Went for a walk on the frozen lake…
Can someone suggest a ‘comedy’ podcast that is at least 1/10th as funny as the smug friends interviewing their smug mates and/or straining to crack weak predictable topical jokes think it is? I’ve just been trying a bunch and they all, without exception, ear-meltingly awful and homicide inducing.
Read: The New Spy by Michael Dylan 📚The opposite of the Slow Horses (Galloping Thoroughbreds?) fight a bunch of terrorist threats in London. Fast read, and more action than atmosphere. Feels like a lost novelisation of BBC’s Spooks. #booksky #thrillers
Read: Reykjavik - A Crime Story by Ragnar Jónasson KatrÃn Jakobsdóttir 📚By the numbers, emotionally flat Icelandic noir heavy with the usual deserted islands, crusading journalist and middle aged professionals hiding a sin from their youth. #booksky #thrillers
Read: Vienna At Nightfall by Richard Wake 📚Richly atmospheric Alan Furst-ish world of pre-WW2 Austria, as completely believable ‘ordinary bloke’ is pulled into spying, with all the agonies and internal conflicts it brings, and a credibly snarky authorial voice. #booksky #thrillers
Productive happy days make for dull journalling.
Productive, happy days make for dull journalling.
I’m old enough to remember when Harlan Coben was good.
Read: The Peacock and the Sparrow by I.S. Berry 📚Leans more towards agonised burnt out spook cases of Greeneland and Deighton than gripping suspense. Feels real enough that I now need to research what actually happened in Bahrain in 2012. #booksky #thrillers
I opened the scary box - here’s what I found. 1st of the actual newsletters from the 80s, getting deeper into what exactly happened in 1982 in the twisted, funny retro murder mystery based loosely on my childhood. open.substack.com/pub/fuppe…
When I was a kid, I made pirate treasure maps by drawing on paper then ‘ageing’ it by grilling and scorching the edges. Mocking up a newsletter for tomorrow’s fupperynewsletter.substack.com in Photoshop is far less fun. #crime #thriller
Next episode of the Fuppery Newsletter - a twisted, funny retro fictional serial murder mystery in the medium of 1980s village newsletters. Contains an older man dancing naked in the suburbs and a judgemental police officer. bit.ly/4sBAVNn #readingcommunity #books #crime
Conceded I not only need progressive lenses but also the reading glasses version too, where the close vision is closer and the long vision is a bit more blurred. Magnificent game changers. I can get absorbed in a book again rather than having to keep moving it to keep the text in focus.
Read: Harry’s Game by Gerald Seymour 📚 Long overdue to read this (mostly associate it with the 1970s TV series and Clannad). Pulls together action, politics, ‘world’, psychology, morality, emotions, suspense, allthethings, brilliantly. Total, total classic. #booksky #readingcommunity #thriller
Just been told the podcast reading of my first ghost story, King Of The Mountain, about a cheating cyclist, is March 11. Started in heatwave France, finished in icestorm Canada. It’ll be on the Kaidankai podcast, produced by @ghoststorylover.bsky.social #writingcommunity #horror
Read: Yellowface by R F Kuang 📚Readable and smart while disappearing up its own postmodern identity-politicking arse. I can see why publishers hyped it: industries love to see themselves reflected back as edgy and absorbing, especially when they’re cliquey and privileged. #booksky #reading #books
Trump’s latest Venezuelan crime is him showing off to the big boys. ‘Look Vlad, I’ve invaded a neighbour too. Do you respect me now?’
Read: The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James 📚 Pacey and compulsive psych thriller just keeping to an acceptable amount of supernatural flummery. Will be reading more of her stuff. #booksky #horror #thriller
Hurrah! Finishing 2025 with another story accepted. Started writing stories this year, wrote 4, published 4. Thank you @pulpasylum.bsky.social, Macabre Magazine, Freedom Fiction and Kaidanki podcast. Freedom Fiction is here, the rest hit the streets next year. #horror #reading #thriller #amwriting
I just heard the best description of generative LLM AI yet: it’s programmed to create what an answer to your prompt would look like. Not an actual answer, so if the two overlap at all, it’s just luck. If that also involves things that are true, even luckier.
Read: The Call of the Wild by Jack London 📚 Fight Club but with dogs in the late 19th century Yukon. #booksky #books #readingcommunity
Tentboy revealed. The next episode in my twisted, funny retro murder mystery based loosely on my childhoodl
Reader, he waved a sock. Or given the time of year, maybe it was a Christmas stocking
open.substack.com/pub/fuppe… #booksky #thriller #mysterybooksky
Sometimes the right thing to do is admit that the 40 years of anti-U2 prejudice you began as a snotty sixth former was in error, and they are in fact a fucking good band. #musicsky
I’m posting my dark funny mystery serial on Substack, and nobody gives a fuck. Partly this is annoying because it’s really good, even if it has no dragons or spaceships. But increasingly, it’s great. I’ll just do what the fuck I like because there are absolutely no consequences.
Read: In Ascension by Martin MacInnes 📚 Top drawer grown up SF with much geekiness, philosophical ponderings, and characters who exist in a world rather than being case studies or Star Wars/Tolkien knock offs. If you liked Contact, The Martian, Arrival, it’s the same kind of deal. #booksky #books