Rest easy, Bob Weir 💛

A copy of the issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction that I got from Barnes & Noble. I am holding it as I sit in my car.

The Apology Tour By Nnedi Okorafor HER LEFT EYE TWITCHED AND SHE wanted to slap the side of her face. But how would that look in front of all these people? She bristled at the thought and focused on the open book sitting on the podium before her. Her book. Her memoir. She'd lost her place. Shit, she thought. Ever since updating her glasses with progressive lenses, she'd been having this problem. They were supposed to have the opposite effect. She didn't think she'd ever get used to wearing glasses. Why would she? At sixty-four, she'd never worn glasses or contacts in her entire life, until the last year. She glanced up at her audience and softly laughed. She heard them all sigh, several people grinning back at her. Adoration. Interest. Despite it all. A big profile piece on 60 Minutes called her "The Stoic Unicorn." She had this. She'd had it for the past year, since her book was released directly into fanfare and instant bestseller status. And none of it had been surprising, considering who she was and what she'd written about. She was one of the most infamous people on the planet. Standing up here before two hundred people and reading from her book should have been the easy part. Her left eye twitched again and she grasped the sides of the podium. Then both of her eyes found her place and she continued reading. "Could I forgive myself, though? I created it. Then I perfected it. I was a top-tier engineer at Intelligent Robotics. I was a rarity in too many ways to list. I knew it. I was proud of it. I was on salary. I was doing...

my job. What I'd been hired to do. But this project was my baby. It was my idea; it came out of my head. I am driven, ambitious, smart. Potential is worthless until realized into being. I am a doer. So I stayed up nights, researching, compiling, researching, digesting, thinking, theorizing, researching, testing and testing. I ignored my husband, my children, my grandchildren. I dropped out of their lives for those months. Ifocused razor.. blade sharp. Because I knew." She paused Why do I always read this part? But she knew that, too. It was what everyone wanted to hear. They would read her whole book. Yes. They wanted to know her full story. Yes. They were interested in her life, how she got here, to this place in time. Yes. They would do that on their own. Yes. However, right now, in this moment, on this book tour, they wanted to hear that hitch in her throat. See that frown on her brow. That pain. That guilt. Her left eye twitched, again. They couldn't see the twitching that had been plaguing her since the start of her book tour three months ago. If they could, they would enjoy, feel unburdened and refreshed by that, too. "I knew I could... wake it up. The singularity was right in my hands. I just needed to complete the alchemy in the coding. That's how I saw it. As alchemy. As I did it, I knew what I was doing. Tunnel vision did not limit my awareness of what it meant to create awareness. I knew. And..." She sighed and looked at her audience. They were waiting for it. It's therapy, she thought, not for the first time. Then she spoke the words, letting them tumble from her lips like heavy stones, "I'm sorry." She shut the book loudly, imagining a cloud of dust puffing up from its pages as if it were some ancient tome and she were the ghost of a sacrificed creature cursed long ago to read it forever. Stuck in the role of massaging the kinks out of the world's tense back. For creating something she couldn't have resisted creating the moment the path became clear to …

This is my 1st time in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (I just never thought to submit there, heh).

My story is called “The Apology Tour” & it’s set in the world of DEATH OF THE AUTHOR. It's about the consequences of AI. Plus, you meet Ijele for the 1st time, imagine that, 😉.

Over the holidays I wrote and published a new blog post about the books that I've read during 2025 on my freshly restarted, sporadically updated, very meager, old-fashioned, hand-crafted artisan blog:

2025 Reading Recap: www.jeffpickell.com/blog/20251230

#books #scifi #fantasy #fiction

Home - The MR340

The "Worlds Longest Non-Stop River Race" is going on now through Missouri. The race goes 24-hours a day, with racers stopping at boat ramps along the way to resupply or rest, often with “Ground Crews” of family or friends that follow along the race: mr340.org

Apple’s acclaimed sci-fi series “Murderbot” lands season two renewal Apple TV+ announced a season two renewal for its widely acclaimed comedic thriller “Murderbot,” starring Emmy Award winner Alexander Skarsgård.

Murderbot Season 2! www.apple.com/tv-pr/news/2... #marthawells #appletv #murderbot

No one is coming to save us. We’ve got to be there for each other.

Good morning literary community! ☕️ If you could have any author (living or dead) join you for coffee today, who would it be? Let’s hear your picks!

Nothing beats real-world DR contingency plan testing! Between the power outage and now this, you're gaining a lot of real-world experience this week! (and I feel your pain! Been there, done that)

Pratchett... or Tolkein... or Pratchett AND Tolkein!

Ah! He is on bsky! (of course) @pdjeliclark.bsky.social ! Please, can we have a "Master of Djinn" series? 🧞

This is the way.

I read this one a while back and thoroughly enjoyed it! The atmosphere, plot, etc... Now, if we could just get P. Djeli Clark to turn this into a series... 🧞

Pratchett should be taught in schools. Or out of schools. Or everywhere, really. Highly recommended! #booksky #discworld

I can't decide if people who wear pajamas in public have given up on life or are living it to the fullest...

Good Morning, Skeethearts ☕️

A private collection of 10,000 Chicago show tapes finds a public home - Chicago Reader The Internet Archive begins posting the Aadam Jacobs Collection. Plus: Four locals heat up the dead of winter with new music.

I called up Chicago show taper Aadam Jacobs about @archive.org preserving his immense collection of live recordings with the @ajc-project.bsky.social

chicagoreader.com/music/gossip...

Hey Saint Louis, don't forget to use #stlwx for your weather-related posts. You can follow the feed here bsky.app/profile/did:...

Did you know you can have a library card for more than one library system? Very handy when using the #LibbyApp #booksky @libbyapp.bsky.social

Wassily #Kandinsky
Delicate Tension. No. 85
1923
#art #paintings #WassilyKandinsky

Sir Terry Pratchett's Night Watch to become Penguin Classic | Terry Pratchett Sir Terry Pratchett's iconic Discworld novel Night Watch, featuring Commander Sam Vimes, to be published as a Penguin Classic.

We are thrilled to announce that Sir Terry Pratchett’s NIGHT WATCH is set to become a Penguin Classic, publishing in April 2025.

terrypratchett.com/news/terry-p...

This Is Bauhaus Playlist · Spotify · 39 items · 29.4K saves

It's a #Bauhaus kind of day. open.spotify.com/playlist/37i...

System Collapse by Martha Wells

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Started out 2024 by reading "System Collapse" by Martha Wells (Murderbot Diaries!) and ended the year with "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" by Gabrielle Zevin.

The timeline feature of @libbyapp.bsky.social (to get e-books from you library) is great. I read more in 2023 than in 2024. But the numbers are a bit deceiving: 23 books in 2023 and 14 in 2024. The numbers are a bit high since they also include all the books I checked out but never finished. 😱

Vinyl is crushing CDs as music industry eclipses cinema, report says These revelations come courtesy of a new report on Pivotal Economics authored by Will Page, Spotify's former chief economist who has been tracking the value of the...

#Vinyl is crushing #CDs as music industry eclipses cinema, report says. The #analog sound storage is making an epic comeback #records #retro
www.techspot.com/news/105774-...

Now that is a bop! Awesome! 🎷

Great song… the whole album actually.

How fortuitous! 😄

Close up of potential "Ringless Honey Mushrooms" cluster

Going through some older photos and found this gem! Ringless Honey Mushroom, maybe...
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#mushroommonday
#fungi
#fungiphotography
#fantasticfungi
#mushroom
#mushroomphotography
#mycology
#mushroomsociety
#mycologists
#missouri_photos
#missouri
#shotoniphone
#naturephotography

a man wearing a hat that says ' bears ' on the front ALT: a man wearing a hat that says ' bears ' on the front

Netflix engineers rn

Current streaming quality of #Netflix right now. #PaulTyson