As much as the last couple of days of travelling have gone non-ideally we're now home and our local pizza place is doing a collab with Dishoom, cannot complain about that.

The Philosophy Of Sidesteps

The SU&SD Newsletter excited to inform me about new boardgames. Me in Edinburgh Station trying to get home from our aborted holiday to the Orkneys: "Maybe not this one right now..."

Let's be clear: this is the result of deliberate political choices to make accessing trans healthcare substantially impossible. It's what Streeting and his ilk want.

Intergalactic Mixtape is live! This week: my favorite headcanons from other fans about The Murderbot Diaries and a call for your favorite SFF book from September 2025, so we can lovingly build a rec list together. 🥹📚

wait did I really never post this one

For today's article, I'm just griping about why "fun" is a bad word for critics. spacebiff.com/2025/09/30/a...

Today was our third session of LOTR close reading, in which I mostly did not inflict scansion chat on Ed, and wherein I had a lot of thoughts about blurred boundaries, tone, theme, specificity of place and the sheer delight of Tolkien's poems.

End of the month, and that means: the link round-up is upon us! Some cool reviews, some great interviews, and some insightful essays from around the web: ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/09/29/w...

Book Review: Fate's Bane by C. L. Clark A forbidden romance and an exploration of the complexities of duty. @chloroformtea.bsky.social has the review at the NOAF blog www.nerds-feather.com/2025/09/book...

One of these games seems rather more likely to play back.

What a team! Shockingly enough, this was a lot more fun than getting up early for 2022.

We're here, ready for a glorious afternoon of rugby.

10% of profits from this special edition will be donated to Mermaids, a charity that works to support trans, nonbinary, and gender-diverse young people in the UK. I'm very happy and excited about this one!

Taking a break from Hades 2 to watch Quins vs Bath, nice to get a rather less consequential warmup before the big show with the Red Roses tomorrow.

Sometimes a column is about something specific, and sometimes it's just about everything I've been reading and thinking about, and this one is definitely the latter!

Corruption as a literary device, if only that were all it was: @robertwelbourn.bsky.social reviews Gemma Fairclough’s THE RETREAT (@wildhuntbooks.bsky.social)

It may be that my dayjob for too long has involved the typesetting of exam papers but this joke in the just released to backers draft of the Gold Teeth RPG sent me...

🌕

It's really annoying when you're just starting what looks to be a pretty special book and you're suddenly too exhausted to properly read it. Helm by Sarah Hall has been really good so far, humour and narrative voice really on point, and I wish I'd been able to get further into it.

@readingtheend.bsky.social is a braver soul than I for reading all of these to have a proper, thoughtful take on the tradpub reskinned fanfic explosion happening at the mo. I think this is a really good articulation of precisely why it's so uncomfortable (and homogenous).

It's often harmless and most of us occasionally do it but currently getting to observe a very funny example of "this person on social media agrees with one of my hot (lukewarm) takes and therefore they must agree with me on everything" and just, people are more complex than that. They really are.

Immigration is a good thing that we should want more of. It's good when people go to new places and bring their culture with them. It's good to go to new places and experience their culture. We do better as a people when we see how other people live and see ourselves as aspects of the same thing.

In my continued reading of Adam Robert's Fantasy: A Short History I've reached the 80s and 90s and while there's a lot of pleasure in his dismissals of bad books I read as a teenager it's also reminding me of the highs, that I should revisit Mythago Wood and read Little, Big for the first time.

And breathe... Not comfortable for most of that match but also never behind. Feel like we'll absolutely have to have a step up in performance against Canada but importantly we're there. And certainly can't say they haven't been tested yet anymore.

Coverage has started, nerves are very definitely here, let's go Red Roses.

Rouet pre-match "I'm not worried about New Zealand" to Pelletier post-match "It's just fun to play rugby". Canada don't give a shit about anything but balling and it's incredible.

NZL 19 - 34 CAN Fully deserved win from Canada, the best team in the pitch and, for all the second half was closer, in the first half the Black Ferns looked to have no answers.

Though on that last repost the most impressive thing has been the lack of drama, Canada just the better team and deservedly going through.

4 minutes to go. Will this be the second ever time Canada beats the Black Ferns? More importantly the second time the Black Ferns don’t make the Final?

Feels like this penalty, if successful, is the final nail in the coffin.

NZ can’t get out their own way (literally). It’s 8 penalties conceded to 0. 6 turnovers conceded to 2.

If you're not watching the NZ v Canada #RWC2025 semi final, then drop whatever it is you're doing and tune into the second half. Incredible rugby. A simply amazing game.

New Zealand 7 - 24 Canada It's a score which doesn't flatter Canada in the slightest, well on top and the Black Ferns need to do something to massively change the script in the second half.

Well, that was a score the Black Ferns desperately needed.

Rugby World Cup Semi Finals are a go. Think I'm cheering on Canada in this first one but mostly just looking forward to what should be a top notch game.

Intergalactic Mixtape is live! This week: personal essay recs, reviews, fun discussion threads, and a new column that @readingtheend.bsky.social is helping me launch: Bonus Track, for extra specialized rec lists. This time: SFF to read based on The Babysitters Club Super Specials.

In regards to the reread of LotR I'm currently doing with Roseanna, looking through the notes I just posted there is one particular point that stands out to me in my relationship with the books and that is the never quite out of sight shadow of the films.

wrote a column about the vuelta protests, the india v pakistan stand-off, and how the sporting battlefield has increasingly come to resemble the real thing www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/s...

Video Game Review: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 by Sandfall Interactive Jack, I want you to paint me like one of your French games says Joe DelFranco at the NOAF blog www.nerds-feather.com/2025/09/vide...

Strange Horizons is IMO the grandparent of indie online SFF zines. Started IIRC by young writers w no pro publishing experience, online, free to read, paying good rates. Later a 501c3 nonprofit. I would not have known I could start BCS w/o their example. And still fresh & current. Happy Birthday SH!

My hundredth one-page roleplaying game is HAPPY BIRTHDAY GOAT GIRL. You are a goat girl, most beautiful and dangerous creature, and it is always your birthday. Patrons get it a week early here: www.patreon.com/posts/138800...

Oh! Kai Ashante Wilson fans, some news: www.patreon.com/posts/138033...

A while ago @katedollarhyde.bsky.social recommended a book called The West Passage, by Jared Pechaček. I'm now a dozen chapters in and I think it's the best fantasy novel I've read this year. Find it and read it as soon as you can, it's absolutely stunning us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

And back home from a long gaming weekend for a friend's birthday. Exhausted but had a great time and many good games played.

To celebrate the release of Audition for the Fox, out today, author @mcflycahill90.bsky.social tells @chloroformtea.bsky.social at @nerdsofafeather.bsky.social about his Six Books 6 Books with Martin Cahill www.nerds-feather.com/2025/09/6-bo...

Happy Birthday to what remains one of the best venues for thoughtful, in depth SFF criticism there is. It's also a very good and needed bastion of internationalism against the sheer gravity US publishing and fandom exert on the genre.

Just turned the last page and: yes, that was excellent. The mix of humour and steel, the balance of the specific and the broadly thematic ... a great concept, executed with great skill. I'm off to read everyone's reviews.

Biggest commitment to a 3 second joke I've ever seen