The big mule has a disproportionately big head that gets very heavy and requires a lot of scratches under his chin.

@maxgladstone.bsky.social Your latest email newsletter has a lot of alternate white and black text, which may make it quite hard to read for those of us on light mode.

A global oil crisis is a perfect punchline to the Starmer government's "we're not going to bother with net zero, transitioning away from fossil fuels is for losers" position. It may be possible to forecast unpredictable future events by whether they will make Labour look like a bunch of chumps.

Garius remembers Sir Terry, and crafts his parody/homages with great love. Pause a moment & remember how a certain furious writer inspired so many of us. Then go read some Discworld. Follow @garius for neglected history, shrewd observations on corporations, cat photos, & eventually, his fiction.

The most alarmist, least sympathetic responses to anything the Right has said or done for the past 50 years have all been proven correct, and every one of the Right's protestations that they weren't actually Nazis have been proven bullshit. From here on out our analysis needs to start there.

If you are unsure of how to spell mnemonic, here is a handy mnemonic:

An agonising yet entertaining example of a legal professional offering an unbelievably weak "dog ate my homework" response to the judge asking why he filed stupid LLM-generated briefs.

I do not believe I made an error here - the last four were logically entangled in a way that meant they could be resolved in any order: I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Mar 12th 2026 (Hard), in less than 17 minutes 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟨🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 cluesbysam.com

Why yes, I do have better things to do with my time...

I seriously recommend listening to this song, she reminds me a little of Joan Baez, which is not an accolade I would throw around lightly.

To give a little side-craft lesson about what I mean here when I say 'clunky writing'—let's say this is your *goal*, to write a space-wizard-action serial for kids (& kids-at-heart) with real political depth (for the genre). This is a subtle and interesting and worthy task! So: how?

A big day for fans of when the cat is long.

give 'em the old 1 or 2

Love novellas? In Wiz Duo #3, Ruthanna Emrys saves a young girl from an angry mountain, and Andrew Knighton investigates the death of an old friend. wizardstowerpress.co...

Even if AI could write a novel what problem has been solved? The problem of knowing what you’re reading was written by another person? Who loves reading novels but hates the part where your mind briefly and mysteriously touched another?

Humour is a leavening agent for prose and writing that lacks it tends to feel leaden and stolid. If have I laughed with a character I am far more likely to cry with them later. These days I find it hard to push through fiction that doesn't have at least some sense of fun or joy to it.

EMPRESS OF FOREVER is $1.99 at various websites! Galaxy-smashing wuxia-adjacent spaceopera adventure that kicks off from annoyingly-plausible near-future political thriller... Have fun! www.amazon.com/gp/product/B... www.barnesandnoble.com/w/empress-of...

I seriously recommend listening to this song, she reminds me a little of Joan Baez, which is not an accolade I would throw around lightly.

“Labour is the party of devolution” - says the very same Labour Party that is actively denying Wales a voice. This shows nothing but utter contempt for the people of Wales. Bobl Cymru, rydyn ni’n haeddu gymaint gwell na hyn.

I read this last week and it's everything this summary might lead you to expect and more.

All my mentors are centaurs.

New book day! A fake saviour, a one-handed warrior, & a shape-shifting actor set out to free nation. But can they survive a web of politics & prophecy? The story that began with the award-nominated Forged for Destiny reaches its thrilling* climax. andrewknighton.com/forged-for-r...

Rare top 50% greensward! I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Mar 10th 2026 (Easy), in 03:50 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 cluesbysam.com

Bargain time :) Shares very welcome and appreciated! mybook.to/magicmapsand...

I picked up Caitlin Wilder's album on Bandcamp and her voice is really something. I love the opening track, Omen: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cC8... "The moon is older than the idea of god, maybe I'll worship her instead of following the ideals of men who want to force me to have child."

Humour is a leavening agent for prose and writing that lacks it tends to feel leaden and stolid. If have I laughed with a character I am far more likely to cry with them later. These days I find it hard to push through fiction that doesn't have at least some sense of fun or joy to it.

"Save money by driving less!" "Can we work from home, thereby avoiding most of our driving and using the well-proven technology and protocols that have been available to us for at least the last six years?" "No."

"Each dawn, since the hollyjack had come to the cathedral bringing her strange dreams, the boy had started to think of waking as the opening of petals, or a form of budding."

Confessions? Backpackers?? Pickpockets???

It's nice that there are people within Labour who are able to see and express the problem. Sad that the people at the centre are too busy stepping on rakes, turning around with planks on their shoulder and otherwise insulting in slapstick tomfoolery instead of considering how to save the country.

So… I've been writing for about 18 years on the idea that if you somehow manage to make meaningfully conscious machine minds & then you treat them as tools, then you're enslaving those minds, and that's pretty messed up. And this ties into something else I've re-upped recently: LLMs can't say "No."

simonoxfphys on insta Wind turbines kill birds, yes but...

I imagine Zeno would be very relaxed about the Trolley Problem.

all together now IS THIS GOOD

In a way the corporate video networks are creating a kind of Internet Polari - whether or not it endures will tie into the censorship in question but it's an interesting example of the unexpected things that can drive linguistic shifts.

Have to have Dorothy Dunnett here. She was so extraordinarily good. This begins her Lymond Chronicles. She was someone I knew, later, was so gracious to someone so much younger, before I’d written anything. Plus her husband Alastair taught me to put a little water in my whisky. #worldbookday

It's World Book Day, and I do have books in the world, so, you know, I think you're legally required to buy them. I think that's how it works. patricksamphire.com/books

every day I see the latest plan for how racists are going to have my wife patriotically repatriated, and yet if I were to suggest anything along the same level of senseless life-ruining violence toward them, I would probably be in trouble. this imbalance in fairness doesn't seem just tbh

Cyberpunk cockney rhyming slang: The cold = the internet. From cold and wet. Corp/corporate = hacking. From corporate backing. Smiley = virus. From Miley Cyrus. Varnishing = Cracking. From varnish and lacquer. Musket = social engineer. From musketeer.

May you never feel compelled to draw fan-art that features a complicated crown in multiple frames.

Behold the triloginator!

Literally, we are so obnoxious you guys

Yahoo Mail warning me they're going to limit storage but when I go to check how much I have turns out my 44,000 unread emails is not even a quarter of the available space. I can safely ignore them until a later date.

I've not read the third yet because I'm saving it for later, but the first two were excellent. Definitely worth your time.

Swordheart is a great read! I expect most people who follow me will be familiar with these books but if you're not this is a great place to start. Ursula Vernon has something of the Terry Pratchett in the heart, humour and pragmatism of her stories. Also this one has an A+ ADHD heroine.

If you haven't read this, here's a great opportunity to pick it up for cheap. Classic wizard-noir.

We watched "10 Things I Hate About You" and it made me very conscious that Heath Ledger is one of the few actors who could have played Nicholas De Fleury. Not that I think those books could be filmed, but he had the looks and charisma, and he could have handled the complexity as well as anyone.

So you're telling me if I want to draw in a comic format I not only have to think about the technical aspects of the art but the performance of the characters in service of the story? This is bullshit!

You can’t wander into the Thirty Years War and just decide to settle the matter by voting. The Protestants get 51% of the vote, so now all the Catholics have to convert. That’s not what democracy is. Democracy is when no one has to convert no matter who wins the next election.

so much cultural and political effort gone towards making a project of pacifism and an end to war seem like a soft, prosaic concern of comfortable people rather than an essential part of the project of justice and human flourishing