#sciencefiction

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50% off @ : https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1795512

Nicole’s brain is slowly being taken over by a magic city. She seeks a cure, before the city can destroy her sanity and then eventually, take her life by replacing her mind. Racing against time, she gathers pieces of the city, hoping to find an answer among them.

@bookstodon

(Left) The cover of Jigsaw City, by Owen Tyme. The background is a futuristic city of sky scrapers covered in greenery, with water ways in place of some streets. The background has been divided by dark lines that cut it up, into a jigsaw puzzle. The foreground is a hexagonal coin with an indentation in the center that follows the same shape, with raised lines forming a hexagram in the center, which has a smaller one turned at a ninety-degree angle inside the hexagon at the center of it. The smaller hexagram has another inside it, a pattern that repeats until the lines become so fine and indistinct, they blend together. (Right) There's a pool of lava at the base of a rocky slope, with some sharp rocks sticking upward out of it and the following text over the top: “I’m immune to heat and fire. I can easily carry and protect one of you…” “That’s suicide! Ye’d need to deliver an army to make a difference, not one person!” “I *am* an army.” (Bottom) https://books2read.com/JigsawCity

I've finished: When the Sparrow Falls by Neil Sharpson

This is a story about a Soviet style East European dystopia. As someone who grew up in the late 80s it really appealed to me.

An ideology turned into an authoritarian nightmare and the people that get ground up in the wheels.

It is Sharpson's ability to personalize those people as they get crushed in the gears that makes this a great novel.

It's a bit strange to read a novel in 2025 where the AI future is viewed in a positive light. But it was published in 2021, before AI became synonymous with LLMs.

It was interesting reading When The Sparrow Falls at the same time as The Ragpicker, a novel where the digitization of human consciousness and virtual reality are the cause of the apocalyptic nightmare.

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/50271032-ec89-41c3-87ad-ac67855b8417

@bookstodon …

My son (22) has asked for classic novels for Christmas. As his mother and two sisters all have BAs in English, I suspect he's going to be buried in classics.

I'm thinking I'll get him a couple of science fiction classics, but it's hard to narrow it down. I've made a list: What would you add? What would you take away? Are there better books by these authors? (Is it weird to have living writers on a list of 'classics'?)

I'd like to narrow it down to one or two to get started.

The Left Hand of Darkness - LeGuin
Rendezvous with Rama - Clarke
The Doomsday Book -Willis
Neuromancer - Gibson
Snow Crash - Stephenson
Battlefield Earth - Hubbard
Parable of the Sower - Butler
The Forever War - Haldeman
Stranger in A Strange Land - Heinlein
Dune - Herbert
The Time Machine - Wells
Foundation …

2025.12.13 — How do your characters relate to nature? Is it threatening, idyllic, indifferent, or something else?

The current stories take place in urban settings, on a world in which nature has been conquered in one aspect far more than ours is (spoilers), but wouldn't seem all that different if you were to visit—except for the heat. Nature exists, however, in broad swaths of land abandoned by people as the population shrinks. Bolt takes a man friend to be alone with in a place that a hundred years ago was suburban, but where abandoned buildings are now overgrown with trees that had long ago been landscaping. People who consider everyone else "domestics" populate the truly wild places. They fiercely guard their forests, which hide all trace of their civilization. That they maintain an armistice with an interstellar civilization says plenty about their ability. Of course, I will …

I have a new patron-only post up on Patreon! This holiday season, why not give the gift of Xauri'EL Zwaan? Pledges start at just $5USD and include free copies of three short ebooks!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/patron-update-145733009

Chapter 39 of Stone Prophet is available to read on : https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/108234/jigsaw-city

Lyra arrives in a shuttle piloted by Mad Eye, who guns down the Ulkun squads that have Nicole cornered!

Nicole and her team join Lyra in the shuttle, passing Ustrina as she gets out and takes dragon form.

Mad Eye lives up to his call sign by flying the shuttle down the halls!

@bookstodon

2025.12.12 — What's the longest book you've ever read?

Don't laugh! My nose was in that book a lot as a teenager and university student. Read the .

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]


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Thicker than three reams of paper, smellier than most libraries, with enough dust to kill a bear, weighing in at 11.5 lbs. my black hardbound Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia 4th Ed 1968 sits on an office chair with reading glasses atop it for a size comparison.

2025.12.12 — Are bodily functions omitted or discussed in your stories?

I don't write things intentionally squick or gratuitous, but on the other hand the stories in the reluctance series do not take place in any society that is remotely derivative of any currently extant human culture. Part of the raison d'être of the stories is to point out how strange humans are. Are bodily functions mentioned, referred to, discussed amongst, or commented upon (sometimes rudely) by characters? Yes. Each culture has its standards and has its manners, and there are always people unwilling to follow the rules except when they suit them. When such matters pop up, they're important to the characters and therefore important to the story. One major example is that most public places have a unisex restroom that is more on the Roman model than it is on the Allie McBeal model, and …

50% off @ : https://books2read.com/SkyChildren

With a strange virus giving colonists magic powers, they call for government aid, but warships packed to the gills with nuclear ordnance arrive! They run for the hills, totally terrified for their lives as their city is struck down as if by the wrath of an angry God!

@bookstodon

(Left) The cover of Sky Children, by Owen Tyme. The background is a nuclear explosion and its mushroom cloud, in some distant hills. There's a dirt road along some rocky hills leading away from it. The foreground is dominated by the dark silhouettes of another hill, some tall grass and a family of five holding hands, going left to right: girl, mother, girl, boy and father. The mother and father look down at the children, while they look up at their mother. The tallest of the children appears to be a boy in shorts, while the other two are girls of the same height, indicating they may be twins. The girls have pony tails and wear dresses. The mother wears a skirt and the father wears pants. The family holds hands. The silhouettes are highlighted by the orange light of the explosion. (Right) An explosion is fiery and bright. Someone hold up their left hand to block the light, but the light is so intense, their flesh only tinges the light a pinkish-red shade and their bones are visible, outlined with dark red lines. The following text is laid over that: He shielded his eyes with his hands, but even with his eyes closed, he could see the shadows of his finger bones, as highlighted by the monstrous, nuclear light! Temporarily blinded, tears fell from his eyes. *What more could I have done? Could we have saved more people somehow? How could I have known the consequences of setting up the navigation beacon? Why is this happening?* (Bottom) https://books2read.com/SkyChildren

Wow! The stuff of sci-fi but real! 🪐🌌🛰️
"Voyager 1 will reach one light-day from Earth in 2026"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/voyager-1-will-reach-one-light-day-from-earth-in-2026-here-s-what-that-means/ar-AA1S1N0y

📚 Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick by: Jason Pargin, David Wong

Zoey Ashe is like a fish so far out of water that it has achieved orbit. After inheriting a criminal empire, the twenty-three year-old finds herself under threat from all sides as a rogue's gallery of larger-than-life enemies think they smell w...

https://bookblabla.com/book/zoey-punches-the-future-in-the-dick

@bookstodon

Zoey Ashe is like a fish so far out of water that it has achieved orbit. After inheriting a criminal empire, the twenty-three year-old finds herself under threat from all sides as a rogue's gallery of larger-than-life enemies think they smell weakness. On the eve of the world's most lavish and ridiculous Halloween celebration, a steamer trunk-sized box arrives at Zoey's door and she is shocked to find that it contains a disemboweled corpse. She is even more shocked when that corpse, controlled by an unknown party, rises and goes on a rampage through the house. Speaking in an electronic voice, it publicly accuses Zoey of being its murderer. This is the kind of thing that almost never happened at her old job. The city was already a ticking time bomb of publicity-hungry vigilantes with superhuman enhancements and Zoey knows this turn of events is unlikely to improve the situation. Now, she and her team of high-tech tricksters have to solve this bizarre murder while simultaneously keeping Tabula Ra$a from descending into chaos. Biting humor and blatant digs at modern society overlay a subtly brilliant and thoughtful plot” (Publishers Weekly) in John Dies at the End author Jason Pargin’s first installment of the Zoey Ashe Series, Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. Now, one of today’s great satirists (Nerdist) is back with Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick, the second installment in a Technicolor tomorrowland. (Kirkus Reviews) THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER New Yo