Author Archive

Word Alert: Kraken

I just read China Miéville’s Kraken. The pages were packed with exact vocabulary, both real and aptly concocted. Some of the novel terms I looked up:

  • horripilation: goose bumps! (The shared root with horror is the bristling of hair, as with dread.)
  • atrament: an inky black substance – such as cephalopod ink.
  • plastination: a specimen preservation technique whereby certain tissues are replaced with plastics.
  • oneiric: dreamy.
  • nous: reasoning, inner purpose, or capacity for perception; common sense.
  • aleatory: depending on luck or chance.
  • fylfot: a bent-arm cross symbol; a swastika.
  • alterity: otherness; the state of being “altered.”
  • maundered: wandered aimlessly (on foot or perhaps in speech).
  • hecatomb: a mass sacrifice, especially of 100 cattle. (Gruesome related bonus word from an unrelated Wikipedia rabbit hole: tauroctony, the sacrifice of a bull as depicted as a religious icon. Humans are weird!)
  • shabti: Egyptian statuette intended to act as a servant to royalty in the afterlife. (My favorite character in Kraken was Wati, the revolutionary union-organizing body-hopping shabti.)

Kraken is an obvious work of fan service to word nerds like me. The magic of ink and paper and words is literalized through the nonstop mayhem and imagination of the plot.

Posted on Friday, December 19th, 2025. Tags: .

Words of the Week

A few spells I overheard in recent wanderings through the hinterlands of the written world:

  • sepultured: buried. (Alternate spelling of sepulcher.)
  • brio: vigor, vivacity, verve. (Thanks, MW, for an alliterative definition.)
  • tath: manure, or a field enriched by it.
  • condign: deserving or appropriate.
  • rhyton: a horn-and-animal-shaped drinking vessel/funnel from antiquity.
  • parlous: perilous.
  • psaltery: a harp-like stringed instrument.

Stand by for another quiver full of freshly-fletched vocabularrows soon: I’m reading China Miéville’s Kraken right now, and it’s rich with specific diction.

Posted on Friday, December 12th, 2025. Tags: .

Crossword: Letter References

Posted on Monday, December 8th, 2025. Tags: .

November Word Alert

Eight new-to-me words I recently encountered:

  • hebdomadal: “a rare and curious term” for weekly; a hebdomad is a group of seven [days].
  • descanted: to descant is to sing or play a musical counterpoint.
  • hortatory: of prescriptive or persuasive speech; language that exhorts.
  • meed: an old term for one’s pay or due.
  • fils: French for son; appended to a name to distinguish a son from a father, similar to junior (but perhaps in cases where no such suffix is given as part of the name).
  • entente: a shared understanding or intent, especially in a geopolitical sense. (See also the more familiar détente.)
  • apopthegm: alternate spelling of apothegm: an aphorism or wise saying.
  • ambit: scope or extent; perhaps literally describing the route of a patrol but today more likely to denote the jurisdiction of an office.

Posted on Saturday, November 29th, 2025. Tags: .

Firefox

After years of using Google Chrome as my default browser, I’m switching to Firefox. Why? Firefox now has native vertical tabs. In other words, you can choose to list tabs in a sidebar rather than smushed together across the top of the screen. I am not a person who typically keeps dozens or hundreds of tabs open, but 10 or 15 is typical. Even with this few, the titles are far more legible in the sidebar since they aren’t truncated by the variable width of traditional tabs. I find it easier to utilize tab groups in this view, too.

To be clear, side bar tabs are not a new invention. They have been available as plugins, extensions, or features of various browsers for years. What’s new is their availability as a built-in feature of a major browser.

As a secondary benefit, Firefox better supports uBlock Origin, an ad-blocking extension that also just reduces the amount of junk data transferred with each pageload. I haven’t scrutinized its impact in detail, but anecdotally I can report it doesn’t seem to be overly aggressive: I haven’t noticed any interference with legit content, including “artisanally edited” ads and integrated sponsorships on various indie sites I visit. Mainly it just feels like combing some of the spammy cruft from the footer of corporate sites.

Like Chrome, Firefox supports syncing across devices and platforms.

Last but not least, if you’re a cranky ol’-timer like me who begrudges the disintegration of interface standards, a tip: you can re-enable the menu bar and the window title bar via checkboxen in the toolbar customization panel.

(As I write this, I see that native vertical tabs are coming to Chrome, too, but I’m content with this small move to extricate myself from Google’s grasp regardless of features.)

Posted on Friday, November 21st, 2025.

Print Media (cross-posted from Patreon)

This post originally appeared on my Patreon.

I discovered a couple printmaking podcasts recently. To help get excited for the PGNY print fair, I listened to a lot of back catalog episodes while reprinting and packing prints.

Platemark Podcast

On the web at platemarkpodcast.com and on YouTube at youtube.com/@platemarkpodcast.

Platemark is hosted by Ann Shafer. The podcast is loosely organized into thematic seasons. The earlier episodes about curation, criticism, and art history are a bit stuffier and of course more academic, but the “season three” interviews with practicing artists and printmakers are great. They pack a lot of knowledge about printmaking techniques (including esoteric steampunk methods like the hydraulic-press-and-lead-plate-based Woodburytype), intricate projects (like Lothar Osterburg’s photogravures of miniature replicas of historical places), and a recurring theme of the role of the print shop (from shared kitchens to factory-size fab labs) as cross-pollinating problem-solving spaces.

Hello Print Friend

On the web at helloprintfriend.com and on YouTube at youtube.com/@helloprintfriend7464.

Hello Print Friend is a bilingual podcast hosted by Miranda Metcalf and Reinaldo Gil Zambrano. Episodes alternate between English y Español, respectively. (I’m not quite able to follow the Spanish, but at 80% playback speed I can catch the gist, so it’s good practice.) Platemark and Hello Print Friend sometimes coordinate with tag-team interviews, as with Tom Hück. The interview with FAILE was interesting for asking why more visual artists don’t adopt musicians’ practice of forming named bands to perform with particular identities and styles. Hello Print Friend also produces short documentaries; check out Grabando Oaxaca for a look at the print shop scene in Oaxaca, Mexico (there’s a Vimeo link and password on that page).

Pressing Matters Magazine

On the web at pressingmatters.com

Appears to be a swanky full-color print magazine about printmaking, appropriately enough, with some issues and articles available for free as downloadable PDFs.

Posted on Monday, November 10th, 2025. Tags: .

Vocabulary Harvest

I haven’t been diligent about recording new words in the past couple months, but here’s a batch of goodies from books I read late last year and earlier this year.

Him, by Geoff Ryman

I’m not including a lot of Greek and Hebrew terms that appeared in the book, except for a few that occur most frequently or as modern loanwords.

It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis

New Adventures in Space Opera, edited by Jonathan Strahan

From Morrigan in the Sunglare by Seth Dickinson:

From A Voyage to Queensthroat by Anya Johanna DeNiro:

New Edge Sword & Sorcery #3, edited by Oliver Brackenbury

From the flash fiction:

  • Sister Soldier, by R. L. Summerling:
    • purulent: containing or consisting of pus (gross!)
  • Against the Witch-Prince of Emdal, by W. O. Balmer
  • High Water, by James Estes:

From Jirel and the Mirror of Truth, by Molly Tanzer

The Player of Games, by Iain M. Banks

Twelve Trees, by Daniel Lewis

  • entrepôt: trading post
  • griot: storyteller; bearer of an oral tradition
  • congener: member of the same genus; one level up the taxonomic tree from the more familiar term (to me) conspecific, which denotes a member of the same species

Blacks on John Brown, edited by Benjamin Quarles

From the excerpt of John Brown—Hero and Martyr by George Washington Williams:

From the excerpt of a December 5, 1909 address by Francis J. Grimké:

  • helpmeet: a wife, in a blatantly patriarchal biblical sense
  • prate: to prattle or babble

Various

  • From Playing with Popups, by Helen Hiebert:
  • From Mercy of Gods by James S. A. Corey:
    • moiety: kinship group; here, used to subjugated divisions of an imperial society
  • From Battle of the Nine Waters by Dariel R. A. Quiogue in New Edge Sword & Sorcery #4:
  • From James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice Sheldon, by Julie Phillips:
  • Miscellaneous:
    • wayzgoose: a printmaking celebration!
    • vly [vlei]: seasonal lake

Posted on Friday, November 7th, 2025. Tags: .

So Long and Thanks For All the Tweets

I joined Twitter on July 16, 2007. For the next seven or eight years starting in 2008, I posted pretty frequently and did enjoy the internet water cooler culture of following various authors, makers, scientists, and of course comedy accounts. I wrote my babbling commentary about bikes, science fiction, 3D printing, and art for my own amusement. My posting tapered off after 2016 and 2017, and although I continued to log in occasionally to look around, I hadn’t posted anything in over a year.

Today, I downloaded my data and finally deactivated my account.

Here’s a graph of my complete Twitter usage history, via Ian Johnson’s Twitter Archive viewer on Observable:

I have started accounts on a few of the new Twitter alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky, but none of them have really clicked. This has more to do with how I now allocate my time and attention than it does with the design of those sites or the state of social media today. I do post art (and bask in the algorithm) on Instagram, and sometimes I post detailed project reports on Patreon. If I were to write more anywhere, I’d prefer to focus here on my own site, starting with nerdy book lists and eventually nerdy book reviews.

Posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2025.

Books of 2024

Here are the books I read in 2024.

In lieu of more thoughtful reflection, I present a table. I have written paragraph-length comments or summaries for about half of these entries, but I want to proofread, revise, and complete those notes before publishing them. I’ll update this post once I do. (Don’t hold your breath; waiting for myself to get around to completing those notes is the only thing that delayed this post until November 2025, when I finally decided to post it as a list sans commentary.)

Format

  • Books are sorted by default in the order I finished reading them. Click column headers to resort according to that data.
  • Annotations: Stars indicate books that struck a chord or simply stuck with me. Stars do not necessarily represent recommendations or even superior reviews.
  • Attribution: this column names the author or editor (for collections or anthologies). In the case of fully illustrated works the illustrated is also named.
  • Category: Books are loosely categorized as novels, nonfiction, collections, or anthologies. I use collection to refer to publications containing multiple works by one author and anthology more specifically to refer to publications containing multiple works by multiple authors. I use those terms here to encompass works like magazines and books of nonfiction essays as well as short stories.
  • Links: Title links go to various sources. In some cases, I like to the author or publisher’s promotional page for the book. In other cases, I link to longer reviews, bibliographic entries, or the text itself. Attribution links for most writers of genre fiction go to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, which blends biography with literary context and opinionated criticism. Otherwise, links to go to the writer’s web site, Wikipedia entry, or whatever reference I can find.

What’s Not Included

  • Short stories, essays, or articles. For simplicity, I’m only keeping track of complete books.
  • Podcasts. I do listen to a lot of short fiction in podcast form, which merits its own post, but I have not [yet] kept track of episodes.
  • Comics. I am including comics in my 2025 list, but I did not track them in 2024.

Books of 2024

#★TitleAttributionCategoryFormatLibraryYear
1Bibliognost: The Lynd Ward IssueDenis CarbonneauAnthologyPrint1976
2AfterglowGristAnthologyPrint2023
3★The Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015Joe Hill & John Joseph AdamsAnthologyPrint2015
4The Tusks of ExtinctionRay NaylerNovelPrint✓2024
5A People's Future of the United StatesVictor LaValle & John Joseph AdamsAnthologyPrint2019
6Field Notes on Science & NatureMichael R. CanfieldNonfictionPrint2011
7OrbitalSamantha HarveyNovelPrint✓2023
8★Open ThroatHenry HokeNovelPrint✓2024
9The Dreams our Stuff is Made OfThomas DischNonfictionPrint1998
10InfomocracyMalka OlderNovelEbook2016
11★Gideon the NinthTamsyn MuirNovelPrint✓2019
12Ancillary JusticeAnn LeckieNovelEbook2013
13★The KnightGene WolfeNovelPrint✓2004
14Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine #1Isaac Asimov, George H. Scithers, & Gardner DozoisAnthologyPrint1977
15Old Babes in the WoodsMargaret AtwoodCollectionPrint2023
16New Worlds Quarterly #1Michael MoorcockAnthologyPrint1971
17The Riddles of the SphinxAnna SchectmanNonfictionPrint✓2024
18The Empress of DreamsTanith LeeCollectionEbook2021
19I Am ProvidenceNick MamatasNovelEbook2016
20The WizardGene WolfeNovelPrint✓2004
21Is Math Real?Eugenia ChengNonfictionPrint✓2024
22The Book of FlacoDavid GessnerNonfictionPrint2025
23★Titus GroanMervyn PeakeNovelPrint1968
24★A Memory Called EmpireArkady MartineNovelPrint2019
25The NightwatchersAngus Cameron, illustrated by Peter ParnallNonfictionPrint1971
26★Children of TimeAdrian TchaikovskyNovelPrint2015
27★Return of the OspreyDavid GessnerNonfictionPrint2001
28The Three Body ProblemCixin Liu, translated by Ken LiuNovelPrint2014
29★BrasylIan McDonaldNovelPrint2007
30Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #48Kelly Link & Gavin GrantAnthologyPrint2024
31The Stars My DestinationAlfred BesterNovelPrint1956
32The Book of Barely Imagined BeingsCaspar HendersonNonfictionPrint✓2013
33Bones of the EarthMichael SwanwickNovelPrint2002
34Harrow the NinthTamsyn MuirNovelPrint✓2020
35The Future of LifeE. O. WilsonNonfictionPrint2002
36Negative GirlLibby CudmoreNovelPrint2024
37Encounters with the ArchdruidJohn McPheeNonfictionPrint1971
38A Literary Field Guide to Southern AppalachiaRose McLarney, Laura-Gray Street, & L. L. GaddyAnthologyPrint2019
39★By Force AloneLavie TidharNovelEbook✓2020
40★Some Desperate GloryEmily TeshNovelEbook✓2023
41The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and JournalingJohn Muir LawsNonfictionEbook✓2016
42The History of Science Fiction: A Graphic Novel AdventureXavier Dollo, illustrated by Djibril Morissette-PhanNonfictionEbook✓2020
43★HimGeoff RymanNovelPrint✓2023
44★It Can't Happen HereSinclair LewisNovelEbook1935

Posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2025. Tags: , .

Breeding Bird Survey Visualization

Here is a sample plot of Breeding Bird Survey data, embedded from an Observable notebook I wrote. View the complete notebook in context at Observable for interactive species filters, more explanation, and the ability to fiddle with the code.

Posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2025.

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