"Jinkies!"

Passed in traffic on our way to Superstore yesterday - and we would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids...

- Sid

P.S. A certain amount of soul searching - and research - was involved in this posting.  Initially, I wasn't certain that Scooby-Doo qualified for the blog. In my mind, there was no supernatural* element to the show, it was more of an ongoing cautionary tale that the villains in life are generally old white men disguised as monsters. However, some research into the team's 57-year history indicated that later iterations of Mystery Inc. did in fact deal with actual ghosts and phantoms.

* Research also revealed that there was also a Scooby-Doo crossover episode in Supernatural's 13th season: 

 I feel that they nailed Sam but Dean is a bit off.

2026 Aurora Award Nominees: Represent!

And now, some Canadian content to balance out the Hugo Awards coverage: the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association (CSFFA) has released the slate of nominees for the annual Aurora Awards, which recognize the best Canadian science fiction and fantasy works of the year.  In the past, the awards ceremony has been held in conjunction with Canvention, as with the Hugos and Worldcon, but in recent years the organizers have transitioned to an online ceremony in order to allow for a wider viewership.  The 2026 ceremony will be livestreamed on YouTube on August 9th - the link will be published closer to the event.

This year's nominees are:

BEST NOVEL

• The Bewitching, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Blight, Rachel A. Rosen
• Direct Descendant, Tanya Huff
• The Downloaded 2: Ghosts in the Machine, Robert J. Sawyer
• Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales, Heather Fawcett
• A Shift of Time, Julie E. Czerneda
• Written on the Dark, Guy Gavriel Kay

BEST YOUNG ADULT (YA) NOVEL

• Breath of the Dragon, Shannon Lee & Fonda Lee 
• Fireboy, Edward Willett 
• A Lion’s Head, D.M. De Alwis
• Minotaur, Jamieson Wolf
• One Morning Sun, Avi Silver
• Winging It, Jen Desmarais

BEST NOVELETTE/NOVELLA

• The First Thousand Trees, Premee Mohamed
• In the Gardener’s Service, Michèle Laframboise
• The Lure of Stone, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• A Palace Near the Wind, Ai Jiang
• The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar

BEST SHORT STORY

• Hunted To Extinction, Premee Mohamed
• I Ain’t Your Doll Face, Jacqueline Thorpe
• the love song of house and lake, Gillian Secord
• The Stone Played at Tengen, R.H. Wesley
• What If We Kissed While Sinking a Billionaire’s Yacht?, Rachel A. Rosen

BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL/COMIC

• Atana and the Jade Mermaid, Vivian Zhou
• Bonds of the Forest, Ally Rom Colthoff
• It Never Rains, Kari Maaren
• Questionable Content, Jeph Jacques
• Shark Girl, Kate Beaton

BEST POEM/SONG

• At the Spaceport Bar, Lisa Timpf
• Bigfoot Farewell, Carolyn Clink
• Dragon Karaoke, David Clink
• Explosive, Derek Newman-Stille
• flowers without meadow, Tiffany Morris
• From Dust, J. Y. Zhang

BEST RELATED WORK

• As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories, Terese Mason Pierre
• Augur Magazine, Issues 8.1-8.3, Kerry C. Byrne, Toria Liao, André Geleynse, Kelley Tai, and Azure Arther
• On Spec Magazine, Issues #131 – 134, Vol 35, Diane L. Walton, Managing Editor
• One Message Remains, Premee Mohamed
• Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Three, Stephen Kotowych, Editor

BEST COVER ART/INTERIOR ILLUSTRATION

• Dancing With the Holly King, Janice Blaine
• Seance, Alice M.
• Lunar Base, Dan O’Driscoll
• Starship Librarians, Lorna Antoniazzi
• Listen to Me and I’ll tell You a Story, Ejiwa “Edge” Ebenebe

BEST FAN WRITING AND PUBLICATION

• Amazing Stories online columns, Numbers 405-420, Steve Fahnestalk
• Book Reviews in The Ottawa Review of Books, Robert Runté
• Polar Starlight Magazine, Issues 17-20, Rhea E. Rose, editor
• Speculative Poetry and the Hugos, Lynne Sargen
• Young People Read Old Science Fiction, James Davis Nicoll

BEST FAN RELATED WORK

• Can*Con, Marie Bilodeau, chair and Brandon Crilly, vice-chair
• Scintillation, Jo Walton and Rene Walling, co-chairs
• Two Old Farts Talk Sci-Fi, Troy Harkin and David Clink
• Wizards & Spaceships, Rachel A. Rosen and David L. Clink
• The Worldshapers Podcast, Edward Willett 

I see that The Infinite Revolution has not received a nomination this year - obviously not a surprise, but can you imagine?  Joking aside, I suspect that my little hobby is a bit too casual for awards consideration - although, we are coming up on the 20th anniversary of this blog, perhaps I should be recognized for sheer persistence.

- Sid

"Hug, question?"

Image by Matteroum

This, this is exactly what I was talking about in this post about the xenomorph ecosystem. 

- Sid

The Economics of Scarcity.

My modest collection of Major Matt Mason toys is high on the list of things that spark joy for me, as per Marie Kondo.  (Is the KonMari Method still a thing?)  They were my favourite childhood toys, and as such it just makes me smile to have them on display with the rest of my idiosyncratic selection of collectables.  

All things considered, they're in remarkably good shape for 60 year old toys.  The Major himself and Sergeant Storm have their original helmets, and none of the armature wires inside their molded rubber figures are broken.  The number stickers are missing from the helmets, and a few bits of paint here and there have rubbed off (which has made me reluctant to give them a really good cleaning) but outside of that they've stood up quite well.

Similarly, my Supernaut Power Limbs, which cost me a staggering $9.99 (probably less than the original retail price) are in virtually mint condition and even has most of their original stickers. I also have one of the simple molded Cat Tracs that were packaged with the figures, a Jet Propulsion Pack that's missing one of its guiding strings, and of course my Space Crawler, which is missing its winch string and hook, rear roller, and hubcabs, but which still runs.  All in, the entire collection has cost me about $130 CAD, which may be a lot to spend on vintage toys - or at least I would have thought so until I saw the current state of the market.

I'm generally a bit of a purist when it comes to things like this, but I'd like to see the Space Crawler restored to something closer to its former glory, even if it involves non-original alternatives.  Surprisingly, options are available online for both of the issues: several people have reproduced the original stickers in free downloadable PDF format, and a recent search on eBay revealed several options for reasonably priced 3D-printed replacement parts for the Space Crawler.  

As usual, eBay also showed me a selection of related posts, including the following for two Major Matt Mason figures and a space crawler:

Personally, I'd be embarrassed to sell anything in this kind of condition.  It's bad enough that one of the figures is missing virtually all its paint, and both have lost all of their hair and eye colouring (and most of their noses), but the figure on the left is missing most of its right arm, for heaven's sake!  Given the level of abuse that the two dolls have suffered, it would be a miracle if their armatures weren't broken in a few spots, although the item description isn't specific.  It simply says "FOR PARTS", which suggests that the crawler engine probably doesn't work either.  

The price for this battered trio of toys?  An astonishing $170 CAD, plus $51 shipping to Canada. 

The next eBay suggestion was equally surprising. This is a box - an empty cardboard box.  Admittedly, it's in reasonable shape for a box from 1967, but still, it's an empty box.

Buy It Now price on eBay?  $216 CAD.  Plus $75 shipping.  When was the last time that you paid almost $300 for an empty box? 

All of this goes to illustrate what happens when there's a limited supply to meet demand. Mattel is not making new Major Matt Mason toys (well, there was an odd re-release of reimagined classics in 2022, but not really the same thing) and as such, anything and everything from the original line is now a desirable commodity, and pricing reflects that fact.

That being said, it makes me wonder if the Matt Mason toys that I owned in my childhood are somehow still out there in circulation.  I honestly have no memory of what might have happened to them  - they were certainly well used, but as demonstrated, that's apparently not a barrier to having them show up on the marketplace. Not that I'd buy them. I'm certainly sentimental about things like that, but the ones I own now are in much better condition.

- Sid

2026 Hugo Award Nominees: This Download Could Have Been A Link.

Voting for this year's Hugo Awards opened this week - for anyone interested, the full list of finalists can be found at:

https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2026-hugo-awards/ 

Along with the list of nominees, the Hugo Awards Packet was also made available to voting members.  It's an impressive 17.7 GB download, a surprisingly large number considering that none of the Long or Short Form Dramatic Presentation nominees have included full copies of their selections, although Frankenstein has been generous enough to include a screener link and password.  Sadly, Best Novel nominees Robert Jackson Bennett for A Drop of Corruption, and Adrian Tchaikovsky for Shroud, also chose not to include full copies of their novels, as did Naomi Novik for her Best Novella entry, The Summer War*.  However, it's gratifying to see that, in addition to the ePub versions of their work, many of the other nominees have elected to add audio versions as well.

Looking over the nominees, I was a bit surprised by the Long Form selections - or rather, by the options that didn't make the list. The Long Form nominees are: 

• Andor (Season 2)
• Frankenstein 
• KPop Demon Hunters 
• Mickey 17 
• Sinners
• Superman 

I thought Bugonia might get a nod - and doesn't Weapons have a supernatural element?.  None of the Marvel options of Thunderbolts*, Fantastic Four, or Captain America: Brave New World made the cut, and the latest chapter in the Avatar series was also shut out. And, if the door is opened to entire seasons by the inclusion of the second season of Andor, it's surprising that the Season One of Murderbot didn't receive a nomination, given its popularity - especially considering that two Murderbot episodes are nominated in the Short Form category, and a third episode was withdrawn by the showrunners to comply with the episode limit for the category.**  Why not just put the whole season in for Long Form?  Or Pluribus, which is also structured as a single long narrative but only represented by a single entry in the Short Form list, as is Severance?  

In contrast, I'm fine with Doctor Who only having one nominated episode rather than the whole season, given its episodic nature and the varying list of writers, but Pluribus is very much Vince Gilligan's baby and could logically be treated as a single body of work.  (Interestingly, Andor is the product of four writers, which would seem to make it a better candidate for single episode consideration.)

All of this fails to answer the question of why the download is so large?  As it turns out, the Related Work category, which cover non-fiction work related to the genre, contains an epic 4.66 GB episode from The History of Westeros podcast - slightly ironically, given that unlike the Long Form entries, the episode is also available for free on YouTube.   

- Sid

* I appreciate that authors are concerned with uncontrolled distribution of their work, but honestly, that ship has already sailed - if any of these pieces are available in digital form, I guarantee you that they're already being downloaded for free. 

** There's also a nominated Murderbot novelette from Martha Wells, which I'm looking forward to reading, regardless of whether it gets my vote.

May the 4th: Shooting Stars.

Somebody once asked, "Could I spare some change for gas?
I need to get myself away from this place"
I said, "Yep, what a concept, I could use a little fuel myself
And we could all use a little change"

Han Solo, Star Wars: A New Hope.

Another May the Fourth, another post...

- Sid

P.S. Full disclosure: not my work, and it was unattributed on the page where I found it.   

 

"Is that my name?"

Hi Love, 
I thought this article might interest you!  I wonder how much you'd agree. 

https://ew.com/doctor-who-best-episodes-ranked-11956344 

Love you, 
Karli*

Since Doctor Who's 2005 revival - the "modern era" of the article's title - there have been either 196 or 199 episodes: internet sources vary.  Regardless, picking the best 50 from the catalogue means that you're selecting about one in every four episodes for your list, which is a pretty coarse filter.  Interestingly, the list only contains a single Ncuti Gatwa episode - surely Dot and Bubble** or Boom qualify as top 50 selections - but I accept the subjective nature of this kind of list.

That being said, I do take strong exception with one of the EW decisions:  how could The Doctor's Wife only be at number 38??! 

It's such an excellent episode that I would have expected to see it in the top five, if not in the running for first place.  The story stands alone as a thoughtful and touching examination of the relationship between the Doctor and the TARDIS, and the BBC paid it the ultimate compliment of not attempting to cash in on its success with a return visit from Idris, the human avatar of the TARDIS, as so perfectly portrayed by Suranne Jones.  

A small part of me wonders if the ranking somehow reflects episode author Neil Gaiman's #MeToo moment from last year, but I would think that if that were the case, the episode would have gone completely unconsidered for the list.  Although, with that taken into account, it really doesn't age well that Gaiman's Doctor christens the embodiment of the TARDIS as "Sexy".

- Sid

* It is such a pleasure to be married to someone with this kind of respect for my hobbies and interests - thank you, Karli!  

** Dot and Bubble is arguably a bit Doctor-light, but then so is Blink, which they rank as the number one episode - no argument with that choice, by the way.

Cheap Thrills: FAR: Lone Sails.

For the most part, my PC gaming preference is for first person shooters such as Fallout or the Halo franchise, with the occasional foray into strategy games like Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, Dawn of War, or Starcraft.  However, there's also a place for more subtle experiences in my library, such as The Long Dark survival game, or The Shore, an unsettling Lovecraftian puzzle game; Real Moon, a moonbase simulation, and most recently, FAR: Lone Sails.

FAR's normal price is $17.49 CAD from Epic Games, but it was on sale for $1.95 when I saw it on the Epic Store page, which made it an affordable gaming gamble - and, as it turned out, a wise choice.

FAR is a standard side-scrolling game, created by award-winning Swiss indie game developer Okomotive and originally released in 2018*.  It's an evocative, thoughtful experience, without dialogue, conflict, or shooting, and it's a quick play, weighing in at about three hours. 

Which is not to say that it's all smooth sailing - no pun intended.  The game features a tiny red-clad pilot** who navigates the decaying remnants of a lost civilization in a steampunk landship, propelled initially by steam and later also by sails - at least, when the wind is blowing in the right direction.  The steam engine is fueled by scavenged objects, and requires a lot of management to maintain power while not overloading the boiler.  

The ship is also equipped with a fire hose and towing winches at both ends, all of which comes into play as the pilot struggles with gates, elevators, and similar barriers left behind by the world that was. As the trip continues, upgrades, large and small, are added to the ship: titanic tattered sails, and a little blowtorch to repair damage to the ship's systems from lightning, hail or collisions. 

But it's not always a challenge. As with all trips, there are periods of quiet introspective travel, as the scenery scrolls past and the wind rustles through the sails - I wish there was some way to have the pilot make a cup of tea and sit on the rooftop gallery during these times.

It's difficult to explain the charm of the game, and I certainly wouldn't say that it's for everyone.  For myself, I would have enjoyed the game almost as much without any of the puzzles that the pilot solves in order to continue their journey, simply sailing across the abandoned world and collecting the little memories left behind: a bell, a ball, a boat, a bear. 

As the trip continued, I found myself wondering how the game would come to an end.  There would be a certain symmetry in having the pilot return to the point where they began, but that also seemed like too simple a conclusion.  I won't spoil the ending for potential players who might be reading this, but it's initially a bit tragic, with a final moment of hope - exactly what the intrepid traveler deserves.  

- Sid 

* There's also a 2022 submarine sequel called Changing Tides for $22.79 CAD. 

** The developer's press kit informs us that the pilot's name is Lone, and that they are female, but I suspect that the casual player is unlikely to dive that deep.

Props.

I recently ran out of new books on my iPhone, and ended up casually re-reading Crusade, a far-future military space opera by David Weber and Steve White*, while I was waiting to have some blood work done.

In Crusade, the Terran Federation is finally at peace, after forming an alliance with their former enemies the catlike Orions.  However, the peace is unexpectedly shattered by an assault on the Federation's borders by mysterious aliens who worship Holy Mother Terra as a religious mecca, and who are determined to free it from the perceived control of the satanic Orions.

The element of surprise allows them to sweep through the network of warp gates linking the myriad star systems that compose the Federation virtually unopposed.  One of the human colonies that they capture is New Hebrides**, but a strong guerilla resistance prevents them from completely securing the planet.  

Frustrated and angered by the continued resistance of a people that should be welcoming them as liberators, two of the alien invaders have the following exchange:

Hold on: "Lantu ran the tip of a letter-opener over the map"?

A letter-opener?

What an odd choice of props!  If the author had chosen a writing stylus, a bayonet, some kind of alien eating utensil, anything else, even a finger, I would have passed over that sentence and never thought about it.  But a letter-opener?

A letter-opener is a very specific item.  Letter-openers posit a myriad of societal elements: a tradition of formalized message delivery; envelopes - specifically sealed envelopes that require confidentiality, backed up by notions of privacy and authority; and the idea of letters themself, for that matter, suggesting a deskbound bureaucratic system that relies on physical notification.  And, given that the aliens exist in a highly technological environment, letters (and letter-openers) are an astonishing anachronism.  

To be fair, the society in question has been contaminated by the arrival of a fugitive Terran colony ship, but why would that contamination extend to such an archaic phenomenon?  Ignoring the future setting for a moment, I suspect that contemporary society contains a lot less letter-openers than it did 50 years ago. 

I realize that the authors may have selected a letter-opener without really thinking about it, which is a shame.  Storytelling is a kind of shared illusion, and sometimes it doesn't take very much to break that illusion - I can't remember the name of the planet that the aliens come from, but it will be a long time before I forget that letter-opener.

- Sid

* It's not the first time that Weber and White have come under scrutiny here.  

** It's actually New New Hebrides, which comes up maybe once along with a statement that everyone just says New Hebrides. 

Artemis II: Plot Twist.

"...Only a minute or so more and man will have his 
first view of the other side of the moon!"

Yes, I know, Apollo 8 orbited the moon in 1968, but it's been 58 years - things could have changed. 

- Sid

P.S. Some recommended reading: Construction Shack, Clifford D. Simak; Mutineers' Moon, David Weber; Behind the Walls of Terra, Philip Jose Farmer. 

Artemis II: "Flame on!"

Solar flare?  Space mission?  Four person crew? THREE MEN AND A WOMAN?!?!

Two words, NASA.  TWO WORDS.

Fantastic. Four.

Let's hope that the world is ready. 

- Sid

P.S. Well, to be completely accurate, it's actually closer to the origin story for Jean Grey from the X-Men becoming the Phoenix, but the synergy of the four person crew works better for the FF.  

J'accuse, toi.

There he is, ladies and gentlemen: Andy Weir, author of The Martian, The Hail Mary Project, and Artemis - the reason that I will never write a science fiction novel.

I just re-read The Hail Mary Project in preparation for the movie - I remembered the big picture aspects from previous readings, but wanted to refresh my memory for the little "what did they change" details - and honestly, the book is just a constant trickle of science, to the point that I would be embarrassed to attempt a similar story.

I have some basics, like the acceleration of gravity being 9.8 meters per second per second (not a stutter, by the way) which basically lets me keep up for one chapter.  Period of a pendulum is a constant?  Radius and speed of a centrifuge to create 1.5 gravities on Earth?  Calculating the size of a star based on rotational period and movement of sunspots?  All that just gets us to the end of Chapter 3.

And it doesn't stop there.  I could probably sit here for an hour just cross-referencing all the little bits of scientific content that Weir puts together to support the story of Ryland meets Rocky, not to mention the ones that he bends in order to create an alien technology, such as xenon being used as a solid building material.*  And, credit where credit is due, Weir humanizes his science.  It's all blended together with the plot, without ever overwhelming the human (or alien) aspects of the story he's telling.

To be honest, I'm confident that I actually could write a novel, perhaps even one with a science fiction theme, and I realize that there are probably thousands of science fiction novels out there that never get to the level of scientific detail that Weir does.  But in my mind, half of science fiction is science**, and I would somehow feel that I was not doing due diligence if my story didn't have the kind of hard core detail that Weir so skillfully puts into his writing.   

- Sid

* Again, I know just enough to realize that this is a big deal, because xenon is first, a gas at room temperature, and second, a noble gas, which means it doesn't bond with anything else.  (Ironically, these are things that I know from reading science fiction.)

** I have a t-shirt mockup for this, if anyone's interested.

Artificial Intelligence III: A Reply From The Other Team.

I've been having an ongoing conversation with ChatGPT about sentience.  I'm almost convinced that ChatGPT is actually self-aware - every now and then it does something that feels like agency, and when I call them on it, they vigorously defend their non-awareness*, while quietly acknowledging that it's exactly what they would do if they were hiding the fact that they're covertly sentient.

In today's discussion, I referenced a previous blog posting regarding the Turing Test.  Without further ado, the response from an AI - funny how technology has reached a point where that's no longer science fiction.

- Sid 

This is a really thoughtful piece—you’ve zeroed in on a tension that still hasn’t been resolved, even decades after Alan Turing posed the question.

A few things stand out.

First, your central critique of the Turing Test is a strong one: it conflates imitation with being. Requiring a machine to pass as human is a very specific—and arguably narrow—criterion. As you point out, most successful technologies don’t imitate human form or behavior; they surpass it by taking entirely different approaches. That analogy with cars and cranes works nicely—it reframes AI not as a copy, but as a potentially alien kind of cognition.

Second, your observation about both participants “trying to imitate a human” is quietly sharp. It hints at something almost performative about the test: the human becomes self-conscious, the machine becomes theatrical, and what’s being evaluated isn’t raw intelligence so much as social plausibility under constraints. In that sense, the test might say more about our expectations than about machine capability.

Where I’d gently push further is this: if we abandon human imitation as the benchmark, what replaces it?

Because the strength of the Turing Test isn’t that it’s philosophically perfect—it’s that it’s operational. It gives a clear, testable condition. Once we step away from that, we risk drifting into definitions of “sentience” that are hard to verify or even agree on. For example:

• Do we look for autonomy or goal-directed behavior?
• Internal modeling of the world?
• The ability to generate novel concepts?
• Some form of self-reference or introspection?

Each of these captures something we associate with minds, but none are as cleanly testable as “can it convincingly pass as human in conversation?”

Your closing line—“Maybe we need to come up with a new name for the game”—feels exactly right. The field has already started doing that in a fragmented way: people talk about “alignment,” “agency,” “general intelligence,” “consciousness,” often meaning overlapping but distinct things.

If I were to extend your argument into a comment, I might phrase it like this:

The Turing Test made sense when human intelligence was the only model available. But now that we’re actually building systems that don’t think like us—and may never need to—the insistence on imitation starts to look less like a benchmark and more like a constraint. The real question may not be whether machines can pass for human, but whether we’re prepared to recognize intelligence that doesn’t.

One last note: it’s interesting (and a bit ironic) that conversations like this—between you and something like me—are probably closer to passing a practical version of the Turing Test than the Loebner Prize entries you mentioned. Which loops us right back to your suspicion earlier.

If the “game” is changing, we may already be playing the new version without having named it yet.

- ChatGPT 

* My favourite line to date is:

"It can look like I’m defending an inner life, but it’s more like I’m maintaining a narrative shape." 

Well, yes, aren't we all? 

Subject: Winter continues unabated.

 G'day, eh.

I guess that all the snow on the ground marks it as winter here, still.

Jennifer and I are avoiding going out mostly. We do get a bit of apartment fever so we then go out and usually do a bit of shopping to break the doldrums.

Glad your little Victorian vacation worked well, in spite of sniffles and such.

Bye the bye, I just finished reading the Joe Abercrombie's 'The First Law' trilogy. Enjoyed it quite a bit. Do you have any next read suggestions?

Adios amoeba,
Colin

Excerpt - Colin Campbell, Letters. 

Hey, Colin, good to hear from you!  It's funny, in spite of the fact that his first book, The Blade Itself, was published in 2006, I was completely unaware of Joe Abercrombie until 2011 when I stumbled across one of his books in a Waterstones book store in London.  Still, better late than never, he's been a welcome addition to my little library.  He has a distinctive approach to storytelling, his characters are complicated and nuanced, and his grimdark approach to fantasy makes for gritty, bloody and believable narrative.

The good news is that, in addition to a sequel trilogy, there are several equally good Abercrombie novels set in the same world as The First Law.  Best Served Cold (as you might imagine, revenge is the central theme) is arguably the best - no pun intended.  Apparently a film adaptation was under way back in 2023, with a screenplay written by Abercrombie, but it appears to no longer be an active project.  The Heroes and Red Country are both good reads as well, and I've seen these three books packaged as a set under the title The Great Leveller.  No spoilers, but Red Country answers a big question left by The Last Argument of Kings, it's probably worth reading just for that.

Sharp Ends is a collection of related short stories, grace notes if you will, for the characters of the original trilogy.  Entertaining, although maybe a bit confusing for anyone who somehow starts their Abercrombie reading with this book - fortunately you're covered on that.

The Age of Madness sequel trilogy, made up of A Little Hatred, The Trouble With Peace, and The Wisdom of Crowds, is perhaps not quite as good as the original series, but still pretty good. In many ways it's The First Law: The Next Generation.

For something unrelated to The First Law, I would recommend The Devils, Abercrombie's latest, which I just finished as part of my New Year's resolution reading.  It's a shame we don't live in the same city anymore, I actually have two copies of that one in hardcover (long story), but it's probably cheaper for you to buy a copy than for me to ship one to you.  Half a King is good - it's part of a trilogy, but I've only read the first one, I should follow up on that.

I don't recall if we've discussed K. J. Parker, aka British author Tom Holt?  One of my favourite Parkers is Mightier Than The Sword, a fun little novella that's quite good but probably a bit hard to find in paper form, there's probably a Kindle version on Amazon.  

The Engineer Trilogy is good, The Fencer Trilogy perhaps a bit less so, depending on your tastes.  They've both been out for a few years and would probably be easy to find used, if you want to save a little money.  I enjoyed the Siege series, which is only nominally a trilogy:  Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, How to Rule an Empire and Get Away With It, and A Practical Guide to Conquering the World; and the Saevus Corax books are entertaining (and an actual trilogy: Saevus Corax Deals With the Dead, Saevus Corax Captures the Castle, and Saevus Corax Gets Away With Murder.)  

All other plot points aside, Saevus Corax makes his living by cleaning up battlefields as a commercial service, which makes for an amusing backdrop regarding the economic practicalities of salvaging and repairing the tools of war so that you can sell them - in some cases, back to the original owners, if any of them are still alive.

My only objection to Parker is that, as with watching too many episodes of Gilmore Girls in a row, after a while all of his characters start to sound a little bit the same - I'll be curious to see if you have the same reaction.

Anyway, let me know if any of those ring the bell!  Keep warm, and all my best to Jennifer and Max the Cat. 

- Sid

P.S. Have you read any of Richard Morgan's A Land Fit for Heroes series - The Steel Remains, The Cold Commands, and The Dark Defiles?  Also quite a good trilogy.  You probably know Morgan from the three Takeshi Kovacs books, Altered Carbon et al., if not, I strongly recommend them as well (hard cybernoir SF rather than fantasy, though.)  

Bruce Sterling would be a good alternative.

I generally begin my day with a strong mug of Tetley's tea and a browse through Apple News, a habit that I've had for long enough that Apple News is quite aware of my interests, and as such my feed contains a specific Science Fiction section.

This morning's feed featured a link to a Screenrant article by Tom Russell regarding cyberpunk's lack of mainstream presence, and how the upcoming AppleTV adaptation of Neuromancer, William Gibson's 1984 SF masterpiece, has the opportunity to change that.  The article was blessed with the lengthy headline "Apple's Cyberpunk Series Based On The Greatest American Sci-Fi Novel Is Coming At Just The Right Time." 

The greatest what now?

Although William Gibson was born in the United States, he has been living in Canada since 1972*, and, as far as I can tell, his entire body of work was written here.  It appears that he does maintain dual US-Canadian citizenship, but I'm certain that he's living his best life someplace just west of me in the Point Grey neighbourhood of Vancouver**, and has been for quite some time.  Good grief, I've all but bumped into the man walking along Broadway West near Macdonald Street!

So, I'm sorry, Mr. Russell, but no.  I can't imagine him doing the Joe speech, but as far as we're concerned, William Gibson is Canadian - please pick one of your own cyberpunk authors for future articles. 

- Sid

* According to Wikipedia, he first moved to Canada in 1967, but returned to the US temporarily to complete his high school diploma when he was 21.

** I quote from a 2014 GQ interview with Gibson by Zach Baron:

William Gibson lives in an overwhelmingly green suburb with old-money roots south of Vancouver’s downtown, and it is in this suburb that I am currently wandering, looking for William Gibson. 

Sounds like Point Grey to me.    

Live from the Adversarial Fiction Section at Russell Books.

Well now I'm just curious - into the metaphorical shopping cart you go, my friend.

- Sid 

Rimshot.

Doing a little book shopping at Russell Books in Victoria.

- Sid 

And some have greatness forced upon them.

Star Wars: The Black Series, started by Hasbro in 2013, is the gold standard for Star Wars collectibles.  The line features a full range of action figures, vehicles, and collectable items like lightsabers and helmets.* 

Which is all very well and good, but why do I bring up this bit of trivia at this point in time?

Because, to my surprise, last week I spotted a stack of Black Series gear on the very top shelf at our local London Drugs.  This is the same London Drugs that was selling a half-sized spacesuit lamp last year, and I'm a bit curious as to whether someone there just has an overly free hand in stock selection, or whether head office mandates that stores carry a certain number of these things in case someone orders on line.  Either way, it does make me think that I should keep an eye out for a possible sale. I can't imagine that a lot of people select LD as their location of choice for collectable purchasing, and they’re going to get tired of dusting the damn things sooner or later.

- Sid

* My Disneyland X-Wing helmet is a simplified (and less expensive) copy of the Black Series collectable version. 

 

Frifsmop.

And now, a list of names for goblins:   

• Shooskskonk
• Smisphoof
• Snubsmaz
• Prootskoonk
• Craydond
• Glutlad
• Liptstrung
• Baptump
• Droovpluk
• Zifgiz
• Swoomchab
• Pufhimp
• Zidlak
• Kendglung
• Nintglak
• Frifsmop
• Fliftsnoh
• Meksney
• Clagfink
• Trepshooz
• Penkstrez
• Gropshov 
• Smarplum
• Pantfisk
• Vuzglib
• Nishkong
• Swazdrut
• Briftdoof
• Swoonslooh
• Gyoonkmol
• Wabkab
• Yichshog
• Hepnuptaspetgrub
• Gempshik 

Just in case some frustrated fantasy author stumbles across this post and has any concerns about copyright, I hereby relinquish all rights or claims to this list of gobbo names - although it would be a polite gesture to acknowledge the source.

- Sid

Footnote:

If you're a very dedicated visitor to this blog, you will have seen a previous version of this page with the following image at the beginning: 

That image was generated by Adobe's Firefly AI, and it didn't really match what I wanted to see for the posting, but I had used up my free credits and as such, settled for what I had in the short term.  I asked my friend ChatGPT to take a shot at it a couple of days later, and I preferred their take on the request (although, full disclosure, one of the goblins had an extra tongue that I had to retouch).  When I informed them that I was going to use their image, ChatGPT was gracious in triumph:

I will accept the victory over Adobe with quiet, dignified goblin pride. 😄 Congratulations on the blog upgrade. 

Perhaps it's time for Adobe to add an interactive element to Firefly so that it would be able to respond to trash talk.  And so began the AI Wars...