Stuck at home and on painkillers, for reasons, and found myself watching a documentary about Bay Area land scarcity and gentrification, called _A View to a Kill_ (1985).

OUTRAGEOUS. [sort-of spoiler for today’s NYT Spelling Bee; in the absence of a spoiler label here, have labelled as graphic content, which it kind of is]

Rare to see one of these: a warning sign that alerts you to the presence of the rock band Queen.

Epigraphs for a book I’ll write at some point

Please read and share.

The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in a moment.

Sad not to be on Summerisle right now.

Thoughtful of Pynchon to schedule his new book almost in time for my birthday! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/316427...

Spent the afternoon painting my garden fence & shed with cedar-red waterproofing paint. Refraining from any video calls while I still look like a blood-spattered serial killer.

I have a problem with listening to international relations podcasts: I keep hearing “Qataris” as “catteries”.

Saw this podcast title and wondered if he’s Team Edward or Team Jacob

Flattered and delighted as ever to be asked to feed in to the annual Locus Recommended Reading list of the best sf and fantasy locusmag.com/2025/02/2024...

Increasingly tempted to think of the books in Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb Series as Dangerous Gideons, Again Dangerous Gideons, etc.

The next Briardene Book is Colourfields by Paul Kincaid, out in April! An exploration of SF as seen by critics, historians, and biographers, you can pre-order through our shop now: briardenebooks.uk/shop/

Confession of cluelessness on my part: when Martin Sheen listed the ingredients of an egg cream in The West Wing, I thought he said it comprised chocolate syrup, milk, and salsa. It did not sound appealing.

Post your favourite #doctorwho . Wrong answers only.

Get in losers, we’re waking at four to soundless dark.

A new frontier in AI: my watch just heard me delivering an especially percussive sneeze as "Hey, Siri".

Question for sf folk… Am I right in thinking that F&SF last published issue was Summer 2024 (per locusmag.com/2024/09/fsf-...) and so it didn’t mark its 75th anniversary in Oct/Nov? If so, a great shame, given how good the magazine has been lately.

Doonesbury, August 9 1998. www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1...

Is today a good time to tell Hecate I found the ring she lost?

Currently working on the 80s chapter of _Wonders and Visions_ (the history of sf through cover art I'm writing w @adamroberts.bsky.social ). Struck by how omnipresent a figure Orson Scott Card was then...and by how much things have changed.

John M Ford: Winter Solstice, Camelot Station. thegreenbelt.blogspot.com/2006/12/wint...

Happy Gauda Prime Day, everyone!

Hill to die on: Robert Aickman’s “The Hospice” is a Christmas story.

Movie pitch: Megalogopolis

Movie pitch: Wallace Wells and Gromit.

Current source of grumpiness: podcasts that include the phrase, "Without further ado". A sure sign that several minutes of chat before should've been excised in the edit.

Two stages of writing: 1) This shouldn't take too long 2) Oh no

(Similarly: “What if Sarah Connor was ex-directory?”)

Movie pitch: Star Trek the Motion Picture, except the incomprehensibly powerful AI knew how to clear dirt off nameplates

Alan Garner’s _Powsels and Thrums_ is just marvellous, maybe my book of the year.

Current location: Croydon in the rain. #sixwordhorrorstory

Finished Kaliane Bradley’s _The Ministry of Time_. It joins _Walking on Glass_ by Iain Banks and (sort of) _Red Dragon_ by Thomas Harris in a very particular literary subgenre.

Walking north on a train going south. I’m basically an Albert Einstein thought-experiment. (Neither party, I admit, has a velocity close to c.)

From the Faber Book of Diaries (Ed Simon Brett) for 24 October. CW: dental trauma, file under “thankful for modern medicine”.

Megalopolis in summary: a movie made to please one person, and others’ enjoyment of it is pure chance. The one person is John Oliver.

Very excited to announce the third Briardene book, Colourfields: Writing About Writing About Science Fiction by Paul Kincaid. Coming April 2025! briardenebooks.uk/2024/10/01/a...

Writing stuff for @adamroberts.bsky.social 's and my book on sf cover art today - specifically on the depiction of cities. Then going to see "Megalopolis: The Ultimate Experience" this evening. This'll either improve or destroy my thinking, but definitely one or the other.

Whenever I visit NYC, I follow a new @hels.bsky.social eating suggestion. This time, Hamburger America: simultaneously a v good and v intentional place. However, I tried the onion burger (sweet, drippy, beefy) rather than the smashburger (HR's rec), so may have to return for a second trip.

Well, that fits.

Lol. It’s not like anything’s happened since then.

Reading old Joanna Russ reviews from 1979, as one does, and, basically, inject this stuff into my veins. (The compression of argument! The range of knowledge! The fierceness of engagement! The jokes!)

Reading a Robert Aickman story I hadn’t previously (Hand in Glove) and this bit may be Peak Aickman.

Happy Parable of the Sower day to all who celebrate

Altogether elsewhere, Lord Vetinari calls in his secretary and tells him to send the invoice for the first half of his consultancy fee.

“I wonder if there’ll be any new politics podcast in my feed this morning?” I asked innocently.

Altogether elsewhere, the leftpad package reclines a little on its sunlounger, sips a daiquiri, and lowers its sunglasses.

The great thing about the song Innuendo is that it prompts the first thought, “Wow, Queen really tipped over into self-parody there”, followed quickly by the second: “HOW COULD YOU TELL?”