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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-08-25 12:27 pm
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Clarke Award Finalists 2011

2011: The VAT is improved by altering it from the hard to remember 17.5% to the more memorable 20%, the government continues efforts to replace the Incapacity Benefit with an alternate program in which applicants have cinderblocks dropped on them from a height and there is absolutely no news involving PM Cameron and a pig.

Poll #33534 Clarke Award Finalists 2011
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5


Which 2011 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
2 (40.0%)

Declare by Tim Powers
3 (60.0%)

Generosity: An Enhancement by Richard Powers
0 (0.0%)

Lightborn by Tricia Sullivan
0 (0.0%)

Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
1 (20.0%)

The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
1 (20.0%)



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

Which 2011 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Zoo City by Lauren Beukes
Declare by Tim Powers

Generosity: An Enhancement by Richard Powers
Lightborn by Tricia Sullivan
Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
ndrosen ([personal profile] ndrosen) wrote2025-08-24 08:48 pm

Art Fry, Inventor of the Post-It Note

On Thursday, I attended a gathering to hear from Art Fry, co-inventor of the Post-It Note(R). For a while, he attended a one room schoolhouse as a child; he went on to get a degree in chemical engineering. He disabused those present of the notion that his invention was an accident, and explained how he was in a church choir, and had a problem when the slips of paper in his hymnal fell out, so he set out to invent a bookmark that would stick, but not adhere strongly enough to rip the paper when removed. This involved using the microspheres that someone else at 3M had invented, and using the right primer. He needed precision coating, so he invented a new coating device. After that, there were problems with marketing, but the new product did in time catch on.

He also talked about how chemists can often cook. When he was thirteen years old, a golf course had a problem: they had had a good cook and manager, but he died, and with the war on, adults were in the armed forces or working in essential industries, so the golf course took on thirteen year old Art as their cook. Compare that to thirteen year olds today, some of whose parents won’t let them walk to the store alone! (Not that I’m blaming children these days; it’s their elders who are psychologically crippling them.)

Mr. Fry’s interlocutor announced that he had recently had a birthday; two days earlier, on Tuesday, August 19, he had turned ninety-four. We sang “Happy Birthday” for him, and I must say that he was in good mental and physical shape for a man in his nineties.

By the way, I did finish the Office Action I was working on Friday; I posted it for credit Saturday evening.
skygiants: the princes from Into the Woods, singing (agony)
skygiants ([personal profile] skygiants) wrote2025-08-24 01:59 pm

(no subject)

Once upon a time, I read Exiled from Camelot, the novel-length Sir Kay angstfic by Cherith Baldry that Phyllis Ann Kar politely called 'one of the half-best Arthurian novels that I have yet read,' and then launched it off to Be Experienced by [personal profile] osprey_archer and [personal profile] troisoiseaux.

Now my sins have come back upon me sevenfold, or perhaps even fifteenfold: [personal profile] troisoiseaux has discovered that, not content with the amount of hurt and comfort that she inflicted upon Kay in exiled from Camelot, Cherith Baldry has written No Less than Fifteen Sad Kay Fanfics and collected them in a volume called The Last Knight of Camelot: The Chronicles of Sir Kay.

This book has now made its way from [personal profile] troisoiseaux via [personal profile] osprey_archer on to me, along with numerous annotations -- [personal profile] osprey_archer has suggested 'drink!' every time Baldry mentions Kay's 'hawk's face,' which I have not done, as I think this would kill me -- to which I have duly added in my turn. I am proud to tell you that I was taking notes and Kay only experiences agonized manly tears nine times in the volume. That means that there are at least six whole stories where Kay manages not to burst into tears at all! And we're very proud of him for that!

The thesis of The Last Knight of Camelot seems to be that Kay is in unrequited love with Arthur; Gawain and Gareth are both in unrequited love with Kay; and everyone else is mean to Kay, all the time, for no reason. [personal profile] troisoiseaux and [personal profile] osprey_archer in their posts have both pulled out this quote which I also feel I am duty-bound to do:

"Lord of my heart, my mind, my life. All that I'll ever be. All I'll ever want.”

He had never revealed so much before.

Arthur leant towards him; there was love in his face, and wonder and compassion too, and Kay knew, his knowledge piercing like an arrow into his inmost spirit, that his love, this single-minded devotion that could fill his life and be poured out and yet never exhausted, was not returned. Arthur loved him, but not like that.

He could not help shrinking back a little.


However, I also must provide the additional context that this tender moment is immediately interrupted by the ARRIVAL OF MORGAUSE, TO SEDUCE ARTHUR, TO MAKE MORDRED, leading me to believe that Baldry is suggesting that if Kay had instead seized the chance to confidently make out with Arthur at this time, the entire doom of Camelot might have been averted. Alas! instead, Arthur dismisses Kay to go hang out with Morgause, it all goes south, Arthur blames Kay for Some Reason, and Kay spends a week on his knees in the courtyard going on hunger strike for Arthur's forgiveness until he collapses on the cobblestones and wakes up to a repentant Arthur tenderly feeding him warm milk.

If the stories in this volume are any judge, this is a pretty normal week for Kay. I also want to shout out

- the one where Lancelot and Gaheris set up a Fake Adventure for Kay to prove his courage, which destroys Kay emotionally, and kitchen-boy-squire Gareth runs after him and tries to swear loyalty to him and ask Kay to knight him, but Kay is like "you cannot AFFORD to have Kay as a friend >:(( for your knightly reputation >:(((" and Gareth shouts "you can't make me your enemy!!" and then Lancelot finds them arguing and is like 'wow, Kay is abusing this poor kitchen boy' and sweeps the lovelorn Gareth away, leaving Kay's reputation worse than before
- the one where Arthur gets kidnapped by an evil sorcerer who demands Excalibur as Arthur's ransom, and then Kay decides to try and trick the evil sorcerer with a Fake Excalibur even though Lancelot is like 'FAKE Excalibur? that's a LIE and DISHONORABLE,' and then Kay rescues Arthur from being magic-brainwashed by pure power of [brotherly?] love, and as soon as their tender embrace is over Arthur is like 'wait! you brought a FAKE Excalibur? that's a LIE and DISHONORABLE'
- the one where Kay is accused of rape as a Ploy to Discredit Arthur and has to go through a trial by ordeal where he walks over hot coals while on the verge of death from other injuries and Gawain flings himself into the fire to rescue him but it turns out it's fine because Kay is So Extremely Innocent of the Crime that they both end up clinging together bathed in golden light that heals their injuries

Again: FIFTEEN of these. Baldry is truly living her bliss and I honestly cannot but respect it. The book is going to make its way back from here whence it came, but if anyone else is really feeling a shortage of Kay Agonies in their life, let me know; I'm sure an additional stop would be welcomed as long as whoever gets it pays the annotation tax.
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-08-24 08:49 am

Stories of Suspense by Mary E. MacEwen



A diverting assortment of spooky stories selected by an editor about whom I could discover almost nothing.

Stories of Suspense by Mary E. MacEwen
ndrosen ([personal profile] ndrosen) wrote2025-08-23 03:00 pm

Ukrainian Independence Day

I have received an email reminder from Razom that August 24 is Ukrainian Independence Day. Non-Ukrainians may wish to celebrate it by doing their bit, whether through financial assistance or by writing to American (or other) politicians, to keep Ukraine independent.

Slava Ukraini, heroiam slava!
skygiants: C-ko the shadow girl from Revolutionary Girl Utena in prince drag (someday my prince will come)
skygiants ([personal profile] skygiants) wrote2025-08-23 09:40 am

(no subject)

[personal profile] genarti and I both recently read Leonora Carrington's 1974 surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet, about a selectively deaf old lady whose unappreciative relatives put her into an old age home, where various increasingly weird things happen, cut in case you want to go in unspoiled )

Beth found the pace and tone of plotting very Joan Aiken-ish and I have to admit I agree with her.

BETH: But I understand that The Hearing Trumpet is like this because Carrington was a surrealist. Is it possible that Joan Aiken was also a surrealist this whole time and we've simply not been looking at her work through the right lens?
ME: I don't think her life landed her in quite the right set of circumstances to be a surrealist properly ... I think she was a little too young when the movement was kicking off .... but I do think that perhaps she believed in their beliefs even if she didn't know it ....

Anyway, The Hearing Trumpet is in some ways has elements of a classically seventies feminist text -- she wrote it while deeply involved in Mexico's 1970s women's liberation movement, and the whole occultist nun -> holy grail -> icepocalypse plot has a lot of Sacred Sexy Goddess Repressed By The Evil And Prudish Christian Church running through it -- but Marian Leatherby's robust and and opinionated ninety-year-old voice is so charmingly unflappable that the experience is never in the least bit predictable or cliche. My favorite character is Marian's best friend Carmella, who kicks off the book by giving mostly-deaf Marian the hearing trumpet that allows her to [selectively] understand the things that are going on around her. Carmella plays the role often seen in children's books of Friend Who Is Constantly Gloriously Catastrophizing About How Dramatic A Situation Will Be And How They Will Heroically Rescue You From It (and then I will smuggle you a secret letter and tunnel into the old-age home in order to avoid the dozens of police dogs! etc. etc.) which is even funnier when the things that are actually happening are even weirder and more dramatic than anything Carmella predicts, just in a slightly different genre, and then funnier again when Carmella shows up towards the end of the book perfectly suited to surviving the Even Newer, Weirder, and More Dramatic Situations that have Arisen.

The end-note explains that Carrington based Carmella on her friend Remedios Varo, a detail I include as a treat for the Varo-heads but also as an illustration of how much the novel builds itself on the connections between weird women who survive a largely-incomprehensible world by being largely incomprehensible themselves. Carrington herself was in her late fifties when she wrote this book, but she too lived into her nineties; her Wikipedia article describes her in its header as "one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s." It's hard not to inscribe that back into the text in some way, which is of course an impossible reading, but one does like to imagine the ninety-year-old Carrington with just as much presence as the ninety-year-old Marian.
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-08-23 09:20 am

Books Received, August 15 — August 22 Belated Poll

Poll #33520 Books Received, August 15 — August 22
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 41


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

The Last Woman on Earth by Bex Benjamin (September 2025)
12 (29.3%)

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole (January 2024)
13 (31.7%)

Guilt by Keigo Higashino (April 2026)
7 (17.1%)

Green and Deadly Things by Jenn Lyons (March 2026)
15 (36.6%)

The River She Became by Emily Varga (June 2026)
12 (29.3%)

Some other option (see comments)
1 (2.4%)

Cats!
31 (75.6%)

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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-08-23 08:57 am
Entry tags:

Books Received, August 15 — August 22



Five books new to me: three fantasy, one mystery, and one science fiction. Two are series, and the other three may be stand-alone.

Books Received, August 15 — August 22
ndrosen ([personal profile] ndrosen) wrote2025-08-22 10:28 pm

The Red Queen’s Race

I still have two amendments on my Amended docket. I am hoping to hear back from the attorney for one of them that his client has agreed to the Examiner’s Amendment which I proposed, but so far, I haven’t heard anything.

I finished an Office Action on my oldest Regular New application earlier this week. I have been working on another Regular New case, and have dug up the prior art, and made progress on the Office Action, but I’m not finished yet. I’m hoping to finish on Saturday, and post the Office Action this biweek.
china_shop: Close-up of Zhao Yunlan grinning (Default)
The Gauche in the Machine ([personal profile] china_shop) wrote2025-08-23 10:15 am
Entry tags:

Me-and-media update

Previous poll review
In the Obsessions poll, 9.8% of respondents have one current active fandom, 31.4% have a couple, 25.5% have a handful, and 15.7% have none at the moment. The most common response was "it's complicated" with 37.3%. Seven point eight percent have blorbos but no fandom.

In ticky-boxes, goth butterflies and punk moths came second to hugs, 56.9% to 76.5%. Dream parkour came third with 47.1%. Thank you for your votes! <3

Reading
Audio: Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer, read by Candida Gubbins -- I'm a third of the way through this delightful thirty-hour tour of the Renaissance. No idea how much is lodging in my brain (versus in-one-ear-and-out-the-other-ing), but I'm getting bits here and there. Like, for example, the Renaissance framing of "grace" as heavenly political capital. And theology as it relates to Hamlet. The general tone is very fun. In progress.

Audio: Stone and Sky (Rivers of London) by Ben Aaronovich, read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and Shvorne Marks. Having settled Peter into married life, Aaronovich is porting all the relationship stuff over to Abigail. I guess that makes sense. (The case isn't coming together for me, but that might be because I keep falling asleep while we're listening.) In progress.

Library book: A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall. Just a few chapters. Historical romance, and I'm pretty sure all the characters are speaking/behaving anachronistically, but I'm looking forward to the reveal.
Spoiler. The lady in the title is trans and was best friends with the duke before she went MIA at war and transitioned; he thinks she died, and he's now grieving his friend.
In progress.

Guardian by priest. We've finished the main story, just one short story extra to go. Wow, this has been a ride!

Kdramas/Cdramas
Still rewatching Nothing But Love (AKA Nothing But You), ahhh, I love them so much.

I've also started My Girlfriend is the Man, a Kdrama about a woman with a genetic predisposition to sudden-onset sex swap, who does indeed wake up in a male body. I only just finished episode 1, so I don't know yet how well they're going to handle it, but I'm fairly sure the narrative pressure on the boyfriend is to accept that his girlfriend is still his girlfriend, whatever body she's currently wearing. No idea where they'll take it after that.

Pru and I finished Sell Your Haunted House this week. We're planning to start Love Scout next (rewatch for me), unless I can think of something good (and Korean) with murders/ghosts/cases of the week. Hmm, maybe I should give Mystic Pop-Up Bar one more try... I bounced off it before, but I know several people who loved it.

Other TV
Cut for length. )

Guardian/Fandom
It's the last weekend of the Guardian novel scheduled readalong, and then we're heading into a slo-mo rewatch of the drama (half an episode per week). If you've been Guardian-curious or thinking of revisiting the show, now's your chance. *lures*

[community profile] fan_writers is going so well. Love to see so much conversation and interaction over there! If you have thoughts on writing, please feel free to post to the comm, either directly or with a link!

Audio entertainment
Letters from an American (lots, including a great half-hour interview with Gavin Newsom). Half an episode of Sinica, Writing Excuses, a couple of episodes of You Can Learn Chinese, some Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones, and a couple of episodes of A Life Indigenous.

Plugged-in life
The last few days, I've been experimenting with not spending every waking non-keyboard moment listening to audiobooks and podcasts. I was kind of hoping some silence and/or music would wake up my creative brain, and then ideas would come spilling out my fingertips. So far, it's just created an opening for brain weasels. Pbthpbthpbhtpbhpth!

Writing/making things
I spent Monday morning writing a political submission and then finished my meta post about story middles. I spent Tuesday's writers' hour writing most of this. I am working on a fic, but it's slow going. It's veered into one of my DNWs (D/s). I mean, you know how sometimes you can write your own DNWs, because you instinctively avoid the aspects that actively squick you? That part is working. It's just that neither the Shen Wei in my head nor I have any idea what we're doing, lol. Playin' it by ear. *rattles keyboard*

I threw something verrrry last minute together for the [community profile] fan_flashworks Twinkle challenge. No idea if that worked.

Life/health/mental state things
I'm okay, just a bit disconnected. The weather's been so cold I want to stay home all the time. I really hate everything our government is doing (not on the same scale as the US, but terrible in its own libertarian way), so by day I'm a mild manner fangirl, but at night I wake up periodically to scrawl angry letters to politicians and/or newspaper editors in my notebook. I should send more of these; I'm always held back by feeling like I don't know enough and need to fact check.

Food
I made two small batches of vegetable dumplings -- Moosewood's sweet potato recipe, and mushroom & coriander adapted from the Omnivore's Cookbook's chicken recipe. I had to use my dumpling press because of my arms, but that worked okay.

Recently made: enchiladas, crispy orange beef (consistency would have been better if I hadn't shoehorned a ton of vege in there too), plus experimenting with crispy tofu in various dishes. A lot of the sauces make the tofu go slimy, but it's so good when they don't.

Goals
My goal for this year is to make goals for next year.

Good things
Guardian stuff -- the readalong, Wishlist!!, the upcoming rewatch, yay! I'm hoping the latter two will combine to get me writing again. Playing with paint pens (drawing butterflies like a six year-old). Sunshine. Cat. Boy. Assimilating my little-worn 'tidy' clothes into my everyday wardrobe so I don't have to shop.

Poll #33518 Plaguefic
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 45


Covid in fiction

View Answers

I'm okay reading fiction about Covid and related subjects
22 (48.9%)

I'm okay reading fiction that includes mentions of Covid
23 (51.1%)

There are aspects of the pandemic I avoid
9 (20.0%)

I like it when characters mask sometimes
14 (31.1%)

I prefer my reading matter to avoid the subject entirely
9 (20.0%)

It's better in profic / a novel
3 (6.7%)

It's better in fanfic
2 (4.4%)

other
1 (2.2%)

I don't read much atm
5 (11.1%)

ticky-box of gossimer and thistledown
15 (33.3%)

ticky-box of steel girders
10 (22.2%)

ticky-box of half a bottle of flat champagne
7 (15.6%)

ticky-box of battery acid and protest signs
16 (35.6%)

ticky-box of three wallabies at a 1970s disco
20 (44.4%)

ticky-box full of hugs
33 (73.3%)

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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-08-22 05:47 pm
ndrosen ([personal profile] ndrosen) wrote2025-08-22 03:46 pm
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The Political Horseshoe

First, this is my midday break; I am not posting as a civil servant on duty.

There is an article about the similarities in economic policy between Trump and Bernie Sanders, viz., that they’re both in favor of interference and extortion. I am reminded of a novel by the late Michael F. Flynn, one of the sequels to Firestar, in which one the characters, speaking of a Congressman with Trump-like views and attitudes, describes him as “a socialist Republican, a combination which ought to be forbidden by Leviticus.”
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-08-22 08:54 am

Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta



Sibling obsession and alienation shape whole cultures.

Mad Sisters of Esi by Tashan Mehta
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-08-21 03:15 pm
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-08-21 09:28 am

Project Farcry by Pauline Ashwell



Dr. Jordan's weird kid Richard is the key to unlocking first contact... and much more.


Project Farcry by Pauline Ashwell
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-08-20 04:22 pm
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Bundle of Holding: TinyZine



The complete four-year run of TinyZine, the tabletop roleplaying magazine from Gallant Knight Games that supports the streamlined minimalist TinyD6 rules system.

Bundle of Holding: TinyZine
ndrosen ([personal profile] ndrosen) wrote2025-08-20 01:32 am
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An Old Acquaintance

Karl Gallagher credits Stephanie Folse of Augusta Scarlet LLC for the cover art and design of War by Other Means. I remember Ms. Folse from the Bujold list, many years ago, so I checked out https://www.scarlettebooks.com, and sent her an email. I’m not a book author myself, but if you’ve written an sf adventure novel, or a romantasy, or a cosy Sapphic romance, or something, you might want to check out the website, and consider commissioning her services.

I don’t know whether she illustrates books on political economy.
ndrosen ([personal profile] ndrosen) wrote2025-08-20 01:28 am
Entry tags:

New Shoes

I recently ordered two pairs of canvas shoes; the price was considerably higher than what think I paid last time. I suspect that I’m seeing the results of the tariffs which Dishonest Donald has unlawfully imposed.