jacey | Reading

I believe that the Althing also continues. Air temperature 47 F, wind near calm, sunny. Now that the sun has bothered to get up, that is. And the gulls are gathering for their morning rituals in the park. Walk later, then TV sports.

jhetley

About 30-40 ducks on the banks of the cemetery pond, a similar number of geese spread out among the tombstones across the road.

No roadkill seen. Did have a number of woolly bear caterpillars galumphing across the road, no common direction seen. Don't know what their GPS was telling them.

Whole hells of asters blooming, with chicory and goldenrod and white sweet clover mixed in. Bracken all gone brown, some milkweed pods splitting open. Red maples in the bog dropping their leaves, while the ones on the high ground have just started to turn. Ash trees into their turn-yellow-and-drop routine.

Got out on the bike, temperature in the 60s F and little wind. Don't know how many more ride-days I will be offered. Did not die.

15.33 miles, 1:30:04

james_davis_nicoll

A grieving mother and her best friend break into a ghost museum to conduct illicit but surely harmless Ghost Day celebrations. Revelations await.

Bound Feet by Kelsea Yu

jhetley

Have we reached terminal velocity yet?

jhetley

The decline and fall

Air temperature 61 F, wind southwest about 4 mph, partly cloudy. We got enough rain to trigger our basement leaks, nothing major but I swept maybe a gallon of water down to the floor drain. May try for a bike ride this morning, to contemplate the new-washed asters and fall color. We do not at the moment have gulls foraging the park.

jhetley

Still raining. This is a good thing.

james_davis_nicoll

jhetley

Actual rain falling. We got a shower earlier, but this has the street shiny and drips from the roof eaves. Hope it soaks in.

james_davis_nicoll

More stories should dig into the chemistry, biology, and physics of falling in love.

On Writing Romance as Hard Science Fiction

watervole

The Morris Federation have been producing a series of short videos for many of their members. The aim is to get as many shares as possible, in order to boost the number of people reached.

So, here's the short video for Southern Star Longsword. We're a small, friendly team, who welcome men, women and children. We meet in Corfe Mullen on Monday evening. We're especially keen to recruit new musicians at present.

We perform English longsword dances (no connection to Scottish sword dancing), and write many of our own dances. Our latest dance - sadly, no decent video as yet - is danced to 'The Wellerman'.

james_davis_nicoll

Amid economic downturn and political strife, young American teen discovers her hidden potential.

Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack

jhetley

Air temperature 56 F, wind east about 5 mph, mostly cloudy. Rain supposed to start after noon. Walk early?

jhetley

If you are interested in a Maine leaf-peeping trip:

https://www.maine.gov/dacf/mfs/projects/fall_foliage/report/index.shtml

sartorias

I'm up here at my sister's, not quite a hundred miles north of home, while the new floors are put in. It's all SoCal, and yet a completely different microclimate. I woke to the tut-tut-tut of some bird we don't ever hear at home, and other chirps and twitters equally unfamiliar. Over that, though, the very familiar caw of crows.

As I did the morning walk with the little dog, and listened to the local crows up in the eucalyptus and pines, I wondered if the crows that follow me at home were watching for me to come. Now that the sun is lowering a bit, we're back to increasing numbers, so I might have thirty or so swirling around me when I throw unsalted peanuts out. so exhilarating to watch them!

Here they don't know me, of course, so the calls can't be to let me know they are there. I'm sure the lives of humans are ignorable, except as annoyances that send them into the trees. I wondered about that sky civilization as I trod the path to the dog park. So much going on at the tops of the trees, that we barely notice!

It's such a relief not to be toiling with packing, though of course unpacking lies in wait to pounce when I get back. Then I'll only have three or four days before I take off for my October east trip, so most of my share of the unloading will await me on my return. The big job (and the fun one) is the library.

Speaking of, since it's Wednesday, let's see, what have I been reading? The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell, which is part of a book discussion that I've been following since the start of the year. One book a month in Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time series. The discussion happens at the start of each month over Zoom, and what interests me is how folks from either side of the Atlantic read the work. Also, non-genre reading. This time I'll be on the train when the discussion rolls around, so I hope I have connectivity, but if not I'll listen to the recording. At least that way I can skip ahead if the fellow who leads it gets prolix over an obvious point as he has a tendency to do. The academic curse; students above a certain age level are too polite to say 'Zip it! We got the idea already." (High schoolers had no such restraint, and middle schoolers invariably signalled boredom by more physical means.)

Anyway I had the leisure, for the first time in a couple of months, to make chocolate chip cookies. So I can have those and tea and do some reading. Heigh ho, I will go do that now.

hrj

Perhaps the odd thing is that my overall reading patterns *haven't* changed that much in retirement, although I do have more time for it. A substantial amount of my reading continues to be non-fiction for the Lesbian Historic Motif Project, and that continues. In fact, I have to fight the temptation to spend most of my productive time working on that. But today I wanted to talk more about fiction.

Pre-retirement, my pattern was to have an audiobook going for commuting and my lunchtime bike ride (though bike rides were also for podcasts, since they fit better). If an audiobook really grabbed me, I'd find excuses to do things (like house or yard work) to continue listening. I generally also had one print book in progress at any given time, but they took a long time to finish because I didn't have a fixed context for reading. (Sometimes I'd read them during the break in my weekend bike rides.) Despite doing most of my buying via ebooks, they mostly just piled up because by the time I was done with work and other things, I didn't want to stare at a screen any more.

So what's changed? Well, for one thing, I cancelled my Audible subscription as part of paring down fixed expenses while I get settled into my new budgeting. But I decided it was well past time to actually get a local library card, and now I'm discovering the joys of Libby for audiobooks. I can't necessarily get the instant gratification (and there are plenty of audiobooks they just don't have), but I always have something going. And the borrowing logistics mean that once I've borrowed an audiobook, I make sure to prioritize it.

Print books aren't making any more of a dent on my time than they did previously, in part because my bike ride breaks are pretty much all LHMP all the time. So consumption is about the same.

Ebooks are getting a bit more of my attention. I'm trying to keep the iPad with the books (long story, two iPads for different purposes) charged up so that I can grab it when I'm in the mood. I'm gradually capitulating to the need to track about four different ebook apps, since Apple Books can get weird about showing me non-Apple books that I've side-loaded via the laptop. (It's not all-or-nothing. Some non-Apple books show up on my phone but not the iPad. And some do show up on the iPad.)

That brings us to reading during my recent New Zealand trip. Part of the trip plan was to include lots of relaxation time, and I cued up a bunch of books I'd been wanted to get to. One thing I found (when giving myself time and context for reading) was that I want to be more hard-nosed about DNFing when a book just isn't working for me. And one of the things that more and more doesn't work for me is books with blah prose.

There were several of those during the NZ trip. Stories that had a good premise, and themes that should be appealing to me, but the writing was just...not good. Not bad. Not awful. Just not *good*. Stories where if felt like the author was explaining the story to me rather than telling it. Stories where there were too many WTF moments in the plotting. Stories where the prose was relentlessly pedestrian. And because I started half a dozen novels in quick succession on the trip, it was easy to compare the ones that *did* work for me. Books with singing prose. Books with solid plot and character work. Books where I didn't want to get up from the couch until I'd finished them.

I need to get caught up with my "things I've read" posts, which will have more specifics.

james_davis_nicoll

Realtor Reiko Kujirai has many questions, about her apparent rival and about herself, but very few answers.

Kowloon Generic Romance, volume 2 by Jun Mayuzuki

jhetley

Air temperature 59 F, wind northeast about 7 mph, cloudy. Had some ground fog overnight but gone now. Supposed to have scattered showers, more serious rain tomorrow. We need it. Foraging morning, walk afternoon?

james_davis_nicoll

would my Framework charge if plugged into one outlet but not another? I tested the outlet from which it did not charge and it works for other devices.

[Update]

I shut it down for an hour and everything works again.

james_davis_nicoll

Oh, the joys (and perils) of visiting unfamiliar places and times...

Adventures in Tourism: Five SFF Stories About Travel

james_davis_nicoll

Youtube pushed a song from this source at me.

I don't think they exist. There are no non-generated images of the singer and their pace of output is suspicious. And their FB bio references ai.

james_davis_nicoll

Oxford sends its best to study World War Two in this (grinds teeth) Hugo-winning tale of sound and fury.

Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis

jhetley

Air temperature 58, wind southwest about 4 mph, cloudy. Supposed to get showers this afternoon, but the nearest green on the weather radar is upstate New York. Foraging still may defer into tomorrow. Gull foraging, on the other hand, proceeds in the park.

james_davis_nicoll

The SHADOW OF THE WEIRD WIZARD corebooks, supplements, and adventures.

Bundle of Holding: Weird Wizard

james_davis_nicoll

2015: Five Britons sign for the doomed Mars One venture, the UK pays off its WWI War Loans, and the Liberal Democrats’ adroit political maneuvering yields memorable electoral returns.

Poll #33648 Clarke Award Finalists 2015

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 38

View Respondents

Which 2015 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
25 (65.8%)

Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson
8 (21.1%)

Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta
6 (15.8%)

The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
4 (10.5%)

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
16 (42.1%)

The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey
18 (47.4%)

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

Which 2015 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Europe in Autumn by Dave Hutchinson
Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta
The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey

jhetley

Air temperature 46 F, wind near calm, fog at the airport and visibility under a quarter mile. It's patchy -- I can just about see across the park now and couldn't earlier. Gulls hunting whatever gulls hunt in the grass.

james_davis_nicoll

Frostflower can solve Thorn's pregnancy problem... but can the pair survive the attention of a fanatical farmer-priest?

Frostflower and Thorn (Frostflower and Thorn, volume 1) by Phyllis Ann Karr

jhetley

Air temperature 37 F, wind near calm, fog at the airport. Again, not here. Overnight low 35 F, grass in the park showing frosty. Also showing gulls. Fiber optic internet and phone out, waiting on repair guy and using cell phone hotspot for internet. Happy equinox of your choice to those who believe in such things.

jhetley

Wore a (light) jacket for the morning walk. Breezy and about 50 F when I headed out. Some trees starting to turn, mainly ash and red maple. Beechnut husks on the sidewalk. No cat friends.

james_davis_nicoll

Really, more of Book Received. One work new to me, science fantasy.

Books Received, September 13 — September 19

Poll #33640 Books Received, September 13 — September 19

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 38

View Respondents

Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Yalum by Matthew Hughes (September 2025)
10 (26.3%)

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

Cats!
36 (94.7%)

jhetley

Air temperature 41 F, northwest wind about 4 mph, sunny. Overnight low 36 F, skirting frost. Fewer gulls in the park. Maybe the chill has slowed emergence of their prey.

jhetley

Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . .

Russian fighter jets in NATO airspace.

jhetley

So, Fearless Leader is going to designate "antifa" as a terrorist organization. My parents were "antifa" -- anti-fascist. So was most of that generation. That's how we won WWII . . .

james_davis_nicoll

There's a planet in the habitable zone... but not an Earthlike planet.

Bad News From Alpha Centauri A…

james_davis_nicoll

Sabrena's life is full of struggles already. The last thing she needs is an other-worldly adventure. Life is, alas, not considerate of a teen's preferences.

Sabrena Swept Away by Karuna Riazi

jhetley

The gull horde increases.

jhetley

Air temperature 60 F, wind northwest about 6 mph, partly cloudy. Elevated fire weather danger today and probably for a while, as we have drought conditions across much of the state, up to and including extreme. Trash out.

hrj

I've posted the birdwatching report from my New Zealand trip on my Alpennia blog (https://alpennia.com/blog/new-zealand-birding). The non-bird parts to come.

Today's rhythm was thrown off by the need to check in at 11:30 on my potential jury duty service. Which also meant that when I went online to set up an optometry appointment, I didn't think I could commit to the "earliest possible" slot next Tuesday, with the next options starting in late October. And then when I checked in and found I was excused from jury duty, that next Tuesday slot had been snapped up.

It became clear to me on the NZ trip that I really needed to update my vision prescriptions, though in part this was because I was doing a lot more close-distance reading than usual and it became clear that one of my eyes has drifted more than the other. Then coincidentally, yesterday I got a note from Kaiser saying that my current glasses prescription was about to expire (it's been two years) and I should make an appointment.

But anyway, since I didn't want to go off on the bike this morning because of the check-in, I wrote up my birding notes. And now I'm thinking that since my routine is already off, I could just go off script entirely for the rest of the day. (Yes, yes, I have a fixed routine in retirement. What can I say?) Maybe I'll do something wild and crazy like pick rose hips. I have three or four bushes that have a lot of hips--enough to do something interesting with, anyway--and it might be fun to try some comparisons.

james_davis_nicoll

A selection of Dozois' best, from the first half of his half century career.

Geodesic Dreams: The Best Short Fiction of Gardner Dozois by Gardner Dozois

jhetley

Air temperature 58 F, wind southwest about 5 mph, overcast. Light mist or shower overnight, drying off now. Watered the salvia in the planter out front anyway. Asters and chicory doing their evasive maneuvers, blooming below blade height in mowed areas when they'd really prefer to be 2' tall.

jhetley

"Buy on the rumor, sell on the fact."

james_davis_nicoll

The Central Plaza Mansion tower offers palatial 900 square foot apartments for a mere ¥35,000,000. It is a deal too good for the Kano family to turn down... although they should have.

The Graveyard Apartment by Mariko Koike

jhetley

Air temperature 48 F, wind near calm, partly cloudy. Appointment early, then foraging later. You'll have to save the world without me.

(Yes, the title is redundant . . .)

james_davis_nicoll

The Young People review Michael Swanwick's debut Nebula finalist stories.

The Feast of Saint Janis & Ginungagap by Michael Swanwick

jhetley

City mower herding the gulls around the park. They don't want to leave whatever mayhem they pursue. And I'm sure the mower leaves a swath of injured bugs behind.

james_davis_nicoll

Need More Surface Area? Why Not Build More?

Five Artificially Layered Planets and World Cities

james_davis_nicoll

If not friend, why friend-shaped?

Spread Me by Sarah Gailey

jhetley

Air temperature 48 F, wind near calm, partly cloudy claimed at the airport but hazy clear out my window. I have turned up the heat for a couple of mornings now. We still need rain.