Fun with HTTP headers.

Web Novel Review: Ashes to Crown | Chu Zhao by Xi XingI recently attempted to watch the Chinese drama Ashes to Crown which is based on the web novel Chu Zhao by Xi Xing. I quickly abandoned it though. While the story's premise is interesting I found the drama’s execution to be lacking. I went searching for the novel to see how they'd compare. The beginning of Ashes to Crown reminds me of the web novel; The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage by Qian Shan Cha Ke. As both stories…

Several weeks ago there was quite a debate bouncing around about what writing is or might or might not become in this era of Artificial Intelligence. Quite a lot was written about the subject. I watched and read most of it beginning with John Gruber’s piece on Daring Fireball about Anthropic’s use of watermarks for AI-generated writing. Gruber called it a “perversion of writing.” Many others weighed in with words, words, words. And more words. I particularly liked Dan Moren’s piece in response,…

The title of this post comes from the last line of Joseph Fasano's poem "For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper", but to me, it encompasses so much more than that. For people have always yearned for an easier way—to fudge the numbers, or to outright cheat. At times, there's a valid strategy here. Many things in life are not worth putting 100% of your effort into, and knowing when to go all gas no brakes is sacred wisdom. There are people who work hard their entire lives and have nothing to…

Some time ago I visited a used book fair and came across this awesome piece of 80s scifi-asthetic.This book is a collection of short stories by the Polish author Stanisław Lem originally published in 1964. Its English title is The Cyberiad. One story, about Trurl's electronic troubadour, turned out to be surprisingly topical.Spoilers for the whole story followThe inventor Trurl (revealed in other stories to be a robot) wants to create a machine that can generate poetry. He begins by obtaining…

I am an artist. That sounds a little pretentious writing it out like that, but I’m working on being a little less self-conscious about it. Creating art is sort of the main “thing” I do before anything else. I certainly have a lot of other things I enjoy doing, but if I had to pick just one I’d be making art. So I guess, based on that line of reasoning, I’m an artist.Anyway. I was sitting around the other day trying to come up with something to write about for my blog and the thought struck me…

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where it ends up. This month Kate suggested we start with our book group’s current selection, which for me is Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts (2004). My friend Carrie chose this with the recent 250th celebration in mind, and she made our meeting very festive with Chicken Pot Pie as the entrée and red, white, and…

Book review for The Restaurant of Many Orders by Kenji Miyazawa. Following on from my previous review of The Ainu Wolf Carving, another picture book I got to borrow from a hotel in Hokkaido was The Restaurant of Many Orders by Kenji Miyazawa. I grew up in Australia so I had absolutely no idea who Kenji Miyazawa was. Apparently though he is a very famous Japanese author - schoolkids learn about him in primary school, so my husband had heard of his name. As the story comes in a picture book…

. The start of a review of Karel Capek’s RUR in London Opinion The word robots first came into the English language from Karel Capek’s play RUR. The London premiere was at St Martin’s Theatre in April 1923. The play had first been seen in Prague two years before and RUR was an abbreviation of Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti – Rossum’s Universal Robots. London Opinion, a popular penny weekly, reviewed the play in its issue of June 2nd. The magazine’s ‘Playful Stallite’ questions its originality:…

This isn’t a real post…just a collection of stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Purrsy Bysshe Shelley was not pleased with the lack of attention. Clearly. 2. YOU ARE HERE was out of print for a tiny bit because there was a bit of a run on it because people were giving it as aContinue reading "Housekeeping!"

Out of all the concepts that have appeared in science fiction, one of the most ‘science fiction-y’ of them all is the idea of teleportation — near instantaneous movement from one location to another, such as the transporters in Star Trek. I call this one of the most ‘science fiction-y’ because it seems like one of the most impossible technologies, going against our common sense of how the world and science works! However, it turns out that in the realm of quantum physics, it is possible to…

I’ve been looking for ways to write more and better. Since my last “proper” piece, blogging has been one false start after another where I would embark on an idea but fail to develop it beyond much more than a handful of catchy phrases wrapped up in fillers. I did, however, stumble upon the practice of free writing where you suspend all inhibitions (editorial or otherwise) and simply write whatever comes to mind for a set period of time. Along the way I found Dangerous Writing App and Nothing…

StarringJenn Colella, Joel Hatch, Tony LePage, Caesar Samayoa, and Astrid Van WierenDirectorChristopher AshleyOverviewWhen the world stood still, they came together.Filmed live on Broadway, the Tony Award-winning musical tells the remarkable true story of 38 flights grounded in a small Canadian town on September 11, 2001. As the locals host these “come from aways,” they come together and find hope.Review Come from Away We are here in this moment — together. The first time I saw this show I had…

Tonight (well, since I’m posting this after midnight, technically last night) I was given the Hugo Award for Best Series, for “Old Man’s War.” It’s late and I’m simultaneously wired and about to collapse, so I will say more about it later. But suffice to say I am thrilled, and equally thrilled to have shared the category with Elizabeth Bear, Max Gladstone, Seanan McGuire, Katherine Addison and Heather Wallace, the other finalists. Any one of us could have won and I would have been delighted. I…

** Hooded figure on the beach by Engin Akyurt via Pexels ** Introduction Last week was one of the sadder weeks on the celebrity front with the passing of both Dolly Parton and Tim Curry within a day of each other. Both of them were people that were highly respected for numerous reasons. They were worthy of the tributes many posted. And they truly deserved to be memorialized. So why didn’t I post anything about them? The answer is both simple and very complicated. My Relationship with Death As I…

Jake Casella Brookins Hello, readers! I am still adjusting my internal body clock (and thermostat) back to Buffalo standard, after a wonderful time at Worldcon. I’ve had a great con season, it was wonderful to see some other ARB editors and friends, and also: I am looking forward to not traveling any more for a little bit. We’ve got some wonderful reviews and articles in the queue to publish at ARB this September, and we’re already thinking about our year-end coverage. In the meantime, please…

Hyde recently invited me to take part in his Over/Under series over on Lazybear. I’ve been following the series on and off for quite a while, so of course I was happy to join in. Being invited to things like this still feels new and weird to me. Hope I didn’t fuck this up. 😄 The idea is simple: Hyde gives you five topics and you decide whether they’re overrated or underrated. Plus, there are a few questions at the end. You can read my answers in Over/Under #81 over at Lazybear.

Agent 24 is an espionage thriller; Spirit goes over to occupied France on an impromptu rescue mission—one with many surprises in store. The strip itself sets a few precedents, including the first direct use of Germans as Spirit fisticuffs villains. A couple strips ago, Eisner and studio did a fable about Hitler finding his humanity and, while the Germans were villains there, Spirit didn’t interact with them the same way. It’s no longer vague European baddies; it’s Nazis with German phonetic…

Hello and happy last day of August! I've got a quick question to ask my readers...

a revisit of my very first video poem I learned how to make during covid lockdowns when SEX & VIOLENCE was released in the summer of 2020...

To continue with this fantastic space art book from 1965. Above is the 1963 Hungarian cover. I have not been able to find the book yet. There is so much here I run out of comments.This is a translation into Russian of a 1963 Czech book. The 1963 book's title was: Šest dnů na Luně 1 (1963) I quote from here:http://blog.edenfuture.com/2011/01/six-days-on-luna-1.html "Maybe the most beautiful book from Teodor Rotrekl´s peak period is Šest dnů na Luně 1 (Six Days on Luna 1, 1963) written by a…

What things have been in my earholes and eyeballs since the last time I did one of these? Lots of movies, but some I must have really liked seeing as I gave them all the stars. Flash Gordon. This is so utterly utterly bonkers. Hammy dialogue, cheap costumes, Queen soundtrack, Brian Blessed yelling DIIIIVVVEEE. Quite possibly one of the greatest things I've ever seen. Once Upon a Time In…Hollywood. This movie was a masterpiece. Always rated a flamethrower. True Romance. What a cast! Seriously if…

Over the years, I've come across Steve Garcia's silhouette art of the superheroes many times. Each hero's silhouette is in a certain color, and another smaller image is in white. These were all fun to look at, but what caught my attention was the theme that the artist gave each character. For Superman, it says "Hope," Batman got "Justice," and Wonder Woman was titled "Truth." Those made sense. Hawkgirl was titled "Spirit." I thought that was a pretty good one-word description of her. The…

The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapperby A.J. FitzwaterGenres: Fantasy, Short Stories Pages: 145 Rating: Synopsis: Cinrak the Dapper is a keeper of secrets, a righter of wrongs, the saltiest capybara on the sea and a rider of both falling stars and a great glass whale. Join her, her beloveds, the rat Queen Orvilia and the marmot diva Loquolchi, lead soprano of the Theatre Rat-oyal, her loyal cabin kit, Benj the chinchilla, and Agnes, last of the great krakens, as they hunt for treasures of all kinds…

Book review for Middlemarch by George Eliot. I rated it 4.5 stars Middlemarch by George Eliot is a rather hefty English classic, clocking in at over 800 pages. Written in 1871, it's even regarded as the best novel (published in English) of all time by The Guardian. I'll admit the size of the book put me off reading it for quite a while, but lately I found myself looking for a longer book to sink my teeth into and this seemed like the perfect candidate. In short, if you are a fan of Jane Austen,…

Click here to book for The Gentle Author’s Tours Despite the drought, it has been a good year for apples and there are some lovely ripe Bramleys on sale now. Thus the time for apple pie has arrived again so I take this opportunity to present The Tragical Death of an Apple Pie, an alphabet rhyme first published in 1671, in a version produced by Jemmy Catnach in the eighteen-twenties. Poet, compositor and publisher, Catnach moved to London from Newcastle in 1812 and set up Seven Dials Press in…

I got stuck in Boston due to weather, so AI to recommend a spy novel. It came up with Red Sparrow, which was the 2013 basis for the movie starring Jennifer Lawrence.I tore through the book in about 24 hours. It was spectacular, and I’m currently nursing a “literary hangover” from it.Here is my full review.

Fiction and the future. Read here.

I saw Disclosure Day a few weeks (months?) ago with friends. As we were leaving I noticed one of my friends looked sad (the movie wasn't that bad), so I went over to see what was wrong. She was talking to another friend about something she read online about the movie being offensive to Christians. As soon as I heard that I, naturally, started laughing. (What are Christians not offended by?) She explained how, in the film, the way the aliens controlled people was akin to demon possession. She…

A Trade of Blood is the third book in Robert Jackson Bennett's Ana and Din series, and I think it's my favourite one yet, which is saying something because I loved both The Tainted Cup and A Drop of Corruption. I'm going to try and review this without spoilers, which is going to be difficult, because there's so much this book does well that I want to talk about in detail. It only came out yesterday, though, and it doesn't seem fair to ruin it for anyone who hasn't read it yet. If you have read…