The Fairy of Ku-She by M. Lucie Chin

Oct. 30th, 2025 08:49 am
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A fairy's efforts to recover stolen arcane tools via illicit means produce spectacular calamity.

The Fairy of Ku-She by M. Lucie Chin

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Oct. 30th, 2025 09:45 am
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[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] boxofdelights!

Bundle of Holding: Tentacles 7

Oct. 29th, 2025 02:14 pm
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The seventh all-new library of Sanity-shattering tabletop roleplaying ebooks inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos.

Bundle of Holding: Tentacles 7
oursin: Photograph of small impressionistic metal figurine seated reading a book (Reader)
[personal profile] oursin

What I read

Finished Encampment, which was brilliant, and intense.

So intense that I had to decompress with a brief Dick Francis binge: Driving Force (1992) - a bit subpar I thought, slow start, massively convoluted plot; Wild Horses (1994) - the one involving a paraphilia I actually did a post here on back when, and making of a movie; Twice Shy (1981) which has a lot of v retro though presumably at the time cutting-edge computer nerdery involving programs on cassette tapes.

On the go

Have started - this was while I was out and about in the world last week - Peter Parker's Some Men in London: Queer Life, 1960–1967 (Some Men in London #2) (2024), since I was recording a podcast last week with the author and he assured me it was somewhat less of a downer than the previous, 1950s, volume. I think it may be a dipper-in over some while.

Still dipping in to Readers' Liberation - liked the first chapter, which is about what readers bring to the book, the second seems a bit heavier going.

Eve Babitz, Eve's Hollywood (1974) - perhaps not quite as good as Slow Days, Fast Company, but it was her first published work.

Up next

No idea: have just sent off for The Scribbler Annual but no idea when it's likely to arrive.

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What dark purpose compels a girl and her android companion to wander post-apocalyptic Japan?

Touring After the Apocalypse, volume 6 by Sakae Saito

(no subject)

Oct. 29th, 2025 09:06 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] rachelmanija and [personal profile] watersword!
oursin: Illustration from medieval manuscript of the female physician Trotula of Salerno holding up a urine flask (trotula)
[personal profile] oursin

Not sure these links are particularly appropriate, but maybe so.

Well, I do remember her saying she scarcely noticed The Change, though she did nuance that statement by adding that she had so much else going on at the time (eldercare and other stuff) she didn't have time to notice:

Yet more on monetising the menopause: Menopause getting you down? Don’t worry, the wellness industry has a very pricey solution for you.

I am probably being horribly cynical, but when somebody goes for a home birth after a first high risk experience of parturition, one does wonder if some kind of wellness woowoo was in the mix (“She had read or heard somewhere that there was less chance of bleeding at home and that is why she wanted a home birth.”)? but this is a dreadful story: 'Gross failure’ led to deaths of mother and baby in Prestwich home birth.

This is also a really grim story about reproductive politics in Brazil: Two More Weeks: The Brutality Behind Brazil’s Reproductive Politics:

In complicated childbirth scenarios, when the life of the pregnant person and the fetus are in conflict, therapeutic abortion has historically been considered the last resort. But in Brazil, since the nineteenth century, this solution has been replaced by the cesarean operation. This was not based on medical reasons. Cesarean sections, up until the early twentieth century, were rudimentary procedures, almost always fatal to the birthing person. What motivated its adoption in Brazil was based on different logics: religious, legal, and moral. The cesarean became an acceptable alternative to abortion because it allowed the fetus to be born, even if the birthing parent died. The nineteenth-century theological and medical debates that gave rise to this sacrificial logic still shape birth in Brazil.

Synchrony between 'Catholic and fundamentalist Evangelical actors... promoting cesarean as a morally acceptable alternative to abortion' in present day.

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How could a man die in front of Atocha Chief of Police Loren Hawn when that man died twenty years before?

Days of Atonement by Walter Jon Williams

Bundle of Holding: Cthulhu Reborn

Oct. 27th, 2025 03:19 pm
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Nearly two dozen Mythos investigations in many eras from the open-license Cthulhu Eternal tabletop roleplaying game line produced by Cthulhu Reborn.

Compatible with your favorite Lovecraftian percentile-based systems)

Bundle of Holding: Cthulhu Reborn
oursin: A cloud of words from my LJ (word cloud)
[personal profile] oursin

But I am so, so fed up of people who use 'silver bullet' when they mean 'magic bullet'!

Silver bullets kill things, werewolves, mostly, right; or just generally Bad Guys when fired by the Lone Ranger.

Magic bullets Do Good - like curing sifilis, thank you Ehrlich and Hato, they are targeted remedies.

Also, however hyperliterate I am myself and have been from a young age, I don't think it's the panacea proposed here: There is a silver bullet for childhood happiness: a love of reading.

Just because she (and I and I daresay many of you who are reading this) found our happy place in reading, doesn't mean it's going to be that for all children.

I am entirely there for emphasising the role of pleasure in reading, for

meeting children where they are. It means allowing children to read books that might be perceived as too old and too young for them; it means relishing your child’s love for comics and heavily illustrated books

and not gatekeeping and niggling about what they are reading.

But I don't think this is For Everyone any more than Going Out and Playing In the Nice Fresh Air.

And on that, I really liked this: Children should have a right to play in the streets, alleys, pavements and car parks of their neighbourhoods. Refers to a letter about children playing in streets, etc, rather than in designated playgrounds and parks:

It assumes that children should be “taken” to designated play spaces, rather than allowing for the possibility that children should be able to access playable space without adults. And, finally, it fails to acknowledge that parks and other green spaces afford only certain kinds of play, and that children demand – and deserve – diverse spaces for diverse forms of play, not just ball games, swings and slides.

Clarke Award Finalists 2020

Oct. 27th, 2025 09:09 am
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
2020: Boris Johnson proposes an unbuildable bridge between Scotland and Ireland, Universal Credit successfully sends stress levels soaring, and the Tories handle Covid as skilfully as they did Brexit.

Poll #33767 Clarke Award Finalists 2020
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 44


Which 2020 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell
1 (2.3%)

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
37 (84.1%)

Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky
4 (9.1%)

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
13 (29.5%)

The Last Astronaut by David Wellington
1 (2.3%)

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
18 (40.9%)



Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2020 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
The Last Astronaut by David Wellington
The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
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[personal profile] andrewducker
There's research that if you leave people in a room with an electro-shock shock device long enough to get bored they will deliberately shock themselves.

In other news I took Sophia's phone away from the kids while they were in the bath and now they're repeatedly pouring cold water over themselves while shrieking like baboons.

Culinary

Oct. 26th, 2025 06:51 pm
oursin: Frontispiece from C17th household manual (Accomplisht Lady)
[personal profile] oursin

I thought last week's bread was holding out pretty well until it suddenly sprouted mould - however there was still some cornbread left + rolls.

Having been out for lunch on Friday I was not feeling like anything much for supper but made partner a Spanish omelette with red bell pepper and had some fruit myself.

Saturday breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk, strong white flour, turned out v nice.

Today's lunch: Crispy Baked Sesame Tofu - not sure whether there should not have been some actual sesame seeds somewhere in the mix? also thought maybe I was a bit cautious with the amount of tamari in the sauce - and didn't think this turned out particularly crispy....; served with sticky rice with lime leaves, baked San Marzano tomatoes and mangetout peas stirfried with star anise.

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