Mass surveillance, the metaverse, making America ‘great again’: the novelists who predicted our present

From Jorge Luis Borges to George Orwell and Margaret Atwood, novelists have foreseen some of the major developments of our age. What can we learn from their prophecies?

The best recent science fiction, fantasy and horror – review roundup

Godfall by Van Jensen; The Salt Bind by Rebecca Ferrier; The Poet Empress by Shen Tao; A Hole in the Sky by Peter F Hamilton; Hello Earth, Are You There? by Brian Aldiss

Belgrave Road by Manish Chauhan review – a tender tale of love beyond borders

This poignant debut about two strangers who fall in love offers a powerful portrait of the lived realities of immigrants in Britain

The Guardian view on granting legal rights to AI: humans should not give house-room to an ill-advised debate

Editorial: Anthropomorphising tech helps Silicon Valley shares to soar, but our empathy should be directed to worthier causes

This, My Second Life by Patrick Charnley review – an astonishing debut of recovery

Drawing on his own near-death experience, the author finds a powerful intensity in this tale of a young man’s convalescence in a Cornish village

With Sátántangó and Werckmeister Harmonies, Béla Tarr became the vividly disquieting master of spiritual desolation

The Hungarian director’s films moved slowly like vast gothic aircraft carrier-sized ships across dark seas, giving audiences a feeling of drunkenness and hangover at the same time

Love, desire and community: the new generation of readers bonding over romance novels

Young women drawn to ‘morally grey characters’ are driving a boom sparked by TikTok, Instagram and online friendships

Arborescence by Rhett Davis review – why would people turn into trees?

This quietly satirical speculative novel tells a story of metamorphosis, but feels insulated from real ecological crisis

Australian books to look forward to in 2026: from a 278-page sentence to a memoir about a ‘cursed vagina’

It promises to be a marvellous year ahead for OzLit, with new books from the likes of Kate Grenville, Siang Lu, Antoinette Lattouf, Shaun Micallef, Judith Lucy and more

The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers review – the midlife adultery story our generation deserves

This is a witty takedown of insufferable millennial New Yorkers who have managed to ruin even sex

‘It has become difficult to live’: Hungarian writers bemoan country’s hostile environment

Nobel prize for László Krasznahorkai provides a rare glimpse of unity in a nation divided on party lines

The hill I will die on: Fan fiction is real literature, whatever the snobs say

Yes, it’s messy, derivative and occasionally incomprehensible – but so is life, says comedian Urooj Ashfaq

Andrew Miller: ‘DH Lawrence forced me to my feet – I was madly excited’

The novelist on how Lawrence’s The Rainbow made him want to write, the strange genius of Penelope Fitzgerald and finding comfort in Tintin

Blank Canvas by Grace Murray review – a superb debut from a 22-year-old author

In this energisingly original novel, an emotionally detached English student at college in New York tells a big lie

Thursday briefing: Thirty years of the Women’s prize for fiction – have male novelists been edged out?

In today’s newsletter: As the literary award marks its 30th anniversary, the debate about whether it is relevant when women dominate bestsellers list has resurfaced