PSA: Phyllis Gotlieb's Flesh and Gold is on sale for USD$2.99. This is a deeply humane space opera with many and very splendid aliens. It's the first in a loose trilogy, but works fine as a standalone.

Finally caught the Superman movie. I liked it fine, but my main takeaway is that too many people are sleeping on My Adventures with Superman.

Elaboration - Gene Wolfe's influence on the Foundation TV series:

Having finished S3, I revise my Foundation verdict to: Very pretty and occasionally even smart. But mostly very pretty.

SFF discourse starter for the morning: The "stop reccing Golden Age SF to people, it doesn't hold up" discourse is never ending. But I haven't seen the equivalent for the golden age of fat epic fantasy; the 80s and 90s. So: what 80s & 90s epic fantasy holds up best to modern eyes and why?

Binging Foundation. Is Lee Pace contractually obligated to strip at least once per season?

Not watching the Emmys, but thrilled by the Tillman and LaNasa wins.

Current book is dialed up to 11 at all times and might do better if it occasionally dipped down to 8 or 9.

This Murderbot + Witch King and more Humble Bundle from @torbooks.bsky.social has raised nearly $80,000 for @wck.org World Central Kitchen -- Can we get that up higher before time runs out? #booksky www.humblebundle.com/books/martha...

C. J. Cherryh (1942-) was born on this day. Bibliography: www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.c... L, Stephen Youll, 1994; R, David Mattingly, 1981 #scifi #sciencefiction #books

At least my futon frame broke down on a sales weekend.

70 years ago today, 14-year old Emmett Till was kidnapped and brutally murdered by white men. The gun that was used to kill him goes on display today in Mississippi. Wright Thompson on how it got there—and why it’s a rebuke of attempts to erase history: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Tragically I forgot both my wallet and my reading glasses, so today's subway entertainment will have to be a podcast.

lolwhut

Diana Wynne Jones sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/jones_... was born on this day, so here are some of her book covers (Artist: Richard Bober, David Bowers, David O'Connor and Cihan Karamanci). 4th for a Turkish collection of the 'Howl's Castle' trilogy:

Listening to Meal of Thorns with @abigailnussbaum.bsky.social on Iain Banks' Excession and considering a paired (re)reading with Delany's Trouble on Triton.

this seems so cheap to me.

OTOH, Vampire Lestat was the first Rice book I read and I love its OTT WTFness, from rock star Lestat to grim French historical melodrama. OTOH, I am deeply worried about the show de-emphasizing Louis, because Jacob Anderson has MADE the TV version for me.

!!!!

Favorite new fruit this summer: the Picasso melon. It has a pale exterior speckled with green and very white flesh, and tastes something like a very mild, very sweet honeydew crossed with an Asian pear. I've read it does well grilled but I've just been eating it raw.

Tachyon Press celebrates its 30th birthday (has it really been that long?) with a humble bundle of their books: www.humblebundle.com/books/tachyo...

Can anyone point me at reviews/commentary about Cahokia Jazz from Native American reviewers and/or any place Spufforr discusses indigenous sources for his world-building?

A treasure lode of panel reports from Readercon:

At BBG Soundbatg. It hasn't started yet so mostly I am listening to the soothing tones of New Yorkers and overhead planes. Also, did you guys know the ground is hard?

#xl8 #translation

Does anybody opining about the decline in male writers have any actual math on the number of writers published/on bestsellers' list broken out by gender or is everyone just going on grievance vibes?

@giandujakiss.bsky.social Maybe I'm misremembering, but I feel like this might be relevant to your interests

I have started a Very Slow Cherryh Reread project. (Suggestions for a better title welcome.) An overview: coffeeandink.dreamwidth.org/2025/07/14/c...

Gen X men remember women were also born between 1965 and 1980 challenge

Emmys: Disappointed but unsurprised by snubs for IWTV & Jacob Anderson; disappointed + slightly surprised by snubs for Agatha All Along, Kathryn Hahn, & Patti LuPone. Yellowjackets' star is fading but Melanie Lynskey did some amazing stuff this season. Trammell Tillman all the way.

This year's film purchase:

The egg katsu sandwich at Little Egg is delightful.

Apparently someone is being Wrong About Sondheim on the internet, but I can't tell how or who, because I have already blocked them. Or they've already blocked me.Either way, probably a good call.

Just passed a first-floor window with a "Cuomo for Mayor" sign. Despise the politics but kinda admire the boldness, because really all it would take is one rock and even mediocre aim.

I have just seen my second literary writers Substack puff piece this month and can only conclude Substack PR is pushing this hard for some reason.

did worldcon outsource panel programming to grok

Too many eldritch horrors and Nazi chatbots quoted on my timeline.

Somewhat to my surprise, previous players have not already covered *everything* I am interested in, so: 1 like, 1 anticipated read from the second half of 2025. There will probably be some duplicates, but I'll try to start off with books I haven't seen mentioned yet.

New Shearwater album crowdfunding campaign just launched.

Changes from earlier to later or UK to US editions of DWJ: Ebook edition has "Music does not always soothe the troubled beast." Greenwillow hc/Berkeley mm have the corrext "breast", so it may just be an uncaught OCR error/typo.

There is SO MUCH Amber in Homeward Bounders and Archer's Goon, wow. ai never noticed before @emilytesh pointed it out.

Have clinched ID of trees out back as tree of heaven by finding four spotted lanternflies on my balcony. Honestly relatively pretty for insects; it's a shame they're invasive.

Kpop Demon Hunters is exactly what its title promises. Very satisfying.

I have successfully configured my sister's 2013 Kindle so I can actually retrieve books which are not sold elsewhere. (I use Kobo. My sister uses her phone.) At least until the next time they reconfigure their DRM to make it harder for me to give them my damn money. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“The MTA says subway on-time performance in May was 85.2%, the best in recorded history, and bus speeds have increased by an average of 3.2% within the zone, with some routes increasing by as much as 25%, which the agency attributes to congestion pricing.”

Recent #BookLoot

Hello, Bluesky! This is a weird day to go live with this project, but: this is an initiative to add a Translated Speculative Fiction category to the Hugo Awards. If you are a fan of global SF, and want to put some more "World" in "Worldcon", check out our site! Lots more to come. translatedhugo.org

BREAKING: Zeteo has released, globally, the film the BBC so controversially refused to air. "Gaza: Doctors Under Attack" is now available to watch in full at gazadoctors.film and zeteo.com. Here's the trailer:

Ironheart is much better than I expected and I am very sad that everything it set up will probably be dropped without comment.