News 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple Gets a Second Chance on Streaming in March Please do enter the Bone Temple when this movie debuts on Netflix later this month By Matthew Byrd | Published on March 17, 2026 Screenshot: Sony Pictures Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Sony Pictures 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is coming to Netflix (US) on March 31, which should be great news for those who did not see the movie in theaters but maybe, probably, almost certainly will fall in love with it once they do see it. If you find yourself thinking “Wait, wasn’t Bone Temple just released?” you’ll be happy to know you aren’t entirely wrong. Released on January 16, Bone Temple is making its streaming debut fairly early even by modern standards. Part of its early debut can be attributed to the distribution deal Sony Pictures has with Netflix. That deal allows Sony Pictures films to move to Netflix after they have passed their theatrical and video on-demand windows. In this case, it seems that the movie’s hastened streaming debut can also be attributed to the film’s tragically short theatrical run. Though one tries not to put too much stock in these things, Bone Temple certainly underperformed at the box office according to every traditional metric. Its shortcomings can be attributed to a few things (a perhaps questionable title, mixed reactions to 28 Years Later, the absurdly high cost of going to see movies in theaters), but the result is the same. Not many people saw it. And that is a shame. The Bone Temple is kind of a masterpiece. Director Nia DaCosta has proven she’s one of the most exciting directorial talents today in films like Hedda and Little Woods, but The Bone Temple allows her to gleefully explore bizarre and incredible new territories. It’s a film that feels like it is very much part of the franchise it belongs to, yet is so very much its own thing that it feels hollow to merely refer to it as a sequel. There is a Romero-esque quality to the way it balances horror, humor, gore, and social themes. It also features one of Ralph Fiennes’ greatest performances, which is not a statement I would dare to make unless it comes from the heart. So please do enter The Bone Temple if you get a chance. We so rarely get films so chaotically ambitious, and it would be a shame if it doesn’t get its due before it becomes a centerpiece of future “underrated gems of the 2020s” articles. [end-mark] The post <i>28 Years Later: The Bone Temple</i> Gets a Second Chance on Streaming in March appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts Young Adult Read an Excerpt From Metamorphosis by Shelby Nicole A teen girl is swept into an opulent world of love, lies, and ghosts after she moves in with the mysterious family she never knew she had. By Shelby Nicole | Published on March 17, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Metamorphosis by Shelby Nicole, a young adult gothic paranormal romance publishing with Delacorte Press on July 7th. The year is 1985, and eighteen-year-old Jade Whitney is about to discover her family holds a dark secret that will change her life forever. Sent to live with her Great Aunt Ruth, Jade moves into Blythe House, her family’s sprawling, gilded mansion—but picturesque Grove Hollow, New York, is anything but welcoming.At Jade’s new private school she’s shunned by everyone except for the Misfits, the school’s edgy outcasts, who spend their weekends exploring abandoned haunted mansions and listening to the Cure. But Jade’s eye keeps wandering back to Brad, the charming, handsome rugby captain, who might just be the only other kid at school to welcome her.Everything changes when Jade finds a cursed locket in a derelict estate. The locket is connected to a Victorian ghost named William, who desperately needs Jade’s help, and who Jade feels an undeniable attraction to. And the closer they grow, the more urgent it becomes for Jade to decide where her heart truly lies—and if she’s really willing to let Will go. At around six-thirty p.m., I hear Aunt Ruth shouting at Nigel, followed by a car door slamming shut. I glance out my bathroom window and watch the headlights disappear through the trees. After changing out of my school uniform, I pull on my olive green sweatshirt with an embroidered albacore tuna on the front. I got it as a souvenir from the Coos Bay Fishing Tournament I attended a couple of years ago. I’m amazed it still fits me. I was fifteen at the time and feeling skinny and unformed. Now that I’m almost eighteen, my body has changed. I have more curves, with little wider hips and a growing chest. Although I’m still pretty scrawny overall. As I get dressed, I hear what sounds like small pebbles hitting the windowpanes. The rain pounds relentlessly, and the wind howls outside. There’s a knock at my door. When I open it, I see Nigel standing there, drenched and clutching a few logs under his arm. “Miss, we might lose power in the storm. Do you mind if I light a fire for you?” “Not at all,” I say, letting him in. “Do you normally lose power during thunderstorms?” “Oftentimes, yes. Lots of old trees on this block.” He stacks the logs neatly inside the fireplace. Using a lighter from his chest pocket, he lights a crumpled ball of newspaper and throws it under the wood. It doesn’t take long before the logs are ablaze. “That should do the trick,” he says, slowly rising from his knees on the hearth. “Are you sure I can’t have Chef Martin make you anything for dinner?” “No, thank you.” I’m not used to being waited on. I’ve always been independent and taken care of myself. Although I appreciate the offer, it just feels strange and uncomfortable. “Honestly, it’s not a big deal. I’m used to making my own meals. It doesn’t make sense to go through the trouble of making a big dinner for just one person.” “If you’re sure, miss. I’ll be in the study. If you should need anything, ring for me.” I bid him farewell with a nod. I hope the man can finally get some rest now that Aunt Ruth is out of town for the night. Retrieving my worn-out copy of Les Fables de la Fontaine, I climb onto the bed. I lie on my stomach with my head resting on my hands. I open to the first poem, “The Fly and the Ant,” which is accompanied by a childlike illustration of an ant and a fly by a tree stump. Toby snores deeply on the tufted couch. It must be nice to be a dog with no homework to do. Halfway through my translation, I let out a loud yawn. The sound of the rain hitting the side of the house and the fire crackling makes the room feel cozy. My eyes start to feel heavy, and I struggle to keep them open… I am awoken by a boom of thunder. My notebook is soaked in drool. I wipe it off with my sleeve. Toby whimpers and climbs onto the bed with me. “It’s okay, bud. It’s just a storm.” Another lightning flash illuminates the room, followed by a loud crash that shakes the house. The flame in the fireplace is nearly extinguished, making it hard to see around the room. I grope the wall with my fingers in search of a light switch. When I flick it up, no lights turn on. The power must have gone out after all. A deep growling noise startles me. I quickly realize it’s just my stomach, reminding me of my hunger. I prioritize finding something to eat and make moves toward the kitchen. A candelabra has been lit just outside my bedroom door, presumably by Nigel in case of an emergency. I take it with me as I make my way down the dark hallway, the silence broken only by the occasional thunder. My body trembles under the flickering candlelight as I recount what Aubrey said today: You never can tell with these old homes. They’re full of ghosts… “Ghosts aren’t real,” I remind myself, glancing over my shoulder down the dark hallway, just in case. I find the kitchen. Apart from the refrigeration system, the kitchen appears unchanged since the house was initially constructed. The original copper pot rack hangs above a long wooden prep table with numerous pots and pans. It’s easy to imagine the countless dinners prepared on that table over the years. A series of wood-burning ovens spans the length of the wall. A row of toques hangs above them, paying homage to the chefs who once prepared meals within these walls. I discover a British pork huntsman pie in a ramekin inside the refrigerator. A note is attached to it bearing my name. Under it is a message advising me that the pie doesn’t require heating. Nigel must have left it for me. The aroma of sage and onion wafts toward me as I remove the lid from the ramekin, causing my stomach to growl even louder. I devour the pie and wash the dish in the tub sink. As I rinse the ramekin, I hear laughter from another room. I had assumed that Aunt Ruth wouldn’t return tonight. Following the sound of the voices, I make my way down a narrow hallway that leads to an open-air atrium. The source of the voices comes from a partially open door at the end of the hall. The walls are fashioned with weathered iron and glass, suggesting this area is a conservatory. Above, a pane in the ceiling is shattered. A sizable metal bucket rests below it, collecting rainwater as it drips through. Three crows sleep atop a lemon tree. While I find these creatures beautiful, I also see them as dark and mysterious. As a lover of classic literature, where works like Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and William Shakespeare’s Macbeth associate black birds with omens of death, I feel uneasy walking by them. “Oh! Jade, please come join us!” Aunt Ruth rises from her seat and motions me toward a table where three older women sit, wearing flashy evening gowns, fur coats, and expensive-looking jewelry. It’s like I’ve stumbled into a room of young girls playing dress-up and hosting a make-believe tea party. “This must be your beautiful niece you were telling us about, Ruth,” says the petite older woman with the brightest pink lipstick I’ve ever seen. The woman with faux butterflies in her beehive hairdo pats the chair next to her. “Have a seat next to me!” Buy the Book Metamorphosis Shelby Nicole Buy Book Metamorphosis Shelby Nicole Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget “Jade, I would like for you to meet my closest grade-school friends, Eileen, Lolly, and Mable.” I smile at her friends. “I thought you were going into the city for the night?” “I did. We all went to the theater and had dinner and returned in the limo. It was my turn to host the sleepover.” “Sleepover?” I thought sleepovers were just a thing you do in your adolescent years. “Yes, it’s our yearly sleepover,” Aunt Ruth repeats. “We haven’t missed one yet! Since we were six years old.” Lolly claps her hands and her ruby bracelets jingle, her beehive teetering. Eileen pushes her thick Windsor glasses up the bridge of her nose and starts shuffling a deck of cards. At first glance, I think they’re playing a card game. As I look closer at the cards, I see they’re not playing cards, but cards with strange illustrations on them. In the center is a white candle surrounded by sparkling gemstones. Eileen closes her eyes and starts humming. “What game are you playing?” I ask. “It’s not a game, hon, it’s tarot,” Eileen says, raising one eyebrow. “What’s tarot?” I whisper. “They’re divination cards,” Aunt Ruth says between puffs of her cigarette. “Like fortune-telling cards? Do they work?” “Oh yes! When we were young teenagers…” Mable looks over at Eileen, who is side-eyeing her, and she drops her voice a couple octaves. “When we were young teenagers, we would get together for sleepovers. Just like tonight. Eileen’s mother used to read the fortune-telling cards for her soirees just for fun, but she was really good at it.” “It didn’t take long before many folk got wind of her talent,” Aunt Ruth interjects. “It became a tradition at her parties. Her mother would let us stay up late and she would read our cards for us. I really can’t remember an instance when any of it didn’t come true!” “Her poor mother—we must have driven her crazy.” Lolly giggles. It’s heartwarming to listen to these elderly friends share their childhood memories, but they stimulate a bittersweet feeling. It reminds me of the special friendships I missed out on during those early years. I never had close friends. “Remember she told us dancing under the moonlight would bring us good fortune? Just so she could get a moment of peace?” Aunt Ruth chuckles. “We believed everything she told us.” “We did that a couple years back.” Mable gets up from the table to make a cocktail. “It was when Ruth brought back absinthe from her Paris trip. Somehow or another we all went skinny dipping. Oh, I haven’t felt so free since!” She cackles. Wow, so Aubrey was right! That kid who saw a bunch of old ladies dancing naked under the moon wasn’t lying. “Time for another drink?” Mable asks and puts a drink in front of me. I take a sip and shut my lips so I don’t spit it out. “Oh, this isn’t lemonade!” “Of course not! It’s a French Seventy-five, honey!” Eileen laughs. “Oh, go ahead, darling, drink up—live a little!” Aunt Ruth brushes her hands toward me. “Drinking age is still eighteen in some states.” Eileen draws three cards from a pile and places them in a row in front of Lolly. She flips the first card, revealing an image of a sun and a baby riding a horse. “So, how does this card game—I mean, tarot—work?” I watch curiously as Eileen flips another card. Aunt Ruth raises her hands in the air, like she’s speaking to God himself. “Tarot tells us stories and cycles of our lives. They are our spiritual guides, our celestial allies, illuminating our path through what’s yet to come and what has passed.” The idea of angels utilizing the cards to reveal my future seems ludicrous. Yet, four women almost four times my age are gathered before me, convinced of the cards’ enchanting power. “Knowing your future is kind of scary, isn’t it?” I contemplate aloud. I find the idea of knowing one’s future unsettling. It raises the question of whether having such knowledge violates the fundamental principles of life. “Oh, no, dear. Think of it as valuable insight,” Lolly says. “Would you like a reading?” Eileen asks. “She is really good—just like her mother was,” Mable says. “She predicted a windfall for me a few years back, and I won a large sum at the Kentucky Derby that year!” “And then you spent it all on those silly scarves from Hermès.” Lolly giggles. “Not all of it.” Mable gives her a sidelong glance. “Plus, I adore my scarves.” I love the childish banter among these old friends. If it’s true that a good friendship keeps you alive longer, then these four women could live centuries. I hope to one day find the kind of friendship these four have. Who knows, maybe The Misfits will fill that role. “Come on, give it a try,” Aunt Ruth insists. I hesitate. Knowing the details of my future might put me in a vulnerable position if the cards are legitimate. What if the tarot cards reveal something I’m not prepared to hear? I bite my nails, unsure if I would be ready to explore the unknown. “Well,” I begin, still hovering between doubt and indecision, “all right, but I don’t know what to do.” “No worries, dear. We will guide you through it,” Aunt Ruth says. Eileen shuffles the stack of cards before handing them to me. “As you shuffle the deck, concentrate on what you would like to ask the cards. When you are ready, cut the deck into thirds.” The room is hushed, except for the raindrops pattering against the glass ceiling. As I try to perform an overhand shuffle, I feel the weight of the cards in my hands. Sitting up straight, I inhale deeply, allowing my breathing to steady my spinning thoughts. With closed eyes, I formulate a question. I want to seek insight into the upcoming year and uncover what I desire most: to build close relationships with people who wholeheartedly accept me for my true self. I long for a sense of belonging, to be understood, and to have my intrinsic value acknowledged beyond superficial judgments. I open my eyes and divide the deck into three equal piles. “Perfect. Now stack the three piles into one any way you feel is right.” I do as Eileen says. She grabs the deck and lays out the first card: The High Priestess. The second card from the pile is The Lovers followed by the Two of Wands. Lolly, Mable, and Aunt Ruth exchange looks as Eileen rubs the sides of her temples with her long green fingernails. “Honey, can you tell me about the two lovers you might have asked about?” Eileen asks. “Two lovers? You must be mistaken—” “No, darling. The cards are showing me two people. Two men, to be specific. If you don’t know who they are, they are coming your way.” I suppress a laugh, feeling like the tarot cards are playing a joke with me. Centering my question around friendship, I never thought it would lead to the unexplored terrain of romance. Finding love always felt distant and implausible for a shy bookworm like me. I never experienced the ease of developing relationships or was seen as desirable—let alone by two guys. I stare at the Lovers card: a naked man and woman look up at an angel in the sky. I play with my hair, wondering how images on three cards could predict something so unimaginable. “You are going to come to a crossroad and you will need to make a decision.” Looking down at the three cards, Eileen puts her index finger over the top of her lip. “The cards also advise you to be careful and deliberate in your choices.” I find that last bit alarming and totally unexpected. The seriousness of the message shifts my perspective as if the cards warn me to take their advice seriously. I swallow a gulp of air as I process the possibility that this could all come true. “A lot can happen in a year,” Lolly advises in a hushed tone. “Yeah, I guess we’ll have to see,” I say, scratching my head. Lolly and Mable both yawn simultaneously. “Well, ladies, it will be four a.m. soon,” Aunt Ruth says, looking at her wristwatch. “What do you say we pack up and get some rest? After all, it is a school night.” She winks at me. Eileen begins to pack the tarot cards into a rose-decorated metal tin. As if by magnetic force, a single card drops out of the stack and lands face up. A flash of lightning illuminates the glass room, followed by a crash of thunder. All five of us stare at the card with the skeleton knight riding a white horse. Their eyes crawl up from the card to meet mine. “The Death card,” Eileen whispers. “Be ready for big change, Jade.” Excerpted from Metamorphosis: A Grove Hollow Novel by Shelby Nicole. Copyright © 2026 by Shelby Nicole. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Metamorphosis</i> by Shelby Nicole appeared first on Reactor.

News Dune: Part Three First Dune: Part Three Teaser is All Spectacle and Blond Robert Pattinson It’s really hard to be emperor, guys By Molly Templeton | Published on March 17, 2026 Screenshot: Warner Bros. Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Warner Bros. The first teaser for Dune 3—which should be called Dune Messiah, but how could we possibly keep track of the order without numbers—believes only in the whisper and the scream. “Your father never started a war,” Rebecca Ferguson whispers in what is apparently her single scene in the film. What starts quietly becomes all aggressive when the chanting kicks in… and never ends. Stop yelling at me, Dune 3! (Yes, Hans Zimmer is back to do the score.) But then, one can’t help but think that this trailer is coming out now for two rather cynical reasons. One: Timothée Chalamet’s latest Oscar campaign ended on Sunday night. Two: Timothée Chalamet recently said that very foolish thing about opera and ballet, and people are rightfully quite cranky with him. (A highlight of the Oscars was watching Misty Copeland dance right in front of him.) Hence: A Dune trailer to put him back in our good graces! Will it work? Hard to say. This trailer is all vibes, as first looks so often are. Paul (Chalamet) and Chani (Zendaya) talk about what they’ll name their kid. Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) does a cool move. Robert Pattinson, extremely blond, lurks, creepily. He lightly gives off the aura of Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner, and no, I can’t exactly explain why. Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh) stalks about. There is, naturally, quite a lot of sand. Javier Bardem returns as Fremen leader Stilgar; Anya Taylor-Joy also does a bit of stalking about as Paul’s little sister Alia. The trailer premiered in Los Angeles, with director Denis Villeneuve and some of the stars present. Villeneuve said, “It’s a very different movie than the first ones,” continuing, “If the first movie was contemplation, a boy exploring a new world, and the second one is a war movie, this one is a thriller. It is action-packed and tense. More muscular.” Taylor-Joy said of Alia, who is really a lot of a character, “She carries the weight and the wisdom of generations and generations in her head. She’s never in a singular conversation. It’s kind of everything everywhere, all at once. And the one thing that she really feels most strongly about is her love and devotion to her brother, because that is the only person who’s ever made her feel like she makes sense.” Most of Villeneuve’s collaborators have returned for the third Dune film, including composer Zimmer, costume designer Jacqueline West, production designer Patrice Vermette, and editor Joe Walker. For this one, though, Brian K. Vaughan joins Villeneuve as writer, and the film has a new cinematographer in Linus Sandgren, who won an Oscar for his work on La La Land. Much of the movie was shot on 65mm film, but some on IMAX. “I kept the desert in digital because I like the brutality,” said Villeneuve. Dune 3 will sandblast into theaters on December 18th.[end-mark] The post First <i>Dune: Part Three</i> Teaser is All Spectacle and Blond Robert Pattinson appeared first on Reactor.

Books Matthew Kressel Wonder, Hope, and Rain on Mars: A Conversation With Author Matthew Kressel Matt Kressel discusses his new novella The Rainseekers, seeking out natural wonders, and writing authentic emotion. By Martin Cahill | Published on March 17, 2026 Photo by Christine Kressel Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by Christine Kressel Matt Kressel is someone I’ve known for over a decade. A kind person and a talented, award-nominated writer, Matt is dedicated to the writing community of NYC and abroad, synonymous with the KGB Fantastic Fiction reading series and the writing group of Altered Fluid (which we were both a part of for many years). Matt writes in many modes, across many genres, and while his work is always imaginative and packed to the brim with the fantastic, the strange, or visions of potential futures, there is one theme that always appears in his work: the human experience is vast, beautiful, and important, our future is one we build together, and there is more that unites us than divides us. I was so thrilled for his new novella when I heard about it, and it did not disappoint. You can find our conversation below, and I encourage you to pick up The Rainseekers today! Buy the Book The Rainseekers Matthew Kressel Buy Book The Rainseekers Matthew Kressel Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Martin Cahill: Hi Matt! Thanks so much for talking with me about The Rainseekers. I absolutely loved this story, and what you accomplished with it, and I’d love to start off with: if you were being asked your life story in a rover on your way to witness something spectacular, how would you describe the time in your life where you wrote this book? Matthew Kressel: Thank you, Martin. That means a lot! I began writing The Rainseekers during the first Covid lockdown in early 2020. I was feeling depressed about the state of the world and I wanted to write something “optimistic.” A lot, though certainly not all, of near-future science fiction tends toward dystopia and a pernicious nihilism, and I wanted to actively challenge that. I wanted to write about a future where things definitely aren’t perfect, but things are qualitatively better than where we are now. I wrote two or three chapters, then promptly trunked the story. I just felt it would be too hard to write. Fast forward two years later, and I pulled out the story from my digital trunk and realized that there was something there. I actually got the chills reading it. I believe this is because I had tapped into a deep need in myself, and maybe some universal human need, for narratives of hope and resilience. In those intervening two years a lot happened to me. People I loved had died. The world I had come to trust and rely on had permanently changed. I did a lot of mourning of people, of lost things. In those years I had also grown as a person. I had matured into a place where I felt I could finally write the story, and most of all it would be honest. Most of the characters in The Rainseekers are nothing like me in real life, but I have felt what they felt. Their emotions are authentic in that regard. Martin: There are so many beautiful elements to this book that combine to become more than the sum of their parts. Can you tell me who or what appeared first? Sakunja, the rain on Mars, one of the passengers? Matthew: Whenever I get asked questions like these my answer sounds either evasive or mystical, but the truth is I don’t know where my ideas come from or when exactly they appear. Maybe it’s a fault of memory more than anything. I do recall riding in a cab with my friend Theresa DeLucci (we were coming home from a Fantastic Fiction at KGB event in Manhattan) and I told her about the idea for a story: a group of people are chasing an evasive storm on Mars, hoping to be the first to experience rain on the newly terraformed planet. I don’t recall if Sakunja was a fully formed character at that time. But I do know that as soon as Sakunja appeared that I knew everything about her, almost as if she pre-existed. The other characters definitely came after these two. And the book’s optimism was always a deliberate choice. Martin: The Rainseekers is definitely a mosaic-like story of all these disparate souls coming together to witness the first natural rainfall on Mars, and I loved learning about each one of them. Was there anyone who was more difficult to tap in to than the others? Did they always all contribute to the creation of a habitable Mars, or was that something you discovered along the way? Matthew: When I’m crafting a new character I look for the humanity in them, the thing that connects the reader to their experiences. We are all challenged by life, we all suffer, and so I focused on specific and difficult challenges they faced. One of the things that makes a character interesting is not just how they feel but what they do in the face of their suffering. In The Rainseekers, I tried to write characters who, despite facing incredible hardships, maintain some kind of hope. They keep on going even when all seems lost. Usually this is not just because of their efforts alone, but because they have the help of others along the way. I was also writing about people from cultures very different from my own, and so I had to be careful to honor and respect those cultures and to do my homework to make sure I was representing these cultures in a respectful way. I am imperfect and I likely got some things wrong. But I do hope readers will see that I’m trying to highlight each character’s humanity to show that even though we come from these diverse backgrounds we all share a commonality of experience. We all suffer. In that sense, I think all the characters were equally hard to write. I tried to bring a lot of my own experiences into the text, from people I’ve known and things I’ve felt and witnessed, and doing that can often bring up a lot of pain, both consciously acknowledged and deeply repressed. We’re talking about individual but also generational trauma. With each character, I tried to explore what brought them to Mars, what hardships they faced getting there. And because Mars is still actively being terraformed and because it’s a new frontier, like a Wild West town, many people in the narrative are participating in its construction. Martin: The reader learns of Sakunja’s story fairly early on, which I found exciting. As the narrator of the book, I feel like other authors might have taken her story as a way to begin the book or end the journey, but you chose as we were in the middle of all the tension of reaching the rain. How did that happen? Matthew: It was important for me to start the story in media res, already on their journey, and to keep the story organic. A lot of fiction follows common tropes: the inciting incident, the tension building, plot reversals, culmination, and denouement. Readers expect these tropes, especially in genres like science fiction. So it was important for me to have an ostensible framing narrative where the characters are chasing this rainstorm across a dangerous terrain, and I tried to develop a tension arc around that. But I ultimately wanted to focus on the individuals and their stories. I also quickly realized that the narrator, Sakunja, needed a strong backstory too. Sakunja is a former social media influencer and up until just before the story begins she’s lived a narcissistic life, focusing on herself, her own needs, to the detriment of those around her. She has developed enough self-awareness since then to realize how selfish she has been, especially after a personal tragedy, so she is now actively trying to excise herself from the story and focus on others for a change. This is why when one of the passengers asks her to tell her own story, she is reluctant. She has exclusively focused on herself for years and has come to loathe her former incarnation. But when this passenger hears her story and tells her that her story is just as interesting and important as any other, it gives Sakunja permission to accept and forgive herself. As to why it happened where it did, it just felt like the right place in the story. I was going for a sense of verisimilitude, and so things seldom happen in a convenient or fortuitous order. Martin: You’re known for writing across a variety of science fiction themes, milieus, genres within sci-fi; what brought about this specific journey, this examination of a (positively) changing climate on Mars, this venture into a documentarian point of view? Matthew: The late philosopher Mark Fisher used the term “hauntology,” a word invented by Jacques Derrida, to describe the feeling of mourning a future we were “promised” but never got. Instead of improving people’s lives, technology has, to a large extent, made some aspects of our lives measurably worse. (Our attention span, for an example.) The vectors of capitalism have driven this “enshittification.” For a long time, I have been lamenting this lost future, this positive optimistic world that I feel we should have gotten but somehow we keep descending into its exact opposite, some nihilist dystopia. We are more than happy to build the bleak worlds science fiction warned us about, but somehow we cannot conceive of the opposite. I don’t give a specific timeline in the book, but terraforming Mars would take centuries. Someone compared this to the European cathedrals that took generations to build. This multi-generational timeline sits in stark contrast to the ephemeral nature of our present, with dwindling attention spans and doomscrolling the daily atrocities. I tried to take a wider, longer view of things. Because it feels to me, especially the United States, that we’ve very much lost a collective vision of a brighter future. In The Rainseekers I wanted to ask, what if we all came together and worked toward something beautiful and beneficial? And, sure, you could argue that terraforming Mars may not be beautiful or beneficial to all, but I took the point of view that it would be to those on this journey, and so this mission to feel the rain is deeply meaningful to them, a kind of touchtone to prove that humanity is capable of not just atrocities but great beauty too. I chose the documentarian style for two reasons. I usually find writing in first person more freeing because you can insert the character’s voice in a way that is harder to pull off well or as convincingly in third person. Also, this style provides a nice framing device for each character to tell their story. Through this framing you see that each person, in their own small way, helped assemble this “cathedral,” this profoundly meaningful thing, brick by brick. But it also has a very practical purpose. A terraformed planet means new life can now thrive there too. Martin: Where do you feel like The Rainseekers pushed you as a writer? Or do you have a moment in the book that you felt was absolutely tapping into something you love doing as a writer? Matthew: It certainly pushed me far out of my comfort zone. It made me realize that, though I love plot, my first love is character. I love writing about interesting life experiences and how that shapes a person. When I was done writing it, I didn’t know if the book worked or not. I mean, I personally thought it worked, but I had no idea how others would receive it. I always get a little nervous when I show a new work to first readers. But this time it was different. I felt extremely vulnerable. Perhaps because I had put so much of myself into it. It was frightening actually how vulnerable I felt. And so when I finally started to get feedback from first readers, and it was overwhelmingly positive, it was a great relief. But I was also like, uh-oh, I think I’m onto something here, and this means I’ll have to stay in this place of vulnerability if I want to continue writing like this. It’s hard, but my best fiction usually comes from these places of deep searching and honesty. Martin: Ultimately, the book is a celebration of the natural world’s wonders, and humanity’s ability to seek those places out and know them. Are there any landscapes on our planet Earth now where you’ve felt similar awe or wonder? Matthew: Switzerland was like this for me. My wife and I visited there in 2015 for our honeymoon. I imagined Switzerland to be one specific way, a field of flowers on a hill a la The Sound of Music. I had no idea it had so many different climates. You have these impossibly humid rainbow-filled valleys with spraying waterfalls that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien to create Rivendell, and at the same time 11,000 feet up on the same day you have frozen glaciers on mountain tops where you need arctic gear to cross. You have green bucolic towns miles up on mountain plateaus that you can only get to by cable car. And there is hauntingly desolate terrain atop some mountains that looked to me no different from Mars. We were hiking at thousands of feet above sea level, on a rocky ledge and there were fossilized sea creatures embedded in the rocks. It astounded me how this high mountain pass was once at the bottom of some ancient ocean, and so much time had passed that not only had these sea creatures been fossilized, but the earth had slowly pushed the ocean floor up until it was now thousands of feet above sea level. It really had a profound effect on me. But also, I think if you pay attention to your own neighborhood, even if it’s not as openly “majestic” as Switzerland, there are still amazing wonders hiding everywhere. I live in Queens, and this summer I noticed there were wild lizards living on the streets. In Queens! In New York City! And we have these little empty overgrown lots that are often filled with the most amazing wildflowers and pollinator insects (I may have been guilty of a few seed bombings). If you pay attention to your surroundings, even if you live in a big city, you will often spot the most incredible things hiding in the cracks. Honestly, any time I’m walking in nature, either in a city or deep in some wood, I feel a sense of wonder. It’s all sacred to me, and why I feel so strongly we need to protect the environment for future generations. Martin: What is on the horizon for you? Matthew: Next month I have a story coming out in Lightspeed Magazine called “Espie Droger Dreams of War.” I wrote it last year after DOGE was cutting government jobs and gleefully chainsawing beneficial organizations like U.S. Aid. It made me so furious, so I had to write about it. It’s a very angry story — far different in tone from The Rainseekers, but I still think there is a core nugget of humanity within it. I have another short story that I wrote on request for a themed anthology that the editor is pitching to a few publishers, so it may be a while before that one is out. I’m also hard at work on the follow-up to The Rainseekers (my agent tells me not to call it a sequel), which picks up more or less where the novella ends. Whereas The Rainseekers is structured as a kind of documentarian travelogue, this new book is structured like a mystery, but with enough echoes of theme and tone that readers of the first book should like it. It’s been really hard but also really fun to write so far. Other than the above, just cohosting the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series with Ellen Datlow, and the podcast I do with Mercurio D. Rivera called Nerd Count, and I’m going to a few conventions. I’ll definitely be at Readercon and also most likely WorldCon as well. I’m usually posting, updating, and publishing new things all the time, so the best place to find out what I’m up to is my website. Martin, thanks so much for these fantastic questions. They really were a pleasure to answer![end-mark] The Rainseekers is available now from Tordotcom Publishing. The post Wonder, Hope, and Rain on Mars: A Conversation With Author Matthew Kressel appeared first on Reactor.

Books Front Lines and Frontiers Colonialism and Conquest: Federation by H. Beam Piper, edited by John F. Carr A collection of Piper’s short fiction explores his Terro-Human Future History setting. By Alan Brown | Published on March 17, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share In this bi-weekly series reviewing classic science fiction and fantasy books, Alan Brown looks at the front lines and frontiers of the field; books about soldiers and spacers, scientists and engineers, explorers and adventurers. Stories full of what Shakespeare used to refer to as “alarums and excursions”: battles, chases, clashes, and the stuff of excitement. The recent record-breaking storm that hit New England had me searching my shelves for what I call “comfort reading,” old books I know well, but enjoy reading again. And one of my favorite comfort-read authors is H. Beam Piper, whose work I first discovered in Analog magazine during my early teens. The book I chose this time around is a collection, part of the effort from Ace Books to bring Piper’s work back into print during the 1970s and 1980s. They had reprinted his novels, and sales were successful enough to warrant volumes of some of his shorter works. This collection, published in 1981, came out in a trade paperback edition, a format that was just becoming popular at the time, sporting a nice cover from Michael Whelan, whose work had helped make the previous Piper reprints so successful. The re-read started well, as the tale “Omnilingual” is one of my favorites, and has held up well over time. But the remaining tales are stories of colonial expansion, in which the perspective is very much that of the colonizers. And in recent years, I, like many other people, have begun to look at colonialism from the viewpoint of those being colonized and to question both its morality and its underlying assumptions. In the end, my comfort reading turned out to be a bit more uncomfortable than I had anticipated. About the Author H. Beam Piper (1904-1964) was an American science fiction author whose career was cut short by suicide before his work found its greatest success. I have reviewed his fiction before, including Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, Little Fuzzy, Space Viking, and The Cosmic Computer, and those reviews include additional information on his biography and the Terro-Human Future History that formed the background for so much of his work. Those stories are based on the idea that historical forces tend to follow patterns that repeat over the centuries, creating cycles of growth, destruction, and renewal. They follow human society through the creation of a planetary Federation, through human expansion into interstellar space, through dark ages after the collapse of the Federation, and through the formation and fall of series of empires. The stories tend to celebrate individual self-interest and capitalism, paired with exciting plots involving exploration, adventure, and warfare. You can find a great deal of additional information on Piper at the fan website. Piper’s copyrights were not renewed after his death, and as a result, many of his works are available to read for free from Project Gutenberg. About the Editor John F. Carr (born 1944) is an American science fiction author and editor, best known for the anthologies he edited in partnership with Jerry Pournelle, for shepherding the long-running War World shared universe series, and for his efforts to collect the work of H. Beam Piper. Carr wrote two biographies of Piper, H. Beam Piper: A Biography, and Typewriter Killer, as well as editing collections of Piper’s work; he also wrote a number of sequels to Piper’s novels, including seven sequels to Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, two to Space Viking, and one to the Little Fuzzy novels. [Note: I am friends with Carr, and contributed stories to the War World series.] Colonialism and Its Impact Most readers will already be acquainted with the concepts of colonialism and postcolonialism, as we’ve attempted to understand the legacy of colonial rule and its impact on subjugated peoples and cultures. Historically, colonialism is most frequently associated with the actions of European nations like Spain, Portugal, England, France, and others in the 15th through the 20th centuries, sending military forces into the Americas, Africa, and Asia to establish dominance over the Indigenous populations, and extract wealth and resources for their own benefit. The spirit of colonialism is at the heart of the American ideology of Manifest Destiny, and at the time H. Beam Piper was writing, science fiction writers frequently assumed that space would be the next frontier for American expansion. It’s no surprise, then, that there have been numerous science fiction stories written from a colonialist and/or imperialist perspective—stories which feature space colonies, colonial revolts, and the formation and collapse of empires. As time has passed, however, more and more stories have pushed back against the assumptions and beliefs that fueled the colonialist project, critiquing and rethinking both the practice and its morality. Federation The Introduction to the collection was written by John F. Carr, describing the beginning of his research into the work of H. Beam Piper, and his growing appreciation for the author and his work. “Omnilingual” is not just one of Piper’s best stories, it is one of the best science fiction stories ever written. It first appeared in Astounding Science Fiction in February 1957. The story follows Martha Dane, a junior archaeologist on one of the first human expeditions to Mars. The explorers find Mars was inhabited by a human-like race that was in decline at about the same time we were learning to draw on cave walls. Martha’s job is to try to decipher the Martians’ written language. Most on the expedition consider her task impossible, as there will be no Rosetta Stone available for a language developed independently from those on Earth. Piper does a good job describing the expedition, which is mostly made up of military members of a Federation Space Force. The primary drama comes from the interaction between Martha and her two fellow archaeologists. She has the support of senior archaeologist Selim von Ohlmhorst, but draws mostly scorn from the young and ambitious Tony Lattimer. The expedition finds an ancient city whose taller buildings still emerge from the dust. After breaking into the upper stories and finding many of them looted, they finally find one that is furnished. And when they realize that building is a university building, full of books and murals, they begin to tease out the meaning of a handful of words. That handful becomes a flood when Martha and some others discover there is something that can function as a type of Rosetta Stone, after all. The story is well structured, the characters are believable, and the use of a female protagonist was unusual for its time. While the future envisioned by Piper has slipped into alternate history, the tale is still worth a read (and is available for free here). Like “Omnilingual,” the story “Naudsonce” hinges on deciphering an alien language. In this case, a Federation Space Navy/Colonial Office expedition has discovered a lucrative planet whose ecology is fully compatible with Terran life. But it has a sentient (although primitive) population, and regulations require the expedition to establish friendly relations with the inhabitants and gain permission to settle through a treaty with local officials. So, the expedition must learn how to communicate with the inhabitants, odd creatures whose behavior is often inexplicable. And while they speak, what they say does not appear to reflect any discernible patterns. Things get dicey along the way, and the Marines in the expedition are spoiling for a fight, fixing bayonets at the first sign of trouble. Figuring out how a species can communicate using sound, but without language, is the key to success, and the title of the story is the word the Terrans coin to describe that process by which they learn to communicate. “Oomphel in the Sky” is another tale of Federation colonization of an inhabited planet. In this case, the Terrans have been around long enough to have trained locals to assist them; the Terrans call these native soldiers “sepoys,” a term which first came into Western use under the French East India Company and British East India Company to refer to locally recruited Indian soldiers. The Terrans have established plantations, but there is unrest, because local priests have decided that the periodic approach of a binary star is a sign of the end times. The Federation bureaucracy has become a larger part of the colonization effort, and there is a Native Welfare Commission that has been doing as much harm as good. A representative from Terra has arrived, full of neo-Marxist theory about how the world should work—theory that unfortunately has little to do with reality. The story is a heavy-handed morality tale that argues that the self-interested actions of capitalists are more effective than the actions of a government. And the solution to the Terran’s problems turns out to be lying to the locals and manipulating them through their religious beliefs. It is at best a morally ambiguous tale that has no real heroes. Its one saving grace is the introduction of a young Captain Foxx Travis, a character who will go on to be a hero of the System States War, a conflict where colony worlds begin to revolt against a stagnant Terran Federation. “Graveyard of Dreams” turns out to be a short story version of Piper’s novel The Cosmic Computer, where Conn Maxwell has been sent from the planet Poictesme to Earth to study computer science and determine the location of a mythical supercomputer that supposedly decided a recent war almost single-handedly. There are no indigenous sapients on Poictesme to dominate, so this story is not a description of the imposing of colonial rule as much as it is a description of how colonial empires tend to fall apart over time. Conn’s home planet is filled with military equipment abandoned by the interstellar Federation after the System States War, and recovering that surplus is the largest industry on the otherwise impoverished world. Conn has discovered the supercomputer did not in fact exist, but he and his father come up with a plan to search for the computer in ways that encourage the inhabitants to rebuild their economy and become a space-faring world. And while the novel goes on to explain what happened next, the short story ends there. “When in the Course—” is another germ that grew into a different story, and in this case, a whole different series. Those who know Piper’s work will immediately recognize aspects of the tale Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, but there is no Kalvan, and instead of taking place in an alternate timeline, the story is set on another planet. In this case, the colonial expedition is not a governmental operation, but instead is sponsored by a private chartered company. And the expedition is stunned to find that the locals are not just sapient bipeds, as is common, but are indistinguishable from human beings (something they suspect might be the result of parallel evolution). They stumble across the land of Prince Ptosphes of Hostigos, who is hemmed in by enemies. He has drawn the wrath of the priests of Styphon, whose control of the secret of making gunpowder, and willingness to pit local leaders against each other, allows them to control most of the planet. So, Prince Ptosphes, desperate for help, is delighted to give the expedition the treaty Federation regulations require in return for their assistance. The expedition uses their contragravity vehicles to help the Hostigos forces retake a vital castle with an airborne assault, and then to attack armies that are massing on their borders. They share the secret of gunpowder, and also help in the construction of wooden vessels that are turned into airships by equipping them with jet engines and contragravity gear. Before long, they have helped establish Prince Ptosphes as ruler of the entire planet, and in the process, two members of the expedition fall in love with, and marry, locals. The idea of an expedition creating a world government they can then make a treaty with is morally ambiguous at best, and after reading about the slaughter they unleash with their advanced technology, the reader begins to feel sorry for their opponents. This previously unpublished story did not work nearly as well as the version that became Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, in which a single protagonist, Pennsylvania State Policeman Calvin Morrison, is swept into an alternate history (replacing the expedition to another planet). This felt much more plausible than the idea of parallel evolution independently producing inhabitants identical to human beings on another planet. And it increased the jeopardy for the protagonist and his allies, who take on their opponents with only the secret of gunpowder and an advanced knowledge of strategy and tactics. While it was interesting to see another approach to a familiar story, it was easy to see why that version was abandoned and reworked. Final Thoughts Federation is a collection of entertaining stories, and also proof that the future history that formed a framework for most of Piper’s works was a remarkable creation in and of itself. By offering us an early version of stories that became the novels The Cosmic Computer and Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, it also gives us a glimpse at the author’s creative process. The generally favorable attitude toward colonialism does take away some of the enjoyment, but the stories are still worth reading. And now, I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on the book and the stories it contains, or your thoughts on any of the work of H. Beam Piper.[end-mark] The post Colonialism and Conquest: <i>Federation</i> by H. Beam Piper, edited by John F. Carr appeared first on Reactor.