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In case you've been waiting for an update for the last seven years...

Checking in on Our Old Friend, Barnard’s Star
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Terrible life choices gave Connie Lam a mountain of debt. The most recent poor decision left her as the lead suspect in a murder case.

Club Contango (Tracerverse, volume 2) by Eliane Boey
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A teenager's social engineering skills are harnessed for good.

Unwillingly to Earth by Pauline Ashwell

Bundle of Holding: Battlezoo

Jul. 16th, 2025 02:17 pm
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The Battlezoo Bundle presents the Battlezoo line of monsters and monster hunters from Roll for Combat for D&D 5E and compatible tabletop roleplaying systems, compiled from winning designs from the annual RPG Superstars competition.

Bundle of Holding: Battlezoo
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The only fate more glorious than dying for the uncaring empire is dying over and over for the uncaring empire.

Red Sword by Bora Chung (Translated by Anton Hur)

A Maze of Stars by John Brunner

Jul. 15th, 2025 09:07 am
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An intelligent ship crisscrosses space-time to track the progress of the colonies it established

A Maze of Stars by John Brunner

Happy Bastille Day!

Jul. 14th, 2025 11:43 pm
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May the prison you liberate have more than seven prisoners.
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Charts hold back chaos, and we should sing their praises!

Why Do I Love Charts? Let Me Count the Ways.

Bundle of Holding: Hearts of Wulin

Jul. 14th, 2025 02:08 pm
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This new Hearts of Wulin Bundle presents Hearts of Wulin, the tabletop roleplaying game of Chinese wuxia action melodrama from Age of Ravens Games.

Bundle of Holding: Hearts of Wulin

Clarke Award Finalists 2005

Jul. 14th, 2025 10:27 am
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2005: The Ulster Volunteer Force struggles to grasp the meaning of the term “ceasefire”, Britain is astonished by the unlikely coincidence that every known WWI veteran is over 100 years of age, and in what some experts hope is a sign Britain has begun to emerge from chaos after the retreat of the Roman Empire, Dr Who is revived.

Poll #33355 Clarke Award Finalists 2005
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 43


Which 2005 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Iron Council by China Miéville
16 (37.2%)

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
13 (30.2%)

Market Forces by Richard Morgan
7 (16.3%)

River of Gods by Ian McDonald
11 (25.6%)

The System of the World by Neal Stephenson
19 (44.2%)

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
14 (32.6%)



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

Which 2005 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Iron Council by China Miéville
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Market Forces by Richard Morgan
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
The System of the World by Neal Stephenson

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Huh

Jul. 12th, 2025 12:02 pm
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This is probably in no way significant, but it just occurred to me to check to see where WorldCon was the years I was nominated:

2010: Melbourne, Australia
2011: Reno, USA
2019: Dublin, Ireland
2020: Wellington, New Zealand
2024: Glasgow, Scotland

(I was nowhere near the ballot in 2009, Montreal)

At a guess, those are years where vote totals were a bit lower?

Read more... )
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Another long truancy from LJ. (Thank you for the nudge.) There are reasons.

I'd meant, according to custom, to post pictures from Japan, where I went over Easter with daughter and daughter's boyfriend, a repeat of last year's excellent "once in a liftetime" trip. However, as I connected to WiFi at arrivals in Haneda it was to find that, while I was in midair, the Supreme Court had decided that I was no longer a woman — although, only when I was in the UK, and only for the purpose of the Equality Act 2010. I remained a woman for the purpose of case law and other legislation. This ruling was welcomed on all sides as bringing "much needed clarity", and was followed by a bunch of organisations and institutions, who had clearly been eager for the opportunity, to show just how creative they could be in finding ways to stigmatize, mock, humiliate and endanger trans people.

We had a great time in Japan, and I'd love to say that brooding on all this didn't cast the slightest shadow on the experience of exploring Tohoku. It did, though.

I think that our three days in Sendai, which included day trips to Matsushima Bay (praised by Bashō in perhaps the laziest haiku ever written, but I can't blame him) and the mountain temple of Yamadera (which, being Englished, means 'mountain temple') were particular highlights for me. I'll put some pictures in a future post.
But throughout, I was dreading the Ovidian metamorphosis that would apparently overtake me on touching down at Gatwick. Tiresias is said to have changed sex after accidentally encountering two snakes copulating. In my case the snakes were (metaphorically, I add, in case any lawyers are reading) J.K. Rowling and Kishwer Falkner, one of whom funded the SC case while the other took the decision and origamied its ramifications into something several times their original size.

Anyway, I've no wish to go over that here, either. I did discuss some aspects of the decision and its fallout over on Medium — and you're very welcome to read it.

Overall, this has not been a great year so far. In January my job (along with that of my colleagues in other Humanities departments) was placed under threat, largely because STEM subjects have failed to recruit enough of those lucrative foreign postgrads on which the UK higher education sector depends — a fall-off prompted in turn by the Government's Reform-appeasing decision to place onerous restrictions on such students' visas. The redundancy threat was later withdrawn, but there's a distinct 'never glad confident morning again' mood at my institution, as at others. It's hard to feel valued in such circumstances.

Then, my brother had a major stroke, which has left him (for the moment at least) in a rehab facility, and almost immediatley afterwards my cat died (admittedly she was 18, but still). The roof and top floor ceilings of my house and those of my neighbours need to be entirely replaced, which will be extremely disruptive and necessitate about 5 months of all-over scaffolding, starting this Monday. All of this was happening against the daily background of slaughter in Gaza and elsewhere, a laughably principle-free government at home and a deranged one in the States. So, one way and another I've had better years.

There's plenty of good stuff too, though — and next time I'll be more cheerful!
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Four books new to me.Two are SF, one is fantasy, one is a mix of both. I don't see anything unambiguously labelled as series works.

Books Received, July 5 — July 11

Poll #33350 Books Received, July 5 — July 11
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 39


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Secrets, Spells, and Chocolate by Marisa Churchill (December 2025)
14 (35.9%)

Spread Me by Sarah Gailey (September 2025)
14 (35.9%)

The Forest on the Edge of Time by Jasmin Kirkbride (February 2026)
14 (35.9%)

The Universe Box by Michael Swanwick (February 2026)
18 (46.2%)

Some other option (see comments)
1 (2.6%)

Cats!
31 (79.5%)

RPG checklist

Jul. 11th, 2025 10:43 pm
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Specifically Fabula Ultima

Read more... )
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New Dawn requires only that people conform without exception or face memory erasure and worse. Yet, a minority insists on being individuals.

The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monáe

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Neil and Donna Bond

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