Jo Walton

Why All Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Are Historians SFF authors are the front-line practitioners who put the fruits of history’s craft into daily practice, sharing it in doses the public can consume, combining, treating, administering, customizing, …

Ooh! My new essay is up on Strange Horizons!
Deliberately provocative title 😈
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

One month to wait for Trace Elements, a conversation on my favorite genres by the author of my favorite series @adapalmer.bsky.social and the person whose taste in books I admire the most @bluejo.bsky.social. I’ve not been that excited about a book for a very very long while

The Black Paradise Flycatcher aka Japanese Paradise Flycatcher (Terpsiphone atrocaudata) in Korea 🇰🇷

It is a migratory species, breeding in North Asia and migrating to Southeast.

Photography by Young Sung Bae (500px).
500px.com/p/ysbae491

#birds #nature #Photography

There probably is, but I don't have one. I can tell you that the personality of the cat is definitely real, from having known the cat.

An orange cat on a grey and white striped cushion with a black and pink brocade cushion behind, and a window through which you can see a garden shed and some vaguely green bits of garden. The cat is staring very seriously out of the picture, which was very characteristic of George.

#SomethingBeautiful a pet portrait of my Aunt Jane's cat George, by my aunt, Mary Lace

The eyes of a printed cat from the thread in more detail: you see a cross in the eyes.

Hypno-Cat says goodbye for today.

Amici italiani, ecco!

Just looked where the bookstore is, and it's fairly near my favourite gelateria in Rome, Giolitti. And I can get a train home to Florence at 21.48. Huzzah!

On the 12th! I can totally be there!

Meet the spirit animal for doubtfully and sceptic media consumption these days ...

I read one of his books and I was petrified.

#dailytree
#Zurich 🇨🇭

A weird looking "cat", thin and with babies on its back.

A 🧵 of 4-legged animals in sixteenth-century prints, including 🦊 🐕 🦒 🐈‍⬛ and a 🦄 . #skystorians

Grumpy looking black cat with yellow eyes, lying down, painting.

Hello Wednesday.
🖼️ Shozo Ozaki

Reclining boar with magnificent tusks in a snow-covered landscape

Ohara Koson

Pink flowers in a white jug against a cream drape (actually a duvet cover)

#SomethingBeautiful another still life from my aunt Mary Lace. One of the things that's fun for me in these is seeing household objects I've known all my life, like this jug, in a new light.

Just pre-ordered Trace Elements: Conversations on the Project of Science Fiction and Fantasy by Jo Walton (@bluejo.bsky.social) & @adapalmer.bsky.social. Used @bookshop.org, which let me support one of WI's independent bookstores to the tune of $9.60. Thx to you all!

#HumbleBrag 📚💙

The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For - Reactor In a corporate-run dystopia, a trans girl plucked out of poverty to give birth to a clone meets her replacement.

Brilliant but horrifying short by Cameron Reed @lateonsetgirl.bsky.social on @reactorsff.bsky.social reactormag.com/the-girl-tha...

Spring: Another of Lorenzo de' Medici's Love Sonnets | Jo Walton Get more from Jo Walton on Patreon

Translation of another of Lorenzo de' Medici's love sonnets Spring: www.patreon.com/posts/spring...

So close! With out new history of SF publication, essays on craft, genre, dystopia, and a secret section about #ChronicPain

I hope not!

Did you ever read IN THE WET? It's the most -- well, what you called "lumpily progressive" book, which makes it impossible to recommend even with a million caveats, but it's such an interesting (and wrong) projection of the quarter century after he wrote it.

Four weeks is a long wait! Pre-ordering today via Bookshop. 🪐📚 📚💙

Well, this sounds wonderful.

Trace Elements

In exactly four weeks from today, on Tuesday March 24th, you'll finally be able to buy Trace Elements: Conversations on the Project of Science Fiction, a collection of essays from @adapalmer.bsky.social and me

torpublishinggroup.com/trace-elemen...

And so interesting what he got right and wrong! And it actually made a difference to government policy.

Shute is one of the people who made me understand his whole historical moment better, both by what he understood and what he didn't.

Most of his work is available in very inexpensive ebooks.

Oh I can totally see that, now you say it.

I am ridiculously fond of Shute, for all his flaws.

Bill's mother is incredible.

A blue and white jug, two lemons, some leaves, on a blue silky drape which is actually a tablecloth that belongs to me!

#SomethingBeautiful Lemons and Jug, another still life from my aunt Mary Lace

Sunrise with orange-brown sky on the horizon, looking across Auckland Harbour for a view of the horizon showing Auckland Harbour Bridge & the Auckland CBD skyline with Sky Tower sticking out.

Another beautiful Tamaki Makaurau sunrise. #Auckland #TamakiMakaurau #somethingBeautiful #aucklandScenes #sunRise

“There's a sunrise and a sunset every single day, and they're absolutely free. Don't miss so many of them.” -Jo Walton @bluejo.bsky.social