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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.

To-read pile, 2025, August

Sep. 3rd, 2025 07:00 am
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[personal profile] rmc28

Books on pre-order:

  1. Queen Demon (Rising World 2) by Martha Wells (7 Oct 2025)

Books acquired in August:

  • and read:
    1. The Adventure of the Demonic Ox (Penric & Desdemona) by Lois McMaster Bujold
    2. The Work of Art (Somerset Stories 1) by Mimi Matthews
    3. The Arctic Curry Club by Dani Redd [3]

Books acquired previously and read in August:

  1. The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan [3][May]

Borrowed books read in August:

  1. A Sorceress Comes To Call by T. Kingfisher
  2. Iron Flame (Empyrean 2) by Rebecca Yarros [2]

[1] Pre-order
[2] Audiobook
[3] Physical book
[4] Crowdfunding
[5] Goodbye read
[6] Cambridgeshire Reads/Listens
[7] FaRoFeb / FaRoCation / Bookmas / HRBC
[8] Prime Reading / Kindle Unlimited

Sunfall by C J Cherryh

Sep. 2nd, 2025 06:31 am
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


The ancient sun is cooling but human drama persists.


Sunfall by C J Cherryh

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
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[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: 47


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 (46.8%)

Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
6 (12.8%)

Rule 34 by Charles Stross
34 (72.3%)

The Postmortal by Drew Magary
1 (2.1%)

The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper
7 (14.9%)



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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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


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
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[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

Cats

Aug. 30th, 2025 09:39 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Poll #33552 I knew I forgot something
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 74


Cats?

View Answers

Cats!
51 (68.9%)

Cats!
45 (60.8%)

Cats!
53 (71.6%)

Cats!
52 (70.3%)

Cats!
53 (71.6%)

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: 31


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Victoriana by Alex Cahill et al (Q1 2026)
6 (19.4%)

Victoriana Menagerie by Alex Cahill et al (Q1 2026)
5 (16.1%)

The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu (April 2026)
23 (74.2%)

Ship of Spells by H. Leighton Dickson (November 2025)
10 (32.3%)

Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay: Imperium Maledictum, Voll Adventures by Lisa Farrell et al (Q1, 2026)
2 (6.5%)

Coriolis: The Great Dark by Kosta Kostulas et al (August 2025)
13 (41.9%)

Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei

Aug. 29th, 2025 08:56 am
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Two sisters quest up a climate-change-and-blight ravaged coast and across the seas to find their missing sister.


Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei
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[personal profile] hilarita
If you are a fountain pen person, what stupidly expensive pen (let's say, for the sake of this argument, one that costs more than about £250) would you want to buy?

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