I was just buying some new (used) books on Thriftbooks, and they informed me I'm at the highest rewards tier because i spend at least $150 a year with them. I had no idea i spent so much
Ya know? I'm okay with this. At an average of $5-$7 a book, that's about 25 books a year.
10/10 highly recommend Thriftbooks for all your used-book needs. Most of what they sell are retired library books. Plus i get a free $7 book every $50 spent. #reading#libraries#books
Sadly, i didn't get to actually read all those books. I got my parents about $80 of assorted books for their combined birthdays. At $5 a book, it's pretty easy to throw a bunch of things that might be interesting.
Here's most of what I got for myself
I discovered #Solarpunk here on Mastodon. What I love about this #podcast is that the hosts ask interesting questions and explore the practical implications of this unique genre. They go beyond art and aesthetics and also engages with #culture, #philosophy, and #ethics.
This is the first time I've supported a podcast. I wanted to do because I think that "Solarpunk Presents" is adding a unique voice to a debate that I really love and want to see grow.
And even if you decide not to support them, please check out the podcast. It is still early days but I really think that it is going to go places!
@yerald@bookstodon #pulp#SciFi#sciencefiction
I love them. I have a large #Calibre library full of old ScIFi, Fantasy and Pulp Mystery, and I collect the covers as well as the books. Often have several alt covers on a pulp book or magazine story. Here is a favourite.
Don’t know why I slept on #CJCherryh for so long, but glad I finally read #Foreigner. Primarily about a whiny translator having tea w/ people he doesn’t really want to have tea with, who don’t like him, alien horses, & the travails of delayed postal service. Somehow also a gripping political intrigue #ScienceFiction, w/ tortuous intercultural relations, rich #WorldBuilding & gothic vibes.
• #Ingenuity demo cost $0.085B including 1 month operation
• #MRO (the mission that carries the #HiRISE camera producing the images we use in maps), cost $0.716B + $0.031B/y
• A Martian GPS, consisting of 24 MRO class satellites separately launched from the Earth, at $1B/pc + $0.1B/y operation, cost $26B/20y
• A fleet of 10 #MSH s, each capable of carrying max 5kg of payload to 5km/10min/flight, cost ~$10B, including a 2.75B Mars Science Helicopter Support Rover (#MSHSR) and 10y operation.
I listened to your fascinating interview (1) with #ThomasZimmer. (1)
Also, I had a brief look at your #Wikipedia entry.
When I read in the shownotes that this was about your book, which I haven't read, "What Tech Calls Thinking" is a lively dismantling of the ideas that form the intellectual..
(1)
Is This Democracy:
25. The Ideology of #SiliconValley vs the Idea of Democracy – with #AdrianDaub
As I did not read #RobertAHeinlein's #SciFi novels in one go and did not have the knowledge I have now, I might not have realized this.
I had given other authors, more well-known in the general public, like #Orwell and #Bradbury more weight:
Been meaning to start a reading thread, to log & celebrate the books I read. I can't forget to maintain it until I start, so...
Listened to Redemption's Blade by @aptshadow - another interesting rework of classic fantasy tropes from the mind that brought you the underappreciated Spiderlight. This story comes alive thanks to its interesting ensemble, my favourite being the shifty artefact hunters Cat & Fisher. Read if you want classic fantasy adventure with a thoughtful twist.
Shoreline of Infinity 35, ed. Noel Chidwick - Great collection of Scottish short sff. Lots of unexpected delights, my favourites being a story about a cyborg seagull & a couple written in Scots dialect. I stopped in the street & read bits out loud to myself in a perfectly normal way, just to see how those stories felt in my mouth. Read if you want surprising & varied sff or a seagull terminator.
I can happily report that Intervention by Julian May continues to live up to my expectations and memories about how good it is. It’s a remarkable book bang in the middle of my favourite story arc. We’re talking millions of years of time and intergalactic going’s on.
Julian May should be more well known. She’s was a fabulous writer. With many male pseudonyms. A reflection of the time she was active.
🆕 blog! “Book Review: Engraved on the Eye - Saladin Ahmed”
★★★★☆
This is a modern Arabian Nights. Eight Middle Eastern tales of adventure and magic, infused with a startling modernity. I loved the world-building in this. The creeping horror in some of the tales was offset by the delicious exploration of what it means to inhabit a world with Djinn. Interestingly, it seeme…
A political space opera overlaid on an #lgbtq romance.
The political side of this book was excellent: great world building, and an excellent conspiracy to unravel.
The romance would have been fine, except both characters were hopelessly emo, and it got tiring to read about their self-doubt/loathing for 400ish pages in a row. They seriously could have got down to banging sooner and it'd been better for everyone.
OK, I hate doing self-promo, but I've got a super-fun #scifi#horror short in an #anthology of Poe-inspired stories and we're SO CLOSE to being funded!
For $20, you get a paperback & ebook of NEVERMORE + the retail ebook of my novel PERISHABLES.
But for $40, you get a paperback & ebook of NEVERMORE + the brand new annotated edition of PERISHABLES with ~6,000 words of footnotes, background info, & other stuff!
"LIBERTY'S DAUGHTER, the book version of my F&SF stories about the teenage girl living on a near-future seastead" -- I LOVE THESE STORIES, first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and it will be EXCELLENT to have them in one book, plus a previously unpublished story!!