Voyager in Night by C J Cherryh
Nov. 4th, 2025 08:43 am
A trading voyage leads to first contact and a delightful process of mutual discovery.
Voyager in Night by C J Cherryh
Life lived in dot points
Nov. 4th, 2025 08:13 pm- I submitted my preliminary candidacy proposal today. I still have to present it, get reviewer's feedback, and resubmit, but it is one hoop closer to done.
 - I received confirmation that my application to work with a larger project has been accepted. I have until Monday to tell them what my milestones, deliverables, and KPIs are, and while the first two are okay, the last one is supposed to have at least one from a list I can't find
 - I caved and bought an ebook bundle from StoryBundle: this trilogies bundle - I bought it for the Natania Barron (which I acquired book one while travelling, and then lost when I was 1/3 in) and the Jane Yolen (I believe I know where book 1 is, but I didn't know it was a trilogy). I have no expectations for the rest, but it was cheaper than trying to buy either of the trilogies (definitely in hard copy, but possibly still cheaper than them in softcopy, with the cost of ebooks)
 - I was running ahead on the quilting, I then did none in the weekend just gone, so I think I'm a block behind, but I've also done some of the assembling, so I've worked ahead as well. progress is progress
 - the little chamber orchestra has a performance on Sunday, and Youngest (who has not been able to attend a rehearsal all semester due to uni scheduling conflicts) came along and can play at least some of it, which helps bolster the currently light on cello section (we have a new cello player. This was their fourth session with us; I'm not sure they had met any of the other cello players before last night).
 - I have managed to lose the blanket that lives on the red couch. I have zero memory of it ever being anywhere else, so I'm a bit :( about it. But I used it as the reference object for a course I'm doing (I'm doing two tiny courses, on the future of data and the future of communication, each ~10 hours, while attempting to do a stack of other things. As is the way, I'm too slow moving for it to be only 10 hours, given that I spent nearly two this afternoon doing 1/6 of the work)
 
Thoughts on vacation
Nov. 3rd, 2025 11:51 pmI enjoyed my week off more than usual, even though I never did do any of the vague plans like take a drive somewhere or do some deep cleaning/organizing. That's because I spent the whole time immersed in my current fandom; binging episodes, writing, reading. It was exactly the way I most wanted to spend the time and I regret nothing. Unlike other days off where I wasn't productive in RL, I do not consider it time wasted.
It still went too fast.
Annoyed
Nov. 3rd, 2025 09:54 pm(It's not diabetes. It's just that I am incredibly intolerant to eating late)
(no subject)
Nov. 3rd, 2025 10:13 pmAnyway, I came home and unpacked, caught up with as many delayed chores as I could bring myself to face, and plunged straight back into ordinary life. The laundry is going to be a couple of weeks to get caught up, I can see already...
Work is not exactly quiet, but mostly the sort of normal where I can hope to catch up with some of the lurking to-do list. I'm still three months behind on the reporting (technically four, but there's only about half-an-hour left on July) but I am feeling much less out of control about everything. At least, unless I think too hard about all of the ongoing items in my 121 action tracker.
I've taken the opportunity to book a couple of days off, at which point I'm hoping to make a start on Christmas planning. I didn't have my usual too-early panic this year because September and October did not have enough time for extra panics, but now it's November and I need to get on with it. The year zooms past, my personal to-do list app accumulates overdue items, and the last international posting date is looming, or will once they announce it.
But somehow the vital connection is made
Nov. 3rd, 2025 03:50 pm
30 in 30: Transformers G1
Nov. 3rd, 2025 12:07 pmChapters: 1/1
Fandom: Transformers G1
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jazz/Optimus Prime
Characters: Jazz [Transformers], Optimus Prime, Spike Witwicky
Additional Tags: Double Drabble
Summary:
Sometimes Jazz isn't smooth
When They Met
"So how did you two meet?" Spike asked. To his surprise, Optimus laughed while Jazz reached up and rubbed the back of his neck, a mannerism he'd picked up from Spike's dad.
"Ratchet and Wheeljack did most of the vetting of who would be in the unit closest to me," Optimus began, voice rich with joy and amusement.
"Ratch cornered me when I popped in to drop some intel," Jazz admitted. "I'd already heard stories about Prime, ya see. He was larger than lfe just from the first fight he saved us all in! And I was curious, but… still not really where I thought a Legend like that should be meeting those of us who were doing the dirtier work of spying."
Optimus brought his hand over to Jazz's backplates, and Spike grinned a little, seeing the shape of it.
"Ratchet brought him to interview with me, and I was completely fascinated by all the people Jazz had met before the war, all the stories he had, using them to try and distract me from getting to know him."
"What can I say, Prime? You were YOU, and I was intimidated!"
"I am very glad you got past that."
Five Ways Science Fiction Can Expand Beyond Homo sapiens
Nov. 3rd, 2025 12:48 pm
Modern humans are fine, but what if we had a bit more variety in our stories?
Five Ways Science Fiction Can Expand Beyond Homo sapiens
Fic: Heart's Got Everything to Do With It [T; Tin Man; DG/Cain]
Nov. 3rd, 2025 09:20 amIt was like the Quest had never ended at all; DG had just run out of signposts to follow. Well, except maybe one....
Heart's Got Everything to Do With It
(For
Fic: Finding Order in the Chaos [M; Dredd; Anderson/Dredd]
Nov. 3rd, 2025 09:15 am"Anderson to Sector 112 Control," Cassandra reported, comm raised to her mouth as she sheltered behind the towering concrete wall of a mega-highway support. "It's getting difficult to make headway out here. What's the status on Weather Control repair?"
Finding Order in the Chaos
(For
Isn't it the way, though?
Nov. 3rd, 2025 03:44 pmThought I had some lovely free unspoilt time to get to grips with review I am writing.
There have been Problems with partner's internet connection in downstairs backroom, and after faffing around endeavouring to reset the TP-Link Powerlines, I came to the conclusion that they are ex-Powerlines  and should be given a suitable funeral with relevant honours.
Have ordered new ones from Argos. Upside: next day delivery means they are coming today. Downside: but not until the very end of the pm delivery slot, i.e. the evening, Bah.
This is all generally distracting from concentrating the mind on the sleazier reaches of the Victorian booktrade.
Plus, I had a demand for my US tax details. Fortunately, many years ago, I was obliged to acquire an ITIN in connection with receiving a research grant, which makes the whole thing a lot simpler.
This all also rather distracts my mind from upcoming book group discussion of the next volume in Dance to the Music of Time. Though, in unexpected Powelliana encountered during the week, who was a massive fangirl? Eve Babitz was a massive fangirl! ('much less leaden than John Updike... a downright souffle compared to just about anyone').
Fancake Theme for November: Mystery & Suspense
Nov. 3rd, 2025 07:15 am
This theme runs for the entire month. If you have any questions, just ask!
Wrote a scholar from the island that they kept from me
Nov. 2nd, 2025 11:10 pmOn the other hand, tonight I watched Hestia trot over to
next year, halloween yard signs
Nov. 3rd, 2025 05:55 pmPrincess Bride themed
He Killed My Father
Started A Land War In Asia
Went Up Against A Sicilian When Death Was On The Line
Didn't Think ROAS Existed
Didn't Have Fun Storming The Castle
Since Halloween takes place on a Saturday next year, I might try to throw a Halloween Party. And maybe a Big Number Birthday, if I can be arsed. I wasn't planning a Big Number Birthday, but a friend gave me a look like I'd uttered a mortal sin when I mentioned I wasn't really big on a Big Number Birthday.
--
I sent out the 7x7 picnic party invitations, have about 15 going, 5 who can't, 5 maybes.
B1 will not be much help since she has her Christmas Party the night before. I have a Matildas game the night before. The parentals will be out of town. So it's going to be me and maybe B2.
I mean, I'm pretty sure the people I've invited are not going to be particularly fussed that the place isn't spotless. It might just be a bit chaotic in cleanup, is all. But that can be managed, too...
Achtung! Cthulhu
Nov. 2nd, 2025 09:54 pmnow he's going to try to make something happen
Nov. 2nd, 2025 06:45 pm- Baby Miss L was sick for Halloween, but I did get a lovely picture of her from the previous weekend where she, her mother, and my sister were all dressed as witches. <333
- I made another pot of garlic and bread soup this evening and it's so good and my apartment smells like garlic and olive oil (in a good way).
- However, for the first time ever, cutting scallions made my eyes tear up like cutting onions - I guess the white part is really oniony.
- Yesterday, I also made the dough for those Levain-style chocolate chip cookies and I had one this morning and they're so good. I will be baking one off each morning for breakfast this week.
- Call me crazy, but every time I see that commercial with Paul Skenes (and Questlove and Francisco Lindor), I think it's Josh Allen at first. They look alike!
- Amazon is actually listing book 8 of Dungeon Crawler Carl (Parade of Horribles) but only on audible or in hardcover. Why is there no kindle listing??? The release date is either May 26, 2026 or June 2, 2026 - I have seen both.
- Despite my difficulties with audiobooks etc. I did try the first DCC audiobook, but the narrator sounds like he's an out of shape 40-year-old, not a jacked 27-year-old, so it didn't work for me on that level as well as the various other levels, though Donut's voice was fantastic.
- Still no word that I can find on a date for Alecto the Ninth.
- I was pulling for you, Toronto! Sorry about that. *hands* Was a great series, though, even with that ending.
- and now no more baseball until March. *sadhair*
- At least the Rangers have won a couple of games? Though I don't have a lot of optimism for their season. And I really dislike Chris Drury and his way of being a GM, and unfortunately it doesn't look like it's going to change any time soon. Sigh.
*
This went over well
Nov. 2nd, 2025 03:58 pm
In case the image does not load or someone cannot read it: it is a Bluesky post reading "I firmly believe the Jays would have won had Diefenbaker not cancelled the Avro Arrow."
There are 7 reposts, 2 quotes, and 48 likes.
30 in 30: Transformers: Shattered Glass
Nov. 2nd, 2025 02:30 pmChapters: 1/1
Fandom: Transformers: Shattered Glass
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Ratchet [Transformers], Ironhide [Transformers]
Additional Tags: Drug Abuse, Drabble
Summary:
Ironhide walks in on Ratchet
Pick Ups
"Pretty sure the sharp side goes in other mechs," Ironhide drawled after walking in, unannounced, to Ratchet's bay.
The other mech flicked his optics up once, but didn't move much past that as he finished injecting the stim.
"You want me available for your fight, I get to use the syringes how I want," Ratchet growled at him.
"Your own cocktail?"
"Don't trust 'Jack's," Ratchet agreed.
"Unicron smash us all from that!" Ironhide agreed. "I let him juice my frontliners, but won't touch it." He sidled closer. "Got more? Chromia was enthusiastic."
Ratchet chuckled, found another, and handed it over.
Culinary
Nov. 2nd, 2025 06:56 pmThis week's bread: brown wheatgerm; 8:1 strong brown/wheatgerm, made up with buttermilk from open pot left over from making rolls; quite tasty but a little dense and heavy.
Friday night supper: grocery order delivered early enough that I had time to make sardegnera with chorizo de navarra.
Saturday breakfast rolls: adaptable soft rolls recipe, 4:1 strong white/buckwheat flour, dried cranberries, Rayner's barley malt.
Today's lunch: seabream fillets rubbed with salt, pepper, ginger paste and lime juice and left in the fridge for a couple of hours, then panfried in butter; served with miniature potatoes roasted in beef dripping, white-braised baby courgettes and red bell pepper, and pak choi stirfried with garlic.
So. November. (Holidays etc. | Cake? | Cat interpersonal dynamics)
Nov. 2nd, 2025 02:23 pm(It's really just as well we have our harvest celebration in October, but as always, I do envy the placement of it between Hallowe'en and Christmas in the US just in terms of not having the stretch between seasonal holidays. [I say, as if US Thanksgiving isn't horribly fraught in so many ways.] I don't know why I have such strong feelings about this. I had them before I stumbled into wanting seasonal decor at home for more than just Christmas and started feeling all adrift in that sense at this time of year.)
(This probably isn't why some people have non-holiday decor that can be swapped in and out, thus having more options, but it's a nice side effect, I imagine. *contemplates* Please feel free to tell me about your non-Hallowe'en decor! Full-on harvest stuff is not terribly seasonal here, but surely there are other options?)
Anyway. It's noticeably cooler here now, and still bright outside rather than all gray-skewed like my mental picture of the season, but the month is young.
If there are things you love about November, please share?
Last time we ordered groceries, I got a bag of Granny Smith apples with intentions of baking, and that...uh, that hasn't happened yet. Hopefully today after I get some work done, assuming nothing horrible has happened to them. (I worry about overestimating the durability of things like apples. And cabbage. We also have a cabbage. >.> It's been around longer.)
As for what to bake...well, I have my eyes on two Smitten Kitchen cakes and two RecipeTin Eats cakes (all new to us), and there's also an a cake we made last year, or just doing baked apples or crisp. We'll see.
In cat news, the other night Sinha was being a tremendous pest to Jinksy (as is typical), and unexpectedly, Jinksy remembered (???) how to scruff him! He scruffed Sinha a couple of times a couple years ago, and it's pretty much the only thing that's ever actually made Sinha back the fuck off, but then that was it. Maybe he won't go another year or more without remembering about it again. (It's such a complicated feeling for us, because Sinha makes the most pathetic keening noises and gets really upset about it [and the other night it took an hour or so of him racing around the house grumbling to himself before he settled down, which was awkward since we were trying to sleep], so it's a bit heartbreaking, but we are absolutely in favor of Jinksy standing up for himself and saying, "NO. You will STOP.")
Reading (back)log
Nov. 2nd, 2025 01:06 pmKJ Charles' The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal (historical M/M) is a neat setup, where the narrator has been partnered for years with a paranormal investigator and has written famous accounts of the cases they faced, and is now much more privately writing about their personal history and the cases that instigated and shaped their romantic partnership (with, of course, many references to cases he's already written about for the public eye).
Dweller on the Threshold is my second read by Skyla Dawn Cameron, in which a woman inherits a probably-haunted house early in the covid pandemic. It's creepy and well-done and much weirder than it initially seemed likely to be (although to nowhere near the degree of weirdness that her The Taiga Ridge Murders, which I read late last year, turned out to be).
Dreadful Company (Vivian Shaw) was a quick, fun read. It's the second Dr. Greta Helsing novel, and it left me in the odd-feeling (but not uncommon for me, really) position of having enjoyed it without feeling any particular need to seek out the following books.
What Stalks the Deep is the third of T. Kingfisher's Sworn Soldier novellas, which due to the increasingly-horrifying prices of ebooks (in particular novellas, IMO) I borrowed from the library. OT1H, that's deeply annoying, because I generally really like Ursula Vernon's writing and would like to simply buy everything, if only to support her (and yes, I do know library borrows do contribute to that as well); OTOH, I avoided spending something like $20 on a NOVELLA and was (briefly) spared the need to decide what to read next, because when this became available at the library, it became my obvious next read once I'd finished Dreadful Company. Also, I enjoyed it; I wouldn't recommend reading it without at least reading the first book in this set, and if you've read and liked the previous ones, you'll presumably like this one too.
(Before my many-years-ago-now decision to spend a year [ha!] reading mainly/only from books I'd purchased but never read--which has pretty much been ongoing ever since, because I keep buying books--I almost never had to think about what to read next, because I had several hundred holds on hard copies at the library, and basically would just put something on hold and immediately suspend the hold for a year or two [whatever the maximum was], and then frequently scroll through the list and re-suspend books if I caught them in the window between them being automatically unsuspended and actually heading my way. Whatever books I didn't catch in that window arrived for borrowing at the library, so I'd pick them up and read them, whatever they were.)
Also
Current reading/watching: I'm a few chapters into Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (V.E. Schwab), and on the non-fiction front, a little ways into Anne Lamott's Almost Everything: Notes on Hope.
Meanwhile,
Moon of Mutiny (Jim Stanley, volume 3) by Lester del Rey
Nov. 2nd, 2025 07:52 am
Was Fred Halpern the boy space hero the papers believed him or the headstrong fool his teachers saw?
Moon of Mutiny (Jim Stanley, volume 3) by Lester del Rey
Many arms around the mast as your ship starts cracking
Nov. 1st, 2025 10:27 pmHaving run the car over for errands, I ended up spending the trick-or-treating hours of Halloween at my mother's house, which was inundated with a range of ages from toddlers to teenagers and the occasional adult who could be coaxed to take some candy for themselves. I am guessing a percentage of the colorfully wigged people were KPop Demon Hunters. I have no idea about the WWI Tommy in the company of a classical figure in gold laurels, but they looked like an entire short story in themselves. The Minuteman looked parentally hand-sewn, full marks for waistcoat and hat. The most extensive was the full-body tyrannosaur I came down the steps to hold the bowl of candy out for, explaining it was no trouble because I could see their short little arms. When the twins came by, one of them dashed into the house to hug me and all of her friends shouted at her for going across the threshold, which I understood was some kind of ground rule but sounded in the moment like the start of a fairy tale. The South Asian older relatives chaperoning their set of small children wore marigold garlands, perfectly Halloween-colored. There are a lot more kids in that neighborhood than there used to be and it's wonderful.
I remain underslept, but I really appreciate being introduced to Florence + The Machine's "Kraken" (2025).
Fannish 50 Challenge 2025: Post # 36: annual November Mini WriMo now open for signups
Nov. 1st, 2025 10:17 pmMini WriMo 2025 Welcome Post
Mini WriMo 2025 Signup Post
Fannish 50 Challenge 2025: Post # 35: Postal Mail from Fen
Nov. 1st, 2025 09:51 pmSpice Cake recipe
Nov. 1st, 2025 09:46 pm"Intensely Flavorful, Super Moist Spice Cake" -- I used GF flour, so I'm not sure about the moist, but it's not dry, that's sure. Seriously, this cake is autumn on your plate.
It's very important to me that you understand that Dark Souls is a deeply eccentric game
Nov. 1st, 2025 07:46 pm
 [Image description: my character seen from the back in a giant bird's nest perched on a ruined stone building. She is wearing a pointed crimson hat and a greyish-brown shawl over her shoulders, and holding a halberd in one hand. An option on the screen says "A: Curl up like a ball."]
(The reason you curl up like a ball is to pretend to be an egg so that a giant crow will transport you to another location. Obviously.)
Academyck cred
Nov. 1st, 2025 06:04 pmHave finally received my ID card for institution of which I am now a Fellow! (still no intelligence re email address...)
Have also volunteered myself to give a presentation, some several months hence, at one of the symposia for fellows to do that.
A project which has been pootling around inconclusively for years (I was looking back over emails about it recently and it had been running even longer than I thought) may be not exactly happening in its original form, but elements of it may be actually coming into some kind of fruition.
There is an exciting if rather terrifying possibility on the horizon.
In the saga - have I mentioned the saga? - of the review essay I sent to the reviews editor and heard nada about for weeks (and sent from two email addresses in case one got spam-trapped), the very day I had been wrestling with the journal's 'submit your article online' nightmare (and was not sure any of that was really applicable to review essays), I heard from reviews editor, who has Been Away, saying oops, just got this, will read.
Also got nudged for review which had got pushed down the priority list because the book turned up rather behindhand of expectations and then a whole load of other stuff overwhelmed me. Could legit say, now working on it.
November 2025 Patreon Boost
Nov. 1st, 2025 01:00 pm
You too can be one of the legions of James Nicoll Review supporters, financing my slow but steady advance towards review aleph null!
November 2025 Patreon Boost
 
