I was bored

Sep. 6th, 2025 02:04 pm
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
So I rolled up a bunch of Icons characters. Mostly boring, but this one is at least mildly amusing.

Doctor* Shawinigan**

Read more... )
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Five books new to me, at least four of which are fantasy (not sure about the El-Mohtar) and three instalments in series.

Books Received, August 30 — September 5


Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 37


Books Received, August 30 — September 5

View Answers

Lies Weeping by Glen Cook (November 2025)
19 (51.4%)

Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories by Amal El-Mohtar (March 2026)
23 (62.2%)

The River and the Star By Gabriela Romero Lacruz (October 2025)
6 (16.2%)

The Bookshop Below by Georgia Summers (November 2025)
14 (37.8%)

The Burning Queen by Aparna Verma (November 2025)
8 (21.6%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
25 (67.6%)

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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


The malevolent Hierarchs are dead. The only way to learn about them is archaeology. The only thing worse than archaeologists not finding the relics of evil sorcerers is finding relics of evil sorcerers.

Queen Demon (The Rising World, volume by Martha Wells

Good news

Sep. 3rd, 2025 10:23 am
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Both of Premee's cats have been found and returned.

Hemlock & Silver, by T. Kingfisher

Sep. 2nd, 2025 09:45 am
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[personal profile] rachelmanija


After disliking both The Hollow Places and The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher, and for similar reasons (idiot heroine who refused to believe in magic when it was happening right in front of her; annoying tone), I gave up on her works. But since lots of my customers like her, I ordered this book. And when it arrived, it was so beautiful that I had to pick it up and examine it. And then I figured I'd read a couple pages, just to get an idea of what it was about. Those couple pages quickly turned into the first chapter. Then the second. The next thing I knew, I was actually enjoying the book, and finished it with great pleasure.

Anja is a scientist specializing in poisons and antidotes, who regularly takes small doses of poison to understand their effects and test out antidotes. She saves the lives of poisoned people, sometimes. This gets her enough fame that one day the king shows up, asking her to save his daughter, Snow, who he believes is being poisoned...

This is a very loose retelling of "Snow White," making clever use of elements like the apple, the mirror, and the poison.

Like the other books of hers I read, this one is set in an unambiguously magical world and/or has a portal to an unambiguously magical world, and has a heroine who doesn't believe in magic. I guess this is an obligatory Kingfisher thing? At least in this one, Anja doesn't deny that things are happening when they're clearly happening, she just thinks that maybe there is some underlying scientific explanation. This makes at least some sense, as she's a scientist. (Though in my opinion, science is basically a framework and a worldview, and a scientist in a magical world would be doing experiments to figure out how magic works, not denying its existence.) In any case, Anja does not act like an idiot or a flat earther, but pursues the clues she finds and doesn't deny what they suggest. She's kind of monomaniacal, but in a fun way.

Hemlock & Silver meshes multiple genres. It's not a horror novel or even particularly dark for a fantasy, but it has some genuinely scary moments. It's often very funny. And one aspect of the story, while technically fantasy, is so methodically worked out and involves so much science (optics) that it feels like science fiction. There's also a murder mystery, a romance, a surprisingly agreeable rooster, and a talking cat. It all works together quite nicely.

Sunfall by C J Cherryh

Sep. 2nd, 2025 06:31 am
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The ancient sun is cooling but human drama persists.


Sunfall by C J Cherryh

Labor Day Book Poll

Sep. 1st, 2025 01:12 pm
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 119


Which books would you most like me to review?

View Answers

Hemlock & Silver, by T. Kingfisher. The first book of hers I've actually liked!
53 (44.5%)

Lone Women, by Victor LaValle. Fantastic cross-genre western/historical/horror/fantasy.
37 (31.1%)

Into the Raging Sea, by Rachel Slade. The best nonfiction shipwreck book I've read since Shadow Divers.
40 (33.6%)

The Blacktongue Thief/The Daughter's War, by Christopher Buehlman. Excellent dark fantasy.
27 (22.7%)

The Bewitching, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Three timelines, all involving witches.
17 (14.3%)

Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Exactly what it sounds like.
36 (30.3%)

Archangel (etc), by Sharon Shinn. Lost colony romantic SF about genetically engineered angels.
38 (31.9%)

We Live Here Now, by Sarah Pinborough. Really original haunted house novel.
36 (30.3%)

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones. Outstanding indigenous take on "Interview with the Vampire."
49 (41.2%)

When the Angels Left the Old Country, by Sacha Lamb. A Jewish demon and angel leave the old country; excellent voice, very Jewish.
65 (54.6%)

Some other book I mentioned reading but failed to review.
4 (3.4%)

Bundle of Holding: Fragged Empire 2E

Sep. 1st, 2025 02:09 pm
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


The 2024 revised edition of Fragged Empire: fifteen thousand years in the future, humanity has gone extinct, but eight engineered species rule the wonders that remain.

Bundle of Holding: Fragged Empire 2E

September 2025 Patreon Boost

Sep. 1st, 2025 01:36 pm
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Like Sisyphus' rock, September has returned!

September 2025 Patreon Boost

Code deploy happening shortly

Aug. 31st, 2025 07:37 pm
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Per the [site community profile] dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

Clarke Award Finalists 2012

Aug. 31st, 2025 09:05 pm
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
I will be too busy to post tomorrow.

2012: O2 offers free wifi to multitudes, which I only now realize may be have been referenced in Kingsman, researchers determine that despite a century having passed, the Titanic remains at the bottom of the Atlantic, and in a glorious celebration of the effectiveness of the modern British educational system, doctors warn Britons not to drink liquid nitrogen.

Poll #33559 Clarke Award Finalists 2012
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 48


Which 2012 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
0 (0.0%)

Embassytown by China Miéville
22 (45.8%)

Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
6 (12.5%)

Rule 34 by Charles Stross
35 (72.9%)

The Postmortal by Drew Magary
1 (2.1%)

The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper
7 (14.6%)



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


Which 2012 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
Embassytown by China Miéville
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
Rule 34 by Charles Stross

The Postmortal by Drew Magary
The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper
denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

August 2025 in Review

Aug. 31st, 2025 09:31 am
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I didn't win any awards in August but I did review 22 more works. James Nicoll Reviews is now 34 reviews away from its 3000th review.

August 2025 in Review
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Marooned on a backwater planet, a down-on-his-luck actor sets out to transform his new home. Will he survive success?

Always the Black Knight by Lee Hoffman

Fandom things

Aug. 30th, 2025 02:40 pm
sholio: aged sepia paper with printed text saying "If undelivered, return to Air Ministry, London" (Biggles-london air ministry)
[personal profile] sholio
My fandom gift basket is up: find it here!

Meanwhile [community profile] caseficexchange revealed and I have received TWO STUNNING GIFTS in two different fandoms, both of which I genuinely could not love more; the authors nailed the feeling of the caseficcier parts of canon in each of these fandoms, and I have had SUCH a good time last night and this morning reading and commenting on them!

The Case of a Forced Landing (Biggles books, 6800 wds, light Biggles/EvS)
Perfectly captures the feeling of the short SAP stories, with Biggles and EvS on an enforced holiday on the countryside with mysterious happenings and rural ambiance. Delightful!

The House Always Wins (Babylon 5, 16K words, Garibaldi & various)
Early season one casefic with Garibaldi investigating a missing artifact that both Londo and G'Kar claim cultural ownership of. Pitch-perfect character voices and canon tone, feels like it could literally be an episode.

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