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

A wooden sign with detailed engravings reads Fuppery, accompanied by text about a newsletter titled Tentboy revealed.

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

More news on tentboy in the next episode of my twisted, funny retro murder mystery based loosely on my childhood, told through the medium of the village newsletter. #readingcommunity #books #crime #BookSky open.substack.com/pub/fuppe…

I’d love to #buycanadian, but walmart.ca ’s incompetence and insanity make it impossible to use them, at least. Amazon.ca isn’t as bad as the virtue signallers would claim (it’s a huge route for a lot of small businesses get visibility for example) and there’s always canadiantires.ca

Another story finds a publisher - a ghost story with an eccentric old musician, North Norfolk, and old recording tech. I mean vastly hugely mindboggling old. You might thing it’s a long way back to a DX7, but that’s just peanuts to this tech. More as I get it. #writingcommunity #horror #horrorsky

There are two ways of not writing for your audience’s approval. Either assume they’ll love whatever you write, or assume they don’t exist and nobody cares. I choose the latter.

My a twisted, funny retro fictional serial murder mystery told (eventually) in the medium of 1980s village newsletters has a contents page… #readingcommunity #books #crime

fupperynewsletter.substack.com/p/start-h…

Next episode - actually a little blogette - of my a twisted, funny retro fictional serial murder mystery told (eventually) in the medium of 1980s village newsletters is out. #WritingCommunity #BookSky fupperynewsletter.substack.com/p/apparen…

I know Paul McCartney is a perfectionist, but surely making a choir of children practise all year long to sing their song is overkill. Once a week for maybe a month surely would be enough. They’re only kids, after all.

Is there a way of muting all of America on BlueSky? I’m a more hardcore Marxist than a lot of Bluesky lefties in many ways, but the level of masturbatory smug performative outrage, plus the ongoing malignant arsery of the government the US voted in is really getting unbearable.

Read: The Missing Millionaire by Katie Daubs 📚A digestable way to learn about early 20th century Toronto rather than turning up any new info on the disappearance of theatre impresario Ambrose Small in 1919. Entertaining enough though. #BookSky

In a closed diner on the main street, an old man with a white beard and a red Christmas hat is sitting at a table doing the accounts. I guess even Father Christmas needs to put aside time for business admin.

Read: The Friends of Meager Fortune by David Adams Richards 📚 Who’d have thought a family saga in in post WW2 New Brunswick logging industry would be this enthralling? The characters are recognisable people, even if the backdrop is unknown. #booksky

Sometimes the music might be great but it’s not helped by the blurb on the website…

EG this from a Bandcamp recommendation: “a tender suite of German trio jazz tinged with Mongolian long song”.

More as I get it.

#MusicSky #wankymusicblurbs

Read: Desert Star (A Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch Novel) by Michael Connelly 📚 Bosch and Ballard content. Solid procedural plus some Ageing Bosch character development. Reliably delivers what you want and then some, and this is why the big name writers get to be the big names. #booksky

Latest edition of the Fuppery Newsletter is live - a twisted, funny retro fictional serial murder mystery told (eventually) in the medium of 1980s village newsletters. open.substack.com/pub/fuppe… #readingcommunity #books #crime