New update for Starfield on PS5. Will it now be playable?

A blog on 'What I think about when I'm reading'. Inspired by @vajra.me excellent post today I ended up writing about this and the utter single brain cell nonsense of choosing the '100 best novels' among other things. #booksky

I'm here with the marvellous @catamaroon.bsky.social and @mahmudelsayed.bsky.social at King's in London on the 4th June - it will be lots of fun. Would love to see you there!

when ordinary people tell you something about the gilt market laugh in their faces until they acknowledge they're talking ignorant shit.

This leadership shit, even now, is still not as important as the fact that FIVE MILLION QUID HAS BEEN PAID TO THE LEADER OF ONE OF OUR BIGGEST POLITICAL PARTIES

Lest we forget both the bravery needed to stand against power and the cost. But good things can happen even when money and power hate it.

It’s my partner’s birthday. So i have of course been quoting fellowship of the ring to her.

for the dumb kids at the back: inflation is the RATE at which prices are rising. Lower inflation means prices are RISING more slowly, not that they're coming down. Deflation is when the rate of price rises is negative - ie prices are coming down there are many measures of inflation, not only CPI

I loved this story.

holy shit some good news.

@catamaroon.bsky.social Hey, could you DM me or get in contact, want to run something by you!

Frustrated with the election pundits talking as if votes only 'swing' from one party to another. I did some analysis of the results, and my modelling (based on votes only, not polls) suggests that the largest movement since 2024 local elections (by a long way) is from 'Did Not Vote' -> Reform

neatly summed up

If Streeting or ANY of Blue Labour become PM we're truly living in the worst timeline. The only outcome is that they'll do what for Labour what Truss did for the Tories. people want radical change - by which they mean dealing with a rapacious business class rather than bowing to Palantir et al

WE DON'T NEED PETROLEUM-BASED PLASTICS ANYMORE! "The [bamboo plastic] outperforms most commercial plastics and bioplastics in mechanical and thermo-mechanical metrics while maintaining full biodegradability in soil within 50 days and closed-loop recyclability with 90% retained strength."

Who would you replace Keir Starmer with? Wrong answers only.

I do love adding footnotes to my writing. Writing about Humbert Scold's misadventures in teleporting is very satisfying.

A little perspective. Which you won’t get from the media. Note that only England had local elections: Scotland & Wales had full parliamentary elections. #UK #England #Localelections

Rental Family I have a soft spot for Brendan Fraser. Not for The Mummy which I consider a deeply problematic film, but because he seems to be someone with a kindness to him that makes him effortlessly charming. I really noticed him first in the 1998 film, Gods and Monsters which has stayed with me…

A reminder of Peter Kellner’s good/bad party results:

Here we are at panel 2.

there is no being credible on immigration. There is racism and wealth inequality. That's it. That's the story. You fail to understand that and you, as a majority twonk, might think racism is a place to build your policies from rather than seeing that gross inequality opens the door to populism.

While I’m here it’s time to shame this appliance. My shit toaster that can’t toast a whole piece if bread upright but can’t fir two in sideways. Not to mention the slider of doom that either underdoes it or incinerates it. More in alt text.

Ah, starting book 2 in a series. That very first paragraph on the first page is the hardest.

Very excited for this!

I’m ten minutes in ep1 of Widow’s Bay and it’s clear it’s darkly funny and probably very dark too. Exactly my kind of thing

Occasional reminder to people in the UK that should you have any unwanted election literature, you can send it to this Freepost address:

It's tomorrow! Whoop whoop! Grab your ticket: tinyurl.com/watopera

What people don’t tell you is that 95% of writing is waiting around…

Core argument

This was loads of fun to do :-)

Review: Basilisk by Matt Wixey I'm a huge fan of novels and texts that play with the format of the page. The obvious and most famous example of this is House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski which had me questioning reality when I first read it twenty years ago. However there are plenty of others,…

the best take on that addled old bigot's easy enthralling to a female presenting statistical engine saying just what he wants to hear.

Word of the day: autocatakinetics

Got a review up at NoaF today grappling with Trace Elements by Jo Walton and Ada Palmer. I had a lot of thoughts, so it's a bit of a chunky one.

This April was (somehow) the fifteenth annual Women in SF&F Month. Thank you so much to all of this year's guests! You can find all guest posts from 2026 here or in the thread below: www.fantasybookcafe.com/2026/04/wome... #Books #BookSky 📚💙 #Fantasy #SciFi #SpecFic 📚🪐

I have two daughters and I think about this all the time. I don't know how I will explain it to them when the time comes. bsky.app/profile/carn...

The bats are out!

Book Review: Anti-State, by Allen Stroud @stewarthotston.com has our review of Stroud's latest space opera, a standalone in his long running universe, at the Hugo Finalist NOAF blog: www.nerds-feather.com/2026/04/revi...

@georgesandison.bsky.social started Basilisk last night. This is SO much fun and i keep finding references that are real!!!

1/3 so news from the AI trenches. My youngest is currently finishing up high school. he came home exasperated yesterday because his tutor spent half their session extolling how genAI could make their lives easier and that they should use it He walked out as did many others (it was a form tutorial)

We have our first Waterstones Reading event next week. Have you got your ticket?

Anime of the Year Finalists 2026 A strong year for drama yields an intriguing collection of finalists for Crunchyroll’s 2026 Anime of the Year says @annmichelleharris.bsky.social at the NOAF blog www.nerds-feather.com/2026/04/anim...

The best Star Wars film? The Last Jedi. The beat Star Wars series? Rebels I will not be taking questions.

I’m very late to the Remarkable life of Ibelin train and am 1/3 of the way through and in constant tears. I have so many thought about it too.

It’s the weekend the sun is out and so here is the latest Wombling Along with reviews, articles and even a music video to enjoy! www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2026/4/...

1/n I'm also trying not to think about oil inventories because, honestly, existential is the only word that fits the disaster we're moving towards right now. I would write about it but I don't know how to convey in ordinary language how frightening this is without sounding like I'm catastrophising.

and that's the third of four edits done. I don't have the fourth edit in my inbox (been waiting quite a while for that one) and I can't start the next book on my schedule until I've checked in with that editor who's currently on holiday...so time to sit in the sun and not think too hard. And read

Looking at the Spiderman Noir picks and being reminded of how men of colour too often have to wear inhuman prosthetics to appear on genre shows. Like, the metaphor's not subtle people, and we see what you're doing against their 'appear as they are' white co-stars.

Since I don't remember if I shared it, here's my talk "Fascist Bullshit: How ‘Generative AI’ Enacts & Enables Authoritarianism and Eugenics" at the symposium "Virtual Power: AI, Ableism, Racism, and Fascism," at the Philosophy, Disability, and Social Change 6 conference, from January of this year: