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I bought a yellowing copy secondhand at my English department's student-run book sale. Went in being told by someone that it was mid. I now think they are full of shit. OK, the first sixty pages were rather opaque - a high price of admission for this sci-fi reader - but I trust my authors to gracefully onboard me to their complex, secondary worlds, a step at a time. Miéville delivers. This was a wonderful tale exploring language, and first contact—it could not be more relevant to our understanding of AI today. (I think you'll know what I mean if you read it.)

Decided to treat a re-read as a sort of advent this year. I'm a sucker for hardbacks, but none of the cover designs hold a candle to the 25th Anniversary paperback.

It's a YA novel that twists the usual fantasy tropes about prophecies. Not my favourite of the two Mievilles I've read, but the urban wonderland keeps throwing the weird all the way through, never letting up for a moment; idea after idea.

Someone recommended it to me; the first thing I thought of on seeing the title was the Orc City shitposting on Bluesky last month. No idea if it'll add anything to this book, though.

Surprised me how the belief-based fantasy of Discworld gets the motor running; Pratchett shifts into a more sci-fi mode of storytelling and floors it. Phenomenal worldbuilding with respect to the clacks and the golems (they work to buy their freedom; the little things they do to prove they're not just tools). The satire on the Grand Trunk and its leveraged buyout by piratical looters is excellent.

Stanley is an autism icon and I would cheese anyone who lays a finger on him.

I came away from this feeling like I'd come out of a museum exhibit, or sampled a taster menu of sci-fi from the last fifty years. Some stories have been taken from the very first collection compiled for TLDV; many of the stories from its latter half were written in the last decade. Admittedly, I went in wondering when the 'big' sci-fi names would turn up, but I'm glad they didn't - they're raved about well enough. Everyone in here is dead good.

You'd be surprised how much of the newspaper satire has Moved With the Times in 25 years. Folks aren't interested in news so much as they are olds... except when the news is 'WOMAN GIVES BIRTH TO COBRA.' The Times tells the truth every day—and the truth shall make ye fret, for it's always changing.