| A Court of Thorns and Roses as an LSAT prep booklet was suggested by Dale. Have a funny idea for a Wrong Genre Cover? Email us at nightbeatseu@gmail.com, and if Rachel likes your suggestion, she’ll make it in a future issue. Or @ us on basically any of the socials. |
by Zilla Novikov
I finished this book at the end of 2025, and the question of the year is “What does it mean to be human versus machine?” This anthology tackles the question in the most human way imaginable–through science fiction. We see humans fight self-aware machines, or become them. We see the good and evil in the artificial, and in the humanity that programmed it. And we see robots replicate the best and worst of us.
This anthology isn’t a philosophy textbook. Most of the stories are packed with action, showing dynamic fights with lethal consequences. There’s love here too–doomed romance and deep friendship. My favourite was The Lore of Seven, where the stories we tell about where we come from are what make us who we are–even for a gang enforcer.
Can’t get enough orcas sinking yachts? Why not play Julian Gunn new game, Pod, inspired by Rachel’s short story, “What If We Kissed While Sinking a Billionaire’s Yacht?” It’s designed to be played with orca beans but can be played with any counters.
by Tucker Lieberman
Some time ago, I discovered Cascade by Rachel A. Rosen.
The sequel, Blight, has awakened.
In the first book, the Earth’s climate has begun to break down, and magic bursts from the planet, entering people. Will the world end? “The world is always ending, for someone,” a wise eco-activist says.
The sequel Blight, has got more demons.
These are the things that, according to Blythe’s experience, kept away a demon: absolutely fucking nothing, if it really wanted to get at you. It would unhinge its jaws and swallow you before you could reach for your gun. It would have claimed your mind long before that. You would walk, smiling, into its rotting arms as it sang your name.
The world collapses by fire, by ice, by violence, by spellcasting, and if it — whatever “it” is — doesn’t get you, it’ll get someone you cared for.
“The first deaths had names, faces, memories attached to them,” but the ones that came after were “cumulative damage, termites in the wood unnoticed until the house collapses,” and then “whole neighbourhoods, small towns, entire ecosystems, tragedy writ too large to enumerate, let alone mourn…other people were shadows, sliding away too fast to register.”
But then, some of us are still alive.
| Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as an Occupational Health and Safety Manual was suggested by Rob. Have a funny idea for a Wrong Genre Cover? Email us at nightbeatseu@gmail.com, and if Rachel likes your suggestion, she’ll make it in a future issue. Or @ us on basically any of the socials. |
Every year, we here at Night Beats make resolutions that we absolutely intend to keep and are not, in fact, breaking right now. This year, in 2026, we will definitely, absolutely, pinkie-promise…
Finish editing my sci-fi novel Abysm and see about publishing it… Also finish a WIP curio novelette (tentative title: Parenthesis)… Start a new novel (tentative title: Warbuyers) which will be immoderately bonkers and take ages to write… — Dale Stromberg
I will finish this damn draft! — Rachel Corsini
After I have finished this trilogy—with the exhausted triumph of a general putting down an enemy army—I will write something shorter, like a nice novella. — Rachel A. Rosen
My new year’s resolution is the same every year: I resolve to make fewer new year’s resolutions. — Zilla Novikov
I never make one, but I resolve to make one next year. — Tucker Lieberman
by Rachel A Rosen
As you might guess from my latest book, I love sea creatures and hate capitalism. Which makes Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs the perfect sort of book for me. (I mean, my favourite part of Moby-Dick was the whale facts, even when they were wrong. This one won’t take you nearly as long to read.)
Undrowned book is a stunning, poetic tribute to Blackness, queerness, femmeness, fatness, resistance, solidarity, and love, told through the lens of marine biology. It brings together two of my great loves: activism and whale facts. This is a book that’s all activism and whale facts, in the best possible way. What a joyful read.
| The Metamorphosis as a children’s book was suggested by Dale Stromberg. Have a funny idea for a Wrong Genre Cover? Email us at nightbeatseu@gmail.com, and if Rachel likes your suggestion, she’ll make it in a future issue. Or @ us on basically any of the socials. |
Every Tuesday, get to know a bit about the stories behind the books you love, and discover your next favourite novel.
Zilla: Peter Darbyshire is back to tell us about the latest installment of Cross’ attempts to stop angels from using classic literature to destroy the universe. It’s a hard life out there for an immortal trying to save the world … so Peter, tell us about it!
Peter: The Wonder Lands War is the fourth book in the Cross series of supernatural thrillers. Cross is in a race against time to find Alice, the character who escaped from the Wonderland tales, before a band of renegade angels can imprison her and use her to find God’s missing bible to end the world. It’s a quest that takes Cross and his faerie companions across Europe, to famous libraries, forgotten ruins, secret areas within the Vatican — and into the strange and deadly realm that inspired the Wonderland tales.
Zilla: Who is your favourite character you’ve written?
Peter: Definitely Cross! What’s not to love about an immortal, angel-hunting rogue who hangs around with the likes of Christopher Marlowe, literary characters, spirits, gorgons and more, and who keeps saving the world against his better judgement?
But Alice is another favourite. She is a very odd and quirky being who has escaped the Wonderland tales and has various magical abilities such as being able to travel from any one library to another. I have a great deal of fun writing her scenes!
Zilla: If you could meet your characters, what would you say to them?
Peter: For God’s sake, why won’t you listen to me? I had a great plan that would have wrapped up everything smoothly. But no, you had your own ideas….
Zilla: And what would they say back?
Peter: They’d say I haven’t written enough books about them and insist I drop everything to write more. Which is basically what they say in my imagination every day.
Zilla: That is very relatable. Would you say that your work is more plot-driven or character-driven?
Peter: There’s enough books in the series now that the plot comes from the characters, who all have intriguing back stories and entanglements. Each book probably has a dozen other storylines that I could have followed. I like to write collaborative tales with the readers, where I offer an intriguing story within the story and let the readers imagine it for themselves. It’s been interesting to hear what some have come up with — probably better ideas than I would have managed!
Zilla: Who are the Cross readers?
Peter: Anyone who loves a serious mix of the literary and fantastic, who wants to see their favourite characters from other books and plays and myths in one place, and who loves seeing literary tradition torn apart and reassembled into new forms. So basically I’m writing for people like me.
I’ve been amazed and gratified by the audience that is out there for these books, which is much larger and diverse than I expected. The Cross series started out being a love letter to literature but I feel it’s grown into a love letter to an entire community.
Zilla: Thanks for sharing your story and your process. We’re looking forward to reading! Where can the Night Beats community find you and your book?
Peter: You can find me and links to my books at peterdarbyshire.com. I can also be found at the usual social haunts with the handle @peterdarbyshire.
| Macbeth as romance was suggested by @artcollisions. Have a funny idea for a Wrong Genre Cover? Email us at nightbeatseu@gmail.com, and if Rachel likes your suggestion, she’ll make it in a future issue. Or @ us on basically any of the socials. |
Night Beats Extended Universe 