Saturday, October 18th, 2025 07:32 pm
[personal profile] cattitude and I went to the No Kings rally on Boston Common. It was a large crowd, large enough that we couldn't really hear the speeches, but that's OK, we were there to be part of the crowd. I saw some good signs, including "Of course he hates veritas" and "America runs on dissent", for local flavor, and "No kings [large image of the One Ring with a slash through it] to rule them all." Almost all the signs were homemade, and different.

Happily, it was warm enough for me to unzip my hoodie and show off my Boston Dyke March T-shirt, and for other people to wear t-shirts, some of them more relevant than others. I was amused by the person in a football jersey: the local NFL team is called the New England Patriots.

There were also a bunch of inflatable animal costumes, including at least three chickens, a dinosaur, axolotls, an octopus, and a pink unicorn. The unicorn was blowing bubbles. I bought a T-shirt with a drawing of a frog and the word "resist."

The above paragraph would have made no sense a month ago, but we are living in weird as well as scary times, in which the administration apparently sees the Emergency World Naked Bike Ride as a threat.
Saturday, October 18th, 2025 09:11 am


Seven books new to me. Well, six and one replacement. Four fantasy, one historical, one horror, one science fiction. Two appear to be part of series.

Books Received, October 11 to October 17


Poll #33737 Books Received, October 11 to October 17
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 41


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Boys With Sharp Teeth by Jenni Howell (July 2026)
4 (9.8%)

Behind Five Willows by June Hur (May 2026)
14 (34.1%)

Daggerbound by T. Kingfisher (August 2026)
27 (65.9%)

Heir of Storms by Lauryn Hamilton Murray (June 2026)
2 (4.9%)

City of Others by Jaren Poon (January 2026)
17 (41.5%)

Starry Messenger: The Best of Galileo edited by Charles C. Ryan (November 1979)
6 (14.6%)

How to Lose a Goblin in Ten Days by Jessie Sylva (January 2026)
15 (36.6%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
28 (68.3%)

Friday, October 17th, 2025 06:50 pm
I went to my eye doctor today, for my once-a-year eye exam.

I told the assistant, and then Dr. Lazzara, that my vision seems a bit worse in the last year, and also that I thought I needed new glasses, because the current pair have gotten scratched over the last few years.

The new glasses will have a slightly different prescription, and Dr. Lazzara thinks the new glasses will solve the problems of blurring and difficulty with small print.

He also suggested that I use the hypertonic saline twice a day, and see if that gets me more hours of reasonable vision: the Fuchs dystrophy isn't much worse than a year ago, but I was already noticing effects a few years ago. This is the main reason I go out to Arlington to see an ophthalmologist, instead of just visiting an optometrist closer to home.

Since I was going to Arlington, I stopped at Fabric Corner for iron-on patches to mend a pair of jeans, and went to Penzey's after the eye doctor, for ground cumin and high-fat cocoa.
Thursday, October 16th, 2025 12:16 pm


The tabletop science fiction roleplaying game of transhuman survival from Posthuman Studios.

Bundle of Holding: Eclipse Phase 2E (from 2022)
Thursday, October 16th, 2025 08:47 am


The American orbital transfer station offers employment to Byron McDougall, a chance for Charlie Bond to search for an alternative to MAD, and for Diana Osborne, escape from her violently abusive father.

The Moon Goddess and the Son by Donald Kingsbury
Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 07:30 pm
Another revival, the July 2022 Eclipse Phase 2E Bundle, featuring the 2019 Second Edition of thetranshuman survival SFRPG:

 https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Eclipse2025


  

The last time around my comments mostly quoted my comments on a previous and somewhat different bundle:

'"I'll be honest - these look like good deals, they're just not where I want to be right now with role playing. As usual with these bundles you get a shedload of stuff for your money, and they do look like pretty good deals. I'll probably download a couple of the supplements because they address areas that interest me - most notably Panopticon - but I'm not going to try to get my head around another new (to me) RPG at this stage in my increasing decrepitude. But I think I can recommend them, subject of course to all the usual YMMV disclaimers."

This time the offer is a bit different, with fewer supplements, but it's a good starting point if you're interested, and all of the supplements from the earlier offers are still compatible.'

Unfortunately Panopticon didn't make it into the bundle, but the rest is a pretty good horror / SF setting - unfortunately still not something I want to run at present, but you get a lot for my money and if you are in the mood for a primarily SF horror setting it's worth a look.

As expected, these bundles will mostly be horror of some sort from now to the end of the month - I have no idea what else is coming as yet.
Tags:
Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 10:13 am


Growing up is hard enough without the entire world falling apart around you.

Five Novels About Coming of Age During the Apocalypse
Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 09:19 am


Why do Cheolma Rehabilitation Hospital patients keep plummeting from the 6th floor, and why do none of them bleed when they hit the tarmac? The explanation is outside Detective Suyeon's field of expertise.

The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-Ran
Wednesday, October 15th, 2025 05:29 am
Surprise! Another post from me, this time about the first snowfall. No, not here at the house, but not far away, either.

First Winter Storm )

I know that Kevin Roche and Andy Trembley had been in Reno for the rodeo and had to thread the weather needle to get home over the mountains, where a winter storm warning was in effect.
Tuesday, October 14th, 2025 01:55 pm

I have a sweet hope of getting all three Cloudish books into print and pixels and audio. Somewhere must want them.

Having prepared three manuscripts for submission, I 've amused myself with making wordclouds. Aside from proper names and stop words, the commonest words in Moonwise are elemental, Anglo-Saxon:


light
dark
leaves
thought
stone
wood
cold
child
moon
turned
saw
still
wind
hand
face
cloud
earth
looked
witch
stones
stars

with green, air, fire, water coming just a shade behind.



Looking at the figures, I see I used light and dark, cloud and earth, stones and stars exactly equally. There's even a triplet: air, fire, water. I think the strangeness of the book, the spell of it, lies partly in this concentration, this unconscious balance. The lexicon is like a tarot deck: a very narrow set of symbols, but each card is iconic.

Nine

 

Tuesday, October 14th, 2025 08:53 am


Fallen Woman turned private investigator Sarah Tolerance is hired to recover a fan. Carnage ensues.

Point of Honour (Sarah Tolerance, volume 1) by Madeleine E. Robins
Tags:
Monday, October 13th, 2025 03:21 pm
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.
Monday, October 13th, 2025 01:57 pm


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
Monday, October 13th, 2025 06:26 pm
Another Bundle of Holding offer: the Huckleberry Bundle, featuring the "mythic Wyrd West RPG about tragic cowboys in a world doomed to calamity."

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Huckleberry




This basically seems to be cowboys (and other interested parties) in a world full of chaotic monsters. I don't think it's really a game that interests me much, but it's well-presented and you get quite a lot for your money, It's just not a genre I particularly like.

Seeing this makes me suspect that we are now in the run-up to Halloween with these offers, which usually means a lot of horror.

Tags:
Monday, October 13th, 2025 10:51 am
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: 7


Which 2018 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Dreams Before the Start of Time by Anne Charnock
1 (14.3%)

American War by Omar El Akkad
2 (28.6%)

Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
5 (71.4%)

Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
0 (0.0%)

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
1 (14.3%)

Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař
1 (14.3%)



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