Dan Simmons obituary

Multi-award-winning writer best known for his speculative fiction, but whose novels and novellas also spanned genres from crime to historical

The Names author Florence Knapp: ‘I’d love to write with Maya Angelou’s warmth’

The debut author on the brilliance of Charlotte Brontë, coming late to Harper Lee, and aspiring to write like Claire Keegan

The Best Recent Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror

The Library of Traumatic Memory by Neil Jordan; The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan; Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison; Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman; Spoiled Milk by Avery Curran

Daisy Johnson: ‘I wasn’t a fan of David Szalay, but Flesh is a masterpiece’

The Booker-shortlisted author on a momentous teenage encounter with The Bone People, getting a buzz from Peter Høeg’s Miss Smilla, and trying to avoid The Lorax

The Best Recent Poetry

Gravity Archives by Andrew Motion; Rabbitbox by Wayne Holloway-Smith; Strange Architectures by JL Williams; I Do Know Some Things by Richard Siken

Saba Sams: ‘I’ve no interest in reading Wuthering Heights again’

The Send Nudes author on rereading Lorrie Moore, finding Dodie Smith at the right time, and the enduring brilliance of Muriel Spark