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Roseanna Pendlebury

@chloroformtea.bsky.social

2.1K followers 410 following 4.5K posts

SFF enthusiast, hobby-collector, blogger, shouter-at-the-internet. Editor at Ignyte and Hugo winner Nerds of a Feather, along with reviews elsewhere. 2025 Hugo Fan Writer finalist. All links here: https://linktr.ee/roseanna.pendlebury (she/her).

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 10h

The merry tinkling of the bells could be really ominous, and I love that for him.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 10h

I'm going to write up my LOTR close reading notes from today tomorrow, because two blog posts in a day would be excessive, but I am very stuck on Glorfindel and his jingle jangle blinged up horse.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 15h

Also by far the realest thing in this book is the idea that people will still be making Boaty McBoatface jokes in thirty years.

Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 16h

Octobanger more like

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 16h

I only finished it yesterday but When There Are Wolves Again by E. J. Swift was so good (and so singular), I couldn't help but write about it immediately.

When There Are Wolves Again – E. J. Swift

The new novel from the author of The Coral Bones1, When There Are Wolves Again follows two women in Britain from the present, stretching out across the years into the future of the late 21st centur…

readerofelse.wordpress.com

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 21h

I do wonder if some of the issue is calling them “spoilers”. Not that I can think of a better term, but maybe people would be a little less wary of them if it was something a bit more neutral?

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 1d

There are definitely parts of this one that fit that brief as well, and tbh even some of the hopeful bits are profoundly sad.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 1d

I’m feeling like I messed up by not reading that… may have to fix it on the strength of this one.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 1d

Just finished When There Are Wolves Again by E. J. Swift and fuck me it’s good. It’s “I’m going to be lobbing this at everyone” good. It’s “I’m going to be really annoying about it for months” good. It’s “if this doesn’t make the Clarke shortlist I riot” good.

Just… fuccccckkkk.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 1d

I think it’s the hopeful bits that are making me the saddest. Ugggghhhh this fucking book, it’s so good.

Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 1d

When There Are Wolves Again genuinely threatening to make me cry while reading it. Good grief (literally, I suppose).

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Reposted by Roseanna Pendlebury

Renay⁷ @renay.bsky.social · 1d

If you had a favorite SFF book in September, I’d love to hear about it! Drop your rec in the form. :) forms.gle/EdDytqbUtjz8...

Renay⁷ @renay.bsky.social · 4d

What was your favorite SFF title in September? I'm compiling a rec list for next week with all your favorites (and one of mine). Doesn't have to be a 2025 book! :D #booksky

Intergalactic Mixtape: Book Rec Form

Welcome to the Intergalactic Mixtape Rec Form! Here you can submit SFF books for any open calls for themed recs. You can also submit one-off recs for use in future lists. Only science fiction, fantasy...

forms.gle

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 1d

Immediately this is followed up by a gut punch. I was simply not prepared.

I should add - there was nothing vacuous about my other friends, either. They knew full well the state of the world, they

knew we had no future. They knew that we were fucked. Why not discuss the comparative merits of maximum volume versus waterproof mascara? After all, you never knew when you might need to weep.

Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 1d

1) I would never!
2) it’s Ed’s book so I would double never

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 1d

Something of an understatement that

Photo of a page of When There Are Wolves Again by E. J. Swift, with a sentence highlighted that reads “It turned out William the Conqueror had a lot to answer for.”

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 1d

But the speculativity in the work about the collision of two houses, or a project imagining a bridge connecting all three of his homes (New York, Seoul, London) made it just all that much more fascinating.

Sketches from the Perfect Home project that do look very sci fi

Bridge Project is a speculative exploration by Suh, begun in 1999, imagining his 'perfect home' at the centre of a bridge connecting the three key cities in his life. The notion of a 'perfect home' is a provocation - an impossible idea. In Phase 1, Suh proposes four speculative bridge designs that span the North Pacific Ocean, linking Seoul to New York. Phase 2 includes London, where he now lives. Measuring the distances between these three locations, Suh found their midpoint to lie in the Arctic Ocean.
Suh invites us to consider how art can imagine new worlds, even if some will remain unrealised.
At the same time, he grapples with real-world social, political and ecological issues. Suh's 'perfect home' would be located over 700 kilometres from the nearest Arctic Ocean coastline. The exact site is
under no country's jurisdiction but has been subject to competing claims from Norway, Canada, Denmark, Russia and the US. The nearest lands are home to the Indigenous Chukchi of the Chukotka Peninsula and the Iñupiat of Alaska. The project raises many questions. Whose land would the bridge infringe upon? What would the environmental impact be?
With so many homes under threat, surely the idea of a 'perfect home' is contradictory?
Suh has worked with specialists from architecture, engineering, industrial and clothing design, philosophy, anthropology and biology, to interrogate these issues.
The project is also informed by Suh's own migration experiences and reflections on globalisation. While the work has various outcomes - designs, maps, animations and survival suits - at its core it exists in an imaginary space.

Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 1d

In general, it’s just an extremely cool exhibition, full of light and texture and details to linger on. Nest/s is fascinating to walk through, and I had to keep stopping to look at the small things.

Detail of Nest/s showing a fabric fire extinguisher in beautiful accuracy

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 1d

Been to the Tate Modern today to see the Do Ho Suh exhibition and I think this might be one of the best things I’ve seen in a gallery in years?

Alongside that, I don’t think I ever remember coming to a big exhibition like this and seeing the artist refer to their work as speculative.

Inside a piece of art called Nest/s, made of overlapping multicoloured fabric recreations of homes. Ed is standing in the middle looking at the details.

The outside of Nest/s, multicoloured home exteriors in a gallery room

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 2d

Turns out London, though good for many things, isn't ideal for "I wish to stand on a cliff in the wind like a gothic novel heroine".

Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 2d

The last one is admittedly not very nature, but it is very boat, which is a big plus imo.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 2d

Trying to come up with a nice day trip for myself to fill some of the holiday void, ideally something with a bit of nature (sea, river, woodland). So far I've got:
- train down to the south coast for Seven Sisters walk (or some of it)
- tube up to Theydon Bois for Epping Forest
- get a boat to Kew

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 2d

Oh go on then, since everyone else seems to be doing it

Hardcover of When There Are Wolves Again by E. J. Swift, held in my left hand. There is a bookcase in the background, and a blue, patterned rug.

Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 3d

I suppose I generally think about it as… is something in the book significant enough to need all that time spent on it to explore? Kind of the inverse of asking a novella if it’s tackling more than it has space for, whether that’s theme, plot, whatever. Some stories don’t have the legs for 1k pages.

Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 3d

V interested to read the review and whether it ends up justifying its length, then.

Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 3d

I think some of my reticence is I already have one of those waiting on my shelf (At the Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard) and while the process is really fun, it feels like the opportunities to do it are not all that plentiful.

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