If I ever have to come up with a solo conference panel extremely last minute, I'm pretty confident I could come up with a solid hour on the Problematic Feminism of Pern. From Not Like The Other Girls Menolly, to Strong Female Character Lessa, via Brekke & Kylara, ie. the madonna vs whore dichotomy

Oh I definitely got all the good bits of Pern, there's a reason I read all the books many times over & they shaped me deeply as a person! It's also why my mum thought her 11yo should read them, it's just that now I know there were things in there I was to young to pick up on and she was not.

Fascinating! All the Pern books were on the same sff shelf and from the same imprint when I was buying them as a kid. This was in France in the 90s.

My memory is that they were even shelved in a different section of Borders in the 90s than the rest of Pern, which were in Sci-fi/Fantasy. The Alanna books were there too.

I'm sure McCaffrey's intentions were good, but more than one thing can be going on at once. Lessa is an awesome character - smart, fierce & complex - but her life partner keeps *physically shaking her* when they disagree & it's presented as Just A Thing F'lar Does, no big deal.

The Harper Hall books definitely have more of a YA feel to them (though that marketing category didn't quite exist yet when I was its target demo) and Menolly's books do read as a triumph over sexism, albeit due in great part to Menolly's exceptional talent. She's Not Like The Other Girls.

I don't even think those books are inappropriate for an 11yo because they include sex scenes, it's just the power/gender dynamics are so fucked up, you really need to be better equipped to go "well that's not cool or romantic" than any middle-schooler should be.

Dragonriders of Pern had to be the most formative but I was also definitely too young when I read Clan of the Cave Bear. Both were handed to me by my mum who borrowed them from the library and thought I'd enjoy them *after she was done reading them* when I was like 11 or 12.

🐙

It's live on Instagram so I think we're allowed to yell about it here too -- I am SO HONOURED to have been invited to participate in this @ursulakleguin.com -inspired anthology with @jonathanstrahan.bsky.social and @titanbooks.bsky.social ! Out this October! LOOKIT THOSE NAMES!!!

I can never get over the incredible mix of affection & pure *dragging* his arse in Diamonds & Rust. So much tenderness, but also calling your ex an "unwashed phenomenon". It's just perfect.

So I will say this as gently as I can: given the current state of the world, cons (especially held in the US) should really keep or enhance their online programming instead of eliminating it. I understand it takes resources to run a hybrid con but the alternative is to exclude the rest of the world

Someone clever did this to a lamppost on Coverdale road and now I am disappointed that every lamppost doesn’t have one

“Don’t trust everything you read on the internet.” AI search results: what if I did tho

Genius bit of Valentine's Day marketing for a great cause! I did a full witch cackle 🤣 Rescue will neuter a cat and name it after your ex www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Hugo nominations are open and I have only two requests: 1. Commit to picking 2 non-Tordotcom novellas for your ballot 2. For the love of all that is holy in this world, do not nominate adult/crossovers or middle grade books for the Lodestar - officially categorized YA only!

Lol don't worry, the balance of the universe has righted itself, I'd forgotten to check in online and had to queue for 20 minutes for an overworked easyjet employee to print me one.

Repost with your apocalypse skill: - Veggie gardening, preserving & cooking. - Community organising, will volunteer to help run stuff. - Woodworking & general handiness, incurable i-bet-i-could-fix-that-edness - To Jacob's most excellent point, will fight anyone who argues for not saving everyone.

In a turn of events never before exposure by moi, I have made it onto the train I actually planned to take to the airport, not just the backup train that would get me there an hour and a half before my flight, not the full two. And that's without the train running late? I was just... on time?

I'm off to France today to hang out with family for a few days, so obvi, I've got to have a lot of books lined up. I prefer audiobooks for the plane: a few hours left of The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, plus The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty out from the library.

@portalbookshop.bsky.social Could you hook me up with a pre-order, pretty please? DM me for payment + shipping details? xxx

Good morning Blue Sky! Hope you’re all ok? Today I’m currently reading Grave Empire by Richard Swan for some epic fantasy. What are you reading at the moment?

Can't wait for @stephanieburgis.bsky.social's latest! Look at this gorgeous UK edition, I'm so excited to have it on my shelves!

classic Loony Tunes have much to teach us about class solidarity

Okay but Gwendoline Christie as Lady Sybil Ramkin. That's it, that's the skeet.

YIKES 🤮 (There's some debate in the replies if he's still an active editor or no, but either way, between this and Tor having been caught using generated images on some of their covers? Ew.)

Okay but Gwendoline Christie as Lady Sybil Ramkin. That's it, that's the skeet.

If you see this, post 10 of your favourite video games (in no particular order): Dorfromantik Tiny Glade Backpack Hero God of Weapons Terrascape Islanders FTL: Faster Than Light The Sims Crusader Kings 3 Little Kitty Big City

Resurfacing this old wisdom imparted by a sage internet denizen of yore, as we embark on this new Bluesky journey together:

I'm not sure I could survive the onslaught of feels if every book I read was as perfect for me as The Goblin Emperor (my perfect cinnamon roll) or the Scholomance series (my extremely angry cinnamon roll). I would be ruined for every day tasks.

This, but also I have plenty of nitpicks and critiques and "could've have been better"s about books that are very much for me!! Not every book can be a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure and that is OKAY.

Books are interesting to talk about, idk what to tell you. It's not like it's a yay or nay thing? I'll usually have things to discuss even if something wasn't my favourite book ever. Books that are so bland I have no opinions abvout them don't usually get finished.

Friends, I've missed A LOT OF SFF this past year & I wanna catch up a bit in time for nominating! Please let me know if you've got any eligible work, or hype some of your favourites from 2024 - don't be shy, promote yours & others works with abandon, I know I'm not the only one who missed stuff!

As the hydrants are running dry in Los Angeles

There is a very real chance that Liz Truss is the most embarrassing person currently on earth www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

Post-apocalypse show pausing for the apocalypse

Elon Musk: Why isn’t there enough water in California? Grok (burning through an entire lake to generate an answer): Wokeness

The first two novellas of Fermi's Wake dropped last year!: scarletferret.com/books/fermis...

Are you sure this isn't a cat?

Novelettes: Particular highlight The Limner Wrings His Hands by Vajra Chandrasekera which I read last night in Deep Dream

Novellas: Particular highlight for me are The Practice, the Horizon and the Chain by Sofia Samatar, and A Mourning Coat by Alex Jeffers

Novels: Particular highlight recently for me is Private Rites by Julia Armfield (clifi but make it horror and more about psychology of climate change than the science).

Friends, I've missed A LOT OF SFF this past year & I wanna catch up a bit in time for nominating! Please let me know if you've got any eligible work, or hype some of your favourites from 2024 - don't be shy, promote yours & others works with abandon, I know I'm not the only one who missed stuff!

Nominations open soon for the 2025 Hugo Awards! To cast a nominating ballot, you must either be a member of the 2024 Glasgow Worldcon, or purchase a Seattle Worldcon membership by January 31. Don't wait, get your membership today! https://buff.ly/3DNhcp9

A reminder that this place being trans and queer friendly is important because it's clear that other social media platforms are determined not to be.

Competition! Reply to this post, tell me a queer book being released this year that you're excited for, and I'll pick five replies at random to receive a £5 National Book Token One entry per person, alright? I'll draw winners after 5pm on Sunday

I admit one of the only reasons I crave immortality is to see how historians factor into their tales of our current reactionary swing the fact that all of our techbro billionaires are having their midlife crises at the same time.

I wrote a little bit about reviewer spaces, book criticism, and the inestimable value of thinking together. (obviously, as soon as I posted this, I thought of like fifteen more things I wanted to say)

I've been thinking about the Long Conversation of SFF (ie. the idea that works within the genre are in discussion with each other, building on the ideas through the decades) a lot since finishing Naomi Novik's Scholomance, which is very much speaking to Those Who Walked Away From Omelas.