All those people who think they can dodge the effects of the climate crisis because they live in a nice developed country are about to get punched in the face. It’s coming in hard everywhere.

If you see this post an album cover with a motor vehicle on it.

I hate having to wait a whole year for China Miéville’s new book, but I think it will be worth it. www.thebookseller.com/rights/picad...

I asked him what was the most important thing he ever did. He replied “opposing the patenting of human genes”. For a full picture of Jim, his terrible flaws and his insights, we will have to wait for @nccomfort.bsky.social’s forthcoming biography.

Australian scientist who alerted world that COVID is airborne wins top science prize When the WHO falsely claimed in March 2020 that COVID wasn’t airborne, Professor Lidia Morawska took action—organising 239 scientists worldwide to warn about SARS-CoV-2 airborne spread and urge global recognition.

A spiderweb so big it exists in two different countries (Greece and Albania)!

Meanwhile

Bi Gan, essentially China’s David Lynch or Tarkovsky, has a new film RESSURRECTION. I believe it’s a masterpiece made me feel I was levitating out of my seat by its end. Tickets just went on sale with two special screenings with him in person at @filmlinc.bsky.social www.filmlinc.org/films/resurr...

This Norwegian stabbur, ca 1700, one of the oldest buildings in the region. Used to store foods & other things off of the ground, away from animals. I'm not OK, for all the Crone reasons. We know where her house came from! Its origins, most likely! imma go get my evil mortar and pestle now brb

It's a real testament to the strength of her catalog that I would assemble a very different list, yet I can't fault this piece for any of the choices it makes.

Oh dear. More worries about the consequences of CRISPR. The basic step - cutting both strands of DNA, which are then repaired, is not anodyne and has lasting effects.

Brain organoids are getting better at mimicking brains in a dish. But how good is too good? I take a look at the latest developments in my story today in the Times. Gift link: nyti.ms/496PPnC

SWOOSH! 🧹 When a meteoroid struck Mars, it triggered ~100 dust avalanches down an ancient volcano's slopes. @esa.int's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter captured the dramatic effect of the rare cascade. A new @nature.com study examines the most common causes of these streaks. www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

UK publication day for this wrist-spraining beauty! Appropriately, I’m travelling to Cambridge, where I’m doing a book launch talk at the LMB tomorrow afternoon.

Goldsmiths time of year! Many congratulations @cdrose.bsky.social ! Enjoy!

Trump just continually shooting our country in the face. This unwarranted (and likely illegal) destruction of Goddard is madness. It jeopardizes the next several decades of space exploration.

'...tool use in (humans and human ancestors) is probably much earlier and more continuous than we thought it was.'

In the US, the golden oyster mushroom has escaped cultivation into the wild, and is displacing other fungal species. #biodiversitycrisis

Hats off to the BBC for restoring Peter Watkins' The War Game to the iPlayer. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Hearty congratulations to Helen Garner who has won the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction with her collected diaries, How to End a Story. A glorious book - confession, analysis, memory store, comedy - which shows all the things words can do: often on the same page. AND it’s mega good value.

Such a mystery, what MASS DISABLING EVENT could have happened after 2019 to cause this?

I talked about Frankenstein with the very wonderful @ellenejones.bsky.social for BBC's latest Screenshot podcast. Always a pleasure, not least because - as usual - they cleverly edited it so I sound more intelligent & articulate than I really am.

Hey, Kids, Stories! Clarkesworld # 230. Features my science fiction novella THE APOLOGISTS. Also stories by @kashinggiwa.bsky.social and @izom-chisom.bsky.social and others!

Thrilled! Goldsmiths Press/Gold SF will publish ALSTON MOOR in Autumn 2026. Epic eco-fiction with two entwined storylines, 500 years apart! I’ve adored every minute of research for this novel. @goldsmithspress.bsky.social @goldsf.bsky.social @unamccormack.bsky.social @sarahsuch.bsky.social

This is incredible. 💙

Found a sinister copy of Golidlocks and the Three Bears today in a junk shop. Some child blacked out her eyes throughout!

If you are a Kindle person and like hard sf, I can't recommend Something Coming Through and Into Everywhere highly enough. Witty, dark, surprisingly profound. Also the first two books in the Quiet War sequence are amazing value for $5.99 www.amazon.com/Into-Everywh... www.amazon.com/Quiet-War-Om...

Last pass of the proofs of Loss Protocol done. Everythingh fixed apart from the goof I'll find by opening a copy of the finished, printed book to a random page.

Currently reading

The end of an era: the Tree of Life Web Project is going dark after 3 decades. Anyone interested in communicating phylogeny online should read David's account of goals, history, and future. @bembidion.bsky.social subulatepalpomere.com/2025/11/02/t...

Antarctic glacier's rapid retreat sparks scientific 'whodunnit.' 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Post the good news when you see it…

a century of glaciers melting 🧪🌐

Ebook editions of my recent novels (Beyond the Burn Line, War of the Maps, Austral etc) are just £2.99 at the moment. Or, so I'm told, $2.99 if yr in the US. Lots of links here: www.unlikelyworlds.co.uk/print.html

Terrific review of CRICK by Georgina Ferry in this week's @nature.com (the print title of the review is less clickbaity):

If I wasn’t already booked for something else I’d go to this. First saw Koyaanisqatsi the week in came out, in LA. It was like a manape’s encounter with the monolith.

Not really our cup of tea.

Also $2.99 in the states too...

Just noticed that the ebook editions of my recent novels (Beyond the Burn Line, War of the Maps, Austral etc) are just £2.99 at the moment. Lots of links here: www.unlikelyworlds.co.uk/print.html

My collage for this @us.theguardian.com piece 👇👇 www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Nick Cave’s ‘Red Right Hand’ just came on a playlist. Shivers all through it. What an exquisitely-written song, so meticulously done. ‘Border fires’/‘humming wires’… the pairing of ‘barrio’ and ‘bowery’… ‘one microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan’… A literary masterpiece.

Hampstead Heath, 08:05.

I love many of Watkins' films, but if you're looking for one to start with, watch Punishment Park (1971). It's a film that, sadly, is as relevant now as when it was made. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez_t...

One of the very best things the BBC has ever done. Everyone involved was right at the top of their game. Essential viewing.

Really enjoyed Paul McAuley's (@unlikelyworlds.bsky.social) Something Coming Through. A Sci-fi background to an interesting thriller where dual storylines come to a satisfying conclusion. Looking forward to the next one, Into Everywhere!

If I said the last of the great twentieth century British film directors died last night, and very few people even remembered him by the time of his death... would you know what I'm talking about? tribunemag.co.uk/2025/10/cryi...

Peter Watkins has died - perhaps the least-appreciated great British filmmaker (and you sense he wouldn't have wanted it any other way). www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...