Judging by all the beat-up squirrels I am seeing

This winter was very, very hard on them.

That was the most epic battle I have seen between a cat and a fly

Shame the fly won. Or got away, anyway.

Ben Jeapes' "Infinite diversity in infinite combinations"

Jeapes on the parallels between his "hostile, barely terraformed planet La Nueva Temporada" and Lois McMaster Bujold's Barrayar setting.

Lament!

Oh mother of mercy, is the end of the literary novel?

It's actually kind of refreshing to watch other genres go through this sort of shirt-tearing. Interesting to see that brevity is in no way one of the virtues this fellow champions.

This most certainly careful planning and not just dumb luck

If I skip doing any reports tomorrow, then my 5000th written review will roll by on Tuesday and will be The Lost Steersman.

Had this weird dream

I discovered at the last moment the report on an obscure Victorian woman I was to hand in had to be in the form of a poem. Mostly the poem was about how I couldn't find any primary sources and only a few fragmentary secondary ones.

(I can't do poems so I did a song instead and then didn't include a tune)

And how, you may ask, has the reporting on the Harlequin acquisition gone?

I'm embarrassed for everyone at Harlequin and HarperCollins after reading that. I'm embarrassed for all of Canada. I haven't cringed that hard in a long time.

This rage is too powerful, even for emergency kittens. I tried.  

Something I missed at the time

More than 200,000 people in rural Peru were pressured into being sterilised by the government of former President Alberto Fujimori, an official report has revealed.

and

Sterilisation: Peru's darkest secret

From tor.com: In Conversation with Long Hidden Editors Rose Fox and Daniel José Older"

“We need to talk about diversity,” has been the conversation starter in SF/F as of late. But the best fiction, as the saying goes, shows, not tells.

Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award Finalists Announced f/m

(text from far end of link but I've changed the order)

The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award recognizes the best science fiction short story each year. It was established in 1987 by James Gunn, Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at KU; and the heirs of Theodore Sturgeon, including his partner Jayne Engelhart Tannehill and Sturgeon's children; as an appropriate memorial to one of the great short-story writers in a field distinguished by its short fiction. The current jury consists of Elizabeth Bear, Andy Duncan, James Gunn, Kij Johnson, and Noël Sturgeon, Trustee of the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Estate.


The (...) University of Kansas is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2014 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short story of the year:

"Bloom," Gregory Norman Bossert. Asimov's, Dec 2013.
"The Weight of the Sunrise," Vylar Kaftan. Asimov's, Feb 2013.
"They Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass," Alaya Dawn Johnson. Asimov's, Jan 2013.
"Over There," Will McIntosh. Asimov's, Jan 2013.
"The Wildfires of Antarctica," Alan De Niro. Tyrannia and Other Renditions, Small Beer Press.
"The Irish Astronaut," Val Nolan. Electric Velocipede, May 2013.
"In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind," Sarah Pinsker. Strange Horizons, July 2013.
"Mystic Falls," Robert Reed. Clarkesworld, Nov 2013.
"Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer," Kenneth Scheyer. Clockwork Phoenix 4, Mythic Delirium Books.
"The Urishima Effect," E. Lily Yu. Clarkesworld, June 2013.

Total    F    M    F/T
 10      4    6    0.4

Did something change at the comedy network's site recently?

I notice I cannot watch videos over there any more.