Hello, my little whales! In today’s roundup of recent sci-fi and fantasy links, I have news on Stephen Colbert’s LOTR movie, cover reveals, Lammy Award finalists, and an excerpt from the new novella from S. L. Huang. Plus, I’m really curious—what do you think about news of an X-Files reboot?
My SFF reads for this week are The Sixth Nik by Daniel Kraus and The Scarlet Ball by Nghi Vo. Also, check out the cover reveals for The Haunted Librarian by Auralee Wallace and the deluxe paperback edition of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna, with stenciled edges.
Stephen Colbert is Writing a New Lord of the Rings Movie!
Late-night host and Tolkien superfan Stephen Colbert is set to co-write a new Lord of the Rings movie with his son! His love of all things Tolkien is well known, and includes a cameo in The Hobbit and a good grasp of the Elvish language.
Now the news has been announced that Colbert and his son are going to contribute to the newest LOTR movie, with the working title Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past.
“Colbert on Monday revealed that the film will be based on ‘Fogs on the Barrow-downs,’ the eighth chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring, where Hobbits are trapped by a Barrow-wight in an unnatural fog. The story also includes a fan favorite character omitted from the previous films, Tom Bombadil. The movie will be derived from chapters three through eight of Tolkien’s landmark book.
The next film in the series is Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, directed by Gollum himself, Andy Serkis and adapted by Walsh, Boyens, Arty Papageorgiou and Phoebe Gittins. The movie is due out on December 17, 2027.”
The 2026 Lammy Award Finalists Have Been Announced!
Lambda Literary has announced the 2026 Lammy Award finalist titles, which include several speculative books from the last year. The winners will be announced on Friday, June 12, in NYC.
SFF finalists include A Song for You and I by K. O’Neill, The Uncontinented Stars by Haden Cross, Beings by Ilana Masad, Cry, Voidbringer by Elaine Ho, and Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon.
Read an Excerpt from The Language of Liars by S.L. Huang
S. L. Huang, the award-winning author of The Water Outlaws, has a new sci-fi novella coming soon! It’s about a spy named Ro, who can enter the minds of Star Eaters to gather the information he needs to help his community. But what if, instead, he became one of them?
You can read an excerpt below from Reactor and pick up The Language of Liars by S.L. Huang from Tordotcom on April 21, 2026.
The day Ro jumped was the first day he doubted.
Doubt. In his language, it meant uncertainty, apprehension, a lack of confidence or conviction. The feeling of a squiggle in his third and fourth stomachs.
In Birjivina, the trade language of the Andu-Erjians, doubt meant a question—either a question raised or a question asked. Andu-Erjians said things like Ask your doubts or We have seventeen doubts to settle about this treaty with the Gendamese.
The Gendamese had twenty-two common languages across three species. In one of them, everything could be made negative. You could have minus doubt, which roughly meant self-assurance or security. Another of their tongues used the word “doubt” as a slang question tag: You get me, doubt? Undoubt.
The Koi people had only one language and didn’t name it. Why did you need a name for something self-evident? The closest concept to “doubt” in their language roughly meant “miasma.” They didn’t have words for abstract concepts; they had sensory metaphors. You weren’t happy, you were the sound of trilling. You weren’t in love, you were enveloped by warmth. “Sound” and “warmth” themselves were odd translations, since both species of the Koi had cell splinters that would break apart not very far above absolute zero—the literal translation of warmth was a numerical measurement a fraction of a degree above nothing. Warm to the Koi, perhaps, but a death sentence to most other species in the conglomerate.
Except the Star Eaters.
The Star Eaters—those most studied, and least known. Beings born of nebula and cold vacuum.
The Star Eaters had at least nineteen gestural words and phrases that meant some variation of doubt. Doubt of place. Doubt of identity. Doubt of purpose…
Okay, star bits, now take the knowledge you have learned here today and use it for good, not evil. If you want to know more about books, I talk about books pretty much nonstop (when I’m not reading them), and you can hear me say lots of adjectives about them on the BR podcast All the Books! and on Instagram.
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