Humble Book Bundle: Martha Wells' Murderbot and More by TOR (pay what you want and help charity):

This multi-Hugo Award-winning series includes standout titles like All Systems Red and Artificial Condition. Plus, a portion of your purchase helps support World Central Kitchen.

The full bundle includes all of the Murderbot novellas and novels plus two short stories, the two stand-alone fantasy novels, Witch King, the first two Ile-Rien novels, and the middle-grade adventure novels. Doesn't include any Raksura novels or the Ile-Rien trilogy (which I guess Tor doesn't have the rights to yet?). Obviously doesn't include the tie in novels.

I already own all of these, but it's a good deal if you don't!

Should be available for the next three weeks.

Works in the US and Canada, not sure where else.

to signal boost anyway: due to new legislation, social media sites that either morally object to or can't afford to run age-verification software on all users are starting to block IPs from Mississippi. This currently includes BlueSky, and may soon include Dreamwidth, as per denise on BlueSky:

I expect to see a lot more social media sites blocking MS in the weeks to come -- we're probably going to have to as well :/

Mississippi residents, get your VPNs now! I can recommend ProtonVPN as caring about protecting your privacy: they don't keep records and they don't sell your data."

[link to source]

These go all the way back to May, and I've yeeted the time sensitive ones. Some of the politics ones might be a little dated, but I think their points still stand, even if the news cycle has moved on.

WorldCon Fuck Ups:
(Why does this have to be a category nearly every year?)

Grigory Lukin: When People Giggle at Your Name, or the 2025 Hugo Awards Incident.
Lyrical description of the harm caused by othering, with receipts.

Cora Buhlert: Some Comments on the 2025 Hugo Winners – with Bonus Tall Ship Photos.
More chronological account of events. Also, tall ship pictures.

ETA: Miri Baker: On the Perennial Embarrassment of Worldcon.
Most conventions, even those run by imperfect humans, do not have a widely-accepted 'Days since the Con Embarrassed Itself' counter.

Weyodi OldBear (on BlueSky): Next year's WorldCon is in Los Angeles, and the theme appears to be Westward Expansion or possibly Manifest Destiny.
There's also a picture of a Spanish Mission involved.

LAcon V: Statement from LAcon V Chair.
An apology.

*sighs*

I always have so much fun at these cons, and then they always seem to do shit like this. I find it exhausting. It's obviously much worse for the people who got their names mangled, etc.

It's worth mentioning that in the fall out of George R. R. Martin fucking up everyone's names, someone mentioned that the 2018 host, John Picacio, went around before the ceremony and personally made sure he was getting everyone's names right. So like, not fucking this up is a known thing. And yet.


United States and Canadian Politics: ( Go behind a cut! )


Fandom-Related Stuff!
magnavox_23: Multifandomonium Icons.
Including: Stargate (Various), Doctor Who, Good Omens, Our Flag Means Death, Sherlock (BBC), The Mandalorian, The Last Of Us, Star Trek (TOS), What We Do In The Shadows, Pikachu, The X Files, and related actors, misc actors & misc animals.

CultureSlate: Did The Marvels Deserve The Hate It Got?.
Answer: No. No, it did not.

CBC: 14 books to read for National Indigenous History Month.
Which was in June, but the list is still good.

Javier Grillo-Marxuach (on BlueSky): hey everyone, wanna watch my tv show the middleman on streaming with no added charges?
If you do, it's up on Archive.org. If you don't, you should.

Aranock: The Author's Not Dead (58min).
Death of the author and separate the art from the artist have been increasingly used as thought terminating cliches, I want to examine why, as well as how we should engage with art made by people who've acted heinously. Deals with JKR and Orson Scott Card, among others.

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* based on current rate of posting links lists.

† Also the first links list of the summer.

It's only half an hour of a 75 minute set, but it has all of her new songs, and she's really getting down doing Genesis live (in this case only Part II), which has taken a lot of workshopping over the last year.