Remember lying on the floor reading? I read science fiction and went to other worlds in my mind.
My first was The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet written by Eleanor Cameron in 1954.
It's set in Pacific Grove California & on Basidium, a tiny habitable moon of Earth, invisible from the planet in its orbit 50,000 miles away.
I need to get back to those worlds.
Photo from inside Green Apple Books in #SanFrancisco #SciFi #Books
@charliejane @annaleen @cstross @scalzi @pluralistic
finished reading The Cruel Stars 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
by John Birmingham.
Action space opera that doesn't take itself too seriously. Humanity has become a diverse species dangerously dependent on digital & genomic enhancement - a zealous puritan strain plans to change that. A few too many characters to begin with - none of them I connected with, and many of whom die - but they come together nicely.
#BookReview #Books #Bookstodon #SciFi
@WildWoila @wildwoila@wyrms.de
“[Milne’s] cryogenics story, ‘Ten Thousand Years in Ice’, in which a survivor from an ancient advanced civilisation is revived in the present, unintentionally became one of science fiction’s great literary hoaxes”
Robert Duncan Milne (1844–1899) was born #OTD, 7 June, in Cupar, Fife. He emigrated to the USA & became America’s first full-time writer of #sciencefiction
I couldn't resist doing some analysis of ABC Radio National's Top 100 Books of the 21st Century.
How much more likely were people to vote for books because they had read them in recent memory (recency bias)? You would expect that good books are spread out evenly across the years, but it's hard to remember books that you read many years ago! Turns out there was an even spread of books across 2000-2019. But there were 40% more books than expected from 2020-2024. (See first graph.)
Were newer books more likely to be lower down the list? I thought this might be lkely because votes for recently read books might spread out more. But that wasn't completely true. The bottom 40 of the list did lean new, but so did the top 20. (See second graph.)
How diverse were the authors on the list? Not very! Only 22 of the books were by authors with diverse backgrounds, by which I mean non-white or not hetero-normative. The top 20 were the least diverse, but it was pretty even across the range. Probably not surprising - people might connect most strongly with books that speak to their own experience. Would be fascinating to see more demographic info on the voters.
Most books were by authors from Australia (35), the USA (31), the UK (17) and Ireland (7). Ireland seemed to punch above its weight. New Zealand only had one author! (Heather Morris, The Tattooist of Auschwitz).
There were very few non-fiction books, especially if you exclude memoirs and true crime. I count 4: Dark Emu, Stasiland, Sapiens and A Short History of Nearly Everything. And yet non-fiction accounts for something like 40% of book sales. I wonder if that is because a non-fiction book tends to focus on a particular subject, which would have less widespread appeal. It could also be that the type of people who vote in this sort of poll are book nerds, and book nerds mostly read fiction.
As a keen #fantasy & #scifi reader, I was disappointed. Project Hail Mary is the only full-blown scifi, but I wouldn't say it is a good representation of the genre. There is Hunger Games and Harry Potter, but both are young adult. The others (Cloud Atlas, Station Eleven, Piranesi, Never Let Me Go) feel borderline (I've not read the last two).
How did the list compare with my own ratings? I've read 57 of the 100 books, and I did rate higher books better, but the relationship was very weak. (See third graph.)
Highest ranked book that I didn't really like: #12. Where The Crawdads Sing. (Runner up The Dry.)
Lowest ranked book that I really liked: #86. Cloud Atlas
Highest ranked book I'd never heard of: #9. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
I've got 43 books to catch up on in the next few years, plus the favourites as voted by my friends. Never short a good book!
FREE SHORT STORY! Saving Alan Idle, a story about a sentient computer program that previously appeared in Escape Pod. https://youtu.be/A7mEXacgd08?si=qwUY33Y2veBcgaTW
#bookstodon #scifi #shortstory @books @Books@mstdn.social @bookstodon
读过 The Left Hand of Darkness 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
真是一款适合混邪同人女的abo
Salut ! Nouvelle #introduction
Je suis Adrian, nouveau au #Quebec.
J’ai exactement 24 à 28 ans, et je suis 
( @qaqelol ❤️)
Je suis #dev, côté backend, infra et devops. Je parle sans arrêt d’Elixir mais je fais d’autres trucs parfois promis :D
Autrement, je parle de
- #gaming
- #musique
- #lecture ( #scifi et #fantasy)
- télé (on regarde #StarTrek DeepSpace 9 en ce moment)
- #jdr en tant que forever GM (mais j’aime ça)
Je toot + en français mais je boost beaucoup d’anglais :P
Chapter 22 of Stone Prophet is available to read on #RoyalRoad: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/108234/jigsaw-city
Nicole and Krikor fight, bare-handed. Nicole has the advantages of speed and acrobatic training, while the ogre has raw strength.
As she predicted, the fight is relatively easy for Nicole, but the consequences are not and never will be...
@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #actionadventure #fiction #fairies #webseries
*The Biggest Little Bill* - part tech satire, part civic noir - begins today!
Bill Hoppern is a Reno-area planner who just wanted to see his community grow. Everything was going fine until he finds himself up against a data-center boom, a wall of doublespeak, and his own middle age.
One for those bringing a conscience and a clipboard to the fight.
Read Part 1: "The Brushoff" now, with new scenes added every day this week. https://matthewreinbold.com/2025/10/27/BiggestLittleBill-01
https://communitymedia.video/w/h1jdbHm8xTj5VEDuCWAbBW
#lispyGopherClimate #technology #podcast #weekly
featuring @kentpitman @ramin_hal9001 @jns
Longterm #reliability , the #climateCrisis , technology and knowledge
Kent has found the source to his Cross referenced editing facility from Open University #lisp #lispm example.
#scifi #books with this theme? Ending of Cats Cradle?
On the #art side check, @prahou 's #unix_surrealism, https://photronic.art
Happy #lambdaMOO year! 35 years! https://lambda.moo.mud.org as always.
Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/TrollSong
Having an abusive assassin for a sister was bad enough, but when Lyra’s older sister, Nicole, becomes obsessed with killing the teenage troll, her life becomes a special kind of nightmare. Will she escape, or become just another victim of the unstoppable woman?
@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books
Chapter 41 of The Next Horizon is available to read on #RoyalRoad: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/102509/the-book-of-newts
On their way south, the Blackwells stop in Macclesfield and Mrs. Maccle cries with joy. The Maccles go with them.
Amelia follows the path she once took to reach Dugaria, noting how the outlying villages have been destroyed, with holes left in buildings by her spring-gonnes...
@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #actionadventure #fiction #webseries
Ebook 25% off on Itch.io: https://owentyme.itch.io/legacy-of-newts
Also in other stores: https://books2read.com/LegacyOfNewts
The undead witch that rules the space pirates, known as the Dead Queen, has finally been defeated. That only makes it worse for the witches that pulled it off. She's livid and coming for them, at least once she gets her star ship back under control…
@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books #itchio #sale
I'm a fan of 4A games and the Metro franchise, but I've never read the books. Finally, now I have one, I've wanted to read it for a long time, because I really love the Ukrainian game Metro. But first I'll read The Murderbot Diaries books, and then Metro.
@bookstodon I just discovered The Library Ladder https://m.youtube.com/c/thelibraryladder
A youtuber (also with a substack) talking about, mostly but not exclusively, SFF authors and books. Knowledgeable and calm, pretty nice to listen to. A little different from many other YouTubers.
Do you have any suggestions for interesting people talking or writing about Science fiction or Fantasy?
#bookstodon #SciFi #Fantasy
My short ebook Tea for Two is available for sale as of now! For over two centuries, Anna Kerroway has refused to upload her consciousness to the Matrioshka Brain. But with the Earth scheduled for demolition, it seems that now she has to... or does she?
Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/TymeDarkMoon
On a world long thought to have no moon, its sudden appearance inspires wonder and terror. Hasty research links the full moon and catastrophe, revealing the existence of the so-called 'Harbingers of Doom', creatures from the moon that harvest souls. Can everyone survive or will they become part of the dark harvest?
@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books
Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/TheInvertedGlass
After encountering the worst life has to offer, including the death of his wife and child, destruction of his home world, an addiction forced on him by the one responsible and a third of the galaxy falling under the heel of that tyrant, Levi Jacobs, a wizard, seeks to unravel the secrets of time and fate.
@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books
COVER REVEAL! 🚀📷 We are delighted to unveil SHOESHINE BOY & CIGARETTE GIRL, a #scifi #romance novelette by award-winning author P.A. Cornell! Cover art by Kim Herbst! Launching February 3, 2026. Read all about this delightful book: https://www.starsandsabers.com/2025/10/30/cover-reveal-for-shoeshine-boy-cigarette-girl-by-p-a-cornell/
#books #scifi #romance #scifiromance #2026books
FREE SHORT STORY! https://youtu.be/SWfiY4wkEIU?si=SIyL_EWLPYrXpzU0
(Whole body transplants.)
Chapter 23 of Stone Prophet is available to read on #RoyalRoad: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/108234/jigsaw-city
Nicole retrieves the next piece of the Seventh Sage, then takes a moment to deal with her feelings, in hr quarters.
As she cries about the lives she's taken, the Life Giver appears beside her...
@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #actionadventure #fiction #fairies #webseries
Four stars:
Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr (1938) is the short story that inspired The Thing. It also feels like an influence for T. Kingfisher's third Sworn Soldier novella, What Stalks the Deep (2025), although it isn't mentioned in her afterword (while At the Mountains of Madness is).
https://pussreboots.com/blog/2025/comments_11/who_goes_there.html
Ebook and paperback: https://books2read.com/TheThirdWish
Spies, aliens, trolls, wizards and a disowned prince use a time machine, to improve their place in history, but Levi Jacobs, stands in their way, despite having just lost his parents in war. Will he stop them or will the time travelers kill his father at a pivotal moment, on which the fate of the galaxy hangs?
@bookstodon
#author #indieauthor #writing #fantasy #scifi #sciencefiction #sff #sciencefantasy #scifi #actionadventure #fiction #books
I #AmReading Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky
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Thousands of years ago, Earth's terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life -- but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity's great empire fell, and the program's decisions were lost to time.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/7e8262d9-508e-478f-bbd4-21434d4d1b2f
