Books Received, October 11 to October 17
Oct. 18th, 2025 09:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Seven books new to me. Well, six and one replacement. Four fantasy, one historical, one horror, one science fiction. Two appear to be part of series.
Books Received, October 11 to October 17
Which of these look interesting?
Boys With Sharp Teeth by Jenni Howell (July 2026)
4 (10.5%)
Behind Five Willows by June Hur (May 2026)
13 (34.2%)
Daggerbound by T. Kingfisher (August 2026)
25 (65.8%)
Heir of Storms by Lauryn Hamilton Murray (June 2026)
2 (5.3%)
City of Others by Jaren Poon (January 2026)
17 (44.7%)
Starry Messenger: The Best of Galileo edited by Charles C. Ryan (November 1979)
6 (15.8%)
How to Lose a Goblin in Ten Days by Jessie Sylva (January 2026)
14 (36.8%)
Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)
Cats!
25 (65.8%)
As The Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories edited by Terese Mason Pierre
Oct. 17th, 2025 08:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

A selection of speculative fiction stories by Black Canadians.
As The Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories edited by Terese Mason Pierre
Bundle of Holding: Eclipse Phase 2E (from 2022)
Oct. 16th, 2025 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

The tabletop science fiction roleplaying game of transhuman survival from Posthuman Studios.
Bundle of Holding: Eclipse Phase 2E (from 2022)
The Moon Goddess and the Son by Donald Kingsbury
Oct. 16th, 2025 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

The American orbital transfer station offers employment to Byron McDougall, a chance for Charlie Bond to search for an alternative to MAD, and for Diana Osborne, escape from her violently abusive father.
The Moon Goddess and the Son by Donald Kingsbury
Five Novels About Coming of Age During the Apocalypse
Oct. 15th, 2025 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Growing up is hard enough without the entire world falling apart around you.
Five Novels About Coming of Age During the Apocalypse
The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-Ran
Oct. 15th, 2025 09:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Why do Cheolma Rehabilitation Hospital patients keep plummeting from the 6th floor, and why do none of them bleed when they hit the tarmac? The explanation is outside Detective Suyeon's field of expertise.
The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-Ran
Point of Honour (Sarah Tolerance, volume 1) by Madeleine E. Robins
Oct. 14th, 2025 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Fallen Woman turned private investigator Sarah Tolerance is hired to recover a fan. Carnage ensues.
Point of Honour (Sarah Tolerance, volume 1) by Madeleine E. Robins
I ran an errand
Oct. 13th, 2025 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
* A person supine on the sidewalk, having apparently been struck by a car exiting the expressway. There were EMTs so I didn't interfere.
* A person driving their RC car on the LRT tracks as the train was approaching, who seemed put out that I told him to get off the tracks.
* An angry screaming apparently deranged guy between me and where I needed to be to catch the bus.
Bundle of Holding: Huckleberry
Oct. 13th, 2025 01:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

This all-new Huckleberry Bundle presents Huckleberry, the mythic Wyrd West tabletop roleplaying game about tragic cowboys in a world doomed to calamity – unless you save it.
Bundle of Holding: Huckleberry
Clarke Award Finalists 2018
Oct. 13th, 2025 10:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Which 2018 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Dreams Before the Start of Time by Anne Charnock
1 (14.3%)
American War by Omar El Akkad
2 (28.6%)
Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
5 (71.4%)
Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
0 (0.0%)
Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
1 (14.3%)
Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař
1 (14.3%)
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2018 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Dreams Before the Start of Time by Anne Charnock
American War by Omar El Akkad
Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
Gather the Daughters by Jennie Melamed
Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař
The Menace From Earth by Robert A. Heinlein
Oct. 12th, 2025 08:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

A diverse assortment of (mostly) non-Future History science fiction stories from Robert A. Heinlein.
The Menace From Earth by Robert A. Heinlein
Riding coasters and stuff at Tivoli Gardens
Oct. 12th, 2025 05:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
We'd had a stretch goal of also visiting Aarhus's amusement park Tivoli Friheden on the afternoon of our arrival there, but between bad weather and exhaustion that did not happen. We did spend the following sunny day at Aarhus's amazing historical reconstruction park Den Gamle By. That reminded me a bit of Colonial Williamsburg, but with a broader sweep, with restored buildings ranging from the 16th century to the 21st (there's a surprisingly big section of early-1970s streets, businesses and apartments, including a hippie commune and an electronics shop full of glorious analog hi-fi equipment, and a little section recreating for posterity a street from the 2010s with a dying Blockbuster Video). There are also several historical museums within the park. Highly, highly recommended.
The weather in a Danish autumn is at least as mercurial as in New England and you just have to work around it. We went to indoor attractions (mostly art museums) on the rainy days and hit Copenhagen's Tivoli on a relatively good one, which started out sunny with a little drizzle later. It was the beginning of Tivoli's Halloween event, so they were open late, but the weather got worse as the afternoon went on and we were getting tired, so we didn't stay super late. We're not big on Halloween haunts (I think they converted the funhouse to one; I'd like to hit it during the summer season) but the pumpkiny decor everywhere was beautiful.
I went directly to Rutschebanen and found it not yet operating, though there were workers milling about on the ride so that was a promising sign. Given that we didn't hit Tivoli Friheden, there was an opportunity for Rutschebanen to be my 40th cred, but, eh, that kind of numerological pickiness doesn't rule me. Instead, we decided to hit some rides that both of us could enjoy: the 70-year-old cast-iron Ferris wheel, the gorgeous, colorful bumper cars (which have a long, chaotic cycle), and my actual 40th cred, the powered Mack family coaster Mælkevejen (here is Amuseaholics' POV):
This is a fairly new ride that packs more force than you'd expect. It's a long ride, since they give you THREE laps around the course, and the layout is long enough that at an American park they probably would have probably gotten away with one lap. There is whimsical space-rocket theming about a transit service circling the Milky Way. It's a bunch of turns and helixes, all elevated enough that you get nice views of the park and the surrounding neighborhood, but we both got off a little dizzy.
Rutschebanen was still down so we went on the ride underneath it, an adorable dark boat ride called Minen (here's Attractions Magazine's ride-through):
This has a Ghost Hunt-style target-shooting element that I think was added after the fact, but it's not scored and isn't really the main focus of the ride. It's all about the cute funny-animal animatronics. We got multiple rides on this one.
I was steeling myself for Rutschebanen to never get running (this kind of disappointment is part of being a coaster fan), but, nah, they got this eleventy-one-year-old classic going before too long and I indeed got three rides on it that day. Here's CoasterForce's POV:
Rutschebanen (that just means Roller Coaster) is currently the second-oldest operating coaster in the world (since Lakemont's Leap-The-Dips has not been running lately and has an uncertain future). It is a side-friction coaster, that is, one that runs in a kind of trough with road wheels and side wheels that keep it centered on the track, but no upstop wheels keeping it from flying away. This is how log flumes still work during the drop, but full-fledged roller coasters with this mechanic are quite rare today. It has manually operated brakes worked by an operator who rides on the train, on a sort of jump seat at the head of the second car, with basically no restraint as far as I can tell. The operators participate in the lap bar inspection and then just jump on there and go.
The wildness of the ride you get depends on the brakeman's hand. I've heard stories of night rides where they let loose and allow tremendous ejector air. I did get some little airtime pops on my rides, but I wonder if these ejector tales are somewhat embellished, simply because it's hard for me to imagine how that would work. Since not ALL of the train is experiencing negative g-force at the same time, I can see how there could be such a thing without upstop wheels, but I don't get how the brakeman doesn't fly off--they don't have the loose lap bars that the riders have. Maybe they just hang on tight. It's a special job requiring a lot of training. They do wear hearing protection against the noise of the ride all day long.
The ride does provide powerful lateral forces on the turns, particularly in the dark section toward the end, which made me think of Space Mountain though this ride is 60 years older than Space Mountain.
This is a coaster that was partly blown up by Nazi saboteurs during World War II to break the morale of the Danish people--and was, according to the ACE plaque at least, prioritized for reconstruction in the midst of wartime to preserve said morale. That's how important this thing is. And, yes, I can see it.
The park's highest-thrill coaster, Dæmonen, didn't get running until the late afternoon, when I took a ride on it. It's a remarkably miniaturized B&M floorless looper with three inversions, shot here by Attraction Source:
You get fantastic views of downtown Copenhagen from this coaster, which is probably why it opens not with a big drop but with a turn and helix off the lift hill (kind of like Hersheypark's Great Bear). There's a modest drop into the vertical loop, then an Immelmann and a roll, and that's basically it. It's got some good positive g-force and whip to it; I'd rate it below SFNE's Batman: The Dark Knight for thrills, but that's not really the point here; the remarkable thing is just that they managed to fit it into Tivoli Gardens. It's a decent ride in a wonderful setting.
This was the one ride where I had to wait in a substantial line, probably in part because it opened so late, but it also has some capacity and operations issues that I think are caused by the site constraints. Riders exiting Dæmonen have to leave the station on the same side they came in (possibly after retrieving their stashed goods from the bins on the far side), which creates some crowd-flow issues. The ops have to tell entering riders to stay put for a few seconds after the air gates open, to give the previous riders a better opportunity to clear the area. I don't quite understand why the air gates can't just open later, but that's what I saw happening. I guess it's designed so that the exit gate can't open earlier.
That domed building you can see from the top of the lift is Ny Carlsberg Glyptoteket, an art museum housing the collection of brewery heir Carl Jacobsen, a 19th-century gentleman with a highly focused obsession with classical statuary (particularly Roman) and anything resembling classical statuary. There's a spot in there, among the crumbled statues of gods, emperors and hippopotami, where you can distinctly hear screams coming through the wall of people riding Daemonen. I think it adds something to the tableau.
New Policy: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE POST A NAKED URL HERE.
Oct. 11th, 2025 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Asking politely has failed for 20 years. Therefore, comments with naked urls will be deleted, as they break Recent Comments. To post links, follow the advice below.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE POST A NAKED URL HERE.
OK, results of this have not been what I wanted.
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE POST A NAKED URL HERE.
I am beginning a count now (1:23 PM Oct 13) and if the naked url count hits ten, and I don't think it's someone trying to game what I am going to post, I will turn off anonymous comments for a week. If after that, I get another ten naked urls, I will try a month, and then a year.
If the offender has a DW account, I will block them.
DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE POST A NAKED URL HERE.
Books Received, October 4 to October 10
Oct. 11th, 2025 08:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

13 works new to me. Four fantasy, two horror, one non-fiction, one thriller, and five SF, of which at least three are series.
Books Received, October 4 to October 10
Which of these look interesting?
The Seed of Destruction by Rick Campbell (July 2026)
2 (3.6%)
Uncivil Guard by Foster Chamberlin (November 2025)
8 (14.5%)
Crawlspace by Adam Christopher (March 2026)
6 (10.9%)
The Girl With a Thouand Faces by Sunyi Dean (May 2026)
16 (29.1%)
Your Behavior Will Be Monitored by Justin Feinstein (April 2026)
5 (9.1%)
Blood Bound by Ellis Hunter (April 2026)
1 (1.8%)
Sublimation by Isabel J. Kim (June 2026)
19 (34.5%)
Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher (March 2026)
25 (45.5%)
Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction: Volume Three edited by Stephen Kotowych (October 2025)
17 (30.9%)
Rabbit Test and Other Stories by Samantha Mills (April 2026)
16 (29.1%)
The Body by Bethany C. Morrow (February 2026)
4 (7.3%)
I’ll Watch Your Baby by Neena Viel (May 2026)
5 (9.1%)
Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward (July 2026)
9 (16.4%)
Some other option
0 (0.0%)
Cats!
38 (69.1%)
Five Extremely Convincing Reasons We Should Build Armed Bases on the Moon
Oct. 10th, 2025 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
Five Extremely Convincing Reasons We Should Build Armed Bases on the Moon
Roll For Initiative (The Last Session, volume 1) by Jasmine Walls & Dozerdraws
Oct. 10th, 2025 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

Old friends unite for one last adventure without fully understanding the implications of the group's latest recruit.
Roll For Initiative (The Last Session, volume 1) by Jasmine Walls & Dozerdraws