Malka Older Returns with Space Detectives Mossa and Pleiti—and More SFF Links

Everyone’s favorite lesbian space detectives are back! Next month, Mossa and Pleiti return in their third mystery, The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses, and Reactor has an exclusive sneak peek. I don’t want to give too much away if you didn’t read the last book, so I’ll just tell you the new investigation involves the cousin of one of Pleiti’s old classmates. The cousin has been accused of plagiarism, which she vehemently denies, and a closer look at her case unearths darker motives.

“A storm was writhing over Valdegeld, its tendrils churning Giant’s ever-present fog and pressing sleet and freezing rain through the atmoshield and onto the august buildings of Valdegeld University and auxiliaries, including my—less august, but evocative and comfortable—lodgings.

I had canceled my last tutorial of the day, knowing the student needed more time to gnaw on their thesis in any case, and had long since been ensconced in my rooms with a blazing fire, a pot of tea, and a plate of scones up from the kitchens. I had spent a few dutiful hours with my work, but as the evening wore on I had decided it was well past time for leisure and switched to a Modern novel instead, a tale of early settlement derring-do and romance, with a railcar heist and a space shuttle rescue that fit the mood of the evening.”

The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses (The Investigations of Mossa and Pleiti Book 3) by Malka Older will be out June 10, 2025, from Tor Books.

Read on to the end for an excerpt of our featured story, “How to Read a Short Story (and Where to Find Some)!”

I am a huge fan of Sarah Langan! Her last novel, A Better World, was one of my favorite books of 2024, and I am very excited for her new book, Pam Kowolski is a Monster, which comes out this week. And while we wait for it, you should check out her weird-ass new story “Squid Teeth,” which is also up on Reactor. It’s about a woman who dreams of becoming the best pottery spinner in the world. And by “pottery spinner,” I mean “artist that makes things out of clay in her mouth.”

“Where I grew up, kids started spinning plates in preschool. We literally cut our teeth on the process. It was a skill, but it was also a talent. There was this kid in second grade who spit out still-wet lumps of clay, the ink designs so messy they stained his whole face. It looked like he’d been eating black mud from the bottom of an oil field. Some kids were good but hid their finished products. Their parents had taught them that spinning was shameful. My plates were always shaped just right: three-inch discs splattered in a messy rainbow of colors.”

Newbery Honor author and illustrator Grace Lin released her new book, The Gate, the Girl, and the Dragon, a couple of weeks ago and it’s fantastic! If you haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet, take a moment and read this excerpt in People.

It’s the first book in nine years from Lin, author of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, among other wonderful books. The Gate, the Girl, and the Dragon is a middle grade fantasy novel inspired by Chinese Folklore, with full-color illustrations. It’s about a lion cub who is supposed to guard the Sacred Sphere and protect the human world. But he accidentally kicks the Sphere through the gate to another realm and has to follow it, which shuts him out of the human world. Now he must rely on a girl and a worm (or maybe a dragon?) to help him get home.

From the publisher description: “Jin is a Stone Lion—one of the guardians of the Old City Gate who is charged to watch over humans and protect the Sacred Sphere. But to Jin, those boring duties feel like a waste of time.
 
What isn’t a waste of time? Perfecting his zuqiu kick, scoring a Golden Goal, and becoming the most legendary player of all the spirit world.
 
But when Jin’s perfect kick accidentally knocks the Sacred Sphere out through the gate, he has no choice but to run after it, tumbling out of the realm he calls home and into the human world as the gate closes behind him.
 
Stuck outside the gate, Jin must find help from unlikely allies, including a girl who can hear a mysterious voice and a worm who claims he is a dragon. Together, they must find the sphere and return it to the world beyond the gate…or risk losing everything.”

The Girl, the Gate, and the Dragon by Grace Lin is available now from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

I am a little late to this party, but I wanted to highlight this article from Locus Mag about Tachyon Publications. I am a HUGE fan of many of their books, and they turn 30 this year. Locus Mag talked to Jacob Weisman at Tachyon.

“Has Tachyon changed in significant ways over the past decade or so?

We’ve gotten so much bigger. The company that started as a one-person operation in my basement has gotten a little bigger every year for the last 30 years. There are now six of us working at Tachyon, four in California, one in Texas, and Jaymee Goh in Malaysia.

What are a few recent or upcoming titles you’re excited about?

We have a very exciting list coming up for 2025, including Pat Murphy’s wonderful mashup of Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes, The Adventures of Mary Darling. Martin Cahill’s Audition for the Fox is a uniquely told time travel tale/coming of age story with prankster gods and other malicious magic thrown in.” (Hooray for Marty, a former Rioter!)

Some of my favorite Tachyon titles are The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie Liu, Falling in Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson, How to Mars by David Ebenbach, Jillian vs Parasite Planet by Nicole Kornher-Stace, and We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory.