Want some stories involving spaceships? You're in luck! The Spaceships and the Stars book bundle includes 21 books for $21, running until November 25.

https://itch.io/b/3969/spaceships-and-the-stars

This weekend is the Fediverse Book Fair, a virtual book fair open to everyone on the fediverse.

This weekend, authors and publishers are encouraged to post about their books, or related subjects like research, with the #⁠FediBookFair hashtag.

Readers can watch or follow the hashtag to find books to buy, and interesting authors that they may wish to follow.

If you don't want to see these posts, please filter the hashtag.

The excellent @FediTips has articles explaining how to follow or filter hashtags.

There is more information about the fair at https://authorhelp.uk/fedibookfair/

Enjoy the fair!

#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #⁠FediBookFair
@bookstodon

Back after two years. Lovely to see familiar faces still active and posting!

I went through my old posts here and elsewhere. They read like letters from a stranger who shares my name and some of my taste. I’ve grown since, I think.

#introduction #ProductDesign #fediverse

Watched the Japanese horror film Exit 8 (2025, d. Genki Kawamura) tonight, an adaptation of an indie video game. An unnamed protagonist is trapped in a liminal space (a corridor in a Tokyo subway station) after receiving some unexpected news from his ex-girlfriend. He must follow "the rules of the game" to escape from its time/spatial loop. What follows is a weird, oft frustrating experience (like watching someone play a game), but it's compelling.

#Film #Movies #Cinemastodon #Horror

hey!

If you do video reviews, and you'd like a copy of one of our video games, or comic books, or toys to talk about in your video, hit me up and I'll send you one.

I finished Lost Boy by Christina Henry. Now before I say anything else, I just want to say that I did like this book. Really, I did. It was a good read and I would rate it a solid 4 stars.

However, the reviews that I have seen made me think it was more horror than it really was. People talked about how gory it was. Okay, it had some gore, but nothing that I would call super gory or disturbing.

It was an interesting take on the Peter Pan/Capt. Hook story though.

#books #bookstodon #PeterPan

Just saw Tenzing, a remarkable film about the man who made the summit of Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary. I had not known his name before because in school I only learned Hillary’s name. Damn shame to only know the white man’s name. Happy to have met Tenzing.

#Tenzing

In other news: I have no desire to summit mountains, but I applaud those who do.

Weekly fiction drops, serial chapters, and more--my Patreon is open.

https://www.patreon.com/lilithsaintcrow

"ChatGPT allegedly helped a North Carolina woman, Cheryl Gates, craft a “personalized plan” to poison her husband, James, after fueling her delusions that he planned to divorce her and leave her with nothing."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/11/lawsuit-man-introduced-his-wife-to-chatgpt-she-used-it-to-plan-his-murder/

Mutual aid has for some reason completely dried up for a lot of people. I am seeing so many people reposting and reposting and not getting the help they need. This is very bad, especially for disabled people. I couldn't even get rent paid for my birthday. I couldn't even get food for my birthday.

If you can, please share the mutual aid posts you see. We're not doing great, Bob.

#ScribesAndMakers November 5: There was a snake in the road...

I stopped and asked the snake if he was trying to hitch a ride.

"Yesssh. Thanksss for sssstoping. I don't have thumbbsss and sssso many people have driven around me. My name'ssss Gerald."

"Hop in, Gerald," I opened the passenger door.

Gerald slid in.

"Seatbelt," I said.

"Sssure," Gerald said. He buckled himself in.

"Where to?"

"Anywhere but here," Gerald said with venom.

"Anywhere?"

Gerald nodded.

I pulled the fake face on my CD player and pressed a button. The planet with all its roads and buildings and trees and cities and oceans disappeared around us, replaced by stars. I dialed in a course for a nearby star system and configured my vehicle for maximum speed. I pressed the big red button and stars streaked around us.

"Music?" I said.

"Yesssh, I could do ssssome musssic."

#FlashFiction #TootFic

📚️ #eBook / #eBooks accounts to follow:

PUBLIC DOMAIN
@gutenberg_org (main) & @gutenberg_new (new uploads) - Massive selection of public domain eBooks
@standardebooks - High quality well-formatted public domain eBooks
@DProofreaders - Volunteers proofreading eBook versions of public domain books

BOOKSHOPS
@WeightlessBooks - Indie bookshop selling DRM-free eBooks
@scarletferret - Human-curated DRM-free ebooks by indie authors

🧵 Thread page 1 of 2

#Books #Reading

@dilmandila

You can map the roads and paths from the comfort of your sofa using satellite imagery. But the infrastructure is just as important – for example, markets, shops, doctors’ surgeries, schools and so on.
However, you can only do that if you’re actually there. That’s where you could help. It’s very easy using the apps from Mapcomplete.org and Streetcomplete. It would significantly improve the maps. Why not give it a try?

Now I'm curious how #openstreetmap gets its data. Yesterday I was on a bus in an area 12hrs from our capital city, and an accident created a miles-long jam. So the bus driver got a local to show him a back route. The guide got lost. So I open OsmAnd, and was surprised to see even footpaths just wide enough for bicycles were mapped! Accurately! With no network in the area, google maps failed but OSM helped us find the highway again. I can believe city streets on the map, but village footpaths?

The LLMs are creating a new kind of mysticism. At Project Gutenberg, we're starting to get emails they have written trying to contact authors of some of the books we distribute. The authors have been dead for over a hundred years. I'm tempted to answer.

Folks, please share the link for our Fediverse Multimedia Grants.

We have funding for creators to make podcasts, artist's portfolios, webcomics, music stores, video streams, or brand new kinds of channels here. And we pay developers to help them be successful.

Our deadline is Wed 4 Nov 2026. It only takes a few minutes to apply.

https://socialwebfoundation.org/2026/10/07/call-for-proposals-fediverse-multimedia-grants/

#Fediverse #SocialMedia #ContentCreators #Funding

Finished T. Kingfisher's What Stalks The Deep. It was an easy read, and I devoured it while on a very uncomfortable 12hr bus ride. I think that (mild spoiler) the goo monster is on a trend, especially if mixed in with a good deal of humour. I first saw it in Someone You Can Build A Nest In, by John Wiswell. Both make for a fun read.

#books #bookstodon #amreading #amreadingsff

if you're having a hard time reading people, try converting them to epub

Been a while since I was #Bloomscrolling so today as I walked in the hot and dusty and very busy street of Arua, I saw this bush chillaxing by the roadside, its tranquility mocking the throngs of humans and vehicles hustling by in a vain quest for survival. I had to stop a for a second to capture the moment. But the irony is there, me stopping to use a smartphone, the ultimate symbol of capitalism, yet the bush evoked some anti-capitalist feeling in me.