Some things about some books

Jane Yolen,

You have created such vast worlds of adventure, reflection, and love. From barely being able to talk to becoming a writer and reader and speaker, I thank you. Your children’s books shaped many generations and will continue to do so. Your literature meant for older audiences sets a standard among fantasy writing, and hopefully authors to come will honor you. I thank you for letting me escape into your worlds, but also being inspired to live fully in my own world.

I'm continuing my series of various shapes and yellow/blue xD

I was trying to do a tall glass but its too large compared to what I wanted... Also more shapes and glazes trials! That dark green is lovely, the last time I tried it it came out washed out and I was so disappointed I did not use it for a year lmao

And the stars of the show! Turns out my black paint doesn't show under the dark blue glaze but whatever, the engraved eyes do the job

Like it's bad when a "tattoo is undulating" (as opposed to... "drawn in a wave like pattern on the skin"?), or when hair is "wet wheat from a late Summer field" (as opposed to "sort of brownish light yellow that dries lighter, but is not actual wheat stalks growing on someone's head but kind of reminiscent of the color and texture"?), or when when ice cream tastes like midnight at the fair" (as opposed to "ice cream flavour bringing back memories of undefined ice cream flavours that are individually popular but always tied to a memory of late evening at the fair ground and probably smelling vaguely like popcorn and sugar"?).

Please reblog the polls, but KEEP IT SPOILER-FREE to make people read the excerpt with an open mind 💖📚 Title and author will be revealed after the poll's conclusion.

i was planning on doing a "what i'm reading wednesday" post tomorrow, but here's a teaser:

+ it's a magnificent feat of reportage. from the inside wheeling-and-dealing at open a.i. to the lives of people who are affected by the data centers and are doing the training work in the global south, karen hao uses this one company and its dealings as a microcosm to talk about generative a.i. in general and it just WORKS.

+ altman is less obnoxious and stupid than musk, but he's even more manipulative and every bit as lacking in morals. as a bonus, he's also a pathological liar. it's unclear to me if he only lies to get his way (he will tell literally anyone what they want to hear, then turn around and tell someone else the exact opposite and does not seem to see any hypocrisy in this) or if his lying is a compulsion. not that it matters.

+ the sheer hubris of these people!!!!! these white dudes seem to really think that a.i. will totally remake humanity (they're delusional) but also that they are the only people who could possibly be entrusted to make the right decisions about it. when internal and external critics (mostly women and/or people of color) point out the limitations of their worldview, they are treated as the enemy.

+ remember that five minute period when altman was outed? and then immediately re-instated? the people who decided to fire him were 100% correct and the way it all got rolled back is WILD.

+ it's an incredibly depressing book but i think if anyone's looking for an overview of the a.i. industry, this book is one of the best to check out.

+ there is hope! hao makes sure to talk with people, especially in the global south, who have fought their asses off against this nonsense and i came away with many new heroes. (also there's the fact that the a.i. bubble is going to burst in the next 1-3 years. that's not so much explored in the book, but people like ed zitron and ryan broderick have me convinced of this. generative a.i. will still exist, but this whole "a.i. is [huge percent] of american gdp" thing is unsustainable. i can only hope the entire economy doesn't collapse when it all falls down. this is the dot com bubble all over again except even bigger this time.)

Books of 2026: BEING ARO ed. by Madeline Dyer and Rosiee Thor.

I swear I didn't paint all the walls in my house to match queer anthology covers, I just know what I like.

Earlier this year, I finally got around to reading BEING ACE (which I enjoyed!), specifically because BEING ARO came out last month. Since both of those are #MyLabels, and I write enough YA that I still want a finger on that pulse, I acquired this one, too. I was curious to see what recurrent themes would emerge in an aro anthology aimed at teens, because I feel like it's still much easier to find explicit ace rep than aro rep in tradpub spaces.

ARO was two pieces slimmer than ACE (12 to 14, respectively), although a higher proportion of the stories were experimental, which I appreciated (we love a good second person in this house!). Most of the aro stories were spec, although the first one was firmly contemporary (and read like Aro 101: A Primer On The Bi To Aro Pipeline). This collection featured compulsory pairing as a literal curse, zombies as amatonormativity as zombies (rinse and repeat), choosing your lovingly-crafted sword over a partner, partly human construct villains, and magical book dragons and censorship, just to recap a few my favorites, apparently:

"The Binding" by Soumi Roy

"Lovesick" by Taka Owen

"Swordmaiden" by Kalyn Josephson

"Indulge the Other" by Laura Pohl (!!!!!!)(favoritest)

"Paper Rebellions" by Rukman Ragas (honorable mention)

Unfortunately, I felt like a handful of the other stories suffered from dodgy worldbuilding, and with fewer in there, it had a more noticeable impact on the overall quality. I wanted to love the one about pilots, but I couldn't take the nomenclature seriously (and I've got major beef with a literal spaceship not being airtight. hello??? you're zipping around in the VACUUM OF SPACE??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALIEN GAS IS GETTING INTO YOUR SHIP--); I wanted to like the one with the explicitly alloaro protag, but don't set something "in 1699" and then drop marrying ~for love~ as standard practice into the first three pages (and for the love of God do not over-complicate your 29-page short story--we did not need to go on that whole spell book fetch quest when a Much Simpler Solution was literally right there, and the Simpler Solution was literally how the story ended after all, why didn't you all just START THERE)(this story peeved me most lol. I don't recall being Actively Peeved while reading ACE); I wanted to like the one involving cloning mammoths but the SF elements and the fantasy elements (Neanderthal shaman time traveling, yes from her POV too) just weren't clicking for me.

While I appreciate that both anthologies exist (I'm genuinely so happy that ace and aro teens can see books like these on the shelf!), overall I found BEING ACE to be the stronger collection. There are a few bangers in here, but I can't throw my endorsement behind this Whole Book as readily as the other.

Terry Pratchett: "!" said the stranger.