lil_m_moses: (books)
([personal profile] lil_m_moses Jul. 1st, 2025 11:49 pm)
Books Finished
- Devil's Gun by Cat Rambo [e-audio]
- So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams [e-audio] (multiple reread)
- Drive by Daniel H. Pink [e-audio]
- Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams [e-audio] (multiple reread)
- How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse by K. Eason [e-audio]
- How the Multiverse Got its Revenge by K. Eason [e-audio]
- Rumor Has It by Cat Rambo [e-audio]
- The Shivers Amazon short story collection [e-audio]
- Doughnut by Tom Holt [e-audio]
- When It's a Jar by Tom Holt [e-audio]
- Dave Barry is from Mars AND Venus by Dave Barry [e-audio]
- The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie [Kindle]
- A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories by Terry Pratchett [e-audio]

Library DVDs/Streaming Programs Watched
- Resident Alien: S2D4 [1 equiv] (rewatch, now w/ Josh)
- Cobra Kai: S6P3 [1 equiv]
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: S3D2-3 [2] (long ago rewatch)
- Moon Knight [2]
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The quotation below is a quotation


CSFFA (The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association) is proud to announce the 2025 CSFFA Hall of Fame inductees.

Clint Budd, fan, convention organizer, modernized CSFFA and created the CSFFA Hall of Fame
Charles R. Saunders, author, journalist, and founder of the “sword and soul” literary genre
Diane L. Walton, editor, mentor, and a founding member of On Spec: The Canadian Magazine of the Fantastic

More information here.


Congratulations to the Inductees!


Only the brave, the arrogant, the naïve, or the desperate Men trespass in Arafel's Ealdwood. Into which category does the latest visitor fall?

The Dreamstone (Ealdwood, volume 1) by C J Cherryh
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([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll Jul. 1st, 2025 08:58 am)


Jealous of all the people who support Aurora-finalist James Nicoll Reviews? Want to join them? Here are your options:

July 2025 Patreon Boost
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([personal profile] mrissa Jul. 1st, 2025 06:08 am)
 

Syr Hayati Beker, What a Fish Looks Like. Discussed elsewhere.

A.S. Byatt, The Virgin in the Garden. Weirdly I had read books 2-4 of this series and not this one. It worked perfectly well that way, and I think for some people I'd even recommend it, because this one is substantially about teachers attempting (and often succeeding) in sleeping with their teenage girl students and a mental health crisis not being responsibly addressed. All of it is very period-appropriate for the early 1950s, all of it is beautifully observed and written about. It still had the "I want to keep reading this" nature that her prose always does for me. And Lord knows Antonia Byatt was there and knew how it all went down in that era. It's just that if you want to do without this bit, it'll be fine, it really is about those things and it's really okay to not want to do that on a particular day.

William Dalrymple, The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World. This is largely How Buddhism Transformed the World and a little bit of How Hinduism Transformed the World. There is a tiny bit about math and a few references to astronomy without a lot of detail. If you're looking for how Ancient Indian religions transformed the world, that's an interesting topic and this is so far as I, a non-expert, can tell, well done on it. But I wanted more math, astronomy, and other cultural influences.

Robert Darnton, The Writer's Lot: Culture and Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France. Comparing the economic situations and lifestyles of several writers of the era--how they lived, how they were able to live, how they wrote. Also revisiting some of his own early-career analysis in an interesting way I'd like to see more of from other authors. Should this be your first Darnton: no probably not. Should you read some Darnton and also this: quite possibly.

J. R. Dawson, The First Bright Thing. Reread. Still gut-wrenching and bright, superpowers and magic circus and found family, what we can change and what we can't. Reread for an event I'll tell you about soon.

Reginald Hill, Arms and the Women, Death's Jest Book, Dialogues of the Dead, and Good Morning, Midnight. Rereads. Well into the meat of the series on this reread now. The middle two are basically one book in two volumes, which the rest of the series does not do, and also they feature a character I really hate, so I kept on for one more to clear the taste of that character out of my brain. Still all worth reading/rereading, of course; they also have the "I just want to keep reading this prose" quality, though in a very different way than Byatt. Really glad we've gotten to the part of the series with contrasting younger cop characters.

Vidar Hreinsson, Wakeful Nights: Stefan G. Stefansson: Icelandic-Canadian Poet. Kindle. This is the kind of biography that is more concerned with comprehensive accounts of where its subject went and what he did and who he talked to than with overarching themes, so if you're not interested in Stefansson in particular or anti-war/immigrant Canadian poets in the early 20th more generally, will be very tedious.

Deanna Raybourn, Killers of a Certain Age. Recently retired assassins discover that their conglomerate is attempting to retire them. Good times, good older female friendships, not deep but fun.

Clay Risen, Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America. Very straightforwardly what it says on the tin. Recognizes clearly the lack of angels involved without valorizing the people destroying other people's lives on shady evidence.

Caitlin Rozakis, The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association. When Vivian and Daniel's daughter Aria gets turned into a werewolf, they have to find another kindergarten to accommodate her needs. But with new schools come new problems. This is charming and fun, and I'm delighted to have it be the second recent book (I'm thinking of Emily Tesh's The Incandescent, which is very different tonally and plotwise) to remember that schools come with grown-ups, not just kids.

James C. Scott, In Praise of Floods: The Untamed River and the Life It Brings. You know I love James C. Scott, friends. You know that. But if you're thinking a lot about riverine flooding in the first place, this does not bring a lot that's new to the table, and there are twee sections where I'm like, buddy, pal, neighbor, what are you doing, having the dolphin introduce other species to say what's going on with them, this is not actually a book for 8yos, what even. So I don't know. If you're not thinking a lot about watersheds and riverine ecosystems and rhythms in the first place, probably a lovely place to start modulo a few weird bits. But very 101.

Madeleine Thien, The Book of Records. You'd think she'd have had me at "Hannah Arendt and Baruch Spinoza are two of the major characters," but instead it just didn't really come together for me. The speculative conceit was there to hang the historical references on, and in my opinion this book's reach exceeded its grasp. I mean, if you're going to have those two and Du Fu, you've set the bar for yourself pretty high, and also a cross-time sea is also a firecracker of a concept, and...it all just sort of sits together in a lump. Ah well.

Katy Watson, A Lively Midwinter Murder. Latest in the Three Dahlias series, still good fun, the Dahlias are invited to a wedding and get snowed in and also murder ensues. Not revolutionizing the genre, just giving you what you came for, which is valid too.

Christopher Wills, Why Ecosystems Matter: Preserving the Key to Our Survival. "Did the author have a better title for that and the publisher made him change it to something hooky?" asked one of my family members suspiciously, and the answer is probably yes, you have spotted exactly what kind of book this is, this is the kind of book where someone knows interesting things about a topic (population genetics and their evolution) and is nudged to try to make its presentation slightly more grabby for the normies in hopes of selling more than three copies. It's interesting in the details it has on various organisms and does not waste your time on why ecosystems matter because duh obviously. If you were the sort of person who wasn't sure that they did, you would never pick up this book anyway.

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([personal profile] alierak posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance Jun. 30th, 2025 03:18 pm)
We're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.

Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.


The English-language rulebook and supplements for Broken Tales, the tabletop fantasy roleplaying game of upside-down fairy tales from Italian game publisher The World Anvil Publishing.

Bundle of Holding: Broken Tales
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([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll Jun. 30th, 2025 10:28 am)
2003: PM Blair embraces hilariously transparent lies to justify the invasion of Iraq, two million Britons reveal the power of public outrage when they protest the Iraq War to no effect, and the Coalition of the Billing (UK included) faces an occupation of Iraq that will no doubt be entirely without unforeseen challenges or consequences.

Poll #33305 Clarke Award Finalists 2003
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 58


Which 2003 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

The Separation by Christopher Priest
10 (17.2%)

Kiln People by David Brin
17 (29.3%)

Light by M. John Harrison
15 (25.9%)

The Scar by China Miéville
25 (43.1%)

The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
30 (51.7%)

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
31 (53.4%)



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

Which 2003 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
The Separation by Christopher Priest
Kiln People by David Brin
Light by M. John Harrison
The Scar by China Miéville
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
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([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll Jun. 30th, 2025 09:06 am)


I survived another dance season. Go me.

21 works reviewed. 11 by women (52%), 9 by men (43%),1 by non-binary authors (5%), 0 by authors whose gender is unknown (0%), and 8 by POC (38%).

More details at the other end of the link.
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([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll Jun. 29th, 2025 10:43 pm)
Final show: a 5.5 hour bhangra show that was only 6.5 hours long.

Among my final achievements this season, discovering as I hoisted the last of many garbage bags into the dumpster that the bag was leaking coffee. My last achievement was ducking to the men's to wash my hands, discovering someone had plugged the sinks and turned on the taps, and stopping the flood in time.


Jerry's romance with the brilliant, beautiful, eccentric Selena is book-ended with death: first, Selena's husband's, then Jerry's.

To Walk The Night by William Sloane
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([personal profile] lil_m_moses Jun. 28th, 2025 09:54 pm)
Hoo boy. When we arrived at Mom's house today, we smelled gas outside the front door. Her furnace vent is pretty near the front door, so I've smelled a little gas there before and had a furnace tech assure me it's not that unusual. Today, though, it was even stronger when we went in. The whole house smelled of gas, but nothing seemed obviously wrong and the basement didn't seem as bad. We opened up a bunch of windows to try to clear it out, with the suspicion that Mom had left a burner on but unlit for some length of time.

We had lunch on the deck and I went back in to refill meds, and was getting nauseous, so I moved us all to the front porch (shadier than the deck) and called the gas company. They sent a nice man out who went all through the house with me, checking all the gas lines and appliances. By that point the main floor was mostly fine, but the basement still smelled strongly of gas. He found nothing wrong, and agreed that it was likely Mom had left a stove burner slightly open but unlit for quite some time, like maybe overnight. So I made the hard decision to turn off the gas valve to the stove. No more cooking on stove or in oven for her. She's lucky to be alive! He also helped open a couple of basement windows and I got a fan in the doorway to push the bad air up the stairs and draw fresh in through the windows, and it was all much better by the time we left a couple hours later (after closing the windows I knew Mom wouldn't look at or couldn't get to herself).

However, now that I think about it, I have another possibility that we may need to investigate ASAP. The heat was on when we got there. A few weeks ago her furnace was acting up, and throwing an error code indicating an issue somewhere in the combustion process. The HVAC folks came out and diagnosed an intermittently failing gas valve, and they replaced it (for $$$). I'm now wondering if it's possible that the actual problem was a partially blocked exhaust line, and that's now causing some waste gas to slowly back up into the house. My exhaust was blocked with a rodent nest a couple years ago and it was causing the second stage blower to not kick on (too much backpressure), and they misdiagnosed it the first time. I didn't have gas smell, but I've also never smelled gas in my furnace's exhaust.

Lending more weight to this idea is that when we visited last weekend, she was sick. I assumed she'd probably eaten some janky food that I hadn't gotten out of her fridge in time, but now I'm wondering. My aunt said she smelled a sour smell when she was there on Thursday, but didn't think about gas until I'd mentioned it today. She also said Mom was really tired.

Also, I need to buy her a CO detector. I realized she doesn't have one.
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Three books new to me, all fantasy (Although the Stross is an edge case), and only one is clearly part of a series.

Books Received, June 21 — June 27


Poll #33298 Books Received, June 21 — June 27
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 54


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Until the Clock Strikes Midnight by Alechia Dow (February 2026)
16 (29.6%)

The Regicide Report by Charles Stross (January 2026)
32 (59.3%)

The Beasts We Raise by D. L. Taylor (March 2026)
4 (7.4%)

Some other option (see comments)
3 (5.6%)

Cats!
35 (64.8%)



A schoolgirl abandons the UK's post-Brexit educational system for the comparative safety and comfort of a magical school designed to turn out magical soldiers in the war on eldritch horrors.

Vanya and the Wild Hunt (Vanya, volume 1) by Sangu Mandanna


People adopt very different strategies when it comes to making up for mistakes.

Five SFF Stories About Making Amends
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([personal profile] mrissa Jun. 26th, 2025 09:07 am)
 

New story out today in Lightspeed magazine: All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt. Visit the space gift shop trade convention and learn who's most likely to try to ruin things for all of us (hint: it's Earth people, UGH).

Don't miss the Author Spotlight discussing the story afterwards!

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