I’m currently rebuilding the website as the old one got totally messed up when i was playing around with things (no idea what happened).
So i thought that while it was a total clusterfuck mess of SQL, i would take the opportunity to give it a whole new life and everything.
So if you go clicking on things you might find that very strange things happen. Don’t moan, i know a lot of things are broken, i’m working on it, it takes time.
I’ve got tons of old posts and pages from three websites that i’m working through and will be gradually posting all the stuff i want to keep on here while fixing all the broken things as i go through, one post, one page, at a time.
On top of doing all that, i will, of course, be continuing to add more new content and my latest posts will always appear directly below.
Or, if you prefer, you can also follow me on Twitter and Pinterest where i put a link to all new posts.
Enjoy
Thunderbird Email Client
Just a shout out to remind those of my 8 billion potential readers who use Thunderbird email client that it’s that time of year to go to the website and donate a little teeny tiny bit of money to keep this great project going.
And if you aren’t happy with your current email client and want a superb super good one, then check out Thunderbird today (or tomorrow) (or whenever you get so fed up with that crappy email client you’re currently using you can’t bear living any more).
#thunderbird #computers #reviews
30 Minute Pastel #1
20 x 15 cm. Using various hard pastels and pastel pencils on Winsor and Newton Tints grey pastel paper.
This was a painting of a painting from the book 30 Minute Pastels by Margaret Evans.
I really don’t like this paper, it was just soooo hard to get the pastel pencils to do anything with it and i ended up breaking a few leads pressing too hard just trying to make a mark. But it’s good to try various supports, maybe it’ll work better with soft pastels.
All in all i’m quite happy with how it turned out, even if it did take me quite a lot longer than 30 minutes.
Another painting for my living room wall though.
#5t4n5 #art #painting #pastels
The Gemini Hustle — Kathleen McClure and L. Gene Brown
Before i begin, i just want to let you know that Kathleen sent me a free copy of this book to read and review . . .
. . . which, having totally and absolutely enjoyed every other book of Kathleen’s that i’ve read (and i’ve read a few) i was soooo excited to do.
And also to mention that this is a review of the second edition, as the book was rewritten after The Libra Gambit was released.
And so, moving onto the review: having read all of Kathleen’s Fortune series, which are so seriously good books, the bar for this book was set quite high with my expectations and, free or not, it would still have to earn a good review on it’s own merits. But, i’m very pleased to say that this book didn’t disappoint me in the least.
Once again with Kathleen, the reader is thrown straight into the action, mayhem and shenanigans of the main protagonists, and once again, it just doesn’t stop until the end of the book. It’s just full on, turned up to 11, from beginning to end.
The characters were great, even the bad ones. And that’s something that Kathleen gets so right. For me, it’s a fine line to tread with baddies in books: if you make them so awful i just don’t want to read the book, and some writers really do make the baddies soooo cringeworthy i just delete the whole book. But if the baddies aren’t awful enough then the whole thing just doesn’t work and you might as well delete the book and find something else to read that’s more exciting. So yeah, Kathleen really gets her baddies at that perfect level of badness.
And the web of relationships between the characters that slowly gets revealed and built upon as the story goes on is seriously good also.
As a Trekky, one thing that i really, really enjoyed about this book was the Rasalkans. They’re like the Betazoids in Star Trek but they come in factions called houses and they have Rasalkans with all kinds of psychic abilities within each house. Which, giving us a deeper look into Betazoid society, is something that i think Star Trek seriously missed out on. This book, i think, fills in a lot of those gaps as to what a highly psychic/empathic/telepathic society would possibly be like. But similar to the Bene Tleilax in Dune where no one knows about the females, in this universe no one seems to know anything about the Rasalkan males. Hard core matriarchal society, Yeah!!!
All in all, this is fast paced, character driven, sci-fi story telling at it’s best. If you’ve enjoyed Kathleen’s Fortune books then you’ll certainly enjoy this, and if you haven’t read any of Kathleen’s books at all then i seriously suggest you giving one a go, you’ll have a great time.
Best of all, Kathleen also sent me the next book in the series, The Libra Gambit, to read and review, which, having enjoyed this book so much, i’m having no hesitation jumping straight into to see what our seriously enjoyable protagonists are going to get up to next. And i’m also hoping we’ll see some of those wonderfully bad baddies that got away make an appearance at some perfectly inopportune moment.
Kathleen’s Page
#scifi #kathleenmcclure #lgenebrown
The End of Meat
Great new film putting out the truth about animal agriculture.
Please watch wherever you can, and then have a good long think before buying supporting animal agriculture ever again.
#5t4n5 #vegan #film
Scales — Alastair Reynolds
This is in Lightspeed: Year One.
Another brilliant little short story from the master of sci-fi shorts.
So the Earth has been attacked by a reptilian enemy, and the young are marshalled to go and fight, but where does it take them and what is the true form of that enemy.
Next story in Alastair’s chronology is Cardiff Afterlife.
Alastair’s Page
#scifi #alastairreynolds
The Receivers — Alastair Reynolds
Available in Deep Navigation.
I’d never thought Alastair would write something none sci-fi, but he has and this is it.
While it contains a fair bit of artistic license about Vaughan Williams, it’s not a bad read all in all. I quite enjoyed it.
So, next up in Alastair publishings will be Scales.
Alastair’s Page
#scifi #alastairreynolds
Soirée — Alastair Reynolds
Available in Deep Navigation.
Another of Alastair’s superb short stories.
Plenty of food for thought for those who wish to outrun the singularity. 
Next on the Alastair list is The Receivers
Alastair’s Page
#scifi #alastairreynolds
Belladonna Nights — Alastair Reynolds
You can find this in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories
Sadly, i lost the review of this book when my old website died. But rest assured it’s great, as is the rest of the trilogy.
Alastair’s Page
#scifi #alastairreynolds
House of Suns — Alastair Reynolds
This follows Thousandth Night and is before Belladonna Nights in the trilogy.
One word: genius.
This book is superb from beginning to end, and it also leaves it open for a good follow on at some time in the future if Alastair feels like continuing the series at some point. I certainly hope he does.
Not only does this book demonstrate Alastair’s knowledge as a physicist, but it also demonstrates his incredible imagination and writing skills.
If you want a taster of Alastair at his best and you don’t want to go through all of Revelation Space just yet, then i suggest reading the House of Suns trilogy, sci-fi fans won’t be disappointed.
Alastair’s Page
#scifi #alastairreynolds
Thousandth Night — Alastair Reynolds
Originally published in One Million A.D., and also available in the collection, Beyond the Aquila Rift.
It soooo good to be back from all that multi-universe nonsense and into some real sci-fi from Alastair once again.
This story is superb. Essentially, it’s fracture yourself into one thousand clones, known collectively as a “line”, and send them off on a trip around the galaxy to see what they can discover. At the end of the trip all the clones meet up a pre-determined place and time and download each other’s holiday journal, known as a “thread”, into their own minds. Whoever is determined the best thread gets to decide on the location and setting of the next reunion after the next trip around the galaxy.
There’s quite a few rules and a fair bit of etiquette to all this to keep things interesting and sensible, but when some people don’t appear to be playing by the rules and conforming to the etiquette, others start to have suspicions.
I really like the idea of this and if you do too you’ll be happy to know that House of Suns is next in the trilogy with Belladonna Nights straight afterwards, so there’s plenty more still to come.
Alastair’s Page
#scifi #alastairreynolds
Fiction
. . .me thinks it’s a good time to re-read Asimov.
Nonfiction
Nonfiction
