Reactor

Prime Video’s adaptation of Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros’ bestselling novel, has found its stars. Variety reports that Esther McGregor will play Violet Sorrengail, the scribe-in-training who becomes a dragon rider. Emilio Sakraya will play Xaden Riorson, another dragon rider whose family has a history with Violet’s mother, a general who leads Basgiath War College, where dragon riders train.

Welcome to another week of All the Books! The fall continues to be the fall, which is to say, the season in which publishing believes it needs to release all the “big” books. I won’t bore you with a tirade on this topic; I will just say that we all only have so much time to read, and may have to be quite selective, perhaps tactical, about how to balance our reading time with the rest of the million things tugging at our attention at any given moment.

I am convinced that complex life will survive on Earth well into January 2027. What about the long run, though? At some point, complex life—all life, for that matter—will encounter some challenge beyond its ability to cope. The question is… is that an eventuality of the distant future or something in the more immediate future? Good news! Orin M. Lole Durbin, Eliel S.C. Anttila, Derek E.G. Briggs, Francis A. Macdonald, and Ross P.

You can stop referring to The Mummy 4 as The Mummy 4 right now (or don’t, I don’t care), as the long-awaited sequel is now known as The Mummy: The Book of the Dead. Universal Pictures confirmed the news today in a brief statement that sadly did not include photos of the cast or a plot description. However, we also now know that the movie will be released in theaters exactly one year from today, on October 15, 2027.

We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Blade of Two Faces, an explosive new why-choose romantasy by Blake Blessing publishing with Bramble on November 17th. When I fled from the rotting kingdom of Mador, there was only one thought on my mind—survive. For too long the king, my brother, has kept me underneath his iron rule, his abuse, and after years as his captive I’ve finally escaped… barely.

James Spader wants you to know that the Ultron he plays in Disney+’s VisionQuest is “very, very different” than the one we met in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. “In Age of Ultron, he was a brat and he was like a teenager, a precocious teenager who’s a little too smart for his own good,” Spader told People.

It’s no surprise that, after the success of 2022’s anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Netflix signed on for a second installment in the Cyberpunk 2077 franchise, which started with the 2020 video game of the same name put out by CD Projekt Red. (A video game that was, in turn, based on the Cyberpunk tabletop games.) Netflix’s second installment is accurately called Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, and it’s almost here.

In her first adult novel, Tanaz Bhathena delves into the rich world of Ferdowsi’s 11th Century epic The Shahnameh, the Persian Book of Kings, to bring to life the story of a woman who played a small part in the tragic legend of Rostam and Sohrab. Tahmineh was the woman who gave birth to and raised Sohrab, the child and only eventual equal of the champion of Iran, Rostam. Her bit part in the Shahnameh leaves her story wide open for Bhathena to explore in Witch Daughter.

The woods can be romantic, awe-inspiring, refreshing, haunting, even terrifying. You’re in the woods and the branches are closing in and a twig snaps behind you, then a footstep in front of you, then a rush of something coming at you. I have five books for you all with some kind of monstrous something in the woods that is going after people, sometimes in a scary way and sometimes in a sexy way.

Whilst perusing Bluesky, my attention was caught by a comment from noted reviewer and pundit Arturo Serrano: I’m very confused by the brain of anyone for whom “the work I think is best” and “my favorite” are not identical. It would be tremendously convenient if the set of works I think are best and the set of works that are my favorites were the same set rather than two sets that overlap a bit—if only because I wouldn’t be quite so defensive about my musical tastes.