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This feature on Ridley Scott’s Alien and the franchise it launched was originally published as part of a package on the most beloved villains in science fiction . It has been updated and republished to celebrate Alien returning to movie theaters for an anniversary run.

Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.

The most crucial thing to know going into the action-thriller Boy Kills World is that it eventually features a phenomenally bloody fight scene — a brutal extended throwdown where faces are smashed, fingers purposefully dig into open wounds, and combatants slowly drag a sharp object through each other’s bodies, ripping through skin and muscle with a tactile squelch. It’s a fight so grueling and brutal that even seasoned action-movie veterans might clench their teeth and mutter in reflexive empathy.

Amazon is currently offering Disney Lorcana starter decks for their lowest price ever. The Ruby / Sapphire Starter Deck for Lorcana’s first expansion, Into the Inklands, is on sale for just $13.99. The Amber / Emerald Starter Deck is also on sale for just $14.98. Both of these decks were originally priced at $16.99 when they launched back in March, making this the best opportunity yet to start your Disney Lorcana collection.

The Dead Boy Detectives are a cult favorite that never quite found a cult. Introduced in the pages of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, the undeniable strength of the premise — a ghost boy from the 1910s is best friends with a ghost boy from the 1990s; they solve ghost mysteries! — regularly lures in comics creators, but rarely for longer than a single story arc every five to 10 years.

Away from the buzz of Hollywood sets and the fervor that comes with being a breakout Netflix star, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan enjoys playing video games in her basement.

The next set of cards for Disney Lorcana is heavily inspired by The Little Mermaid. Called Ursula’s Return, the action centers around a plot by the eponymous tentacled terror to corrupt the realm’s many glimmers. But another beloved Disney franchise has come to the rescue. The Madrigal family from Encanto is putting their weight behind the forces of good. Today, Polygon can reveal more Madrigal-themed cards, and just as in the hit movie, the family does best when they all work together.

Cory Davis woke up one morning in January to some unfortunate news: Spec Ops: The Line, the game he directed at Yager Development, had been removed from digital storefronts. Over 24 hours, the game would disappear from Steam, GOG, and the Xbox Store. At the time of this writing, it’s not available to buy new digitally.

Knuckles, Paramount Plus’ spinoff series of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies, could have been a shameless IP cash-in. And the premiere isn’t far off! Following the events of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, we find Sonic and Miles “Tails” Prower living an idyllic life in Montana, and helping their new red echidna friend get the hang of Earth life. Without the budget for a big action spectacle, it’s mostly a kid sitcom with the Sonic gang — until it very much is not. In the subsequent five episodes, Knuckles (voiced again by Idris Elba) pairs up with dimwitted Green Hills sheriff Wade Whipple (Adam Pally) on a road trip to Nevada, where they both hope to find meaning in the world. The result is basically Tommy Boy for Sega buffs. It’s bananas.

Do you know what dimidiation is? Unless you happen to be a scholar of medieval heraldry, you probably don’t. It’s an older method of combining two or more coats of arms into a single shield to denote a union of, say, two families. In dimidiation, the two coats of arms would be cut down the middle, so you might end up with a shield featuring a griffin’s head stuck to a horse’s rear. Later on, it became more common to simply feature the two coats of arms side by side (a practice known as impalement), which is less confusing and more aesthetically pleasing, but also less funny.

Destiny 2: The Final Shape is fast approaching, and we’ve reached the point where every weekly blog post has some bombshell to shake up the community. But on Thursday, Bungie dropped some of the biggest news that veteran players have ever seen: Destiny 2’s weapons are getting un-sunset.

At Polygon, a lot of us are fans of sitting down to a movie with as little upfront information as possible, for the feeling of discovery. But sometimes, it helps to know a few things going in, whether it’s an interesting fact about the movie’s history or just knowing how many end-credits scenes to wait for. Here are four things we think you should know about Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers before watching.

If you want to play Escape from Tarkov offline with friends, it looks like it’s going to cost you. Developer Battlestate Games announced a new special edition of the game, called The Unheard Edition, on Thursday that comes with a lot of exclusive features and content, including an offline, co-op PvE mode, for $250.

If you’d like to join the over 5 million people currently enjoying the Fallout franchise, you can pick up a bundle that includes every Fallout title in addition to their corresponding DLC for just $22.49 at Fanatical. Make sure to use the code OMEN10 at checkout to take an additional $2.50 off your purchase.

Blizzard Entertainment has canceled this year’s fan convention BlizzCon, which was expected to be held in Anaheim, California in November. The company, which is now owned by Microsoft, announced the cancelation on Thursday, but promised to bring the event back “in future years.”

Over 300 itch.io creators have come together to offer a bundle of their work to benefit relief efforts for Palestine. The itch.io Palestine Relief Bundle costs just $8 and includes a collection of digital games, tabletop role-playing systems, and other cool stuff. All proceeds from this bundle will be donated to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF), a more than 30-year-old registered non-profit organization that describes itself as “the primary humanitarian organization in Palestine, delivering crucial and life-saving medical relief where it is needed most.”

The wasteland can be a hard place to survive, and the Commonwealth in particular is full of dangers.

From the Green Bay Packers’ Jamaal Williams and the Seattle Seahawks’ John Reid to the New Orleans Saints’ Cameron Jordan and more, the NFL is packed with players who are just as passionate about anime and manga as they are about football.

Perhaps two good American Horror Story seasons in a row was too much to ask for.

Jamey Stegmaier, co-founder of Stonemaier Games, has made an indelible mark on board gaming since he entered the space in 2011. Not only has he designed and published incredible strategy games like Scythe and Viticulture, but he also helped produce and publish Elizabeth Hargrave’s genre-defining nature-themed board game Wingspanand its sequel. On Wednesday, he announced a secret project, the culmination of seven long years of work. It’s called Vantage, and it might be one of the most exciting tabletop projects slated for 2025.

As a story about stories, it’s no wonder that Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman would have some characters that other creators would want to pick up and play with. Sandman spinoff comics have starred Dream’s sister Death, the strange denizens of the Dreaming, and even Lucifer himself, leading to the the cult success of an entire LuciferTV series years before a Netflix series adapting The Sandman itself.

We love movie recommendations here at Polygon. Whether it’s horror, sci-fi, action, comedy, thrillers, or just the best of the year, we’re always trying to introduce readers to new and exciting movies they’ll love. But now we want to find the perfect movie for you. (That’s you.)

The gray irradiated flesh of ghouls in Falloutserves as a living testament to the horrors of a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by nuclear warfare. It makes sense that ghouls, people and animals who have zombified due to exposure to radiation, have been a fixture of the Fallout series since its inception, all melted flesh and exposed organs. Now, they come to life in Prime Video’s new TV show, Fallout.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door originally launched on GameCube in 2004 to widespread acclaim, and the upcoming Nintendo Switch rerelease won’t mess with perfection. Nintendo and Intelligent Systems’ remaster of the landmark role-playing game — which also represented the Paper Mario series at its peak — will instead give Mario fans a better-looking version of the original game, with a few welcome tweaks. It will also give the massive Switch audience a chance to experience this classic Nintendo game for the first time.

Capcom has released a patch update for Dragon’s Dogma 2 that tones down the threat from Dragonsplague, the viral sickness that can be caught — and carried from one player’s game to another — by pawns, the game’s AI-controlled party members.

Corey Konieczka, acclaimed board game designer of strategy games such as Star Wars: Rebellionand Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game, launched his own studio, Unexpected Games, in 2021. After a series of high-concept titles, including puzzle-based The Initiativeand the dynamic 3,000 Scoundrels, he’s back for another stab at a licensed franchise. The Mandalorian: Adventures is a cooperative board game with multiple modes, and itarrives at hobby shops and online in the third quarter. In a recent interview with Polygon, Konieczka revealed some of its secrets — including what promises to be a highly anticipated traitor mode.

With only its three-part finale blitz left to go, X-Men ’97 has revealed its big villain, and it’s the same as their old one.

Lawyers and parents are taking on the video game industry. There are eight lawsuits currently active in North America that seek to address video game addiction. All have been filed within the past two years, and most argue that the targeted video game companies, including Activision Blizzard, Epic Games, Microsoft, Roblox, Nintendo, Take-Two Interactive Software, and Sony Interactive Entertainment, make their games purposefully addictive as a way to keep people playing, and, ultimately, to get them to spend lots of money.

Magic: The Gathering’s recent set of Fallout-themed cards is the franchise’s “best-performing Commander set ever” said Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks. The announcement, made Wednesday during an earnings call with investors, brings attention to the potential of the trading card games’ ambitious Universes Beyond initiative. But it also highlights the risks of working with IP licensed from other companies.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the end of Shōgun.]

On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed an extensive, $95 billion national security package that sends financial aid to Taiwan, Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza. Tucked inside that bill is a piece of legislation the government’s been trying to pass for a while — a purported “TikTok ban.” Called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controller Applications Act, the bill won’t exactly ban TikTok; instead, the goal is to force TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the popular app. The legislation signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday will give ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok. (Biden could extend the deadline by 90 days, too.)

As I sat down to write this review, I saw that Stellar Blade developer Shift Up had officially announced that the game would be “uncensored” in all regions. Predictably, there was much rejoicing from folks who had been drawn to Stellar Blade protagonist EVE’s shiny buttocks like moths to a flame. To be honest, I can’t blame them; she’s a shockingly attractive virtual person, a trait she shares with pretty much the entire cast of the game, who are all either incredibly hot, badass cyborgs, weird fleshy monsters, or a particularly delectable combination of two or even all three elements. However, as someone who had finished the game earlier that afternoon, I couldn’t help but laugh my sadly unshiny butt off.

Shepherding your online tabletop group for a game night is going to get a little bit easier. Popular virtual tabletop tool Roll20 is coming to Discord, integrating right into the chat and voice platform. So, instead of running Roll20 separately in a browser with some other voice client, you can start the activity from right inside Discord itself.

The Karasuno boys’ volleyball team is finally back in action — though instead of a new season of beloved sports anime Haikyu!!, we’re getting a movie highlighting one of the most anticipated manga moments: the legendary Dumpster Battle.

The latest addition to the Pokémon Center’s lineup of plush pocket monsters is unreasonably large and expensive. This massive Slowpoke weighs in at a little over 17 pounds, is 26-inches tall and 59-inches long, which is pretty close to the real deal. This Pokémon Center-exclusive doesn’t ship until November, but if you’ve got the room to accommodate this life-size plush, you can currently pre-order one for $450.

Fortnite bullies are about to get their biggest nerf yet.

Farmers in Lego Fortnite will be thrilled to hear that you can now collect farm animals, adding them to your villages. After being brought in to tiny barns, they’ll produce materials for you in exchange for food.

After slipping into theaters just before Christmas of 2023, the romantic comedyAnyone but You became a sleeper hit, lingering in theaters and racking up hundreds of millions at the box office, thanks to its sexy stars and flirty banter. Now that it’s on Netflix, it’s likely to find a whole new audience and start a whole new round of conversation about what makes rom-coms exciting these days. But the steamy scenes and its stars’ off-screen chemistry isn’t what really makes the movie enjoyable — the real draw is the stellar supporting cast.

When Young Sheldon was first announced, I remember the reaction of my closest friends: disgust, terror, confusion. The Big Bang Theory is a tired and poorly aged sitcom about a herd of nerds who suddenly fall in with a hot lady friend. The breakout protagonist, Sheldon Cooper, is an obnoxious know-it-all, and the last thing that I expected to enjoy is an origin story for the character. Years later, my social media feeds are filled with Young Sheldon clips and content, enough for me to start watching the show out of morbid curiosity, only to find out: It’s actually quite good. Now, I understand why there’s a second spinoff related to the deep lore of the Cooper family. I get why the fans are clamoring for an Old Sheldon series starring Michael Keaton. Young Sheldon is downright heartwarming, and one of the few sitcoms I actually adore.

Get your hands dirty without leaving your couch with Humble’s Down on the Farm bundle. Through May 10 you can add eight eccentric farming sims to your Steam library for just $20 at Humble. If you’d like to try your hand at starting a homestead outside of Stardew Valley, this is a bundle you’ll want to check out.

While knee-deep in a challenging Frostpunk 2 campaign, I found myself distracted by a pop-up notification.

There are no rules in Moominvalley — or, at least, there aren’t supposed to be. No one can police the wondrous bounds of its nature and the creatures that call the harmonious landscape home. So when a self-appointed Park Keeper and his goon squad of police officers start setting up manicured parks with groomed hedges, gates, and — worst of all — rules, Moominvalley starts to fall into chaos. Everything that was once good and peaceful is disrupted. When Snufkin returns from an adventure in a distant land, Moominvalley is unrecognizable and his best friend Moomintroll missing, having been arrested and tossed into a cage while trying to stop this downfall.

FX’s Shōgun is the best show of the year by some margin. The impeccably crafted period piece builds out complex and memorable characters and an impressive portrait of Japan at the turn of the 17th century, and every decision — down to the smallest details — reflects the clear artistic intent and spirit of collaboration behind the series.

Jon “Ninjon” Ninas is a successful YouTuber, well known by both the algorithm and the hobby community as an excellent and exciting painter and presenter. As of last month, he’s also a Golden Demon winner, having taken home the bronze award in the Unit or Warcry Warband category at AdeptiCon 2024. This was Ninas’ third time entering the prestigious contest sponsored by Games Workshop, but only his first medal win so far.

Fallout’s colorful mascot Vault Boy stands in stark contrast to the grim, violent, post-apocalyptic reality of the role-playing game franchise. Originally inspired by the Chance cards from the board game Monopoly and 1950s-era cartoons, the blue-and-yellow jumpsuited cartoon character was designed to illustrate how perks and abilities worked in Fallout games.

Elden Ring’s story is often attributed to two people: FromSoftware president and creative director Hidetaka Miyazaki, and A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin. This is only partially true. While Miyazaki is credited as the creative mind behind its dense lore and high-fantasy setting, a game as big as Elden Ring had a huge team working on it, and a lot of its story was crafted through gameplay and environmental world-building rather than through a more traditional narrative. Plus, there’s the whole Martin thing.

Back in 2021, court documents released as part of Epic’s legal battle with Apple revealed that Epic had, at some point, planned to put Samus Aran in Fortnite. But a skin based on the futuristic bounty hunter from Nintendo’s Metroid series never materialized.

As the weather (hopefully) turns nicer and the days get longer, it’s hard to think about being inside watching TV. Which is why it’s good that this week’s offerings are so easy to pop on at your leisure: Whether it’s the charms of Netflix’s Dead Boy Detectives — based on a comic written by Neil Gaiman — or the hard-won pleasures of Shōgun’s final episode, or even the fighting spirit of We’re Here season 4 or Knuckles, there’s a lot to love this week.

Queer cinema has always been in a state of continual evolution, but the evolution of trans depiction has come slower, even during agreed-upon golden eras of queer cinema. But in 2024, we are in the midst of a potentially new movement in which three trans-authored films are reshaping the possibilities of what a trans film looks like, and how transness can be expressed in cinema.

Following his death in 1986, the stewardship of Frank Herbert’s Dune universe passed on to his son, Brian, who has continued to publish novels to this day diving into the history and lore of his father’s epic sci-fi universe. If your encore viewing of Dune: Part Two has left you with an urge to learn more about the Dune universe, Humble is currently offering a collection of 16 novels authored by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson that explore the houses, events, and other key players that have shaped the Dune universe for just $18. In addition to this expansive library of fiction, you’ll also receive a copy of Frank Herbert’s biography, Dreamer of Dune, penned by Brian.

Since launching in 2013, the zombie survival game 7 Days to Die has been in early access, but that’s about to change. Studio The Fun Pimps announced Monday that the game is finally getting its 1.0 release.

You never forget a place like Morrowind. It’s like something out of a dream, only you’ve actually been there. Maybe you used a mouse and keyboard, or the Xbox “Duke” controller, to visit it. But that doesn’t make it any less real.

Baby Reindeer, now streaming on Netflix, has become a viral sensation in the week since its largely unheralded release, both in its native U.K. and beyond. It’s easy to understand why; this true story about a struggling comedian and his stalker — written by and starring Richard Gadd and based on his own life — is darkly funny, propulsive, tragic, and peppered with unbelievable turns of events. It mixes the voyeuristic thrill of true crime with the emotional gut punch of memoir. It’s almost impossible not to binge this miniseries in fascinated horror.

Loss is inevitable, and yet, knowing that makes it no less difficult. Grief is all but guaranteed to touch your life — to touch my life. And, most certainly, it already has. That assuredness — that we’ll all be touched by death — is part of the reason so much art is dedicated to interrogating those feelings. For so long, video games have been one medium that, for all its death, dying, and multiple lives, had not quite unpacked the emotion of grief. There was little reason to: When you die in a video game, you always come back to life. The danger of death amounts to nothing but a few hearts on a screen, a number. Oftentimes, it’s encouraged. The more kills you get, the better. Death is not something to mourn there, but a celebration. But this isn’t a universal truth across all games. More and more video games are exploring what it means to lose — no longer just a level, but the more tangible, life-altering loss. It’s games like Spiritfarer, a “cozy management game about dying,” which is about life after death; What Remains of Edith Finch, about the stories that are left behind; or A Mortician’s Tale, which has you going hands-on with death. You’ll find grief in games, too, that are not explicitly about loss; like I said, it’s inevitable.

Infection Free Zone, now in Steam Early Access, has a basic premise: Zombies have taken over the world, driving humanity into underground bunkers to wait the plague out. Eventually, the radio fires up, and a message goes out that the disease is fading. While the surface is still dangerous, it’s time to step up and make an attempt to build a new society.

Vintage gadgets find new life with Grid, a company that deconstructs vintage gaming controllers and other accessories, transforming them into clever art pieces. Right now, this purveyor of tasteful video game art is having a sitewide 15% off sale through April 23 in honor of Earth Day. Each of Grid’s shadowbox pieces is made of wholly genuine recycled parts, artfully displayed in a black 13 x 13-inch frame.

Lord of the Rings fans won’t have to wait too long for their next journey to the Shire.

Mother’s Day in the U.S. falls on Sunday, May 12, this year, and it isn’t far off. Your mom is too cool to ask for a gift, but we all know she deserves more than a little recognition for her efforts. So this Mother’s Day, make sure to give your mom a call, and maybe pick her up something nice to show her you care.

The first full trailer for Deadpool & Wolverine was released today, giving fans a good look at Hugh Jackman in the classic yellow suit, a good look at his banter with Reynolds’ Deadpool, and a good look at Emma Corrin (The Crown) as the movie’s villain, Cassandra Nova.

For just about as long as I can remember, products from The Army Painter have been judged a bit hit-or-miss by those in the painting community. Some colors were just okay, while others were best avoided entirely. All that’s changed over the past few years, however. Now, the Denmark-based company is a competitor in the space once again. Both of its two new lines of paint give industry leader Games Workshop a run for its money, and the newest is available to the public this week for the very first time.

LittleBigPlanet 3’s servers have been offline since January, leaving players unable to access player-created levels stored in the game’s archive. On Friday, developer Sumo Digital and publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment announced the servers will stay offline indefinitely “due to ongoing technical issues.”

There is arguably no more idiosyncratic descriptor in the entirety of gaming than “Metroidvania.”

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for season 1 of the Falloutshow, specifically around the NCR.]

Jesse Plemons is a brilliant actor. He’s also one of our most memeable stars. It’s not that he’s super expressive — quite the opposite, in fact. He’s usually quite placid, and almost hesitant in his line deliveries. He takes his time. But, whether he’s playing a timid everyman in The Power of the Dog or season 2 of Fargo or a stout lawman in Judas and the Black Messiah orGame Night, there’s always something going on behind his narrowed, watchful eyes. His stillness, his pauses, and his plain, unvarnished way of speaking act as a gravitational force, drawing the camera and other actors into his orbit. He’s also, in a low-key way, extremely funny.

Kaiju No. 8, the new sci-fi action anime based on Naoya Matsumoto’s ongoing Shōnen Jump Plus manga, premiered its first episode last Saturday.

Greetings, Polygon readers!

I love whenSpy x Family veers into slice-of-life drama. I like seeing super duper capable spy Loid Forger and lethal assassin Yor navigate mundane activities like cooking dinner or planning date nights. I’m giddy when telepathic Anya uses her powers in a dodgeball match. I’m sure there are fans that prefer the more action-heavy, spy-thriller episodes, but I like when studios Wit and Cloverworks keep it chill. With 20 episodes a season, the anime has the space to deftly balance these two tones.

If you hurry, you can currently pick up a pair of our favorite gaming earbuds, the Sony Inzone Buds, for their lowest price ever. For a limited time, the $199.99 wireless, noise-cancelling earbuds can be purchased direct from Sony for just $179.99. They’re a true multi-purpose solution as well, since they can work with virtually any PC and your phone as well.

Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.

On April 15, Discord’s new Terms of Service changes went into effect, and there’s one major addition: an arbitration clause. What does it mean for users? It’s an important change easily lost in the fine print for anyone on Discord — and those in the know have a chance to opt out of the new agreement before May 15.

Last December’s Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Firewas a paint-by-numbers space opera filled in with Zack Snyder’s maximalist colors. Pitched as “Seven Samurai but make it Star Wars” (literally, to Lucasfilm), the finished product was at best a violent B-movie mashup and at worst an expensive Asylum-esque mockbuster. Not a great movie, but a little promising? Its most glaring omission: an ending. After two hours of hero Kora (Sofia Boutella) wrangling a crew to defend a farming planet from Imperium forces, the showdown didn’t actually go down; Snyder held on to the payoff for Part Two: The Scargiver.

Earth Day is April 22, and to commemorate the occasion, you can currently save on a variety of documentaries from the BBC’s Planet Earth collection in 4K UHD format at Amazon. Even if you’ve already seen some of these films, streaming service resolution can’t compare to the visuals on a physical disc. While this isn’t a comprehensive collection of nature documentaries produced by the BBC, it is an excellent opportunity to explore the majesty of our little blue marble without leaving the safety of your living room.

In RimWorld, you play as crash-landed survivors who have to eke out a new existence on a hostile planet, surviving and perhaps thriving between raider attacks, AI uprisings, and swarms of hostile insects. The game has a handful of expansions with new events, and the latest, Anomaly, is the scariest one yet. If you only have the spare scratch to pick up one RimWorld expansion, Anomaly is by far your best choice.

The Fallout TV show isn’t particularly beautiful – at least, not like a bride is supposed to be. Its characters spend most of their time trudging through the irradiated grime of derelict California, avoiding pools of who-knows-what and drinking animal piss if they really need to. It’s a tough reality to witness, but that’s what makes the Prime Video game adaptation’s violent first episode so critical; its bloodbath wedding welcomes viewers to Fallout’s no-nonsense approach to love and desperation. To do it effectively, Fallout mines the ancient trope for every last perversion.

Hades 2 is still in the early stages of testing, but the game looks good. Like, really good.

The long gestating Yuri!!! on Ice movie has officially been canceled. The movie was announced back in 2017, though news on the production front has been scant since. After a short teaser in 2018 and a note in 2020, the production team finally announced the cancelation on X this Friday.

Netflix announced today that Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri will return for a fifth season of The Witcher — and that the show’s fifth season will be its last. Season 5 will be filmed back-to-back with season 4, which has just started production.

Niantic Labs released a Pokémon Go update on Wednesday that claimed to make trainers look “even more” like the players themselves — and players are now starting to see that comment as a roast. That’s because a loud group of players on social media thinks the update made trainers “ugly.” And, uh, yeah… there’s something off about the new trainer avatars.

With the Hades 2 technical test underway, we’re asking this question: How are the Greek gods of the game even hotter than in the original, Hades? Regardless of the answer, there are lots of new characters being added to the franchise’s lore, like Hephaestus, the god of the forge. Hephaestus is special because he plays a role in most other gods’ stories — he’s the one who crafted their powerful weapons, like Athena’s spear or Zeus’ lightning bolt. He’s also one of the few Greek gods who isn’t “perfect;” it’s said he was thrown from Mt. Olympus because of his appearance, and he was injured on the fall. He’s often depicted with a disability impacting his legs.

“Creepy, scary, sad, and squelchy” aren’t words that seem to go well with “cozy fantasy,” “sapphic romance,” or “dark comedy.” But Nebula and Locus award-winner John Wiswell blends all those elements into his debut novel, Someone You Can Build a Nest In. One of Polygon’s most anticipated science fiction/fantasy novels of 2024, the book, now on shelves, centers on a shape-shifting monster. Shesheshen haunts her local town, Underlook, until she connects with a human woman whose gentleness surprises her. Smitten, Shesheshen plans to show her love by implanting parasitic eggs in her crush object.