Sauúti Terrors
Eugen Bacon, Stephen Embleton, and Cheryl S. Ntumy, eds.
Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1835626405
Flame Tree Collections, February 2026, 416 pgs

This is a great book, and you should get it.

You may be hesitant, especially upon learning that this anthology is part of a shared world project. Perhaps you didn’t read the prior anthology, Mothersound: The Sauútiverse Anthology, edited by Wole Talabi for Android Press. You haven’t gone to the The Sauúti Collective site¹, you haven’t read through their explanation of what working as a collective means, and you definitely haven’t clicked through to read works published in other places (like Xan van Rooyen’s “The Heretic Harmonic” in Andromeda Spaceways issue #94, or “Descent” by Wole Talabi in the May 2025 Clarkesworld). But you know what? Neither did I. You’ll be fine. Browse through the table of contents of Sauúti Terrors, and you’ll see you’re in the hands of some seriously capable writers.

Let me put your mind at ease. I’ll discuss a few of the stories, so you can see what you’re missing, and by the end of this column, you’ll know: Yes, definitely, you should get this book.

In Eugen Bacon’s “The Rawness of You,” as with much of Bacon’s fiction, the immediate sensibility of the story is similar to poetry, with an artistry at work in what is shown as well as the way those things are shown. Even the opening line, “This story changes with the telling . . .” somehow, for me, evokes oral storytelling traditions, where rhythm and tone are as important as word choice and subject; all while being both thoughtful and resonant with truth. That is to say, as with much of Bacon’s fiction, there is a joy to be found in the act of reading, of feeling the scenes, and of getting lost in the visions she lays out. The flavor of this story leans more mythic, an epic of transformation and becoming, told in movements.

“Endling” by Nerine Dorman takes a grounded, visceral approach, effectively placing the reader in the moment via the senses, brimming with the immediacy of heightened tension, fear, and hiding. Auu’reti is being hunted by a creature that wiped out their entire tribe. Amidst the carnage, they find a boy, an injured and terrified child from an enemy tribe, but a child, nonetheless. Auu’reti has to stanch their hate in order to figure out what to do about someone they might otherwise immediately want to crush, if he were old enough to fight. Working in some way with an enemy is a classic trope, and it’s classic for a reason: It raises questions that we continue to struggle with as a society and shines a light on things that continue to be important. Dorman is a skilled storyteller, and expertly weaves this version into a palpable setting, adding nuances that make the story feel unique, as well as giving it layers of complexity and relevance. The setting itself is unreliable and dangerous, as well as teeming with yet more dangers, jacking the stakes higher. Even as the narrative brings Auu’reti to an existential reckoning, it brings the reader to a few surprises, making the telling even better.

“Where Daylight Bows to Darkness” by Cheryl S. Ntumy quickly and expertly sketches a science-fictional setting, with docking ships, an array of peoples, and differentiated cultures. Simultaneously it gives us a character to see all of this with, while grounding that character in elements that make her distinctive and intriguing as an individual. Ruah-Mmaru is our point-of-view character. Ruah finds her teacher, Inatani Alahfa, extremely out of sorts, even breaking rules by drinking wine, and speaking about unsettling things . . . things that might upend much of their culture’s foundational beliefs. Terrified, Ruah must go on a dangerous pilgrimage, one that feels like a quest for the Truth, while carrying the ominous words of her Inatani like weights made of doubt. What follows is sharply drawn, but is ultimately, to me, a beautifully philosophical exploration of faith, tradition, and purpose.

Shingai Njeri Kagunda gifts us with “The Wound Asks for Air.” This one begins with storytellers relaying a story, sometimes disagreeing with each other in friendly banter, but telling a story that also situates them as connected to the people and events of the story. So many lines throughout the piece are rich with thought-provoking perspective that a slow, careful read is recommended. The style verges on poetry in places, but switches when it comes to the perspective of the focal point of the story, Mma’riama. As a child, Mma’riama exhibits some interesting abilities and differences, which her people see as a problem to be fixed. Her mothers, initially challenged, quickly come to accept things. But even this framing is slightly inaccurate and betrays the careful writing of the piece: It is more accurate to say that they realize the extent of their love for her, which includes everything she is. Meanwhile, Kagunda paints a wonderful science-fictional world, one that at some point turned lethal as a natural response to the predations of colonization, and then again evolved mysteriously beyond that. Mma’riama feels driven to seek out the planet, as she feels a kind of connection to it. She may even be uniquely suited to survive. Then again, she may be doing something very similar to what the colonizers did. What follows is layered and sophisticated, shifting between times and places, as well as narrative modalities. The narrative encompasses many human things, like personal and community history, the inextricable nature of connection, trust and betrayal, different kinds of harm seen in different ways, and the depths of despicability of which people are capable. But this story, in my read, is also about survival—not just the fact of survival, but the different ways that survival can look, even as the things we survive forever change us. Brilliant, and I’m not even doing it justice, you have to read it and understand it in your own way.

As brilliant as Kagunda’s piece is (and, trust me, besides the ones I’m sharing, there are yet more great stories), perhaps my favorite is “The Temple of the Weeping Drum” by T.L. Huchu. What can I even say about this story? Sometimes you read something and are so excited by the experience it gave you that when you finish, you have to sit for a moment in silence, grinning to yourself. This is the power of great writing. I have been watching the new Amadeus series, and the experience of reading this piece reminds me of scenes where the music of Mozart is so striking that Salieri forgets his hatred, his jealousy, and everything else in the world, and simply sits to absorb the artistry. I can’t even explain how it works here, and the impact, for me, was not immediate. I was skeptical at first, but curious, so I read along, following as the first few pages built scenes, characters, and worlds. Somewhere along the way, I became utterly engrossed, and reading could not happen at the same time as close analysis; reading had to be an act of pleasure. A few things I’ll specifically note: Huchu’s world is full of a dizzying number of imagined elements. Yet it all still works, with enough being understood on instinct, and importantly, so many key elements being rooted in the real. Also, this is a seriously brutal story, which imagines men doing terrible things to women, and the true horror here is that all these things are also rooted in the real. I deeply appreciate the layers of complications throughout, drawn through different characters, as well as political situations, all of which, again, reflect the horrors of our actual world. Huchu’s story centers on a woman trapped by a cult, and so many aspects of situations like this one can be seen in far too many real-world events. The way Huchu teases out the narrative, and the touches of invention added along the way, not to mention the choices made, create a seriously compelling story. Even as Huchu lays out horror after horror, you will immediately know that you haven’t read this particular story before. This story, as well as the aforementioned story by Kagunda (and some others in the book), reflect a true horror: That shitty people keep doing truly atrocious things, that they find a hundred thousand different ways to make nightmares happen. In the case of this story in particular, they will also come up with a hundred thousand different justifications for doing those things. For me, this is at the heart of the narrative: the depths of depravity, paired with the ability of men (specifically) to craft elaborate structures of ultimately irrational rationale; the way larger society is an accomplice; and the power inherent in women that men too often fear. The physical is also a metaphor for the nonphysical: Even when the violence is not overt, it is still ever-present. It is still exerted, often committed with eagerness, especially when it comes to men seeking to control women in any and every way they can, as individuals and with larger cultural structures. A superb story about seriously messed up things.

Yes, it’s a shared universe, and the collective has built a massive reality. Don’t be afraid of an unfamiliar term or two. If you’ve read pretty much any amount of science fiction and fantasy, you know that imagining cool things is a tradition, and discovering unfamiliar terms is part of that tradition, part of the pleasure of exploring new worlds. Each story has a brief intro telling the reader about the story to whet the appetite, and there is a glossary at the back of the book. Personally, I didn’t use either, but this is a personal choice. I like to be surprised by stories; I like to just let them unfold, so once I realized how the introductions functioned, I chose to ignore them. That said, many readers will enjoy them, and there is also a tradition of these kinds of introductions in fiction in general (particularly, I think, in horror). For the glossary, again, a personal choice. I didn’t want to disrupt the flow of the story just to know precisely what a term is. Again, many readers will likely find these things helpful, and glossaries and similar are also a tradition (some books have complex lineages in the back, or appendices, or historic notes), especially for genre works. I found that the authors gave more than enough context to figure things out, and that the momentum of the stories was too powerful for me to pause mid-paragraph. That said, the introductions and glossary both represent a layer of work and loving attention given to the book.

If you love quality short fiction told by an assemblage of skilled writers, and particularly if you love imaginative, boundary-pushing science fiction, you should get this book. Let it challenge you, let it expand your consciousness, let it take you on journeys. The cover price is ridiculously low for what’s on offer.