of murder mysteries, both of which make it the prime candidate for partnering with Indah as far as Mensah is concerned. (Murderbot and Indah would rather not, thank you very much.) As far as Mensah is concerned, Murderbot might as well be useful while it waits for GrayCris. Mensah is already filling her time with her leadership responsibilities, not to mention avoiding going to trauma therapy. The pair also need to determine if the dead human was part of a GrayCris attack without overwhelming Station Security. Mensah’s iron will prevails, and Pin-Lee draws up an air-tight temporary employment contract hiring SecUnit out to Station Security. Murderbot’s insight into the Corporate Rim and its hacking skills complement Indah’s knowledge of the station and her protectiveness more than either is willing to admit. Eventually, the corpse leads to other victims and a pack of despicable criminals. The ending is bittersweet. The victims are rescued but the larger corporate scheme continues. It’s a small victory but a vital one.  Importantly, the mystery could not have been solved without the help of the bots under guardianship on Preservation Station. At this point in its journey, Murderbot is still working through its feelings about being a construct under guardianship to humans. It likes the human that holds its guardianship, but it also likes its freedom. It hasn’t yet figured out how to have both. In the previous books, there is a clear delineation between bots and constructs. SecUnit treats bots almost like children. It appeases them to get them to do what it wants, or simply overpowers them or orders them around. On Preservation Station, however, the bots, while not the most complex entities around, are able to think, make choices, and extrapolate. They may not have as much processing power as a construct, but they are people in the same way a construct is a person. Their brains, so to speak, just work differently. It’s so cute to see them have inside jokes and nicknames for each other, and to see Murderbot be genuinely surprised (and a little annoyed) at that. Once again, Murderbot proves to be an unreliable narrator. What it thinks it knows about the world is much smaller than what is actually true about the world.  Something that I’ve heard a lot from fans of the series is their frustration with how Fugitive Telemetry was published after Network Effect despite taking place before it in the chronology. After reading both fairly close together (instead of having nearly a year of wait time between them, much of which was spent dealing with the hell that was the worst of the covid pandemic), it actually makes a lot of sense. Now, I have no idea if Wells always planned for this time switcheroo in her publication schedule or if she made the decision to swap the chronology later on, but I think it was the right choice.  This book adds subtext to Murderbot’s relationship with ART. Now readers know Murderbot has seen bots and constructs living full lives where they make their own choices outside the needs and commands of humans and the lengths they’ll go to ensure that independence. It reframes ART’s interactions with its crew. We know now that ART and Miki aren’t anomalies in liking humans anymore than Murderbot is an anomaly in wanting to hack its governor module. It teases some interesting possibilities for Three as well. Network Effect also serves as a sort of denouement on the GrayCris saga. The story-within-a-story about the augmented human mercenaries hired by GrayCris as assassins is their last gasp. Fugitive Telemetry acts as a good break between that original storyline and the new one coming with System Collapse involving Barish-Estranza. Not only that, this book and the last deal with independent operators aiding enslaved humans trying to escape corporate bondage contracts, which also harkens back to Murderbot’s own flight from its company overlords. The first book functioned a bit like a murder mystery as well, so lots of little parallels.  For new readers who might be intimidated with 4 novellas and a novel, Fugitive Telemetry is a good launching pad. Like All Systems Red, it’s fairly self-contained; it has a lot of interesting action and fun dialogue that don’t require any outside knowledge or lore. Whatever you need to know about Mensah for the purposes of this story, you get on the page, with just enough enticement to make new readers want to learn more. Same with Murderbot’s background. For long-time fans, it offers a lot of tantalizing new worldbuilding, particularly when it comes to bot society on Preservation Alliance. And it fills in some of the gaps left in Network Effect.  After rereading Fugitive Telemetry, I think this novella is my second favorite book in the series thus far, with All Systems Red as my first. Is cozy hardboiled detective a thing? Because that’s what it feels like to me. I doubt we’ll get enough seasons of the TV show to cover this book, but I would love to see those actors do this storyline. What a kick! Next month we’re reading System Collapse, which jumps us forward in time to after Network Effect. Let’s see where all this Barish-Estranza stuff goes.[end-mark] Buy the Book System Collapse Martha Wells The Murderbot Diaries (Volume 7) Buy Book System Collapse Martha Wells The Murderbot Diaries (Volume 7) The Murderbot Diaries (Volume 7) Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget The post Martha Wells Book Club: <i>Fugitive Telemetery</i> appeared first on Reactor.

News The Super Mario Galaxy Movie New Super Mario Galaxy Movie Trailer Is Full of Treats for Super Mario Bros. 2 Fans Yoshi can have all the candy apples he wants, he’s perfect By Molly Templeton | Published on January 26, 2026 Screenshot: Nintendo Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Nintendo Super Mario Bros. 2 is a godsend of a game for those of us who regularly grow deeply frustrated with repeatedly falling to our deaths for being bad at jumping. (Digitally speaking, I mean, not in real life.) No, I’m not talking about Luigi’s little kicky legs. I’m talking about Peach. Float-jumping! Magical! Wondrous! I would play Peach forever (except in Mario Kart, sorry, I’m a Toad/Yoshi loyalist). The latest trailer for The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is for us, Peach-players. Well, okay, there’s other stuff, too, like a longer sequence at those upside-down pyramids from Super Mario Odyssey. That’s where our plumberly pals find the greatest Super Mario character of all: Yoshi. Yoshi is, to be fair, the star of most of this trailer. He steals Toad’s candy apple! He tries to face off with a tyrannosaurus rex! Can we please have a Yoshi’s Island movie next? But: the Peach bits! She’s got her parasol, she’s got to deal with Birdo and those disconcerting mouth eggs, Mouser shows up, Clawgrip shows up, it’s a whole Super Mario Bros. 2 time. Perhaps Peach visits a Super Mario Bros. 2 planet? The Super Mario Galaxy Movie stars Chris Pratt (Mario), Anya Taylor-Joy (Princess Peach), Charlie Day (Luigi), Jack Black (Bowser), Keegan-Michael Key (Toad), Kevin Michael Richardson (Kamek), Bennie Safdie (Bowser Jr.), and Brie Larson (Rosalina). And also Yoshi (voice actor unconfirmed). Super Mario Bros. directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic and writer Matthew Fogel return for round two. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has one more surprise in store for fans: It’s now arriving in theaters two days early, on April 1, 2026. April Fool’s? Nah. For real.[end-mark] The post New S<i>uper Mario Galaxy Movie</i> Trailer Is Full of Treats for <i>Super Mario Bros. 2</i> Fans appeared first on Reactor.