April 16, 2020 Hi! Venessa here. You might recognize my name from my monthly column here at Spec Chic, where I talk a little bit about books, television shows, and lot about conventions, including my Convention Life series and Con Season on a Budget. I also do some behind-the-scenes stuff for the My Favorite Things […]

One of the very first projects we embarked upon at Speculative Chic was blogging about the Best Novel finalists for the 2016 Hugos. That was so much fun, we turned around and did the same thing for the 2016 World Fantasy Best Novel finalists. Now 2017’s award season is upon us, and we just can’t […]

They might not be raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but that doesn’t mean that we love them any less. Welcome back to My Favorite Things, the weekly column where we grab someone in speculative circles to gab about the greatest in geek. This week, we sit down with author Heidi Ruby Miller, who […]

On September 11, 2016, I went to my local movie theater for an experience that I never thought would happen in my lifetime. One of my favorite films, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, was getting an extremely limited theater presentation, courtesy of Fathom Events. I was thrilled. I’d watched the movie over a dozen times since its 1986 […]

February 29, 2020 Well, the news has been a bit cuckoo lately and overflowing with talk of COVID-19. I’m in Japan and my brother is in Korea, and we’re right in the throes of it. But life must continue on, and I must continue with our weekly tradition: it’s time to dive into the Roundup! […]

Happy New Year, dear Chicers! I hope your 2020 is off to a good (or at least okay) start. As promised in my resolution post, I plan to reread and discuss the whole of The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey (aka Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) in the next twelve months. I’m also […]

If you like ebooks and you’re a writer or publisher, or even just a reader, and your drug of choice is science fiction and fantasy, chances are you’ve heard of Macmillan’s TOR experiment. If you haven’t, let me catch you up on the news. Back in June 2018, Macmillan decided to embargo ebook lending uses […]

February 25, 2020 In 2016 (the year reading challenges really took off on the Internet) a good friend asked if I’d like to do a reading challenge. Most of the challenges I’d seen so far that year were fluffy — nothing wrong with popular fiction, etc., but I’d been looking for something different, as was […]

Hey everybody and welcome back! It’s been a week! Yes, a week happened, can you believe it? And we’ve got a lot in store for you if you missed the great things we’ve covered at Speculative Chic. Introductions are really not my thing, so without further ado, let’s get on it with the Weekly Roundup! […]

They might not be raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but that doesn’t mean that we love them any less. Welcome back to My Favorite Things, the weekly column where we grab someone in speculative circles to gab about the greatest in geek. This week, we sit down with Madeline J. Reynolds, whose debut […]

The library as plot point is one of my favorite things to see or read about. I’m a librarian; I’m biased. I love when characters visit the library or the archives for the sole purpose of doing research: discovering who owned their haunted house, who sealed a supernatural deal, what mystical solar phenomenon is about […]

The library as plot point is one of my favorite things to see or read about. I’m a librarian; I’m biased. I love when characters visit the library or the archives for the sole purpose of doing research: discovering who owned their haunted house, who sealed a supernatural deal, what mystical solar phenomenon is about […]

After reading the first of John Scalzi’s Interdependency series, how could I not press on with the second book? I mean, literally everything connecting numerous human words is collapsing, which will leave them all stranded billions of light years from each other (aka just about everyone is going to die). So I kind of want […]

They might not be raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but that doesn’t mean that we love them any less. Welcome back to My Favorite Things, the weekly column where we grab someone in speculative circles to gab about the greatest in geek. This week, we sit down with Gemma Files, whose Spectral Evidence […]