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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-14 09:03 am
Entry tags:

Books Received, June 7 to June 13



Ten books new to me: 4.5 fantasy, 1 horror, 1 mystery, 3.5 science fiction, of which only two are identified as series.

Books Received, June 7 to June 13



Poll #33251 Books Received, June 7 to June 13
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 38


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews (March 2026)
16 (42.1%)

The Swan’s Daughter: A Possibly Doomed Love Story by Roshani Chokshi (January 2026)
11 (28.9%)

Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology edited by Julie C. Day, Carina Bissett, and Craig Laurance Gidney (June 2025)
20 (52.6%)

The Storm by Rachel Hawkins (January2026)
2 (5.3%)

What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher (September 2025)
19 (50.0%)

Red Empire by Jonathan Maberry (March 2026)
1 (2.6%)

The Two Lies of Faven Sythe by Megan E. O’Keefe (June 2025)
11 (28.9%)

The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts by Vanessa Ricci-Thode (April 2024)
9 (23.7%)

The Poet Empress by Shen Tao (January 2026)
5 (13.2%)

Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky (June 2025)
18 (47.4%)

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

Cats!
24 (63.2%)

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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-13 09:04 am

A Rebel’s History of Mars by Nadia Afifi



The embittered Martian aerialist and the nonconformist live a thousand-plus years apart, in different solar systems. What, then, connects them?

A Rebel’s History of Mars by Nadia Afifi
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-12 10:41 am
Entry tags:
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-12 09:35 am

So, there's an employee I dread managing

Very nice and punctual but they've basically learned nothing in the year they've worked at the theatre. Not where to stand, not which row is which, or the general location of a given seat. The last two really matter during reserved seating shows. Whatever side that usher is on is going to have lines, and people may end up in the wrong seats.

So I was discussing the situation with my boss and I said my current approach was that each shift would be to pick one thing that usher does not know, and do my best to ensure they know it by the end of the shift. Last shift was "where to stand", for example. My reward is, I think, that usher is now _my_ special project who I will be working with whenever I HM.

I did assure my boss I do remember a previous HM who grilled ushers on seat location and would ding them a quarter hour for minor uniform infractions and that I wasn't going to use them as a model. Well, I do, but only in the sense of asking myself if the way I want to handle something is how that person would, and if it is, I do something else.
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-12 08:59 am
Entry tags:

The Transitive Properties of Cheese by Ann LeBlanc



An artisanal cheesemaker's attempt to save her precious cheese cave lands her in the middle of an interplanetary crisis.

The Transitive Properties of Cheese by Ann LeBlanc
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-11 11:31 pm

People who say they like golden retrievers

Have never worked a show run by human golden retrievers...
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-11 10:08 am
Entry tags:

Five SFF Books About Oddballs Resisting Conformity



Tales of dissidents, dissenters, and iconoclasts taking on the status quo...

Five SFF Books About Oddballs Resisting Conformity
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-11 08:54 am
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-10 09:00 am
Entry tags:

From This Day Forward by John Brunner



The sudden, shocking, return of Shockwave Reader. Will the living envy the dead?

From This Day Forward by John Brunner
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-09 02:01 pm
Entry tags:

Bundle of Holding: Fantasy AGE 2E



The 2023 Second Edition corebook, TECHNOFANTASY, and more

Bundle of Holding: Fantasy AGE 2E
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-09 12:40 pm
Entry tags:

Five Stories About Time Travel on a Limited Scale



No rules, no bureaucracy, just some randos messing around with the past, present, and future.

Five Stories About Time Travel on a Limited Scale
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-09 10:21 am

Clarke Award Finalists 2000

2000: The theft of an Enigma Machine comes too late to play a significant role in World War Two, Sellafield highlight British dedication to nuclear saafety, and the Conservatives, informed polling has them 2% ahead of Labour, discover that they are actually trailing by 13%.

Poll #33234 Clarke Award Finalists 2000
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 53


Which 2000 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Distraction by Bruce Sterling
11 (20.8%)

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
39 (73.6%)

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
41 (77.4%)

Silver Screen by Justina Robson
8 (15.1%)

The Bones of Time by Kathleen Ann Goonan
4 (7.5%)

Time by Stephen Baxter
11 (20.8%)



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

Which 2000 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Distraction by Bruce Sterling
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Silver Screen by Justina Robson
The Bones of Time by Kathleen Ann Goonan
Time by Stephen Baxter
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-08 07:06 pm

Timing

I swung by Old Goat Books to pick up a book I ordered, which meant I was in the right place at the right time hear the confused customer next to me ask "What's speculative fiction?" Which, after I explained what it meant, was followed by the question. "Do you know anything about Andre Norton?"

It was only with great effort that I resisted shouting "BEHOLD! I AM Marshall McLuhan" before helping.
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-08 09:18 am

The Heirs of Babylon by Glen Cook



A decrepit fleet sails from Germany to play its role in a futile war, crewed by sailors who seem more eager to kill each other than the perfidious Australians.

The Heirs of Babylon by Glen Cook
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-07 11:15 pm
Entry tags:

Nebula winners announced

Best Novel: Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell (DAW; Arcadia UK)

Best Novella: The Dragonfly Gambit, A.D. Sui (Neon Hemlock)

Best Novelette: Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being, A.W. Prihandita (Clarkesworld 11/24)

Short Story: Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole, Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld 2/24)

Andre Norton Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction: The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts, Vanessa Ricci-Thode (self-published)

Best Game Writing: A Death in Hyperspace, Stewart C Baker, Phoebe Barton, James Beamon, Kate Heartfield, Isabel J. Kim, Sara S. Messenger, Naca Rat, Natalia Theodoridou, M. Darusha Wehm, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (Infomancy.net)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Dune: Part Two by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve (Warner Bros)

Kevin O'Donnell, Jr Special Service Award: C.J. Lavigne
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-06 09:09 am

Numamushi by Mina Ikemoto Ghosh



A foundling boy raised by a great snake becomes intrigued by a reclusive calligrapher living near the river snake and boy call home.

Numamushi by Mina Ikemoto Ghosh
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-05 09:41 am

I had a tiny little tense moment last night

When a woman looked around her for her husband, who had been right behind her on the stairs but was now nowhere to be seen. I was very worried I was facing a repeat of the time not too long ago when I spent an hour looking for a missing patron.

The missing husband turned out not to have been behind his wife on the stairs after all, so mystery solved. The missing patron I spent that hour looking for was found once I thought about where she had to be to have not been found where we looked: row H or J, somewhere near seat 26.
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-05 09:11 am
Entry tags:

The Witch Roads (The Witch Roads, volume 1) by Kate Elliott



An arduous journey in a prince's entourage offers a courier escape from immediate, judicial danger, at the cost of an entirely different assortment of dangers.


The Witch Roads (The Witch Roads, volume 1) by Kate Elliott
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james_davis_nicoll ([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll) wrote2025-06-05 09:04 am

NDP display firm resolve

Pursuing their vow to bring down the government, NDP ... do nothing of the sort.

I wonder if they got phone calls from voters expressing their displeasure at the prospect of an election so soon after the previous one?