The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville review – pulpy hijinks
A film star and a fantasy icon collaborate on an ultraviolent tale of a superhero’s search for mortality
Hugo awards organisers reveal thousands spent on fraudulent votes to help one writer win
The science fiction and fantasy prize says it has culled 377 votes mostly for ‘Finalist A’, who will not be disqualified as there is no proof they were aware
Show up, love the process, don’t follow trends: insider tips on how to write a book
If you have a book in you, a novelist, an agent and a publisher each share their top three golden rules for getting it out
The Echoes by Evie Wyld review – a jigsaw puzzle portrait of buried family secrets
In the fourth novel by the award-winning author of The Bass Rock, Wyld weaves a cleverly fragmented story of an Australian woman whose traumatic past casts a long shadow on the present
Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi review – fast and filthy in New Lagos
Existential literary fiction meets underworld caper in this unflinching tale of two recently parted lovers licking their wounds on a wild weekend in a corrupt city
Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise by Lin Yi-Han review – Taiwan’s #MeToo movement
This finely written, semi-autobiographical tale of a 13-year-old girl’s grooming by her tutor is given tragic depth by the author taking her own life after publication
A Netflix film, statue and a newly discovered first edition: joy at celebrations of Aphra Behn
As the career of the pioneering writer is remembered, an 1688 copy of her novel Oroonoko is the cherry on the cake
In brief: A Ride Across America; This Motherless Land; Be Mine – reviews
A bicycle-led musing on the state of the US; a page-turning, Nigerian-inflected reworking of Mansfield Park; and a wistful final chapter for Richard Ford’s sportswriter Frank Bascombe
Orlaine McDonald: ‘As a writer it’s important that I don’t look away’
The debut novelist on her haunting tale of mothers and daughters, the importance of putting black women on the page and the art form that makes her feel most alive
Sand with everything: writer Catherine Newman on family summers at the beach
Growing appetites and changing tastes … how summers at the beach capture the flavour of family life
‘I wanted to do pulpy, hyper-violent action’: Keanu Reeves on his novel with China Miéville and the afterlife of The Matrix
What happens when a Hollywood actor and SF author join forces on a novel? The pair talk about their literary bromance – and their quest to turn Reeves’s comic book series into something deeper
Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler review – witty millennial angst
A young woman returns to the university town where she grew up in this biting satire of precarity and privilege
The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup
All the Colours of the Dark by Chris Whitaker; The God of the Woods by Liz Moore; Imposter Syndrome by Joseph Knox; How Can I Help You by Laura Sims; The Exile by Patrick Worrall
Lorrie Moore: ‘I would never read literature for comfort’
The American author on finding sympathy for Ted Hughes, a Palestinian take on Hamlet, and the joy of cookery books
The End and Everything Before It by Finegan Kruckemeyer review – a dreamy alternative to the world we live in
The playwright’s debut novel is an intergenerational saga that explores how fostering a strong sense of community brings happiness and harmony