Guidelines

“A good critic will exercise his imagination to find value in a book before he delivers the death blow.”

To submit a title for us to review:

If you are an author or a small publisher and have a title (book, magazine, film, story, interactive fiction, etc.) you'd like to offer for review in TFF, please get in touch with nonfiction@futurefire.net in the first instance, giving the details of your book(s) in the format: "Author, Title. Publisher, year. Pp. ISBN. Price. (five word summary)". E.g. "Catherine Lundoff and JoSelle Vanderhooft, Hellebore and Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic. Lethe Press, 2011. Pp. 238. ISBN 978-1590213773. $15.00. (Short story collection: lesbian magic-users)".

Please let us know whether you are able to provide print or electronic copies (or a choice: some reviewers prefer e-books, some are only interested in print; in principle we're happy to take either). Note that our reviewers are spread all over the globe: if you're not willing to send a book overseas, please don't offer us print copy.

We will include your item in our listing of available titles, sent to our reviews team monthly, and if someone expresses an interest in reviewing it this month, we'll get back to you and ask you to send a copy to them. (No need to send a speculative copy: if it isn't going to be reviewed, we won't ask you for it.)

For reviewers:

To offer a review or to join the reviews team please contact nonfiction@futurefire.net to query before sending your writing (subject line: "TFF query: review"). Reviews should be critical and balanced; very few works are all bad or all good. Show that you have read/watched the work sensitively and carefully. A TFF review is generally a discussion and interpretation of a piece of work rather than merely a description and summary of the contents; at the very least consider what the work is about rather than merely what it contains.

Please title your review as follows:
Author, Title. Publisher, year. Pp. ISBN. Price.
Reviewed by ... .
The typical TFF review is between 500-1500 words, and may be longer. There is no maximum length if the subject warrants more discussion.

In your review, please italicize all titles of books, films, magazines etc. Individual stories, poems or articles in a collection should be placed in ‘bold and single quotation marks’ (please use smart quotes). Author's names in multi-authored anthologies should also be bold alongside their story titles. Please keep any formatting apart from these to an absolute minimum.

A review should cover some or all of the following points:
  • general background and outline (avoiding egregious spoilers), possibly including relevant information about the author/publisher/production team, their reputation and history
  • detailed critique of issues of interest to TFF and the speculative fiction community, for example: academic background; intertextuality; political position, assumptions, or message; science and technology; social conscience, environmentalism, feminism, cosmopolitanism, etc.
    • if an in-depth critique really requires a spoiler, then go ahead; you might like to check this with the editor if unsure.
  • quality judgements, perhaps including comments on realism, standard of writing/presentation/composition, characterization and plot development, reader engagement, overall success of piece
  • If reviewing a collection or anthology, try to say something in-depth about the volume as a whole, as well as about at least 2-3 of the most significant contributions.
It is important that a review avoid:
  • summarizing or retelling the story at length with no analysis or discussion
  • spoilers—already mentioned above, but particularly important for reviews of recent works
  • ad hominem attacks, or criticism of a work for being in a genre not to your taste, or for not being what you would have written on the subject
  • hyperbole, gushing either in praise or criticism, unprofessional tone or language
For more suggestions as to what makes a good review, see:
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