Bundle of Holding: Fragged Empire 2E

Sep. 1st, 2025 02:09 pm
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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
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[personal profile] sovay
The weekend continued sleepless af with a double whammy of financial stress and I got nothing done that I had wanted, but [personal profile] spatch took a picture of me when I got back in from my walk that I liked, which these days is vanishing. I am not confident a normal amount of summer actually happened.

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: 42


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
20 (47.6%)

Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
6 (14.3%)

Rule 34 by Charles Stross
30 (71.4%)

The Postmortal by Drew Magary
1 (2.4%)

The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper
6 (14.3%)



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
sovay: (Sydney Carton)
[personal profile] sovay
My paramount goal for last night was sleep and it failed so horrifically that I have had a flat and frustratingly nonexistent day, but in listening to the three different cast recordings of 1776 which I now own—1969 Broadway, 1970 London, and 1972 film—and rewatching a handful of scenes from the handily streaming film, thirty years after initial exposure in eighth grade social studies it finally clicked with me that so much of the appeal of its John Adams is directly proportional to his being such a disaster. Especially as incarnated by the superbly obstreperous William Daniels, the delegate from Massachusetts is simultaneously an incandescent engine of rage against the machines of tyranny and an indignant wet cat of a man endowed with the inalienable right of shooting himself in the foot, cf. the opening number devoted to establishing that he has achieved the political and personal milestone of pissing off an entire continental congress. His capacity for chill is somewhere in the decatherms and he wasn't even close enough to the door to be standing behind it when social finesse was handed out. He has the self-aware saving grace of a sense of humor which quirks out in unsuccessfully repressed smiles, but he's the awkward straight man just as often as he snarks drily for the Colonies; one of the best details of his physical acting is a nervous flicker of the fingers which stands sometimes for constant restive thought and sometimes for not knowing what the hell to do with his hands. It's not a comic characterization, but it does make the moments where he lets his guard down all the more quietly effective, because too often it's punctured for him. His own personality is among the obstacles of policy, philosophy, and factionalism facing a successful declaration of independence and down to the wire the play never lets him forget it. He dances so gravely and gracefully with Blythe Danner's Martha Washington, he earns the smugness with which he calls across to Howard da Silva as they whirl into the showiest choreography of the song, "We still do a few things in Boston, Franklin!" Who wasn't supposed to imprint on that unbeatable combination of furious integrity that shouldn't be let out unsupervised for five minutes? Damn this government for making any national celebration so meanly jingoistic, I couldn't even think about attending this spring's sestercentennial of the Battle of Lexington in my eighteenth-century shirt.

Greenwood sidey-O

Aug. 30th, 2025 02:25 pm
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[personal profile] nineweaving
Just back from folkie camp (TradMad week at Pinewoods). Idyllic setting (woods, lakes); gorgeous weather (but for one terrific thunderbolt that struck the water); a lovely community; glorious music. Oh, and three good square home-cooked meals a day, all locally sourced, with proper pots of tea. One fortunate evening we happened to have five vegans at our table, so us three omnivores got all the chicken pot pie, green beans, salad, new bread, and vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce we could hold.

The camp provided free tests, and all of us (130+) turned in negatives three days running (first of all to gain entrance and twice after). Cons should be this sensible.

It’s all very leftie and queer-celebratory. Everyone makes others garlands of green leaves to wear. It’s the kind of place where a couple of women in their 70s are talking mycology (“... it looked like an amanita, so I crawled under the dance pavilion to have a look ...”), while a boy in his 20s is singing a German social democratic anthem to the Celtic harp.

My old hero Martin Carthy was there with his daughter Eliza. Hearing Martin for the first time back in 1979 was transformative. He sang “Willie’s Lady” (Child 6) and that was that: my secondary world was made of ballads. Now it grieves me terribly to see him growing frail and forgetful; but still he kindles, still he glows. He seems to draw his memory from his guitar. A tune emerged; he stopped and sang the opening of “Willie’s Lady” a capella. He talked about the making of his version of it, how his friend Ray Fisher (Archie’s sister) had found the Breton tune for it. In his telling, the lady (cursed by her mother-in-law to labor endlessly and never to give birth) is not a mere sufferer, but a rival witch, an incomer from across the sea with a foreign magic of her own.

The Appalachian ballad traditions session was taken by a stunning singer and storyteller, unknown to most of us. Sarah Burkey’s come from some hard hard places, dirt poor in Kentucky, then devastated by Helene in western North Carolina; yet is grounded and joyful. An inspired benefactor at the camp gave her Jean Ritchie’s old handcarved dulcimer (a lovely thing), and to see Sarah touch it, listen to it, was heart-stoppingly beautiful. It played “Amazing Grace” first of all. And then she sang “Wayfaring Stranger” in English and Cherokee. Sarah, who teaches Native American children, had those words from tribal elders, and they are not translated from the Christian song, but prayers from the Trail of Tears.

Daringly, I took a class in song performance. I am utterly terrified of singing solo (above all in the company of gifted singers), so I dared myself to do it. I thought hard about what I would give them and realized that trying for prettiness or pathos only sends me horribly offkey, so I went for raunch and attitude, and gave ‘em “My Husband’s Got No Courage In Him.” I am told it was one hell of a performance. All I remember is glimpsing the tutor bent double, scarlet in the face with stifled laughter.

This year I didn’t see the Pleiades reflected in the still clear water, but you can’t have everything. Maybe next year.

Nine


Blergh

Aug. 30th, 2025 01:17 pm
aj: (hungry)
[personal profile] aj
Woke up with a migraine. Yaaaaay.

Cats

Aug. 30th, 2025 09:39 am
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Poll #33552 I knew I forgot something
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 70


Cats?

View Answers

Cats!
49 (70.0%)

Cats!
42 (60.0%)

Cats!
51 (72.9%)

Cats!
49 (70.0%)

Cats!
51 (72.9%)

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Six works new to me. Three fantasy, three SF, four are series (at least in a sense) and the other two appear to be stand-alone. Lots of TTRPG material.

Books Received, August 23 — August 30

Poll #33551 Books Received, August 23 — August 30
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 29


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Victoriana by Alex Cahill et al (Q1 2026)
6 (20.7%)

Victoriana Menagerie by Alex Cahill et al (Q1 2026)
5 (17.2%)

The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu (April 2026)
21 (72.4%)

Ship of Spells by H. Leighton Dickson (November 2025)
9 (31.0%)

Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum, Voll Adventures by Lisa Farrell et al (Q1, 2026)
2 (6.9%)

Coriolis: The Great Dark by Kosta Kostulas et al (August 2025)
13 (44.8%)

sovay: (Sovay: David Owen)
[personal profile] sovay
I had just written an intensely miserable post about the state of my life and my health and whatever was supposed to have passed for my career, but then I discovered the existence of the 1970 London cast recording of 1776 and it surprised me into laughing out loud, specifically because while I had never heard anyone but William Daniels as John Adams and I expect no one again to match his particular abrasive flint, Lewis Fiander couldn't have been terrible from the amount of incredulous disgust he puts into his "Good God." Anything to do with American democracy is of course somewhat depressing to contemplate at the present moment, but not more so from a musical than from the news. In other charms of the week, I have two different kinds of infection in a body that is already not responding as hoped to several months of medicating for an underlying condition, so anything that distracts me from mere grim hanging on to someday reading other people's death notices is a net good.
aj: (music)
[personal profile] aj
On the one hand, this should not be surprising to me. I grew up listening to country music, even if I didn't think I did? TBF, one of my favorite early concerts (I was, like, 11?) was for The Highwaymen, so I have in fact seen Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Chris Kristopherson, and Johnny Cash in person. They were on a stage down most of a football field, BUT STILL. It was a high school football field! (Hilariously, they sounded better in the parking lot.)

Anyway, I'm blaming Shaboozey. I remain obsessed with his last album. And I did check out Cowboy Carter by Beyonce, partially because I wanted to hear his tracks. That record was a weirder listen? I wish I liked it better. There are some good tracks, but for the most part it's not really my tea cup. Hilariously, my least favorite are the Shaboozey ones? IRONY.

I've also been listening to Orville Peck's first and last album. (I'm still waiting for Bronco to show up from the library.) I remain sad The Bill didn't get to listen to these. He would have loved them! But I'm also having a nice time. I really, really love "Miénteme" and "The Hurtin' Kind". (Other hilarious aside: The Hurting Kind was the name of John Paul White's last album. LOL.) If pushed, I think I like Stampede a bit better than Pony but "Buffalo Run" is probably my favorite of his songs. [personal profile] celli trust me when I say I think you'd have a good time with his stuff.

Because of these, the busted iPod (TM) has been throwing on more Elle King. I remain surprised how impressed I am by her albums! A friend of mine went to one of her shows waaaaaay back in the early 10's and told me I'd really like her stuff, but it was only a couple years ago that tracked those records down. And ngl, Come Get Your Wife is such a solid album. That and her collaboration with Miranda Lambert ("It's Saturday Night (I Don't Wanna Go Home)") are my absolute favorites of her work. Her voice and confidence are just so cool.

Last, but not least, there's something going on over in The Civil Wars' camp. The most likely explanation is that Nate Yetton (Joy's ex-husband and the third owner of "The Civil Wars" IP) sold the Sensibility Records rights to the independently produced Barton Hollow to Dualtone. Why? Well, they're currently selling a repressing of the album. Which, if anyone remembers, I had been desperately trying to get a vinyl copy of and started my one-sided beef with my PO Box because they lost the copy I ordered off eBay. Also, The Civil Wars shop got re-activated. It includes some long-out of print vinyl pressings of EP's and a ton of posters that I would be delighted to own. That said, I've spent enough $$ on TCW merch in the last two years. That said, if anyone wants to get me a present, any of the posters (bar the Gold Album party one as I have that signed and framed!) would be gleefully accepted.

(OH! [personal profile] lyssie! I did finally pick up the last Something for Kate album!)

Update: *SLAPS credit card out of own hands* NO NEW BOOKS. NONE.

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