The Portalist

3 weeks ago | theportalist.com | Kayleigh Donaldson

Sci-fi and fantasy are genres not especially known for their brevity. SFF is a realm of the epic, of tales that span generations and require thousands of pages to tell their stories. Check out the shelf of any hardcore reader and you’ll find plenty of doorstops that make Ulysses look like The Turn of the Screw. But which series is the longest? Finding out the specific word counts of SFF series is tricky. It’s not a detail that most publishers or authors ever reveal.

3 weeks ago | theportalist.com | Jena Brown

Thirty years ago, Gregory Maguire released Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. The green-skinned villain had haunted many children’s nightmares for decades prior, but in this version, she has a name: Elphaba. Starting at her birth, we learn that perhaps Dorothy’s version of events wasn’t the whole story. That maybe, Oz was far more complicated than we ever imagined. Since the book’s initial release, Wicked has bewitched audiences all across the globe.

1 month ago | theportalist.com | Kayleigh Donaldson

Don't let the name fool you. The murderbot of Martha Wells' multi-award-winning series of sci-fi novellas doesn't have much interest in killing humans. The murderbot is a cyborg security unit who is hired by those looking to explore alien planets. It's programmed to act as security, but unbeknownst to its owners, this bot has hacked his module and gained sentience.

1 month ago | theportalist.com | Kayleigh Donaldson

TikTok has undoubtedly been a game-changer for book lovers. The BookTok community, millions strong and wildly enthusiastic in their love of the written word, has radically shifted how books are recommended and promoted. It’s led to a new era of bestsellers and genre favorites, with a particular focus on the blend of romance and fantasy, shortened to the portmanteau romantasy. One such writer to benefit from the BookTok romantasy boom is Rina Vasquez.

1 month ago | theportalist.com | Jena Brown

It's no surprise that speculative fiction often cherishes the science above all else. So, it makes sense that often, the characters at the center of these stories are scientists. Even in Mary Shelley’s novel, the book many argue was one of the first science fiction stories ever, Dr. Frankenstein’s scientific endeavors to overcome death were the entire focus of the premise. As our understanding of science has evolved, so have the fictional scientists written in our stories.