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james_davis_nicoll
james_davis_nicoll
james_davis_nicollWhich 2013 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Dark Eden by Chris Beckett
1 (16.7%)
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson
4 (66.7%)
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway
1 (16.7%)
Intrusion by Ken MacLeod
0 (0.0%)
Nod by Adrian Barnes
1 (16.7%)
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
0 (0.0%)
rolanniBusiness first: I regret to announce that I will not (NOT) after all be attending AlbaCon as a virtual panelist. My apologies.
What went before: All righty, then.
I have a filthy headache.
I have no idea how many words I wrote today. The WIP now stands at +/-69,570. FWIW.
Coon cats have had their happy hour. I need to do two things of a mundane nature, and then I'm done for the day.
Everybody stay safe.
I'll see you tomorrow.
Monday. Up well before the alarm clock. The windows are soaked on the outside, and the sky, what I can see of it, is grey.
First cup of tea just brewed and sitting here with me at the keyboard.
September 8.
September used to seem like a non-stop party when I was growing up, and also delivered a salutary lesson in the art of budgeting. My maternal grandmother, my mother, me, and my younger sister all have birthdays in September.
I am the last one standing.
Perhaps someday I'll talk about growing up as a left-handed, wrong-brained Virgo in a house full of Virgos. But today is not that day.
Yesterday ... was not the best day ever. I fed myself and the cats, did needful chores, got some writing done, and achieved several difficult clarities -- so, yanno, not a loss, but I've had better days.
I do want to talk a little about memory, because that was interesting to me, during yesterday's alarums and excursions.
Yesterday morning, I had an email that told me that I need to use a wired internet connection in order to participate in a thing. I totally drew a blank. Got up, fed the cats, made myself a cup of tea, wandered into the bedroom to open the window for Firefly, came back to the screen -- nope, still no clue. Wrote back, said I didn't know what that meant, got what I considered to be a non-useful answer, and negotiated a secondary outcome.
Some time later, having been doing and thinking about something completely else, I thought "ethernet cable." And I got up to look at the back of my desktop, and located the plug.
Ethernet cable. Right.
This still seemed to me to be something for In-House Tech Support, which is no longer In-House, but for fun, I walked the route from my desk to the modem in the Tech Room, visualizing blue cable stretching across my office floor, into the dining room, through the cat dishes, around the cat fountain, around the corner, through the door of the Tech Room, across the printer, and myself climbing on a stool to plug the cable into the modem at the top of the utility shelf.
This really seemed like a recipe for a broken neck, if the cats didn't think of anything more amusing -- and I was probably wrong, anyway. Surely it hadn't been meant that I cobweb my house and put my life at risk via cable, and In-House Tech Support would have known what to do.
I? Went back to what I had been doing and at the next break opened the office briefly to announce that I would not be attending AlbaCon this year due to Technical Differences. A useful discussion blossomed on my wall, and as that was going on, memories started to float up, honestly, like tiles in a Magic Eight ball -- I remembered Steve wiring the old house with ethernet cable -- a process that involved stapling things to the basement ceiling, holes being drilled in floors, cable being run over doorways, and a lot of swearing. I remembered him setting up Circular Logic (The Largest Computer Bulletin Board in Central Maine!), I remembered getting the first cable modem from mint.net and what a mixed blessing that had been . . .
And that continued throughout the rest of the day and into the evening. Just little tiles of memory floating to the surface -- "Oh," I'd think; "I'd forgotten that" -- though obviously I hadn't.
In fact, an overflow of tiles is what woke me up beforetime. I'll write about that, for myself.
Now, I have a lousy memory for Real Life, and I'm a slow thinker; I need time to decide (which the world had never given me, but Steve always did). This process of rising tiles is new and novel. I'm guessing by this time in my life, there's a warehouse full of the things, somewhere, filed according to their own peculiar rules. And I wonder if there's a way to access them in an orderly fashion.
So! That's what I'm thinking about on Monday morning.
What are you thinking about?
Today's blog post brought to you by Mr. Paul Simon as interpreted by The Bangles, "Hazy Shade of Winter."
Tali found an open window:
jacey
This is a love story of a most unusual kind. Shesheshen is a monster. She’s an ill-formed, amorphous swamp-blob who can absorb the body parts of people she eats, using their bones to construct a human-like frame which helps her to shapeshift and pass for human. She doesn’t need company – and anyway she would be just as likely to eat a visitor as chat over tea and sandwiches. And then… she meets poor awkward Homily, the second daughter of the baron, Shesheshen’s enemy, the woman who killed her mother. Homily is sweet and caring and, what’s more, despised by her toxic family. At first all Shesheshen is thinking is that Homily will make a good mother to her impending egg brood, and kindly provide the sustenance they need when they burst forth from their egg sack inside her and eat her from the inside out. But gradually Shesheshen is falling in love. There's a nice twist towards the end. Horror and whimsy combine to make this a delightful story about love and family with a dollop of dark humour as Shesheshen discovers more about being human and Homily discovers more about being a monster. This is thoroughly enjoyable.
jacey
Audiobook narrated by Tom Weiner
I read this post-apocalyptic novel years and years ago, in a different century, though it might well have been a different planet. Published in 1964 (but written before the USA's Civil Rights act of 1964 and the Voting Rights act of 1965) this deals with pressing issues of the day - the threat of nuclear war with the USSR, and the issue of race in what was still a partially segregated country.
Under the threat of war, Hugh Farnham builds a nuclear bunker, just in time. When the big one hits, the Farnhams (Hugh, his wife Grace, adult son, Duke, daughter Karen, and black employee, Joseph, together with Karen’s friend, Barbara) are catapulted into a different time, where there are no signs of any other human beings. Initially Heinlein turns sections of this book into a survival manual. Farnham is a prepper, but still has to work out how to build a (small) aqueduct, and we're right there with him for a blow-by-blow account. There's a bit of Swiss Family Robinson in here - to start with, at least. And then everything changes when they discover that they've been catapulted 2000 years into the future where the African and Asian peoples who were not wiped out in the mutually destructive US-Russian war, are now a technically advanced civilisation which runs on slavery.
This has not aged well in the 65 years since publication, and was probably problematic, even then, with its racism and sexism. It has to be judged as a piece of history, possibly one that we would prefer to forget. I can see that Heinlein was trying to write something approaching satire, but in doing do, created blatant stereotypes. Bear in mind that he was writing this as Martin Luther King was making his ‘I have a dream’ speech. His reversal of racial roles is clumsy and (good grief!) the dark-skinned people have a penchant for cannibalism. (Yes, really!) All the characters are unlovable. Grace is permanently drunk, drugged insensible, or high, and is Klansman-level racist. The son, Duke, is not much better, racist-wise. Hugh prides himself on treating Joseph as an equal, which he does, but there's still a certain air of condescension. Karen, the daughter, is a bit of an air head, and Barbara, having fallen for Hugh (goodness knows why) only wants to do what he wants her to do in order to please him. The female characters are weak and dependent.
Also, stylistically it feels a bit stilted with people calling each other by their names in dialogue rather more than modern authors would allow. ("Well, Mr. Farnham, what do you think? "I think we're going to die, Barbara."). Dialogue - especially the women's - is stiff an unrealistic.
This is not an easy book to swallow. Tom Weiner is the narrator, and he reads it like it's written, i.e. somewhat stiff and formal, He does well with male voices, but less well with the female ones. The narration works as the period piece it is.
The book wouldn’t pass muster today.
jacey
Narrated by Nicola Walker and a full cast. An Audible Original presented as a radio play. In the near future a crew of scientists launch from Earth on a Mars mission. By the time they get there, all humans on Earth have simply vanished. Against all odds they survive, start a colony and thrive for a thousand years. But when resources are running out and the Mars colony is threatened with extinction, they decide to send two time-travelling teams to Earth for find out a) why humans vanished and b) whether the Martian humans can re-colonise the homeworld. This story flips between the stories of the two teams, which eventually come together. Expect some timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbly stuff. Quite engaging, though, to be honest, I’d rather have a straight narration rather than a full-cast audio play.
jacey
What happens to slayers or Chosen Ones, when they start to age and want to retire? In this case, a former Hunter of Artemis (Jenny), a very elderly wizard (Temple), and a half-succubus former PI (Annette) settle down together to run Second Life Books in Salem, MA, in a sentient house. Annette's grandkids come to visit and all is cosy in this peaceful town until some of the locals start to summon things better left in the demon realms. Our three retired heroes have to try to save the world one more time, and while doing do save some misguided kids who've been turned to the demon side. Expect a haunted van, a cat with tentacles and a looming apocalypse.
The story is told in rotating chapters from all three main character viewpoints. It's quirky and fun despite being horror-adjacent. Jim C Hines can always be relied on to entertain.
jacey
Audiobook narrated by Nicole Pool and Teri Schnaubelt
Organic worldships, peopled by women, are part of the Legion, but ships/worlds are slowly dying.
Zan awakes on Katazyrna with no memory after trying to enter a world-ship called the Mokshi - again. She has survived the raid, barely, but hasn't succeeded in gaining either entry or knowledge. Her sister, Jayd is the daughter of Anat, leader of the Katazyrna, a clan that lives by raiding other worlds. They have their sights set on the Mokshi, but so does the Bhavaja clan, their sworn enemies. Zan and Jayd have a plan, unfortunately Zan can't remember it, but Jayd forges ahead - sent to the Bhavajas by her unfeeling mother to marry Rasida, the murderous Bhavaja leader. This is to seal a truce, but the Bhavaja's break the truce immediately. Katazyrna is compromised and Zan is recycled to the dark and dangerous lower levels, findng new companions and reclaiming threads of memory (most of them not very useful).
I'm sorry if this description sounds garbled. The story is complex. People are either not who they thought they were or are unreliable narrators. The world concept is strange. There's a lot of slime and gore, a high body-count, grand-scale lies and betrayal. The worldbuilding is, in part, brilliant, but let down by lack of clarity. Sure, you can just go with it, but the worldships are never explained, we have no idea of their size or shape, or how they work. Yes everyone is a lesbian - hard not to be in a world of women, and what does it matter anyway? Women get pregnant spontaneously, and give birth to things that the worldships require, not necessarily to children - in fact children are very rare and seem to be prized, however adults are largely canon-fodder, their lives discarded willy-nilly.
Yes, I know this book won a Hugo, but there were times when I almost gave up on it, however, credit where it's due, the narrators did an excellent job and I gritted my teeth an made it to the end - just.
mrissaReview copy provided by the publisher. Also the author is a friend, as you will find out if you read to the end and see that I am in the acknowledgments for the honestly light and easy work of being Brandon's pal.
Good news for those of you who wait until a series is complete to read it: this is the second book in a duology! So you can just pick up Catalyst and Castoff and read them together, if you haven't yet. I'm going to try not to spoiler the first book too much, which is going to leave me vague, because this is definitely my favorite kind of sequel: the kind where the consequences follow on hard and fast from the first book. Happily for those with shaky memories, there's a quick summary at the beginning of this one.
So there are airships! There are strange vast somewhat personified forces! There are people working out their relationships in the face of personal and social change! It's that lovely kind of fantasy novel that almost might be a science fiction novel in its concern with human interactions with truly alien intelligences. I love that kind. I want more of that basically always. And if it can come with airship adventures alongside the ponderings of the nature of intelligence and caring about others, even better. Very glad this is about to make it out into the world so I can talk to more people about these books.
james_davis_nicoll
redbirdadrian_turtle likes them, and I like trying new (or new-to-me) apples.cattitude might like it, because he likes tart apples, but his verdict is that there wasn't enough flavor there, though what there was, was good.james_davis_nicollrolanniSNIPPET: "Another good point," Miri said. "You won't get much singing out of Delm Korval. A right stuck-in-the-slush, like we say on my homeworld."
Jen Sin sneezed.
Miri looked at him, head tilted. "Ain't sickening, are you, Cousin?"
#
What went before ONE: Rook had been ... puzzled, I felt, but taking his lead from Firefly.
Until I just now came home without Trooper, and there was no big brown cat waiting for me to open the door so he could Report, dammit!
We both just had a (damp on my part) cuddle.
No, kid, this is not the way things were.
What went before TWO: And that's it for today. My brain just went "splotz." One thousand one hundred seventeen new words written. Cookies need to be put away, windows need to be closed, and Coon Cat Happy Hour needs to be served up.
Everybody have a good evening. Stay safe; I'll check in tomorrow.
Saturday, damp and dim. Going to be warmer than the last couple of days, say the 'beans, and won't that be a treat.
Slept for dern near 10 hours, straight through, and feel much more the thing this morning. I may even go to the opening of the after-hours vet studio.
Drinking my first cup of tea here at the keyboard. Breakfast will be a salad, on account I have salad stuff to use up.
Junior staff is actively looking for Trooper this morning. Rook registered a Formal Complaint, asserting that his contract specified a grandpa on-site. In fact, his contract lists the cats on-site when he arrived, notes that cats are known for moving on, and staff may change for a variety of reasons, list appended, but not inclusive. I pointed this out to him; he's now talking it over with Tali.
In Steve's office, among many other pictures, there are three of Steve, in a kind of a corner grouping. I will post the pictures below. One is of Steve before I knew him, holding a copy of a magazine he edited in college. One is of Steve a few months before I met him, taken by his lady friend at the time. The last is of Steve a few years ago, taken by his long-time partner.
Now, Steve had been married previously, to his high-school sweetheart. I have met her, not to say that I know her; she's a smart, skilled, and interesting woman; well-traveled, and articulate. You'd like her. I do.
What I don't like, particularly, is the young man with the magazine. Every time I look at that picture, which, given its location, is daily, I think, "Boy, am I glad you aren't the Steve I met. It would have never worked."
This is of course the Steve his sweetheart knew, married, and eventually left. And I confess that I've been guilty in the past of wondering how she could have left him. Murdered him, yeah; I'd've totally gotten that. But left him? When he was so smart, so creative, so ambitious, affectionate and protective; who had determination, and plans, and presence, and -- who leaves that?
This morning as I sighed at the young man with the magazine and told the old guy leaning against the sign that I missed him -- it finally and just now occurred to me that the things I saw as features were to his ex-wife bugs. It takes a lot of energy to keep up with all that ... chaos, and a certain amount of adamantine in the nervous system to (sometimes) stand against quite so much willfulness, and quite so many plans. I didn't always make a stand when I perhaps should have done. And -- fair is fair -- I sometimes got my way, when, perhaps, I shouldn't have done.
So, my tea is gone, and I still need to put together my salad. Thank you all for listening to that.
What revelation(s) have you had recently?
james_davis_nicoll
Books Received, August 30 — September 5
Lies Weeping by Glen Cook (November 2025)
20 (52.6%)
Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories by Amal El-Mohtar (March 2026)
24 (63.2%)
The River and the Star By Gabriela Romero Lacruz (October 2025)
7 (18.4%)
The Bookshop Below by Georgia Summers (November 2025)
15 (39.5%)
The Burning Queen by Aparna Verma (November 2025)
9 (23.7%)
Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)
Cats!
26 (68.4%)
madrobins
james_davis_nicoll
rolanniFriday. Rainy and sticky.
Did not sleep well. What a surprise. The kids have twigged to the change of order, or at least the absence of the rock that was Grandpa. I've been Queried several times, starting with Tali pointing out to me that the prime spot tucked up against my right side in the bed that Trooper reserved for himself and no other was . . . empty. She was nervous, and licked her nose several times, but she did make the report.
I'm informed by Second in Command Firefly that the next step is a call to the Northeast Committee Cat, which will of course come to naught. I filled out The Form at the vet's yesterday, and they do an upload to NEFU Headquarters every night. I understand that Firefly needs to make sure The Protocols are followed exactly, and I'm impressed that she's taking resolute action.
To those who are concerned -- Yes, Trooper is being cremated as himself and will some time next week come home in a cedar box that will seem much too small, to take his place on the shelf next to Scrabble, and Belle, and Sprite, and Steve.
In other news, breakfast was PB&J onna whole wheat English muffin. Lunch will probably be something I pick up at the store.
Sarah is due in to clean in a couple minutes, and I? Need to straighten up my desk and find my WIP notes from the other day. I may have a title. May. I'm not crazy about it, but it does fit. I've made a note and will check back in a week or two to see if it's grown on me.
How's everybody doing today?
Picture of Trooper from October 18, 2016. I wasn't feeling well and had retired to the couch, to color. This is Trooper telling me that I've colored enough and needed to take a nap.
james_davis_nicoll - Bundle of Holding: Rifts Core MEGA (From 2022) & Bundle of Holding: Rifts Worlds 2james_davis_nicoll - Five Books That Just Said To Hell With the Speed-of-Light Barrierjames_davis_nicoll - Clarke Award Finalists 2013rolanni - Weavin' time in a tapestryjacey - Booklog 57/2025: John Wiswell: Someone You Can Build a Nest Injacey - Booklog 56/2025: Robert A Heinlein: Farnham’s Freehold - Audiobookjacey - Booklog 55/2025: Julian Simpson and others: Temporal – Audiobookjacey - Booklog 54/2025: Jim C Hines: Slayers of Oldjacey - Booklog 53/2025: Kameron Hurley: The Stars are Legion – Audiobookmrissa - Castoff, by Brandon Crillyrolanni - Office closed todayjames_davis_nicoll - Galaxy: Thirty Years of Innovative Science Fiction edited by Greenberg, Olander & Pohlredbird - apple: Swiss gourmetjames_davis_nicoll - I was boredconuly - TIL: the words broccoli and brocade come from the same rootrolanni - Cats and Steve; Snippet and Photosjames_davis_nicoll - Books Received, August 30 — September 5madrobins - (no subject)james_davis_nicoll - The Memory of the Ogisi (The Forever Desert, volume 3) by Moses Ose Utomirolanni - Friday morning, with raintimeasmymeasure
