mikeda | Reading

So, yesterday, the wheelchair ramp on the Rt 8 bus I was on developed a bug. Or the system that detects if it is deployed did. The ramp retracted correctly but the bus thought it had not, and would not move.

Ha ha! I pick my routes to maximize alternatives in case of break-downs. I just disembarked and talked over to the LRT. Which, I discovered, was having a minor service delay.

My contingency plans can handle two delays, but not three. Good for me there were just the two. It did mean I was only a little early for work.

On the way home, just after I disembarked from the LRT, an SUV cut the LRT off so the SUV could reach the parking lot ten seconds earlier. If the train had not stopped, I'd have had to stick around, both as a witness and because the accident would blocked the sidewalk between me and the stop I needed to get to.

Less than five minutes after the LRT near-miss, three SUVs tried to turn into the same lane at the same time. I don't think they hit each other but there was a short discussion between the drivers before they all left. I'd have had to stick around for that as well, because it would have blocked the route my bus uses.

james_davis_nicoll

Bureau of Sabotage agent Jorj X. McKie is assigned a legal and ethical trap: a planet of victims, who, whether rescued or left to their impending doom, present a danger to the ConSentiency.

The Dosadi Experiment (ConSentiency, volume 2) by Frank Herbert

sholio

I fell down a rabbit hole this evening reading the comment reblogs on this Tumblr post on 90s TV. I ended up deciding to copy some of them here to save them from the inevitable linkrot and post decay.

https://www.tumblr.com/laylainalaska/794609119262900224

Original post:

I don't know what those '90s sci Fi TV writers were putting in their shows but I wish they'd start doing it again

#they de-escalated the stakes every once in a while so that you can see what the characters are like when they're not under duress
#they made statements about the world through allegory
#they invested in depicting developing friendships and relationships between their characters
#they assumed that their audience was paying attention to the screen and wanted to be there
#and that their audience has enough intelligence to follow narrative clues and even sometimes to predict the ending
#dont even get me started on this i will go ALL DAY

I don't agree with every single point in every reblog. I also think there's quite a bit of TV now that still does most or all of this, though usually it's the dramas and procedurals rather than scifi, and a lot that's not great about 90s and earlier TV. But there is also a lot of food for thought in here, so I just threw a bunch of the comments into this post to mull over.

The asterisks separate out each different reblog; basically each is its own separate comment, generally in dialogue with the original post rather than each other.

Thoughts are welcome!

( Under the cut )

sartorias

We've packed what we can pack. The movers come Monday to take our library away. We will live out of boxes and suitcase for a week, then depart altogether while the floor peeps come in.

With library going away I've resorted more to TV, and I couldn't resist going back to watch Nirvana in Fire yet again. Between my last rewatch and this time, some team of actual humans (No AI) had gone through the, ah, somewhat problematical subtitles and cleaned up spelling, grammar, and meaning, clarifying a lot of small stuff that watchers who did not know Mandarin could only guess at.

It's just brilliant. Even though on this watch I see the problems with the end starting a bit sooner than I remembered, and I still believe that one more episode would have pulled together all the dangling bits and tightened up the emotional arcs, still the overall emotional velocity absolutely rams you straight through and beyond. For a couple of days I couldn't do anything but go back to look at scenes (some for like the twentieth time, or more). Not perfect, but even after ten years, for me it's the best television show ever made.

Well, back to your regularly schedule chaos.

james_davis_nicoll

Six works new to me: two fantasy (one a roleplaying game), four science fiction. The roleplaying game is part of a series but otherwise, they all seem to be stand-alone.

Books Received, September 6 — September 12

Poll #33608 Books Received, September 6 — September 12

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 39

View Respondents

Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent (October 2025)
6 (15.4%)

Outlaw Planet by M.R. Carey (November 2025)
16 (41.0%)

Champions of Chaos by Calum Colins, et al
1 (2.6%)

Slow Gods by Claire North (November 2025)
19 (48.7%)

The Divine Gardener’s Handbook: Or What to Do if Your Girlfriend Accidentally Turns Off the Sun by Eli Snow (August 2026)
19 (48.7%)

Death Engine Protocol: Better Dying Through Science by Margret A. Treiber (April 2025)
11 (28.2%)

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

Cats!
26 (66.7%)

sholio

Whumptober ficlet status: 12/31 (4 Biggles, 2 Bab5, 6 Murderbot)

I put in a tentative signup for

trickortreatex. This is the first time in at least 3 years that I'm not requesting Biggles, because greerwatson (of "Unrequested Nazis Are Awesome, Actually" fame) usually does this exchange and I don't want to accidentally summon her. :P However, it's early yet and I'm still adding fandoms, so I'll see if I feel like it's worth the risk later on. (I don't really mind so much being assigned to her as a writer; I can always write the minimum and leave it anon. But ugh.) Also, while my motivation is - let's be real - mostly avoiding Greer, it made me realize that I've requested Biggles in every exchange since spring 2022 and it might be fun to cast my net wider this time, and request some fandoms I haven't asked for in a while.

Also, I put in a signup for

spook_me, the annual Halloween/horror challenge with art prompts that I've been doing every year, or at least most years, since their very first round back on LJ in the late 2000s.* True, my years of finishing anything for it are relatively rare, but it's genuinely one of my favorite events of the year, and I will be very sad whenever they stop doing it.

*(Edit: their first year was - HOLYSHIT - 2006, I found their master list on LJ, and I did actually write for it that year. I thought I remembered participating in the first one! This means this is their 20th year, and I've signed up for most of those years. What even.)

**(Edit2: The first spook-me signup post from 2006. I completely forgot that early on, they asked you to veto what you *didn't* want to write for, and then assigned you a creature and art prompt!)

In other news, Casefic Exchange revealed! I wrote Smuggler's Beach, a 13K post-Buries a Hatchet Biggles/EvS fic that is basically Biggles Goes Alone but with Erich along this time.

james_davis_nicoll

I'd been posting reviews to LiveJournal since April of 2014 but on September 12, 2014, James Nicoll Reviews went live, with a review of Robert A. Heinlein's Between Planets.

james_davis_nicoll

It's time for Bo to leave doomed San Francisco behind... just as soon as she completes one final task.

Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan

james_davis_nicoll

11 sourcebooks that range across the shattered Earth of the Rifts tabletop roleplaying game from Palladium Books.

Bundle of Holding: Rifts Worlds 1

More World Books for the cross-dimensional tabletop roleplaying game

Bundle of Holding: Rifts Land and Sea (from 2022)

james_davis_nicoll

A woodcarver's foster daughter sets out to free a maiden from a magical tower prison, just the sort of thing that always works out exactly according to plan, without unforeseen geopolitical complications.

SideQuested by K B Spangler & Ale Presser

james_davis_nicoll

Some characteristics are disadvantageous in highly specific SFF circumstances...

Five SF Stories Built Around Specific, Context-Dependent Disabilities

james_davis_nicoll

Otaku Hina is delighted that her Japanese neighbour Kyuta looks just like Hina's favourite anime character. Alas, Kyuta dislikes anime almost as much as vampires like Hina.

Otaku Vampire's Love Bite, volume 1 By Julietta Suzuki (Translated by Tomo Kimura)

sholio

DW catchup continues ... I posted this on AO3 yesterday, and I wrote most of this fic in the car, actually, on the 7-hour drive home from my mom's part of Alaska. I would drive for a while and think of a new section of fic and stop to write a bit on my laptop.

Crime and Punishment (Murderbot books, Mensah POV, 2500 words)
Missing scene/tag for Fugitive Telemetry. Mensah gets a call from station security. (Entirely bookverse.)

Follow-up on

Spoilers for Fugitive Telemetry

the refugee shooting Murderbot in the novella.

Mostly fluff and banter, in spite of the actual topic.

( Fic under the cut )

rachelmanija

This novel appears to be a well-written and enjoyable but conventional haunted house story; it turns out to have a twist on that theme which I've never encountered before. I very much enjoyed discovering that for myself, so if you think you might too, don't read the spoilers.

A young couple, Emily and Freddie, move from London to Larkin Lodge, an old house in Dartmoor, while Emily's recovering from a serious accident. After she fell off a cliff, her heart stopped and one leg was permanently damaged. Doctors warned her and Freddie that she might suffer from post-sepsis mental complications, so when she starts perceiving weird things involving Larkin Lodge, both she and Freddie think it's probably her, not the house. Emily and Freddie's marriage is not the greatest, but is that something that was previously going on, or is it cracking under stress, or is the house having a bad effect on them?

Emily and Freddie are not the best people, but that really works for the story. I thought it was a lot of fun.

Spoilers! ( Read more... )

Content notes: Not even slightly gory or gross. Mention of a miscarriage (off-page, not described). Some violence, not graphic. No on-page animal harm, but the body of a dead raven is found.

james_davis_nicoll

Doctor Catherine Coldbridge travels to darkest Texas in quest of her long-lost husband, Frank Humble... so she can kill the unkillable man.

The Unkillable Frank Lightning by Josh Rountree

james_davis_nicoll

The ULTIMATE rules and 17 supplements

Bundle of Holding: Rifts Core MEGA (From 2022)

11 RIFTS World Books from Palladium

Bundle of Holding: Rifts Worlds 2

james_davis_nicoll

What, aside from the overwhelming weight of evidence, suggests Einstein was right?

Five Books That Just Said To Hell With the Speed-of-Light Barrier

james_davis_nicoll

2013: The Tories masterfully tank the UK credit rating, a grateful nation celebrates Margaret Thatcher’s death, and Scotland inexplicably chooses to remain in the UK.

Poll #33586 Clarke Award Finalists 2013

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15

View Respondents

Which 2013 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Dark Eden by Chris Beckett
3 (20.0%)

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson
9 (60.0%)

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway
4 (26.7%)

Intrusion by Ken MacLeod
1 (6.7%)

Nod by Adrian Barnes
1 (6.7%)

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
1 (6.7%)

✓ for read, * for intend to read, ! for never heard of it. Or whatever amuses you.

Which 2013 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Dark Eden by Chris Beckett
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson ✓
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway ✓
Intrusion by Ken MacLeod
Nod by Adrian Barnes
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller