naomikritzer | Reading

For the second time ever, my wife's birthday is conflicting with Minicon. I am probably going to miss a number of the panels that I've been assigned to? But, I think, HOPEFULLY, the only affected panels are Friday night's.

Here's what they gave me:

-------
READING: Lyda Morehouse | FRI | 7:00 PM | Ver-1

Cyberpunk in the Age of AI | FRI | 8:30 PM | Ver-1

Evil Overlords | SAT | 5:30 PM | FrontBallrm

On Writing Badly | SAT | 7:00 PM | BackBallrm

Reading Dystopia vs Living Dystopia | SAT | 8:30 PM | FrontBallrm

Second Book in the Series | SUN | 2:30 PM | FrontBallrm

---------

So, ironically, the two things I'm probably the most looking forward to--my reading and the cyberpunk panel--are the ones I will most likely be unable to make. It really will depend? Shawn tends to like to eat dinner insanely early (like between 4 and 5:00 pm), so it is possible that I'll make both? However, I don't necessarily want to rush her birthday evening. Not unless what I want to give her is the opportunity to divorce me as a birthday present.

I did leave notes behind for the moderator of the cyberpunk one, so, worst case scenario, I will still be "represented," albeit via my email.

I feel badly about this? But I was not, to my knowledge, given a preliminary schedule wherein I might have be able to note that Friday night might be bad for me. Maybe I was asked at some point and missed it or didn't think through the fact that, while Shawn birthday was actually yesterday, we almost always do "birthday observed" celebrations on the weekend nearest the actual day? Anyway, I am sorry to be potentially bailing on some stuff. But, so it goes. I'm sure my fellow panelists will be fine without me. And, it's not like I'll be missing something I was supposed to moderate.

The reading? Well, I will try to make it, but if you're there and I'm not? You'll know what happened!

Hmmm, maybe I can give my reading to a colleague and have them read my work.... let me strategize.

james_davis_nicoll

Once again, the need to rescue friends distracts Murderbot from its shows.

Platform Decay (Murderbot, volume 8) by Martha Wells

sabotabby

And Cocoa's, but Sabot is the one I can shower with gifts and love. Alas I had to be away from her most of the day, but I made it up after with dinner in bed, meat tubes, and a catnip crinkle pad.

In case you are wondering Alice's birthday is not for a month and a half but she also got a meat tube and a catnip mouse so she wouldn't feel left out.

sholio

1. My snowy spring icons are generally an accurate image of how spring is going around here, but this year perhaps more than most. It isn't even supposed to be above freezing today. By the end of the week we may finally start getting some 40-ish temperatures. The entire month of March has been absolutely frigid - many low temperature records were set - and we still have 3 feet of snow. SPRING WHEN???

2. I realized how much I miss fandom bingo cards when I discovered a new one at

whatif_au, which is taking requests for cards. (Full list of AUs at the link; you can veto up to 3, and you can request a 3x3 or 5x5 card. Note that you WILL have to join the comm to post a request.)

So anyway I requested a card.

Sentinel/Guide	Treasure Hunter	Holiday Mythology
Robot	WILD CARD	Decade Specific
People with Disabilities	Fake Relationship	Cowboy

Will I do anything with this? who knows. But it's fun to have a bingo card again! (Biggles cowboy AU immediately came to mind because it would be hilarious.)

3.

unconventionalcourtship is back for another round. You pick a Harlequin/Mills & Boon book blurb and write a fic based on it. I don't recall that I've ever officially done this, but it's always fun to see what people come up with. List of blurbs here and also a plot generator which allows you to put in character names. (I recall having fun with this in the past.)

I'm not sure that this is something I actually want to write, but I can't help thinking how much Londo & G'Kar would loathe being in a Harlequin/Mills & Boon plot, and no one around them would be having any fun at all, either.

james_davis_nicoll

You too can help fund James Nicoll Reviews!

April 2026 Patreon Boost

brithistorian

Happy April 1! This is your annual reminder that my journal is an April Fool's-free zone. In the (exceedingly unlikely) event that I encounter an April Fool's joke elsewhere that strikes me as funny enough to post about, it will be clearly marked as such.

At any rate, we've apparently made it through the first quarter of 2026. Here's hoping the rest of the year doesn't feel nearly as long and difficult.

brithistorian

1 April
- Modern Asian Baking at Home (Kat Lieu)
2 April
- Library Wars: Love & War, vol. 12 (Kiiro Yumi)

james_davis_nicoll

History can teach us the most exciting ways to destroy fictional civilizations...

Seven Plot-Friendly Ways to Spur Societal Collapse

pegkerr

For those unfamiliar, Minicon is a science fiction/fantasy convention held in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis, specifically) on Easter weekend every year. I've been attending since, oh, 1988 or so?

Scheduled events where you can find me:

Thursday: Maybe I'll go to Opening Ceremonies, but not likely.

Friday:

READING: 12:00 Noon Peg Kerr. I will have a half hour time slot and I'll be reading from the work in progress. Bonus: in the scene I will be reading, I'll be bringing back a character from Emerald House Rising.

7 PM – Books We Cull, Books We Keep: Curating your personal library.

8:30 PM - Research and World-Building, or "Write the Story Already !"

Saturday:

10 AM – The Enduring Allure of Regency Romance

7 PM - On Writing Badly [heaven knows I know a lot about this]

8:30 PM - Reading Dystopia vs. Living Dystopia

Sunday:

11:30 AM – How to Create a Character

Current Mood: cheerful

james_davis_nicoll

Master Nankai hosts a discussion between the idealistGentleman and pragmatist Mr. Champion over the course Japan should take in the 20th century.

A Discourse by Three Drunkards on Government by Nakae Chomin (Translated by Nobuko Tsukui)

sabotabby

I'll likely not have time to post tomorrow morning, so here it is a few hours in advance.

Just finished: Always On by Helena Trooperman. This was quite fun, and in particular I liked how much attention she gives to the social and economic repercussions of the invention of new technology. What starts with a phone ultimately becomes, potentially, an existential threat to fossil fuel interests, and to everyone they directly and indirectly employ, and there are complications like fewer and less well-paying jobs in a green energy future. It also ends on a cliffhanger so...there's that.

Currently reading: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. It's Nebula season so watch me mainline as many books as possible in a month. This one's up first though because I was meaning to read it anyway. It begins with the journal of a Lutheran pastor being found inside a wall, and takes us back to 1912, when said pastor encountered a Blackfeet man named Good Stab who wants to do a confession. Also he's a vampire. This is slow, bloody dread of the sort Jones is famous for and it has quite a lot of Cormac McCarthy in it, with the Montana setting and the mass murders. Really good so far; it's going to be a tough one to top except I really did love Katabasis.

james_davis_nicoll

The 2015 DELUXE rulebook plus many solitaire and gamemaster adventures. First of two T&T Bundles.

Bundle of Holding: Tunnels & Trolls (from 2018)

AND

Eighteen Tunnels & Trolls solo modules plus five GM adventures. Second of two offers.

Bundle of Holding: T&T Adventures (From 2021)

rachelmanija

Camille is a tradwife influencer, living in near-total isolation from all humans but her awful and mostly absent husband Graham and her nosy neighbor Renee. She directs her own life like it's a perfect Instagram post, constantly obsessing over the perfect shade of beige and how her followers will react if she disagrees with a more successful tradwife influencer's insistence on a folic acid-free diet. The best way to get followers is to get pregnant, and she and Graham haven't managed that yet. But there's something lurking in the dark, deep well near the dark, deep woods that might be able to solve that problem for her.

The first quarter or so of this book is so repetitive and anvillicious that I might have DNF'd it if I hadn't been reading it for the horror book club. However, it picks up once Camille has sex with the creature in the well. (Camille tells herself it's an angel but can't stop calling it "the creature;" its actual nature is pleasingly ambiguous.) Her extremely weird pregnancy and increasingly desperate efforts to conceal its weirdnesses from Graham, Renee, and her online followers had me glued to the pages, and once her baby is born, I went from being entertained to actively loving the story. I don't want to give away too much about the baby, but I think it's the first time I have ever gotten deeply attached to a fictional baby. Of course, it helps that the baby isn't quite human...

The story is predictable but in a good way once you're past the interminable first quarter; you can't wait for certain things to happen. It gets increasingly batshit and darkly, gleefully funny as it goes along. It's a good female rage book, and has some quality monsterfucking scenes. Despite the rough start I really enjoyed this.

( Read more... )

Content notes: Very gory.

Incidentally, there are at least three novels called Trad Wife or Tradwife released this year. One by Sarah Langan is coming out in September.

james_davis_nicoll

22 works reviewed. 11.5 by women (52%), 10 by men (45%), 0.5 by non-binary authors (2%), 0 by authors whose gender is unknown (0%), and 9 by POC (41%).

March 2026 in Review

james_davis_nicoll

A host of familiar faces from the Star Wars movies fend off extra-galactic occupiers.

Destiny’s Way (New Jedi Order, volume 14) by Walter Jon Williams

brithistorian

Some of you received comments from me today, as I've finally started to actually make time to read DW on a regular basis! I'm looking forward to being around here more often. Hope you're all doing well!

brigid

It's spring so I've done the yearly deforestation of my legs and today I wore a dress with no tights or leggings, just bare skin.

I felt cute but also it was horrible.

I was constantly afraid the front was going to creep up (I have a very large stomach). My office chair has a mesh seat which I could feel through the skirt, and against the backs of my knees. It was breezy enough out that I had to hold the skirt down so it didn't fly up.

Every spring I resolve to experiment with femininity a bit more, and I lurch headlong toward skirts and dresses and realize anew how inconvenient they are.

I have a knee length navy A-Line skirt that I'm going to wear on Thursday, though, with sheer diamond-patterned navy tights. Assuming it doesn't rain. It's raining on Tuesday, which is also my busy day when I'm literally and figuratively running around, meaning I'm going to wear trousers and sturdy shoes.

I'm remote on Wednesdays so it's a pajama day. Luxury!

It was in the lower 80s today which I want to say is very warm for March but it's really not. We've been having temperature extremes for so long now, even though my benchmark remains my childhood. There's thunderstorms overnight and tomorrow and the temperature's going to drop to the 40s by Wednesday, then back up to the 60s on Thursday. I hate these wild temperature swings! Today was a little glimpse of summer, although not quite as humid, and I was cute.

james_davis_nicoll

A new Magpie Games Apocalypse Megabundle presenting a diverse abundance of Powered by the Apocalypse tabletop roleplaying games from Magpie Games.

Bundle of Holding: Magpie Apocalypse MEGA

julian

Also,

lemonsharks and

taraljc set up a Discord for Ny Stuff.

They initially described it as for "putting together a fanzine dedicated to Ny," so since I'm not really a fanzine person I didn't join, but I finally connected up yesterday because it's not just that. As they also put it, it's for things "that make us think of her, and we think would make her smile or laugh." And sharing with each other. (insert Spider Robinson quote here. Or don't, I'm not the boss of you.)

Anyway, if you're on Discord, PM

taraljc or

gingicat for an invite. (Gingi's using tigerbright over there.)

julian

Ny (that is,

minoanmiss) is having a virtual gathering/memorial on April 12, 1 pm EDT, GMT-4. It's going til 3:30. Drop in, drop out, drop back in again, it's fine.

For various good and sufficient reasons, we'd like a headcount, so if anyone's thinking they'll be able to attend, plz sign up here, via SignUpGenius, which has ads aplenty but is at least useful.

I say "we" because I'm the one who volunteered the Zoom account. (I have a client who can't use Doxy for Telehealth because their internet won't support it, so I shrugged and bought paid Zoom for them, awhile back.) If we go above the 300-person limit, I'll buy their expanded audience for the month.

Other announcements are still going to the Google Announce List. If you want on, just tell the nice shiny boxes how you knew Ny. Also, Vicka has a memorial page. Which has an awesome picture up top.

(I would imagine that people will spread the Zoom link without the SignUpGenius request attached. That's inevitable and not unreasonable and not something that's possible to police. Mostly we want to know how many people will want to speak.)