james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Director of the nation formerly known as Canada Quinn Atherton is determined to deliver much mass murder as it takes to achieve peace, order, good government. Why do so many ingrates object?

Blight(Sleep of Reason, volume 2) by Rachel A. Rosen

My alt-Mummy film

Jul. 2nd, 2025 11:51 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
The inspiration being the 1999 Mummy movie is not without problematic elements.

Imagine an Egyptian film company wanting to make a movie about idiots waking a horror in Canada that only the Egyptian lead can resolve.
Read more... )

Packing for Westercon

Jul. 2nd, 2025 06:18 pm
kevin_standlee: Kevin beind the Worldcon 76 info table at Westercon 71 in Denver. (Con Table Kevin)
[personal profile] kevin_standlee
Because I'm driving to Westercon instead of flying, I can be more expansive in my packing and don't have to fit everything into one (or at most two) bags. That's both good and bad. The good part is not having to work so hard packing. The bad part is carrying way too much stuff. But I guess it's sort of good practice for Worldcon. I sprung for first class for the flight to Seattle, so I get two checked bags, and based on what I've been packing for Westercon, I think I'll need it. Mind you, I won't be taking an extra Banker's Box of Westercon gear with me to Seattle, which will help.

Tomorrow's plan is for me to get away from Fernley as early as possible. I typically am up around 3 or 3:30 AM on Thursdays anyway, so if I can make an early start, I should be able to get to the hotel and get moved in fairly early. I'm I'm lucky, I won't get tangled up in any of the commute-time traffic, save possibly the morning Sacramento commute. Wish me luck!

Wednesday reading

Jul. 2nd, 2025 04:46 pm
redbird: full bookshelves and table in a library (books)
[personal profile] redbird
Boston's Orange Line, by Andrew Elder and Jeremy C. Fox. This is a collection of black-and-white photos, going back to the start of the old elevated orange line, with captions. This was for the "explore Boston history" square on the BPL summer reading bingo. If I'd noticed the "images of rail" series title, I wouldn't have borrowed this book. The captions are just about enough to confirm that there's more than enough to be said on the subject to make a book, but this isn't. This has a disjointed discussion of the lengthy "realigmnent" of the orange line to its current route, and a couple of paragraphs on the decision not to run an 8-lane interstate through the middle of Boston and Cambridge, and no suggestion that anything similar had happened elsewhere. Ah, well.

There are suggestions on the library website for some of the squares (including "with a green cover"), but not this one. Searching the catalog for "Boston histpry" got me this, along with, among other things, a book about the Big Dig, a book about the Great Molasses Flood (which is at least mentioned in this, with a picture of damage to the orange line), and Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


The June 2023 Dark Eye Megabundle featuring the English-language edition from Ulisses Spiele of the leading German tabletop roleplaying game of heroic fantasy, The Dark Eye.

Bundle of Holding: The Dark Eye MEGA (from 2023)

Time marches on

Jul. 2nd, 2025 10:20 am
andrewducker: (Default)
[personal profile] andrewducker
As of this morning (2nd of July), we are now closer to 2050 than 2000.
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/101: The Silence of the Girls — Pat Barker
I was no longer the outward and visible sign of Agamemnon’s power and Achilles’ humiliation. No, I’d become something altogether more sinister: I was the girl who’d caused the quarrel. Oh, yes, I’d caused it – in much the same way, I suppose, as a bone is responsible for a dogfight. [loc. 1596]

This is the story of Briseis, a princess of Lyrnessus who was captured when the Achaeans sacked the city. Her husband and brothers were slaughtered, and she was given to Achilles as a prize. Later, Agamemnon's prize Chryseis was returned to her father, a priest of Apollo: plague had broken out and Apollo, the god of plague, needed to be appeased. Agamemnon complained about the loss of his property: Briseis was taken from Achilles and given to Agamemnon to replace Chryseis, and Achilles then sulked in his tent and refused to fight.

Of course the story is quite different from Briseis' point of view.Read more... )

clamp / median / range

Jul. 2nd, 2025 02:45 am
fanf: (Default)
[personal profile] fanf

https://dotat.at/@/2025-07-02-cmp.html

Here are a few tangentially-related ideas vaguely near the theme of comparison operators.

Read more... )

2025 CSFFA Hall of Fame Inductees

Jul. 1st, 2025 06:02 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
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!

Photo cross-post

Jul. 1st, 2025 01:58 pm
andrewducker: (Default)
[personal profile] andrewducker


"Sophia, will you pose with your brother for a photo?"

"I will, but I'm very angry about it!"
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


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

July 2025 Patreon Boost

Jul. 1st, 2025 08:58 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


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

July 2025 Patreon Boost
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/100: Monsters — Emerald Fennell
The best thing about there being a murder in Fowey is that it means there is a murderer in Fowey. It could be anyone. [loc. 464]

The nameless narrator of Monsters is a twelve-year-old girl, orphaned in a boating accident ('Don’t worry – I’m not that sad about it') and living with her grandmother. Every summer she's packed off to an aunt and uncle who run a guest house in the quaint Cornish town of Fowey. There, she meets Miles, also twelve, and they bond over a murder Read more... )