January 2019 – Ecce Signum

The Books That Are Not ConFusion Books

2019-01-30 John Winkelman

Lest the last few posts give the impression that I only purchase books at conventions, here are some others which arrived in the past week.

On the left is The Black God’s Drums by P. Djeli Clark, which has been on my radar for a couple of months now. Next to it is Katherine Arden‘s The Bear and the Nightingale, because Russian folklore. Also about a year ago I wrote most of a Baba Yaga story for an anthology call, and in the research for that story this book came up repeatedly.

The third is The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty, the sequel to her excellent The City of Brass which I read several months ago. Next to it is Friday Black, a collection of short stories by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah which came to my attention when LitHub posted the story “Zimmer Land“.

The bottom row includes reading material from various subscription. First is Night School by Zsófia Bán, then I Am God by Giacomo Sartori, and finally the latest issue of Poetry.

In reading, I finished Fix by Ferret Steinmetz (which Mr. Steinmetz signed at ConFusion 2019!) and am now bouncing between three of my ConFusion acquisitions: Reckoning #1, Death March by Phil Tucker, and The Blood-Tainted Winter by T L Greylock.

For this year I am keeping a list of the books I read, and I plan to write reviews (GoodReads, Amazon, etc.) both to boost the signal of those authors and to give me practice at writing reviews.

That’s all for now. The books continue to accumulate.

Books from ConFusion 2019, Round 2

2019-01-27 John Winkelman

Okay, so I didn’t pick up these books at ConFusion, but I did talk to the authors and was thereby convinced that I should pick them up. Here they are, from top left:

T L Greylock – The Hills of Home
T L Greylock – Already Comes Darkness
Phil Tucker – Nightmare Keep
Phil Tucker – The Path of Flames
Nathan Lowell – Quarter Share
Mike Shel – Aching God
Michael J. Sullivan – Theft of Swords
Michael J. Sullivan – Age of Myth
Maurice Broaddus – Buffalo Soldier
D. Thourson Palmer – Ours is the Storm
David Anthony Durham – Acacia

Since I purchased these post- ConFusion 2019 I will bring them to ConFusion 2020 to be signed. Of course.

Books from ConFusion 2019, Round 1

2019-01-25 John Winkelman

Yeah, it was a good weekend. Here are the books I picked up during the first signing session at ConFusion 2019. Also some I picked up while talking to various folks at the convention. From top left, and going through in order.

The Blood-Tainted Winter, by T L Greylock
Death March by Phil Tucker
The Field Trip by R.A. Andrade
Darkness by Erin Eveland
Reckoning, issue 1
Gate Crashers by Patrick Tomlinson
The Rite of Wands by Mackenzie Flohr
Justice in an Age of Metal and Men by Anthony W. Eichenlaub
Peace in an Age of Metal and Men by Anthony W. Eichenlaub
The Queen Underneath by Stacey Filak
Timehunt: Borrowed Time by Keith Hughes
The Quantum Magician by Derek Künsken
While the Black Stars Burn by Lucy A. Snyder
Garden of Eldritch Delights by Lucy A. Snyder
Ice Bar by Petra Kuppers
Power Tools in the Sacred Grove by Josef Matulich
Camp Arcanum by Josef Matulich

I would have picked up many more, but I was in a panel during the second book signing session. Fortunately I took many notes, so I was able to order the ones I missed. They will be in a separate blog post. Other than Reckoning and Gate Crashers, all of them were signed by the authors.

This Week’s Books, Part I: Small Stack

2019-01-22 John Winkelman

This is the small stack of books from this week. The Big Stack consists of books I picked up at ConFusion 2019, which is a large enough collection that it warrants its own post.

The books on the ends, Life on Mars and Whereas, are poetry books I purchased on a whim while at Books and Mortar picking up AfroSF and Seven Surrenders. The Anna Karenina Fix arrived from Amazon while I was at ConFusion.

With this week’s exceptionally large haul, I am now over 1,500 books catalogued in LibraryThing. I have shelf space in my house for maybe 100 more books if they are the usual mix of thin and thick. That should be enough to get me through the rest of 2019. We shall see…

In reading news, I finished Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer while at ConFusion on Thursday night. Friday morning I had coffee with Miss Palmer and several other people, where she held forth on various Papal shenanigans from the mid-1400s. To cool my head I read about half of the poems in Life on Mars, which is an absolutely wonderful collection by our current national Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith. I am now a little more than halfway through Fix by Ferret Steinmetz, the sequel to Flex and The Flux. Thus far it is just as good as the first two. I expect to be finished by the end of the week and am enjoying every page of it.

Links and Notes for the Week of January 13, 2019

2019-01-21 John Winkelman

China Mieville on his book October.
Via Bruce Sterling at the 2019 State of the World discussion over at The Well, Procedural Rhetoric.
From the end of 2017, Charles Stross talk at CCC. In particular, Corporations as slow A.I.s. (transcript here)
This is pretty cool: The World’s Writing Systems is working on translating all of the world’s writing systems into Unicode.

Links and Notes for the Week of January 6, 2019

2019-01-14 John Winkelman

The latest Metafilter catch-all thread discussing the state of US politics here at the beginning of 2019.
1.4 Million Floridians Just Got Their Voting Rights Back Today, Whether Republicans Like It or Not.
Five upcoming short story collections by Arabic writers. In particular I am looking forward to Palestine +100, since Iraq +100 was an excellent book.
David Bowie’s 100 Favorite Books, of which I have read 17.
Arundhati Roy explains How to Think About Empire in an interview up at The Boston Review.
A useful tip for managing complex writing and worldbuilding: Create a Wiki.
From the brilliant journal N+1: The Best of a Bad Situation. Or, what extinction looks like from the inside.

Big Books for Cold Weekends

2019-01-13 John Winkelman

The first full week of the year brings four new bound piles of printed pages to the library at Winkelman Abbey. On the left is Kolyma Stories by Varlam Shalamov. I heard of this one when The Paris Review published “Forty-Five Things I Learned in the Gulag“. Finally ordered it. Apparently this is the first of two volumes to be published (the second to be released this year). I will probably dive into it after I complete the current few books on my “currently reading” shelf.

The next one over is the December 2018 issue of Apex Magazine which, if I have my dates correct, is the last to be published in physical format. From now on the magazine will be digital only, which is fine, as it is well worth the cost of subscription in any format.

The last two are The Uploaded and Fix by the excellent Ferret Steinmetz. I hope to get them signed at ConFusion 2019 next weekend.

In reading news I am still working my way through Ada Palmer’s Too Like the Lightning. I’m in the home stretch and should be through by the time I leave for ConFusion.

Selah!

ConFusion 2019 Schedule

2019-01-07 John Winkelman

Next week I head across the state to attend ConFusion 2019. This year I will be participating in three panels, all on Saturday, January 19. Here they are:

AI for Better or Worse – There’s no doubt that Artificial Intelligence will play some part in our future, but is it good, bad, or both? Panelists will discuss the future of AI, some of its uses, and some of its dangers.
- Time: Saturday, 19 January, 2019 – 13:00
- Room: Warren
- Panelists: Anthony W. Eichenlaub (M), John Winkelman, Derek Kunsken
Let’s Talk Season 2: Computer Science! – A lighthearted talk on a hard science topics with smart and funny people. Let’s Talk: Computer Science will chuckle through the collapse of society as we know it. Come hear how silicon makes better decisions than carbon, protons as data, why you don’t need to be Slytherin to study Python, and what we are going to do with the leisure time we will have in 2025.
- Time: Saturday, January 19, 2019 – 16:00
- Room: Warren
- Panelists: Daniel Dugan (M), John Winkelman, Anthony W. Eichenlaub
If you liked that, try this! – Our well-read panel will give you personalized book recommendations based on things you’ve read and loved.
- Time: Saturday, January 19, 2019 – 18:00
- Room: Dearborn
- Panelists: Merrie Haskell (M), John Winkelman, Andrea Johnson, Karen Osborne, Sarah Hans

Between now and then I am spending my free moments gathering books I hope to have signed by other attendees, and getting everything around home squared away so I can focus on enjoying the experience. Hopefully one year I will be able to sign books of my own.

Links and Notes for the Week of December 30, 2018

2019-01-07 John Winkelman

W00t! Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky’s annual State of the World discussion has just begun over at The Well.
January 1 was Public Domain Day 2019.
As one of my goals for 2019 is a serious study of economics and Left politics, I am listening to an audiobook of Marx’s Capital. Here are the YouTube links:
- Capital: Critique of Political Economy, 1 of 4
- Capital: Critique of Political Economy, 2 of 4
- Capital: Critique of Political Economy, 3 of 4
- Capital: Critique of Political Economy, 4 of 4

Reading at the Start of the Year

2019-01-06 John Winkelman

An excellent start to a year of reading, despite the expression on Chateaureynaud’s face. A couple of weeks ago I subscribed to Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, a journal published by the excellent Small Beer Press. They surprised me by sending along a free copy of A Life On Paper, which I have added to my ever-growing to-read stack.

In reading news, I am still working my way through Ada Palmer’s Too Like the Lightning, which I might have done before the start of ConFusion 2019. It is an excellent book, but not one which can be read quickly. After that, I will tackle something lighter. Perhaps Crime and Punishment.