I think I might give up on reading my book and read someone else's book for a bit

argh, got stuck again! p. 11. i give up.

We do solicit the majority of our posts, but we're always open for walk-ins!

A reminder we are eagerly looking for new #Shelfies for 2026 and now have a proper submission page if you would like to contribute!

Well, that's chapter 1 done. Pretty good. Only a gazillion more chapters left to go.

I'm on page 6. So far so good!

Well, it is officially the start of the 2026 working year I guess... dare I step into the pages of the giant space opera?

Well this is new - the book marketing spammers now take the time to leave an "honest review" of your book on goodreads to prove their credentials. I don't particularly care for goodreads one way or the other, but a flood of AI reviews surely renders it (even more) useless now?

got to say, HALCYON DAYS is *thoroughly* enjoyable

I shall, with some regret, momentarily set aside Dukaj's rather monumental ICE, as Alastair Reynolds' HALCYON DAYS has been collected from the library...

East Egg. Shit. I'm only in East Egg. Every time, I think I'm gonna wake up back in the mansion. I'm here a week now. Waiting for a mission. Getting softer. Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker. And every minute Gatsby squats in the tower, he gets stronger.

tomorrow, hopefully, i shall begin to undertake the perilous journey of reading through the giant space opera (tm), all 190,000 words of it or so, with all its aliens and spaceships and librarians and parasitic life-forms and nuns with guns and what have you.

If you think about it, The Great Gatsby is really just an early novel about the dangers of driving

This is a brilliant book and one of my favourite counterfactual novels.

If you missed it, our last #Shelfies of the year was the OG SMG, @silviamg.bsky.social sharing her shelf!

No, seriously, do yourselves a favour and read this, it's like discovering the great gatsby for the first time just with more, you know, hitler and bodily fluids

snow watch update: still falling

I suspect I should retire or change careers in the next 2-3 years. Honestly, could have quit after A MAN LIES DREAMING, one masterpiece in a generation is enough.

SNOW!!!!

Literary success

I'm going to read the Tom Holt interview in Locus. To be honest, I much prefer Tom Holt to K.J. Parker. Sue me. I also just remember he used to write really savage reviews for SFX back in the day, of the sort they just don't do anymore.

wait, did you win the deutscher krimipreis 2025? wait, no, it was me.

my broadband connection's bust - cue nightmare memories of doing tech support. customer: *THE INTERNET* IS DOWN! I was always quite impressed they assumed the entire Internet was down. It was *never* their connection. It was *THE INTERNET!*.

-7 out there

This piece is really quite rude about science fiction writers, don't blame us for this nonsense

soon, london shall bring back the fabled frost fairs of the 17th century and we shall all dance on the ice, or something. or ben aaronovitch will turn it into a novel.

I think the key is just not to see another living being until the 30th at least

I need to re-watch the Curb episode on the etiquette of saying happy new year. Tired already. What is the cut-off??

i mean, "makes sense" lol. it's a space opera.

My first mission for 2026: read the 188,000 words giant space opera, hope some of it makes sense, send it to publisher, fill bathtub with monopoly money

Back from holiday. <checks notes> yup, still pretty pleased about this!

Waking up on holiday to discover ADAMA is this year's winner of the Deutscher Krimipreis 2025!

my god, nearly 200,000 words all leading to a bad joke

Finishing the giant space opera (tm) in 3... 2... 1...

This Is Just To Say (To Jonathan Harker) I have driven the horses that were pulling the cart on which you were crossing the Borgo Pass forgive me I took the shape of a bat With regards, Your host, The Count

the secret, and I can't believe I'm going to share it with you, is only to write GOOD books

It's absurd to say LLM-generated fiction is plagiarism, but it's fair to say it just isn't very good. It is also fair to say a lot of books just aren't very good, and there's the crux of the matter: if you can replace bad human-generated books with bad AI-generated books, does anyone notice?

finally

I scored some primo Sicilian sausage today, what are your top tips to cook it

Hoorah!

I was trying to think of my playlist if I ever got invited on Desert Island Discs (spoiler: I haven't been), but would BBC Radio 4 even play the Bloodhound Gang

Can I re-claim this book as a romantacy?

"even some of my colleagues labor under the delusion that they can "see the future."" My god, yes, I've been on panels with those lads...

My obligatory end of year post, with all the stuff...

Mulled wine and a bratwurst to celebrate

#1 redux! ADAMA follows last year's MAROR to secure the best crime novel of 2025 in Germany on the Krimibestenliste... 😀

We now have a proper submissions page for #Shelfies! shelfies.beehiiv.com/p/share-your... and would love to see some new contributions for 2026!

AI Slopocalypse

New #Shelfies alert! This week, we have James Logan on classic Fighting Fantasy books! Subscribe now for a free weekly shelfie in your inbox!

Although admittedly that's pretty much my entire philosophy