[The bloom at the top of a six foot tall thistle plant in our back yard.]

This past week was, like so many of the previous weeks, too busy to do much beyond working, working out, and the myriad maintenance projects which come with owning a house.

Reading

I am well on my way through M. John Harrison’s Viriconium, and loving every page of it. The writing therein is difficult to read quickly, and Harrison’s prose worth lingering over, so this might be another month-long read.

Writing

My world-building documents grow in size and number, and I have taken up, as a writing exercise, writing and re-writing the first paragraph or page of Cacophonous. I think of it as revving my engine, in the hopes that one of the revs will turn into a launch. If nothing else, I will have a SMASHING first paragraph.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Cyborgs, Apocalypse
Setting: Wilderness
Genre: Science Fiction

Listening

This song came up in a Metafilter thread discussing an article on the use of ChatGPT in religious institutions. Given the writing prompt I generated for the upcoming week, this seems particularly appropriate.

Interesting Links

• Book Marks – A new review aggregator site (think Rotten Tomatoes) for books. A project of Literary Hub. Browsing through here brought to my attention a new book called Black Pill by Elle Reeve. A quick search of “black pill” brought me to the following link:
• “Misogynist Incels and Male Supremacism” (Megan Kelly, Alex DiBranco, Dr. Julia R. DeCook, New America) – Because it needs to be repeated ad infinitum, any time a member of an in-group thinks their problems are caused by members of the corresponding out-group: Never in the history of the USA have men been systematically oppressed or marginalized for being men. To believe otherwise is ignorant. To act in support of that belief is cowardly.