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Sfx magazine.

SFX, so called after the common homophonic abbreviation “SFX”, standing for “special effects”, is a British magazine covering the topics of science fiction and fantasy.

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• The Most Human: Reconciling with My Father, Leonard Nimoy
• Star Trek: Sons of Star Trek #3
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• Journey to the Inner Light: The Life and Musical Voyage of Jay Chattaway, Star Trek, Jazz, and Film Composer
• Star Trek #21
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• Star Trek and the Tragic Hybrid: Children of Two Worlds from Spock to Soji
• Star Trek Annual 2024 #1
• Star Trek: Defiant #16
• Star Trek Video Games
• The Art of George Wilson
• Star Trek: Sons of Star Trek #4
• Strange Novel Worlds
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• Star Trek: Lost to Eternity
• Star Trek: Picard’s Academy: Commit No Mistakes TPB
• Star Trek: Defiant #17
• Star Trek: The Illustrated Oral History: The Original Cast
• Star Trek: Holo-Ween TPB
• Star Trek #23
• Star Trek: Defiant #18
• Star Trek Discovery: The Art of Glenn Hetrick’s Alchemy Studios
• Star Trek #500
• Star Trek: Open a Channel: A Woman’s Trek
• Star Trek: Lower Decks – Warp Your Own Way
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Asylum

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Welcome to a brand new user interface, providing the best mobile reading experience yet. Quicker, smoother, & more intuitive, download now to try it out free for 30 days! SFX is the world's number one science fiction, fantasy and horror magazine. It covers all areas of science fiction and fantasy across television, movies, books, comics, games, events, collectables... and beyond. Every month SFX delivers essential sci-fi news, features, reviews, exclusive Q&As, behind-the-scenes stories, star profiles and analysis of TV shows. Join thousands of others and download our free app now! ------------------- Once you’ve downloaded our app, you will need to take a free trial or purchase a single issue or subscription to access our in-depth content. We also publish specials and guides - browse our publications, read what interests you most, and get inspired. Back issues, specials, and future issues are available for purchase within the app. Subscriptions are available on various monthly and annual terms, and auto-renew until you decide to cancel it. Check inside the app for current pricing. *** Please Note: Our digital edition is not printable and does not include the covermount items or supplements you would find with the print edition *** • The free trial offer is only available to new subscribers. If you have previously subscribed then payment will be taken immediately. • You can cancel at any time during the free trial period and you will not be charged. Simply turn off auto-renew in your Apple account subscriptions page at least 24 hours before the auto-renew is due. • Payment will be charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase. • Your subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current subscription period. • You will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period, for the same duration and at the current subscription rate for that product. • You can manage your subscriptions and turn off auto-renewal by going to your Account Settings after purchase . • No cancellation of the current subscription is allowed during active subscription period. This does not affect your statutory rights. • Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when you purchase a subscription. • We will be collecting information about your use of the app both when you are online and offline. To find out more please see our privacy policy. The subscription will include the current issue if you don't already own it and subsequently published future issues for the duration of your subscription period. ------------------- By purchasing a subscription or downloading an app you agree that you have read and accept Future Publishing Ltd's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use: www.futureplc.com/privacy-policy/ www.futureplc.com/terms-conditions/

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I've only bought two SFX magazines with this app but both times I tried to buy an issue, it gives an error two or three times before it finally gives in and downloads the magazine. And this second time, it immediately deleted the issue before I could even open it for 'memory' reasons. I have plenty of memory (well over 7 GB) available and I have practically nothing running in the background. How big is this magazine, anyway? It appears to have also deleted, without my knowledge or consent, the first issue I bought and it doesn't look like it will be able to restore it (it says that I only have one issue able to be restored so one issue is in the wind. It better not be the new one). For the one issue I was able to actually read, the magazine is very good but having to magnify and move the screen around all the time to actually read it made me seasick. I'm not impressed with the app so far but hopefully they can fix it. They have two strikes so far as I'm concerned.

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Home / Find a book / The Quiet at the End of the World

The Quiet at the End of the World

By Lauren James

Finalist in the National Cyber Awards for Book of the Year

Amazon’s Teachers’ Pick

Shortlisted for the STEAM Children’s Book Prize

Shortlisted for the YA Book Prize

Winner of the RED Book Award

""A hugely rewarding read."" SFX Magazine

""James is one to watch."" Kirkus Reviews

How far would you go to save those you love? Lowrie and Shen are the youngest people on the planet after a virus caused global infertility. Closeted in a pocket of London and doted upon by a small, ageing community, the pair spend their days mudlarking and looking for treasure – until a secret is uncovered that threatens not only their family but humanity’s entire existence. Now Lowrie and Shen face an impossible choice: in the quiet at the end of the world, they must decide what to sacrifice to save the whole human race…

I thought this was a wonderful exploration of what it means to be a human set alongside coming of age in a post apocalyptic world. Lowrie, is a strong, vibrant character with a thirst for knowledge that leads her on an amazing journey of discovery after finding a long-lost purse belonging to Maya Waverly. Alongside this is a commentary on what might be left behind of today's society and how this might reflect the story of mankind. This book has so many levels to think about: something to please everyone.

Loved this. Very reminiscent of Oryx and Crake.

beautiful book

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24 New Books You Need to Read This Summer

These are independent reviews of the products mentioned, but TIME receives a commission when purchases are made through affiliate links at no additional cost to the purchaser.

S ummer is just around the corner and those looking for something to read on the beach, by the pool or even indoors are in luck. The most anticipated books of summer 2024 seem to offer something for everyone, from a heart-pounding mystery from Rachel Howzell Hall to a hip-hop history lesson from Questlove .

From Memorial Day to Labor Day, you can relax with memoirs from Dr. Anthony Fauci , artist Anna Marie Tendler, and the long-time assistant to the late Joan Didion . Chill out with debuts from exciting up-and-comers like film producer Essie Chambers and Palestinian journalist Yasmin Zaher. Or heat things up with Casey McQuiston , who is back with a romance that they call their “spiciest” book yet , and memoirist Glynnis MacNicol , who shows how a few months in post-pandemic Paris helped her get her groove back.

Below, the 24 most anticipated books of the summer.

Swift River , Essie Chambers (June 4)

Essie Chambers’ debut novel, Swift River , is a heartbreaking, yet hopeful coming of age story about the high cost of family secrets. In 1987, a lonely, overweight biracial teenager named Diamond Newberry struggles to make sense of her dad’s mysterious disappearance seven years earlier. (The only thing they ever found were his sneakers, placed along the titular New England mill town’s namesake river, with his wallet and house keys tucked inside.) While Diamond’s mom fights to declare her husband legally dead in order to collect his much-needed insurance money, the 16-year-old receives a letter from a long-lost relative that has her convinced that her dad is still alive. And if that’s the case, she wonders, why doesn’t he want to be found?

Buy Now : Swift River on Bookshop | Amazon

Fire Exit , Morgan Talty (June 4)

With his spellbinding follow-up to Night of the Living Rez , Morgan Talty offers a compassionate portrait of a man who is desperate to understand who he is and where he came from. A river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation is all that separates Charles Lamosway from the daughter he secretly fathered more than 20 years ago and has watched from afar since her birth. When she suddenly goes missing, Charles finds himself revisiting the most consequential events of his life—his tough childhood on the reservation, his too-short relationship with his daughter’s mom, and the tragic death of his stepfather—in the hopes that he will be able to tell her the truth of his identity before it’s too late.

Buy Now : Fire Exit on Bookshop | Amazon

The Friday Afternoon Club , Griffin Dunne (June 11)

Actor and director Griffin Dunne is the son of investigative journalist Dominick Dunne , and the nephew of legendary writers John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion . In his debut memoir, The Friday Afternoon Club, he attempts to make sense of his well-known family’s strange, and often tragic history and his place in it. He shares Hollywood tales about being saved from drowning by Sean Connery, trying to hook up with Janis Joplin in his teens, and forming a lifelong bond with Carrie Fisher while she filmed Star Wars. But it’s the 1982 death of his sister, Dominique , at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, and the trial that followed that looms large over the book. Written with candor and heart, The Friday Afternoon Club is more than just a juicy celebrity autobiography, it’s a loving portrait of a complicated but resilient family.

Buy Now : The Friday Afternoon Club on Bookshop | Amazon

The Sons of El Rey , Alex Espinoza (June 11)

A family of luchadores, Mexican wrestlers known for donning vibrant masks and costumes, are the subject of The Sons of El Rey, Alex Espinoza’s gripping novel about masculinity and migration. In present-day East Los Angeles, Mexican born-LA raised former lucha libre wrestler Freddy Vega struggles to save his dying dad Ernesto’s gym. On his deathbed, Ernesto, better known as famed luchador El Rey Coyote, has visions of his late wife and his alter-ego, who force him to confront the choices he made back in 1960s Mexico City. Meanwhile, Freddy’s openly gay American-born son, Julian, struggles to find a place for himself in a sport that has not always been accepting of queer people . With affection and humor, The Sons of El Rey shows how three generations of one luchador dynasty wrestle with their demons, desires, and destinies.

Buy Now : The Sons of El Rey on Bookshop | Amazon

The Uptown Local , Cory Leadbeater (June 11)

For nine years, Cory Leadbeater worked as Joan Didion ’s personal assistant—but The Devil Wears Prada this is definitely not. In Leadbeater’s debut memoir, The Uptown Local, he makes it abundantly clear that working for Didion, who died in 2021, was a dream job for a then aspiring novelist in his early twenties. He writes longingly of the revered author and the time they spent together in her final years as roommates entertaining “Oscar winners, California governors, and Supreme Court justices”in her Manhattan co-op . But he also admits that this once in a lifetime gig couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time. He writes honestly of the depression, addiction, and trauma stemming from an abusive childhood that made it hard for him to get up everyday. The Uptown Local is a touching tribute to an unlikely friend and mentor who changed his life and writing in ways he could have never imagined.

Buy Now : The Uptown Local on Bookshop | Amazon

What Fire Brings , Rachel Howzell Hall (June 11)

Best-selling author Rachel Howzell Hall ’s latest thriller, What Fire Brings, is a riveting psychological mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end. As the newest writer-in-residence for crime author Jack Beckham, Bailey Meadows must keep the twists coming and the books selling. But what Jack doesn’t know is that Bailey took the job to find her friend who went missing in the woods surrounding his home—the same friend who was out in those woods looking for another girl who vanished without a trace. And, as it turns out, neither of those women are the first to mysteriously disappear on his property.

Buy Now : What Fire Brings on Bookshop | Amazon

I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself , Glynnis MacNicol (June 11)

I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is a provocative travelog that covers one woman’s search for radical pleasure. After spending the height of the COVID-19 pandemic alone in her tiny Manhattan apartment, author Glynnis MacNicol jumped at the opportunity to sublet her friend’s Paris home in August 2021. At 46, childless, and unattached, she wanted to prove to herself—and to a world that is not always kind to women of a certain age—that she still had a lot of living to do. Over the course of one Parisian summer, she finds gratification in good food, good wine, and really good sex. (The book’s cover is a cheeky nod to just how much time she spends in the nude.) By giving herself over to her indulgences, MacNicol learns to live her best life. With her book , she encourages others to do the same.

Buy Now : I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself on Bookshop | Amazon

Hip-Hop Is History , Questlove (June 11)

Hip-Hop Is History , Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s fifth book, traces the lineage of the titular musical genre alongside his own upbringing in Philadelphia. In the spiritual sequel to his 2021 book, Music Is History , the celebrated musician and Oscar-winning director chronicles the first 50 years of hip-hop through insightful and passionate analysis that celebrates the big-named artists who popularized the style, as well as those lesser-known creatives who quietly influenced rap’s rise. Along the way, he offers personal recollections about how the relatively young music style has shaped his identity. A must-read for old school hip-hop heads and burgeoning fans alike.

Buy Now : Hip-Hop Is History on Bookshop | Amazon

One of Our Kind , Nicola Yoon (June 11)

From Nicola Yoon , the author of Everything Everything , an unsettling social thriller that is Get Out meets Rosemary’s Baby . One of Our Kind, Yoon’s fourth novel and first for adults, is set in Liberty, Calif., a fictional idyllic all-Black gated community outside of Los Angeles. Jasmyn, a public defender expecting her second child, moves there with her venture capitalist husband and their young son looking for a place where they can feel safe and supported. What she finds isn’t the Black utopia she dreamed of, but a town more interested in self-care than social justice issues. When Jasmyn starts digging into the community’s history, she uncovers a shocking secret about Liberty’s founders that threatens to tear her family apart.

Buy Now : One of Our Kind on Bookshop | Amazon

Parade , Rachel Cusk (June 18)

Rachel Cusk , the author of The Outline trilogy , has never been afraid to get experimental with her writing. In the case of Parade, she is once again pushing the boundaries of the literary form. The follow-up to her more conventional 2021 novel, Second Place , is a work of abstract fiction that follows G, an artist who takes on nearly a half-dozen different personas. Across four sections, G is a chauvinist painter who creates portraits of his wife upside down, a 19th century female painter who dies in childbirth, a male filmmaker fleeing his repressed parents, a female painter in a dysfunctional marriage, a Black painter excluded by his peers, and a suffering female sculptor. Despite their core differences, each version of G forces readers to ask important philosophical questions regarding art, gender, motherhood, creativity, and objectification.

Buy Now : Parade on Bookshop | Amazon

On Call , Anthony Fauci (June 18)

The COVID-19 pandemic made Dr. Anthony Fauci a household name, but that was just one chapter in the 83-year-old’s long and storied career as an infectious disease expert. In his first memoir, On Call, Fauci recounts his time as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a role he held for nearly 40 years before stepping down in 2022 . During his tenure, Fauci worked under seven presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan and ending with current President Joe Biden , and writes about those relationships in the book. In a statement via his publisher , Fauci said that he hopes his book “will serve as a personalized document for the reader to understand better the daunting challenges” that public health officials face.

Buy Now : On Call on Bookshop | Amazon

Caledonian Road , Andrew O'Hagan (June 18)

For fans of Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities : writer, journalist, and editor-at-large of London Review of Books Andrew O’Hagan’s sprawling seventh novel, Caledonian Road, is a sharp satire aimed at Britain’s modern polite society. In the span of one year, art historian, noted professor, and best-selling author Campbell Flynn finds himself entangled with a radical blue collar student, a scandal plagued friend, and an amoral Russian oligarch in hopes of climbing even higher on the social ladder. But it’s only a matter of time before Campbell’s questionable decisions start to catch up with him in this scathing tragicomedy about greed, corruption, and ambition.

Buy Now : Caledonian Road on Bookshop | Amazon

Devil Is Fine , John Vercher (June 18)

In John Vercher’s heart-wrenching novel, Devil Is Fine, the unnamed protagonist, a biracial writer, finds himself in constant conversation with the teenage son he unexpectedly lost. The boy becomes his dad’s quiet companion, helping him get through the days, which are often marred by panic attacks and regrets that he didn’t try harder to relate to his late son. Shortly after his teen’s death, the narrator learns that he has inherited a plot of land from his estranged white maternal grandfather that was once a slave plantation. He visits the property, planning to sell it, but once there, he begins having visions of those who were brutalized on the grounds. Caught between the natural world and the spirit one, he must come to terms with his family’s brutal past and his son’s death in order to find salvation.

Buy Now : Devil Is Fine on Bookshop | Amazon

The God of the Woods, Liz Moore (July 2)

Best-selling author Liz Moore’s latest thriller, The God of the Woods, begins in 1975 with the disappearance of a 13-year-old girl from an Adirondack summer camp. But Barbara Van Laar is no ordinary camper: she’s the troubled teenage daughter of the camp’s wealthy owners, whose older child, Bear, also went missing without a trace 14 years earlier. When members of the community—including the camp’s director, a head counselor, Barbara’s bunkmate, and an inexperienced state police detective—start looking into the young girl’s vanishing, they uncover long held family secrets that the Van Laars spent over a decade trying to hide.

Buy Now : The God of the Woods on Bookshop | Amazon

Long Island Compromise , Taffy Brodesser-Akner (July 9)

Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s follow-up to her best-selling debut, Fleishman Is In Trouble , picks up 40 years after mega-rich polystyrene manufacturer Carl Fletcher was kidnapped from his Long Island mansion and returned home less than a week later. The novel looks at how things went back to normal for the Fletchers—or so they wanted to believe. Long Island Compromise delves into the lasting impact the event had on Carl, his wife, and their three grown children, weaving in tales of tradition, ambition, and inheritance that span generations of the family’s difficult history.

Buy Now : Long Island Compromise on Bookshop | Amazon

The Lucky Ones , Zara Chowdhary (July 16)

Zara Chowdhary’s timely debut memoir, The Lucky Ones, is a moving account of how she and her family survived more than 20 years of anti-Muslim violence in India . The book begins on February 27, 2002, the day of the deadly Godhra train burning , which triggered India’s worst communal riots in over 50 years. Chowdhary, who was a teenager in the early 2000s, recounts in great detail the fear and anxiety her family felt as they watched their Hindu neighbors become their enemies. But she also offers necessary historical and political context for the violence that has transpired between Hindus and Muslims for more than eight decades and counting . The Lucky Ones is a harrowing survivor’s tale, an important history lesson, and a desperate warning from someone who has seen the tragic effects of ethnic violence.

Buy Now : The Lucky Ones on Bookshop | Amazon

State of Paradise , Laura van den Berg (July 9)

In the words of tortured poet Taylor Swift : “Florida is one hell of a drug.” And Laura van den Berg seems to agree. In her wonderfully weird new novel, State of Paradise, a ghostwriter for a famed author escapes to the Sunshine State to be closer to her messed-up family. Amid an unidentified pandemic, her mom becomes the unwitting leader of a cult, her younger sister uses sophisticated virtual reality technology to keep in touch with their dead dad, and their neighbors start going missing at an alarming rate. When her sister suddenly disappears only to return days later, she begins to investigate the origins of the mysterious VR company and excavate her own childhood traumas in hopes of saving those who still remain in her hometown.

Buy Now : State of Paradise on Bookshop | Amazon

The Coin , Yasmin Zaher (July 9)

The protagonist of journalist Yasmin Zaher’s bold debut novel, The Coin, is an enigmatic Palestinian woman struggling to find her place in post-2016 New York City. She is “simultaneously rich and poor” due to the fact that she’s unable to access her inheritance while in the U.S., but can’t stop buying designer clothes to keep up a dignified appearance. She teaches at a middle school for underprivileged boys, but sells counterfeit Birkin bags on the side for extra cash. Amid all this dirty business, she becomes obsessed with being clean, rubbing her skin raw in order to take back control of a body and mind that feel caught between two worlds. With The Coin , Zaher creates a hypnotic portrait of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Buy Now : The Coin on Bookshop | Amazon

Catalina , Karla Cornejo Villavicencio (July 23)

The Undocumented Americans author Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s first novel follows the titular character, a charming and cunning undocumented Ivy League student, as she prepares for post-grad life. Due to her immigration status, Catalina Ituralde’s future has always been uncertain. To get ahead, she has always had to hustle, and has been rewarded for her drive. But as she gets ready to leave Harvard, she’s feeling a bit disenchanted. Unlike her privileged peers, she can’t be legally employed, which has left her wondering how she’ll pay rent, care for her undocumented grandparents, and finally fall in love. With Catalina, Villavicencio draws from her own experience as an undocumented person and Harvard grad to give voice to a fierce, but vulnerable character.

Buy Now : Catalina on Bookshop | Amazon

Someone Like Us , Dinaw Mengestu (July 30)

The sudden death of an unconventional father figure leads the protagonist of Dinaw Mengestu’s third novel, Someone Like Us , on a cross-country journey to untangle the facts and fictions of his life. Amid the breakdown of his marriage, Mamush, a globe-trotting war correspondent, heads back to the Washington, D.C. suburb where he was raised by his Ethiopian mom. The day he arrives, he learns that Samuel, a charming but troubled family friend, has died. The loss forces Mamush to trace Samuel’s immigrant journey, often with the late man’s ghost by his side, in this captivating novel about displacement, isolation, and oppression.

Buy Now : Someone Like Us on Bookshop | Amazon

The Pairing , Casey McQuiston (Aug. 6)

Casey McQuiston , the best-selling author of One Last Stop , is back with another queer rom-com that is sure to set your heart aflutter. The Pairing picks up with sommelier-in-training Theo and pastry chef Kit, childhood best friends-turned-estranged exes, four years after their nasty breakup. The duo have now accidentally found themselves on the same nonrefundable European food tour they were set to embark on together before they called it quits. To prove they’re completely over one another, they decide to strike up a friendly bet to see who can hook up with their handsome Italian tour guide first. Horny hijinks definitely ensue in this delicious summer romance.

Buy Now : The Pairing on Bookshop | Amazon

Hum , Helen Phillips (Aug. 6)

Hum, Helen Phillips’ follow-up to her 2019 novel The Need , is a tense dystopian thriller set in a near-future where sophisticated artificial intelligence threatens human existence as we know it. After losing her job to highly capable robots, known as “hums,” May agrees to take part in an experimental surgery that will make her face unrecognizable to surveillance. The surgery, which brings her closer to becoming more like the AI she was once hired to train, comes with a big payday that helps bankroll a family trip to a nature theme park. When the vacation goes awry, May must do the unthinkable in order to save her husband and kids: seek help from a hum with questionable motives.

Buy Now : Hum on Bookshop | Amazon

Mina's Matchbox , Yōko Ogawa (Aug. 13)

Mina’s Matchbox, celebrated Japanese author Yōko Ogawa’s 2006 novel that has been newly translated by Stephen B. Snyder, is a transfixing coming of age tale set in early 1970s Japan. When Tomoko’s mom decides to go back to school, the pre-teen is sent to live with her affluent aunt and uncle for a year. When she arrives at their mansion, she discovers eccentric relatives: a German great-aunt still reeling from the events of World War II, a precocious asthmatic cousin who carries matchboxes as her talisman, and a domesticated pygmy hippo, which acts as the family pet. While there she also uncovers a host of secrets that force her to question her family’s complicated history.

Buy Now : Mina's Matchbox on Bookshop | Amazon

Men Have Called Her Crazy , Anna Marie Tendler (Aug. 13)

With her debut memoir, Men Have Called Her Crazy , artist Anna Marie Tendler steps out of the shadow of her famous ex-husband, comedian John Mulaney . Her new book is not a celebrity tell-all, but a stunning self-portrait of a woman trying to make sense of the misogyny and sexism she has faced throughout her life. With unbridled humor and honesty, she begins the book by recounting her experience checking into a psychiatric hospital in early 2021 for anxiety, depression, and disordered eating. From there, she recalls other pivotal decisions —the first time she self-harmed, lost her virginity, and decided to freeze her eggs—pinpointing the often negative role men have played in her life. With Men Have Called Her Crazy, Tendler is finally able to take back the narrative.

Buy Now : Men Have Called Her Crazy on Bookshop | Amazon

Update: This article previously included Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. The book is now being published on Sept. 10.

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Who Was Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Really?

In “Once Upon a Time,” Elizabeth Beller examines the life and death of the woman who was best known for marrying John F. Kennedy Jr.

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By Louis Bayard

Louis Bayard’s novels include “Jackie & Me” and the forthcoming “The Wildes.”

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ONCE UPON A TIME: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, by Elizabeth Beller

One of the many reasons to wish that Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy were alive and well is that, without too much urging, she might have formed a sorority with Meghan Markle. They could have talked about what it’s like to be a woman thrust into a brutal family dynasty and a Hobbesian press ecosystem. Maybe they would have exchanged tips for dodging paparazzi. Maybe, over enough drinks, they would have asked each other if their husbands were worth all the trouble.

Sadly, we can only come at Bessette-Kennedy now through intermediaries. And none of them could be more ardent in their mission than Elizabeth Beller, whose unironically titled biography, “Once Upon a Time,” aims to make John F. Kennedy Jr.’s wife the princess she was meant to be. Squeezing bright memories from dozens of Bessette-Kennedy’s friends, acquaintances and family members, Beller lays down a yellow-brick road from her subject’s middle-class White Plains childhood to her tony Greenwich adolescence to her convivial semesters at Boston University to her V.I.P. sales job at Calvin Klein in New York.

Beller is there, too, when America’s most famous bachelor wandered in for a fitting. Boy and girl, helpless in their beauty, gazed upon each other. Boy asked for girl’s number. There followed “a haze of sultry dinners, dancing and walks.” But John F. Kennedy Jr. was in no hurry to settle down. He was on-and-off-dating a temperamental Hollywood actress, and even when he and Bessette-Kennedy did become an item, he didn’t introduce her to his mother, who then died before he could.

Their Georgia wedding was lovely, but the marriage was troubled. John’s energies were drawn away by the launch of George, his doomed magazine. His gregarious wife was a prisoner in her own home, thanks to an unhinged tabloid press. “If I don’t leave the house before 8 a.m.,” she told a friend, “they’re waiting for me. Every morning. They chase me down the street.”

The couple grew distant. They got into arguments. They went to couples therapy. But “Once Upon a Time” wants us to know that, through it all, they were meant to be. “They would love hard and they would fight hard,” one friend said, “but they were very much a couple.”

“They were soul mates,” Beller quotes George Plimpton as saying.

And through it all, apparently, Bessette-Kennedy never stopped being a golden girl. We’re told over and again how gorgeous and elegant she was, how smart and funny and kind. She loved kids, dogs, cats, old people. She had “abundant gifts to share.” She was “wild and vivid in a cautious and pale world.” She was “a revelation.”

The only remaining question: Why is this exercise in heroine worship emerging a full quarter-century after her death? Beller argues that Bessette-Kennedy’s legacy until now has been shaped by men, and she probably means one man in particular. Edward Klein’s 2003 pot-stirrer, “The Kennedy Curse,” helped cement the tabloid image of her as a difficult cokehead who showed up two hours late to her own wedding, severed a nerve in her husband’s wrist, fooled around with other men and, in one redolent phrase, snorted up with “a gaggle of gay fashionistas.”

Beller rebuts each charge as it comes, but with all respect to her advocacy, she seems to be litigating a case that has long since been settled out of court or, more poignantly, forgotten. What lingers, I fear, for anyone tasked with remembering Bessette-Kennedy’s name, is her haunting end: borne down in a Piper Saratoga six-seater piloted by her husband, with her sister at her side.

Ironic and fitting, then, that in recreating that fatal journey, Beller’s prose sparks to life. “They were flying through a darkness akin to that of a sensory-deprivation chamber, surface and sky indistinguishable. Only when John began to make multiple turns, climbing then descending, turning and descending again, might the sisters have noticed that it had been 20 minutes since they had seen the nebulous mainland lights, glimmering yet opaque.”

ONCE UPON A TIME : The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy | By Elizabeth Beller | Gallery | 352 pp. | $29.99

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John S. Jacobs was a fugitive, an abolitionist — and the brother of the canonical author Harriet Jacobs. Now, his own fierce autobiography has re-emerged .

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DIVE Magazine

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Treasures, Shipwrecks and the Dawn of Red Sea Diving, by Howard Rosenstein

24 May 2024 3 minutes

One of the most definitive accounts of the early years of Red Sea scuba diving by pioneer Howard Rosenstein will hit the bookstores in July, with forewords by Sylvia Earle and David Doubilet

Howard Rosenstein wasn’t just opening the first dive school in Sharm El Sheikh; he was cracking open a hidden world in Sinai. This true story of the early years in Sharm dives headfirst into those groundbreaking times, where celebrated guests, uncharted dives and historical discoveries became the extraordinary routine.

It’s a tale of grit, where resourcefulness and connections fueled Howard’s pioneering spirit. From Roman coins glinting on the seabed to the dark, unmapped depths, his dives unveiled sunken treasures and secrets of the past. But these weren’t just underwater adventures — they were tightrope walks between nations still at war. He braved floods, aided grounded ships, and even braved the depths of Mount Sinai itself.

Howard’s journey wasn’t a solitary one. He rubbed shoulders with underwater legends, bestselling authors, true photography greats, and even world leaders. He navigated murky shipwrecks, charmed amorous sharks, and found himself a player in the delicate dance of peace negotiations.

Through his dive centres, first in the Mediterranean and then exploding onto the Sinai scene, Howard became a pioneer of recreational diving. He shared the magic of the underwater world with a generation, igniting a passion that would forever burn, his only desire that it would never end. But peace, like the tide, comes with a change.

• The extraordinary story of an entrepreneur who pioneered Red Sea dive tourism with a cast of unforgettable characters.
• How a dive school in a train carriage at the edge of the desert became a global destination.
• A journey of success and purpose, illustrated with 200 images by the author and others, including renowned underwater photographer, David Doubilet.

Release date 2 July 2024, RRP £30. Pre-order now from Divedup.com

Praise for Treasures, Shipwrecks and the Dawn of Red Sea Diving

‘Once in a great while a book comes along that combines masterful storytelling, riveting adventure, charismatic characters, and meaningful messages that will continue to haunt you long after the last page is turned. For me, Treasures, Shipwrecks and the Dawn of Red Sea Diving is that book… I urge readers to dive into this book for vicarious adventure, for insight into a life well lived, for reasons why you, too, should succumb to the urge to submerge, and for unbelievable stories that are most wonderful because they are true’ – Sylvia Earle, Oceanographer, Founder of Mission Blue (from the Foreword)

‘A rollicking fun tale… scuba divers worldwide are indebted to them’ – Kathy Sullivan, history-making astronaut and oceanographer.

‘A fascinating story. Howard’s diving life took him from ancient history, to being among the first to see sharks mate in the wild, to world politics as his pioneering efforts helped make the wonders of the Red Sea available to divers from around the world.’ – Marty Snyderman, underwater photographer, author and photojournalist.

‘A captivating voyage through the exotic wonders of the Middle East, above in the Sinai desert and beneath the cobalt blue waters of the fabled Red Sea. His ability to traverse cultures and disciplines while remaining true to his vision is inspiring. This book records one man’s adventures pioneering scuba diving during high politics in the Middle East and is a testament to the transformative power of curiosity, determination, love for the ocean and the desert, and respect for the world around us. I urge you to pick up a copy and embark on this thrilling journey’ – Amos Nachoum, award winning nature photographer and diving travel pioneer, BigAnimals.com

‘Howard Rosenstein had a dream that he made a reality – he built, and they came.’ – David Doubilet (from the Foreword).

‘A fascinating story that, if it was not the real-life of Howard Rosenstein, it would make a first-class adventure novel. The book details Howard’s work with the top underwater photographers and marine scientists in the world as they dived, photographed and researched some of the most pristine marine environments in the world. Howard’s love for the marine environment went well beyond science and involved bringing the world and all its varied and sometimes contentions partners together for the sake of tourism and conservation. This is not only a story worth reading, it’s a story worthy of sharing with everyone who loves the sport of scuba diving and the underwater world.’ – Dan Orr, Diving Industry Consultant

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The California-based nonprofit that archives books and webpages online experiences distributed denial-of-service attacks, making it difficult for users to access the site.

The Internet Archive is reportedly facing ongoing distributed denial-of-service ( DDoS ) attacks. The attacks began over the Memorial Day long weekend, according to the California-based nonprofit and several users who said they were unable to access the digital archive site for several hours on Monday.

"Archive.org is under a DDoS attack," the nonprofit's X account wrote Monday morning. "The data is not affected, but most services are unavailable."

A few hours later, the nonprofit added that there was some "back and forth with the attackers." The organization said it made some changes to its service, but has not yet shared further details on the identity of the attackers or any possible reason for the attack. PCMag has reached out to Internet Archive for comment.

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The archive site also reported network traffic issues on Sunday. Internet Archive founder and board chair Brewster Kahle said the issues on Sunday could have been due to an "over-aggressive crawling group" or a DDoS attack, adding that the site tends to face more technical issues on weekends.

While other digital archive sites exist, many have domain extensions based outside of the US. Internet Archive was founded in San Francisco, California in 1996. Kahle has advocated for "universal access to all knowledge" via books, websites, and other types of media for decades.

In addition to cyberattacks, the archival group has also faced a number of lawsuits in recent years. Major US book publishers sued the nonprofit in 2020 over Internet Archive's digital book lending program, alleging copyright infringement. Last year, a judge ruled that the program violated the publishers' copyrights. The nonprofit has continued to argue that "controlled digital lending" constitutes fair use, however.

In 2023, Sony and Universal Music launched a lawsuit against Internet Archive over its music archives, alleging copyright infringement.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated to indicate that the DDoS attacks are ongoing as of Tuesday morning.

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The SFX Summer Of SF Reading begins now

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The universe of the printed word is a vital part of SFX 's remit - and of course each month you'll find at least one author interview alongside news of significant literary awards and five or six pages of book reviews. Since the redesign this April we’ve also been including a Q&A with a debut author each issue too.

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Interview with author George Mann Competition: Destiny Quest Interview with author Chris Wraight Two pages from new book John Dies At The End Interview with new author Guy Haley Five pages of book reviews Book Club: Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man (analysed by novelist Jon Courtenay Grimwood)

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SFX Magazine is the world's number one sci-fi, fantasy, and horror magazine published by Future PLC. Established in 1995, SFX Magazine prides itself on writing for its fans, welcoming geeks, collectors, and aficionados into its readership for over 25 years. Covering films, TV shows, books, comics, games, merch, and more, SFX Magazine is published every month. If you love it, chances are we do too and you'll find it in SFX.

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The Real ‘Deep State’

Lobbying firms have disguised their influence so well that it’s often barely visible even to savvy Washington insiders.

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O n March 18 , news broke that Donald Trump intended to restore the disgraced lobbyist Paul Manafort to the ranks of his campaign advisers. In any other moral universe, this would have been an unimaginable rehabilitation. Back in 2016, as revelations about Manafort’s work on behalf of pro-Kremlin politicians in Ukraine began appearing in the press, even Trump considered him a figure so toxic that he forced him to resign as chair of his campaign. Two years later, Manafort was locked up in federal prison on charges of tax evasion and money laundering, among other transgressions. His was one of the most precipitous falls in the history of Washington.

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But at this stage in that history, it’s not remotely shocking to learn that the revolving door continues to turn. By the end of Trump’s term, Manafort had already won a presidential pardon. His unwillingness to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation had earned him Trump’s unstinting admiration: “Such respect for a brave man,” he tweeted. Now it seemed that Manafort’s loyalty would be rewarded with the lobbyist’s most valuable tool: the perception of access, at an opportune moment.

In early May, under growing media scrutiny for international consulting work that he’d reportedly been involved in after his pardon, Manafort said that he would “ stick to the sidelines ,” playing a less visible role in supporting Trump. (He’d recently been in Milwaukee, part of meetings about this summer’s Republican National Convention programming.) But if Trump wins the election, Manafort won’t need 2024 campaign work officially on his résumé to convince corporations and foreign regimes that he can bend U.S. policy on their behalf—­and he and his ilk will be able to follow through on such pledges with unimpeded ease. A second Trump term would mark the culmination of the story chronicled by the brothers Luke and Brody Mullins, a pair of energetic reporters, in their absorbing new book, The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government .

From the March 2018 issue: Franklin Foer on the origins of Paul Manafort

As Trump dreams about governing a second time, he and his inner circle have declared their intention to purge what they call the “deep state”: the civil service that they regard as one of the greatest obstacles to the realization of Trump’s agenda. What they don’t say is that the definition of the deep state—an entrenched force that wields power regardless of the administration in the White House—now fits the business of lobbying better than it does the faceless bureaucracy. This is the deep state, should Trump emerge the victor in the fall, that stands to achieve near-total domination of public power.

L obbying , like Hollywood and Silicon Valley, is a quintessentially American industry. The sector took root along the K Street corridor of gleaming glass-and-steel buildings in downtown D.C. during the 1970s. Though accurately capturing the scale of its growth is hard, a study by George Mason University’s Stephen S. Fuller Institute reported that, in 2016, the “advocacy cluster” employed more than 117,000 workers in metropolitan Washington (that’s more than the population of Manchester, New Hampshire). In theory, lobbying is a constitutionally protected form of redressing grievances. Businesses have every right to argue their case in front of government officials whose policies affect their industries. In practice, lobbying has become a pernicious force in national life, courtesy of corporate America, which hugely outspends other constituencies—­labor unions, consumer and environmental groups—­on an enterprise now dedicated to honing ever more sophisticated methods of shaping public opinion in service of its own ends.

The forerunners of the modern lobbyist were Tommy “The Cork” Corcoran, a member of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s brain trust, and Clark Clifford, who ran President Harry Truman’s poker games. Both men left jobs in government to become freelance fixers, working on behalf of corporate behemoths (the United Fruit Company, for example, and General Electric). Mystique was essential to their method. Corcoran kept his name out of the phone book and off his office door. If a company was bothered by a nettlesome bureaucrat—­­or wanted help overthrowing a hostile Central American government—they were the men ready to pick up the phone and make it so.

But Corcoran and Clifford were anomalous figures. In the late ’60s, only about 60 registered lobbyists were working in Washington. Most businesses, during the decades of postwar prosperity, didn’t see the point in hiring that sort of help. Management was at peace with labor. Corporations paid their taxes, while reaping ample profits. Then along came Ralph Nader, a young Harvard Law School graduate who ignited the modern consumer movement. By dint of his fervent advocacy, he managed to rally Congress to pass the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in 1966, which led auto­makers to install headrests and shatter-resistant windshields. Nader, a scrappy upstart, single-handedly outmaneuvered the great General Motors.

From the October 1966 issue: Elizabeth Drew on the politics of automobile safety

Slow to register an emerging threat, corporate America sat complacently on the sidelines while an expansive new regulatory state emerged, posing a potential obstacle to business imperatives: The Environmental Protection Agency was established in 1970, followed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration the next year, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1972. Meanwhile, in 1971, a lawyer in Richmond, Virginia, named Lewis Powell urged a counterrevolution , writing a memo that called on the corporate world to build the infrastructure that would cultivate pro-business intellectuals and amass political power to defend the free market. Later that year, Richard Nixon named him to the Supreme Court.

A figure from outside the conservative orbit became the ground commander of the corporate cause in the capital. Tommy Boggs was the son of the legendary Hale Boggs, a Democratic congressman from Louisiana. The Great Society was, in no small measure, Hale’s legislative handiwork, and Washington was in Tommy’s blood. (As a boy, he ran House Speaker Sam Rayburn’s private elevator in the Capitol.) He saw how he could become a successor to Corcoran and Clifford, but on a far grander scale. After a failed run for Congress in 1970, he devoted himself to expanding the lobbying firm Patton Boggs.

Boggs mobilized a grand corporate alliance (including television networks, advertising agencies, and food conglomerates) to roll back the liberal state—and then ferociously used his connections on his clients’ behalf. M&M’s and Milky Way (he was working for the Mars candy company) were among the beneficiaries of a major victory. Jimmy Carter’s Federal Trade Commission had threatened to regulate the advertising of candy and sugar-heavy cereals directed at kids. Boggs sent the deputy editor of The Washington Post ’s editorial page, Meg Greenfield, material about the horrors of this regulation. The newspaper then published an editorial with the memorable headline “ The FTC as National Nanny .” Senators thundered against the absurdity of the new vigilance. The FTC abandoned its plans.

Boggs ignited not just a revolution in American government, but a cultural transformation of Washington. Before his ascent, patricians with boarding-school pedigrees sat atop the city’s social hierarchy, disdainful of pecuniary interests and the ostentatious flaunting of wealth. Boggs, very highly paid to work his wonders, rubbed his success in Washington’s face. He would cruise around town in one of the firm’s fleet of luxury cars with a brick-size mobile phone plastered to his face, a cigar dangling from his mouth.

T he story that unfolds in The Wolves of K Street features an ironic twist: Liberal activists figured out how to mobilize the public to care about important issues and how to inspire them to become democratically engaged. K Street fixers saw this success, then adapted the tactics to serve the interests of corporations. In the Mullinses’ narrative, this evolution found its embodiment in Tony Podesta. An activist who came of age during the anti-war movement of the 1960s and a veteran of George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign, Podesta made his name running the TV producer Norman Lear’s group People for the American Way, a progressive counterweight to Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority. In 1987, Podesta helped rally the left to sink Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan’s Supreme Court nominee.

Not long after, Podesta left the world of public-interest advocacy and began to sell his expertise—­at first primarily to liberal groups, then almost exclusively to businesses. Using the techniques he learned while working with Lear, he specialized in deploying celebrity figures to influence public attitudes, counting on citizen sentiment to in turn sway politicians. To block the FDA from regulating vitamins in 1993 (his client was a group of dietary-supplement manufacturers), he cut an ad with the actor Mel Gibson that depicted a SWAT team busting him at home for possessing vitamin C. “Call the U.S. Senate and tell them that you want to take your vitamins in peace,” Gibson said in a voice-over.

With stunning speed, Podesta—a bon vivant who went on to amass one of Washington’s most impressive private collections of contemporary art—had gone from excelling in impassioned advocacy to becoming promiscuous in his choice of client. To fund his lifestyle, the Mullinses write, he helped Lockheed Martin win approval of the sale of F-16s to Pakistan, even though the Indian government, another client of the Podesta Group, opposed the deal. He represented the tire manufacturer Michelin and its competitor Pirelli. Over the objections of his staff, he joined forces with Paul Manafort to polish the image of Viktor Yanukovych, the corrupt pro-Kremlin politician who ruled Ukraine until a revolution ousted him in 2014.

As K Street boomed, the Mullinses show, its denizens remade American life well beyond Washington culture. They report that the firm Black, Manafort, Stone, and Kelly, also a central player in their book, aided the Australian magnate Rupert Murdoch in overcoming regulatory obstacles and extending his corrosive media empire in the United States. In the ’80s, the firm became masters at deregulating industries and securing tax breaks for the powerful—$130 million for Bethlehem Steel, $58 million for Chrysler, $38 million for Johnson & Johnson—helping to usher in an age of corporate impunity and gaping inequality.

T he Wolves of K Street is full of cautionary tales about the normalization of corruption. Revolving-door practices—leaving government jobs and parlaying insider connections into lucrative lobbying work—became part of the system. Meanwhile, the culture fueled fraudulent self-aggrandizing of the sort on lurid display in the sad case of a relatively fringe figure named Evan Morris. A kid from Queens who first arrived in town as a college intern in the Clinton White House, he quickly grasped that K Street represented the city’s best path to power and wealth. He scored a coveted job at Tommy Boggs’s firm while in law school, arriving just as lobbyists became essential cogs in a whole new realm: the machinery of electioneering.

The McCain-Feingold Act of 2002—campaign-finance legislation intended to wean the political system off big donors—prevented corporations and individuals from writing massive checks to political parties. Unable to rely as heavily on big donors, campaigns were happy to outsource to lobbyists the arduous job of rounding up smaller contributions from the wealthy: Lobbyists became “bundlers,” in fundraising parlance. As a 20-something, Morris proved to be one of the Democratic Party’s most exuberant solicitors, promising donors VIP access to events that he couldn’t provide, or intimating that he was asking on behalf of Boggs himself, which he wasn’t. Despite his relative inexperience, he managed to schmooze with the likes of Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton.

He went on to work for Roche, a Swiss pharmaceutical giant, and hatched a kind of campaign that he described as “black ops.” Amid the bird-flu outbreak of 2005, the Mullinses write, he began urging the government to stockpile the antiviral medication that Roche produced. He hired consultants to promote news stories that stoked public panic about the bird flu. He compiled studies touting the benefits of the drug, including some written by people who had at one point received money from Roche. The government bought more than $1 billion worth of the antiviral.

Morris’s job was to bend perception—and he also tried to bend the way that Washington perceived him. In 2009, he was hired to head the Washington office of Genentech, a Roche subsidiary. He became relentlessly acquisitive: three Porsches, multiple Cartiers and Rolexes, humidors filled with the finest cigars. Apparently, many of Morris’s extravagant purchases were bought with Genentech’s money, including a condo in San Francisco and a GMC Yukon.

Such a brazen scheme didn’t escape his superiors’ notice. While being presented by investigators with damning evidence of his malfeasance, Morris left the room to take a bathroom break and never returned. That afternoon, he went to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Virginia, which he had paid a $150,000 initiation fee to join. That night, he retreated to a quiet corner of the club grounds and shot himself with a Smith & Wesson revolver. He was 38.

Y et such downfall narratives feel strangely dissonant. Although a handful of lobbyists may suffer a dramatic tumble from grace, the industry itself does nothing but boom. Each time a new reform surfaces, aimed at curtailing K Street’s power, influence peddlers figure out how to exploit the rules for greater influence and profit. Although Trump promised to drain this swamp, the swamp flourished. From 2016 to 2018, spending on K Street increased 9 percent , rising to $3.5 billion.

Washington lobbying firms have ballooned into conglomerates, resembling the multinational corporations that hire them. K Street currently consists of data analysts, pollsters, social-media mavens, crisis managers, grassroots organizers. Lobbying firms are one-stop shops for manipulating opinion—and are experts at image management, including their own: Their employees’ business cards identify them as “consultants” and “strategists,” now that everyone associates lobbying with sleaze.

Lobbying has disguised itself so well that it is often barely visible even to savvy Washington insiders. The Mullinses tell the story of Jim Courtovich, the head of a boutique public-relations firm and a close collaborator of Evan Morris’s. Courtovich’s business plan featured splashy parties that attracted top journalists and other prominent figures with whom he hoped to trade favors. Mingling with the media, the Mullinses write, Courtovich encouraged stories that might help his clients; in one case they cite, the goal was to damage a Saudi client’s rival. Starting in the fall of 2015, many such gatherings were hosted at a house his firm owned on Capitol Hill; presumably, the reporters who attended them had no idea that Saudi investors had financed the purchase of the building. In 2016, the authors note, Courtovich began working for the Saudi-government official who would later allegedly orchestrate the murder of The Washington Post ’s Jamal Khashoggi, a colleague of the journalists he assiduously cultivated.

As lobbying has matured, it has grown ever more adept at turning government into a profit center for its clients. Even Big Tech, which once treated Washington with disdainful detachment, seems to have felt the irresistible, lobbyist-enabled pull of chunky contracts with the feds. Such possibilities were part of the pitch to Amazon, for example, to erect a second corporate headquarters in Crystal City, Virginia, enticed by the prospect of pursuing multibillion-dollar contracts with the likes of the CIA and the Pentagon. (Amazon has said that political considerations played no part in the company’s decision.)

For eager beneficiaries of government largesse—not to mention for their equally wolfish facilitators—a second Trump administration would represent a bonanza, unprecedented in the history of K Street. Trump’s plan to overturn a bureaucratic ethos that has prevailed since the late 19th century—­according to which good government requires disinterested experts, more loyal to the principles of public stewardship than to any politician—opens the way to installing cronies who will serve as handmaidens of K Street. The civil service, however beleaguered, has acted as an imperfect bulwark against the assault of corporate interests. Its replacement would be something close to the opposite. The hacks recruited to populate government departments will be primed to fulfill the desires of campaign donors and those who pay tribute to the president; they will trade favors with lobbyists who dangle the prospect of future employment in front of them. This new coterie of bureaucrats would wreck the competence of the administrative state—and the wolves of K Street will feast on the carcass of responsible governance.

This article appears in the July/August 2024 print edition with the headline “The Industry That Ate America.”

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