Unbound Worlds is Shutting Down

Unbound Worlds is Shutting Down

Unbound-Worlds

Penguin Random House’s genre site Unbound Worlds, now in its tenth year, has been one of the most consistently entertaining and informative resources for fans of SF, fantasy and horror. Today the publisher announced that the site will be essentially shutting down at the end of the month.

Today we’re announcing that the conversation with our readers is ready to evolve in new and exciting ways. In the new year, the articles, interviews, and lists you have enjoyed on Unbound Worlds will have a new home within penguinrandomhouse.com. That means we’ll no longer be publishing new content on Unbound Worlds after this month, but we’re excited to be able to deliver even more of the very best in science fiction, fantasy, and horror books, curated collections, and offers through our email programs.

We’ll have more details to share in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, we hope that you’ll visit PenguinRandomHouse.com. There, you can sign up to receive personalized recommendations and discover even more about our books and authors as you join us on this journey through the stars and beyond.

Read the complete announcement here.

This is a major loss, not just to the field but to me personally. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the site’s content, and drawn heavily from Matt Staggs’ monthly Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books columns (and others) to help stay informed. Over the years I’ve pointed BG readers towards plenty of their articles, from “Where to Start with Gothic Space Opera” to “A Century of Sword and Planet” and “Unbound Worlds on 7 Great Occult Detectives.” In honor of all they’ve done for us over the years, here’s a look back at some of Unbound Worlds greatest hits.

Unbound Worlds on 7 Great Occult Detectives by Matt Staggs
Unbound Worlds on a Century of Sword and Planet by Matt Staggs
Unbound Worlds on Where to Start with Gothic Space Opera by Matt Staggs
Unbound Worlds on the Best Sci-fi and Fantasy Books of December 2017 by Matt Staggs
Unbound Worlds on the Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of February 2018 by Matt Staggs
Unbound Worlds on the Best Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books of October 2018 by Matt Staggs
The Top 10 Evil Robots in Science Fiction by Todd McAulty

Matt Staggs, the guy behind most of my favorite articles at the site, got his start organizing Facebook’s The Swords and Sorcery League and at Suvudu, the precursor to Unbound Worlds. He interviewed me for Suvudu way back in 2011, when the print version of Black Gate was still alive.

Ten years is a long and fruitful run, and I’m happy to see that the rich content the site has generated over the years will be preserved. Still, this is very sad news for the genre.

I salute you, Unbound Worlds. You will be missed.

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Thomas Parker

That is sad. Almost as depressing is the fact that apparently no one can express anything anymore except in the B.S. terms of corporate bureaucratic obfuscation.

When I kick the bucket, I’m going to leave instructions for my eulogist to avoid the word “death”, and just tell the mourners that I’m “evolving in new and exciting ways.”


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