their ideas intrigue me, and I subscribed to these newsletters

About their ideas intrigue me, and I subscribed to these newsletters

You are a case of the vapours Oct. 13th, 2025 @ 04:21 pm
[personal profile] sovay
[personal profile] choco_frosh just came by in the nor'easter which had better be amending our drought and dropped off the attractively Manly Wade Wellman-sounding T. Kingfisher's What Stalks the Deep (2025) and a bagful of apples, including a Golden Russet and a Northern Spy. Digging into my book-stack was the best part of last night. I remain raggedly flat, but I really hope this person whom [personal profile] selkie brought to my attention gets their Leo Marks fic for Yuletide.

Current Music: Desperate Journalist, "No Hero"


I ran an errand Oct. 13th, 2025 @ 03:21 pm
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
During which I encountered:

* A person supine on the sidewalk, having apparently been struck by a car exiting the expressway. There were EMTs so I didn't interfere.

* A person driving their RC car on the LRT tracks as the train was approaching, who seemed put out that I told him to get off the tracks.

* An angry screaming apparently deranged guy between me and where I needed to be to catch the bus.

Bundle of Holding: Huckleberry Oct. 13th, 2025 @ 01:57 pm
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


This all-new Huckleberry Bundle presents Huckleberry, the mythic Wyrd West tabletop roleplaying game about tragic cowboys in a world doomed to calamity – unless you save it.

Bundle of Holding: Huckleberry

Clarke Award Finalists 2018 Oct. 13th, 2025 @ 10:51 am
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
2018: Tories vote to pitch the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, PM May’s Brexit progress is strangely uneven, while Prince Harry and Meghan Markle conduct an experiment to determine the depths of British racism.

Poll #33722 Clarke Award Finalists 2018
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5


Which 2018 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Dreams Before the Start of Time by Anne Charnock
1 (20.0%)

American War by Omar El Akkad
2 (40.0%)

Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
3 (60.0%)

Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
0 (0.0%)

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
1 (20.0%)

Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař
1 (20.0%)



Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2018 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Dreams Before the Start of Time by Anne Charnock
American War by Omar El Akkad
Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař

Physics Insight Oct. 13th, 2025 @ 04:00 am
[syndicated profile] xkcd_feed
When Galileo dropped two weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, they put him in the history books. But when I do it, I get 'detained by security' for 'injuring several tourists.'

RIP On Spec Oct. 13th, 2025 @ 09:26 am
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
On Spec to close. From the editorial:


Earlier this year, I announced that I’d be retiring and leaving On Spec at the end of December, and my final issue as Managing Editor would be VOL 35 No 4. After much soul-searching, and discussion with the rest of our editorial staff, the Board of the Copper Pig Writers’ Society has made the difficult decision to end publication of On Spec with that issue.


And we're on the right side of the ground where they bury the bones Oct. 12th, 2025 @ 08:48 pm
[personal profile] sovay
The promised nor'easter has not yet materialized out of the escalating rain, but I have had in the main a really nice birthday observed with my parents, my brother, and my niece, including a hand-drawn card from the latter—a dragon in a party hat—and an almond cake with rosehip jam. I am in possession of an astonishing book-stack, featuring Tobias Wray's No Doubt I Will Return a Different Man (2021), Carys Davies' Clear (2024), and by some incredible sleight of used book stores, On Actors and Acting: Essays by Alexander Knox (ed. Anthony Slide, 1998). The latter looks like a windfall of material I would not have been able to locate for myself through the Internet Archive or JSTOR since much of it was published posthumously with the assistance of Doris Nolan, but at the moment I am deeply charmed that the introduction takes such pains to impress on the reader that on no account should be the quirky and sharply intelligent actor be confused with the blandly authoritative image of President Wilson, since coming from the exact opposite direction of his filmography I had already concluded that in the most complimentary sense, Alex Knox was something of a weirdo. Major points, however, for once while perusing tide pools with friends' children committing the extreme dad joke of suddenly shouting, "Kelp, kelp, I see anemone!" My niece and the twins are currently engaged in a late-over watch of The Black Stallion (1979), which they keep comparing to How to Train Your Dragon. [personal profile] thisbluespirit made me Elemental art of Clive Francis as Tungsten. I have a CD of the Dropkick Murphys' For the People (2025).

Current Music: Dropkick Murphys, "Bury the Bones"


PSA: Prophet is a Yuletide fandom and also extremely readable Oct. 12th, 2025 @ 05:14 pm
[personal profile] rydra_wong
I am just saying.
Tags:


The Menace From Earth by Robert A. Heinlein Oct. 12th, 2025 @ 08:52 am
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


A diverse assortment of (mostly) non-Future History science fiction stories from Robert A. Heinlein.

The Menace From Earth by Robert A. Heinlein

Now I feel like Kafka with a bad migraine Oct. 11th, 2025 @ 11:45 pm
[personal profile] sovay
After a run of welcomely lovely days, it was perhaps inevitable but deeply resented that I should hit a couple that sucked on toast, logistically, emotionally, resource-wise. I lost one completely to driving to a doctor's appointment that could have been virtual and too much of this afternoon and evening was spent in the kind of frustrated flat uselessness that I hope counts as convalescence because otherwise it's even more of a waste than it feels to me. Without spending that much time in the car, I have been listening to a lot of college radio. Girl in Red's "I'll Call You Mine" (2021) turns out to be a queer outlaw ballad while Jay Som's "Float (feat. Jim Adkins)" (2025) is a sweetly affirming house party. I was doing all right with the Divine Comedy's "Achilles" (2025) until it pulled out Housman and Patrick Shaw-Stewart and then the video was directly in the line of Jarman. I am unduly entertained by the reference to methylene blue in Jealous of the Birds' "Tonight I Feel Like Kafka" (2016).

Current Music: Jealous of the Birds, "Tonight I Feel Like Kafka"


New Policy: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE POST A NAKED URL HERE. Oct. 11th, 2025 @ 11:26 am
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE POST A NAKED URL HERE.

Asking politely has failed for 20 years. Therefore, comments with naked urls will be deleted, as they break Recent Comments. To post links, follow the advice below.



DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE POST A NAKED URL HERE.

OK, results of this have not been what I wanted.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE POST A NAKED URL HERE.

I am beginning a count now (1:23 PM Oct 13) and if the naked url count hits ten, and I don't think it's someone trying to game what I am going to post, I will turn off anonymous comments for a week. If after that, I get another ten naked urls, I will try a month, and then a year.

If the offender has a DW account, I will block them.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE POST A NAKED URL HERE.

Books Received, October 4 to October 10 Oct. 11th, 2025 @ 08:51 am
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


13 works new to me. Four fantasy, two horror, one non-fiction, one thriller, and five SF, of which at least three are series.

Books Received, October 4 to October 10


Poll #33712 Books Received, October 4 to October 10
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 54


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

The Seed of Destruction by Rick Campbell (July 2026)
2 (3.7%)

Uncivil Guard by Foster Chamberlin (November 2025)
8 (14.8%)

Crawlspace by Adam Christopher (March 2026)
6 (11.1%)

The Girl With a Thouand Faces by Sunyi Dean (May 2026)
15 (27.8%)

Your Behavior Will Be Monitored by Justin Feinstein (April 2026)
5 (9.3%)

Blood Bound by Ellis Hunter (April 2026)
1 (1.9%)

Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim (June 2026)
18 (33.3%)

Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher (March 2026)
24 (44.4%)

Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Three edited by Stephen Kotowych (October 2025)
16 (29.6%)

Rabbit Test and Other Stories by Samantha Mills (April 2026)
15 (27.8%)

The Body by Bethany C. Morrow (February 2026)
4 (7.4%)

I’ll Watch Your Baby by Neena Viel (May 2026)
5 (9.3%)

Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward (July 2026)
9 (16.7%)

Some other option
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
38 (70.4%)



I am cackling with glee Oct. 11th, 2025 @ 12:06 pm
[personal profile] rydra_wong


("CARTOON PONY ON AMPHETAMINES.")

(And I just heard they cast Sheila Atim as Akasha, because half the casting is just raiding the National Theatre and it's glorious.)

The thing about IWTV (now being renamed The Vampire Lestat for S3, presumably at the demand of Lestat's lawyers) is that a) it would make Anne Rice roll in her fucking grave, and b) it somehow manages to be deeply truthful to elements of the spirit of the books in a way that a more "faithful" adaptation that didn't engage in such a vigorous Interrogation Of The Text couldn't do. It's fascinating, and it also hits in a particular way for those of us who read the first books as impressionable teens, and then, you know, grew up:

https://www.tumblr.com/silverbirching/752456802186182656/yessssss-and-he-watched-it-on-my

Anyway, the first two seasons are on Netflix and on BBC iPlayer in the UK, so if you're tempted, now is a very good time to catch up.
Tags:


For anyone wondering how my Dark Souls progress is going Oct. 11th, 2025 @ 10:29 am
[personal profile] rydra_wong
I am now enjoying being able to distress all my Souls-playing friends through my unironic enjoyment of Blighttown.

(It's a tough but genuinely awesome level which has a bad reputation because on release the intricacy of the environment and number of moving parts would destroy the framerate and people would have to try to get through it at 10fps. But this is no longer the case since the remaster! And everyone who's upset about spending lots of time plummeting to their death needs to get on my level because I've been doing that all through the game anyway; it's just usually funnier in Blighttown.)

ETA: I have run the second bell and thus officially left the early game and entered the mid-game.

Hot Water Balloon Oct. 10th, 2025 @ 04:00 am
[syndicated profile] xkcd_feed
Despite a reputation for safety, the temperatures and surprisingly high pressures make them even more dangerous than the air kind, but the NTSB refuses to investigate accidents because they insist there is no 'transportation' involved.

Five Extremely Convincing Reasons We Should Build Armed Bases on the Moon Oct. 10th, 2025 @ 10:06 am
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Five Extremely Convincing Reasons We Should Build Armed Bases on the Moon

Roll For Initiative (The Last Session, volume 1) by Jasmine Walls & Dozerdraws Oct. 10th, 2025 @ 08:47 am
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Old friends unite for one last adventure without fully understanding the implications of the group's latest recruit.

Roll For Initiative (The Last Session, volume 1) by Jasmine Walls & Dozerdraws

All the trees carve shards of light Oct. 9th, 2025 @ 11:47 pm
[personal profile] sovay
Since [personal profile] spatch's schedule blocks him from joining my birthday observed this weekend when my niece will be in town, it was important to him to take me somewhere nice on the day itself, and after some reconfiguration of plans based on parameters of pain, sleep, and sunset and some obstruction from construction and accidents on Route 2, we managed somewhere very nice indeed.

Panoramas two-thirds sky and one-third land. )

We did not make it to the originally proposed bookstore: it was fine. We drove home down looping roads close-lined first with trees and then with malls as we made our way back from the Pioneer Valley into MetroWest. Fog drifted once across the highway from the marshes we were driving over. I looked for further meteors out the window through the least light-polluted hills and meadows, but saw mostly that I could still have read by the eighty-five-percent moon. It was a lot of time in the car and all worth it, an inland gift. It was, for everything going on in my life and outside of it, a good birthday.

Current Music: Jealous of the Birds, "Kodachrome"


Dreaming the Answers is Moving to the AO3! Oct. 9th, 2025 @ 05:56 pm
[syndicated profile] otw_news_feed

Posted by Lute

cj2017 and feroxargentea, publishers of The X-Files fanzine Dreaming the Answers, are importing the zine’s fanworks to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

Background explanation

Dreaming the Answers (DTA) was a 33-issue The X-Files fanzine published from November 1997 to March 2001. The zine featured primarily Mulder/Scully fic with additional meta, reviews, and news of note. The publishers are still proud of Dreaming the Answers, and they’d like to make it freely available and preserve any of its fanfic that isn’t yet archived. For more information, refer to Dreaming the Answers’ Fanlore page and AO3 collection.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) is to assist publishers of fanzines to incorporate the fanworks from those fanzines into the Archive of Our Own. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with publishers who want to import their fanzines and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with cj2017 and feroxargentea to import the fanzines listed above into separate, searchable collections on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the fanzines in their entirety, all art in the fanzines will be hosted on the OTW’s servers and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.

We will begin importing works from cj2017 and feroxargentea’s fanzines to the AO3 after November. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the task. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collections in the meantime.

What does this mean for creators who had work(s) in Dreaming the Answers?

We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We’ll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.

All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.

Please contact Open Doors with your creator pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

  1. You’d like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than the publisher has a record of.
  2. You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
  3. You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
  4. You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the fanzine collections.
  5. You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
  6. You have any other questions we can help you with.

Please include the name of the publisher or fanzine in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account the publisher has a record of, please contact Open Doors and we’ll help you out. (If you’ve posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they’re yours, that’s great; if not, we will work with cj2017 and feroxargentea to confirm your claims.)

Please see the Open Doors website for instructions on:

If you still have questions…

If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.

We’d also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Dreaming the Answers on Fanlore. If you’re new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.

We’re excited to be able to help preserve Dreaming the Answers!

– The Open Doors team, cj2017, and feroxargentea

Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.



Fierce as the Baltic sea Oct. 9th, 2025 @ 12:55 pm
[personal profile] sovay
It is my birthday. I am forty-four years old, the age some fictional character must be. I woke to a pair of packages, one from [personal profile] nineweaving that proved to be Vaughn Scribner's Merpeople: A Human History (2020) and from my parents which was a DVD of The Sea Wolf (1941). Hestia was a small black round of purr like an extra present at the foot of the bed. It is bright and brisk and cloudless as all the classical autumns outside.

Current Music: Jealous of the Birds, "Pendulum"

Top of Page Powered by Dreamwidth Studios