Cameron Reed Roundtable

Alexandra Pierce

In May 2026, D Franklin read Cameron Reed’s What We Are Seeking and made a comment on Bluesky about wanting to bring together interested and interesting folks to discuss this fascinating novel. From this comment, the conversation you’re about to read was born.

How it worked: Speculative Insight put out a call for contributors, and received a number of strong applications from which we chose the successful four.

We provided three questions in a google document to act as the initial springboard for discussion, then let Ann, Bogi, Caitlin and So have at it. The result - a deep-diving, thoughtful, at times challenging engagement with the novel as well many real-world issues - is below.

Should Galadriel have taken the Ring?

Nick Hubble
fantasy

The Fourth Age under the dominion of men isn’t going too well, is it? Did the free peoples of Middle-earth really combine to overthrow Sauron so that the world would be delivered on a plate to the likes of Donald Trump and Elon Musk? I think not. But how might things have worked out differently? One alternative not discussed at the Council of Elrond is that Galadriel might take the ring. While Elrond does say, ‘If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor using his own arts, he would set himself on Sauron’s throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear’,[1] Galadriel is not a ‘he’. Moreover, she is not even from the same type of story as Gandalf, Aragorn and Faramir, male characters who demonstrate their goodness by refusing to take the ring when they have the opportunity. For Galadriel is clearly a figuration of the Fairy Queen in the same way that Lórien, the enchanted realm she rules in which time passes in a different manner to outside its borders, is a figuration of fairy land or Faery, as it is sometimes known.[2] 

Angela Slatter and GennaRose Nethercott: in conversation

Alexandra Pierce
conversation

Angela Slatter and GennaRose Nethercott have both written fairy tale and fairy-tale-adjacent novels and short stories. I asked them to chat with me, and each other, about those choices and why authors and readers enjoy them and the tropes being explored.

YOU ARE BOTH CLEARLY INTERESTED IN FAIRY TALES AND FOLK TALES, BROADLY UNDERSTOOD, AND USE IDEAS AND THEMES FROM THEM (AS WELL AS SPECIFIC CHARACTERS) IN YOUR WORK. WHAT DO YOU THINK GIVES SUCH TALES CULTURAL ENDURANCE AND RESONANCE?

Angela: For me it starts with my memories of my mother telling me stories as a kid, bedtime reading was frequently Grimms’ fairy tales and Hans Christian Anderson’s works, as well as books of myths and legend. So that kind of created a rich treasury of stories in my mind and I still draw on those things today, and all the weird ideas that have percolated there in the years since.

Ann Leckie and Arkady Martine: in conversation

Alexandra Pierce
conversation

Ann Leckie and Arkady Martine have both written novels that focus on empires, imperialism, and colonialism, and how people react to and work within those structures. I asked them to chat with me, and each other, about their decisions and thought-processes.

You have both written work that explicitly deals with (some of) the consequences of imperialism, on a galactic scale. What is it about the concept of empire that made you want to explore it in fiction? 

Ann: Honestly, I didn't start out wanting to write about empire. I started out wanting to write a space opera.

Bedtime Stories & Bony Knees

Tansy Rayner Roberts
fantasy

It’s time for another octo-listicle, just in time for (Australian) father’s day! Who’s the best dad in the Discworld? Can villains be great dads? Who’s your favourite (other than Pterry himself, of course)? These are in chronological (published) order based on first appearances…

Celia Lake and Freya Marske: in conversation

Alexandra Pierce
conversation

Freya Marske and Celia Lake have both written novels about magical societies existing in secret, parallel to the non-magical world, set in Edwardian England. I asked them to chat with me, and each other, about their choices regarding magic systems, Edwardian England, and other aspects of their novels…

SI: The Last Binding trilogy, and some of the Albion books, are set in versions of Edwardian England. What is it about that time and that place that attracted you? 

Freya: I have a few answers to this, ranging from frivolous to serious.

Domine

Rjurik Davidson
fiction

I’m off the monorail and through streets littered with cigarette packets and strips of last month’s posters, peeled from the yellow and grey chipped walls. The air smells of rubbish and urine. A breeze would only blow the odour away fora moment; I’m in the City.

Genie and I moved into the place temporarily, with the hope of shifting farther out a few months later, where there might be a park for Max to play in, neighbours to help out, a house with a separate dining room and kitchen. Genie remained after I moved out, so every now and then I’m back in the old neighbourhood, with light rain misting through the little inner-city streets, trying not to look past the pavement in front of me in case I see one of the real things that happen here.

A shuttle slashes the sky overhead, taking someone rich to meet other rich people somewhere else. They don’t bother with travelling by land – easier to skip over the city like a stone over water. The deep red of the shuttle’sburners gives the illusion of warmth.