Polenth Blake

Friendship Centred SFF Book Bundle 37 Books Feb 1st-15th Background photo: four friends standing with arms around each other. Photo by Helena Lones, Itchio Covers: The Unidentified Champagne Charlie and the Amazing Gladys Walking the Knife's Edge Bonkpocalypse Bad Grains A Spark in Space The Damsel AN UNCOMMON CURSE Courage Is the Price Puppetry Duckett & Dyer, Dicks For Hire The Old Goat and the Alien Spirits of the Relentless Without Wings Clipped Sing In Me, Holy One, and Through Me The Lucky Machine The Lost Star Chart Werecockroach Rescue from the Orc Fortress Riyati Ripple Wherever the Stars Call The Crows Woodspell Common Accord Awakenings River of Crows A Study on Magic and Crystals Once Upon A Wave of Witches Fortitude Waters Dust & Lightning The Re-Emergence

SFF Readers, do you like stories which centre friendship, or where friendship groups tackle plot problems?

To help you find them, I've organised this 37 book bundle. It's an even split of Fantasy, SciFi & SciFi-Fantasy, available till Feb 15! (Book blurbs in link 😉.)

🌈📚🪐📚💙 itch.io/b/3486/frien...

The Lord of the Wood NetGalley helps publishers and authors promote digital review copies to book advocates and industry professionals. Publishers make digital review copies and audiobooks available for the NetGalley comm...

oh god help, THE LORD OF THE WOOD is available to request on Netgalley which I guess means people are about to READ my queer cozy horror??

www.netgalley.com/catalog/book...

Writing whilst I eat raspberries. I've managed not to randomly write about raspberries.

I like raw potatoes!

A buff-colored kitten and a grey-striped kitten snuggling with eachother in sleep

These guys know how to January:

On writer schedules, the tendency to view early rising as more virtuous/productive can lead to people hurting themselves. I have a delayed sleep phase and sleep during the day. Once I switched to this, I could do more, because sleep actually worked and my health improved.

I've just accepted that Google thinks I'm a serial killer at this point. And also have every possible ailment known.

A hand holding a frog coin purse with its' mouth open as if it's going to eat you, with a bright logo in the background of red, orange, yellow and blue stripes.

A whole pile of small frog coin purses in various shades of existential crisis and green, sitting on a desk mat that says "figmentpudding". In the background is a bright illustration of a frog leaping into the air with dandelion poofs and text that says "weaponize joy & whimsy"

A hand holding a bumper sticker in the air. It has a blue argyle pattern, and a very round bean-shaped frog screaming into the ether. Text in big white letters says "heck"

A square mottled green mossy looking frog throw pillow sitting on a desk.

Hello, can I interest you in a frog in these tumultuous times?

I've been having some headache issues for the last few days, but feeling more alert today. (No advice needed, I know the stuff to do.)

I probably should have warned people to turn the sound down (I hope nobody blocked me).

YouTube video by oposoum The Fellowship of the Vuvuzela

Whenever people start talking about vuvuzelas I think of this video...

I'll give Wildthorn one thing, that announcement is a wild ride. Page-turning is usually code for rigid story structure, removing quiet moments and nothing weird/experimental. But it's also going to be genre bending/blending.

Let's just say I have very low expectations for the bendiness.

Do you wish authors wrote more weird little books?! If the answer is yes, here is flash fiction from the perspective of very alien aliens! Many alien types, often experimental, all the persons (including indefinite fourth), are they stories or poems, who knows! #WeirdFiction #BookSky #FlashFiction

NON-FICTION Quote the ideal reader of the weird has to embrace a kind of wilful suspension of foreknowledge or generic expectation. This affected tabula rasa perspective requires, in turn, a critical approach, a practice of weird reading [1] hyper-attuned to the weird poetics of a piece as it signals its own weirding and becomes weird fiction. end Quote The Brackish Pool: Towards a Critical Practice of Reading Weird Fiction by Zachary Gillan 26 January 2026 Strange Horizons

Welcome to the 2026 Criticism Special Issue!

The Brackish Pool: Towards a Critical Practice of Reading Weird Fiction
by Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social

Link ⬇️
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

A screenshot of WhatsApp: Ash: Sebastián, I have one very pressing question. Sebastián Di Martino: Let me know Ash: Are jaguar soft? Sebastián Di Martino: They are very soft (two hearts on the answer)

Being a journalist is sick: I just contacted a pre-eminent jaguar conservationist in Argentine with a question that has been weighing on me for ages and he wrote back right away with an informed answer.

A cross button has appeared on it now (which wasn't there when I asked about it). Though no option to never have them appear, so I've adblocked the live events URL for now.

I found this post as I was searching for a way to remove the NFL thing from my sidebar. I don't see an option to dismiss it?

I already have trending topics turned off, don't use the discover feed, and sports is not selected as an interest. I couldn't see any new options in settings.

An axolotl

Larry says hello.

Background lavender with gold stripes. Cartoon dragon presenting the WisCon logo. Text: Featured WisCon Artist: Melissa Gay www.melissagayart.com I am a neurodiverse LGBTQ+ artist who is equally passionate about sci-fi, fantasy, and wildlife art. Myths and legends about the natural world inspire me, as does our increasingly detailed view of the Universe through science and technology. I love to create hazy, dreamlike, otherworldly scenes, and my goal is to incorporate just enough detail to fire the viewer’s imagination and inspire them to fill in the story. WisCon URL: wiscon.net

On a background of diagonal stripes of lavender and gold, an inset image: Medusa, shown as a middle-aged white woman wearing red, braiding her hair of brown snakes while facing away from the viewer. Art by Melissa Gay, www.MelissaGayArt.com

On a background of diagonal stripes of lavender and gold, an inset image: A blue whale in the sky bursts out of a cloud. It has structures on its back resembling a city. Farther away, many other similar whales fly among the clouds. Art by Melissa Gay, www.MelissaGayArt.com

Lavender background with gold stripes. Cartoon dragon, WisCon logo at bottom. Text: Apply for the 2026 WisCon Art Show! Contact: Tahlia at artshow@wiscon.net We'll be having an online-only Art Show as part of WisCon 2026. If you make any form of visual art and want to share it with other WisCon members, please do apply! In past years, the Art Show has included painting, drawing, illustration, photography, comics, printmaking, jewelry and other wearable art, sculpture, animation, and more. WisCon URL, wiscon.net

Melissa Gay is our featured artist today!

WisCon 2026 will have an online-only Art Show. If you make any form of visual art and want to share it with other WisCon members, please apply! form: forms.gle/FkUNkX5eNLXZ.... Applications open through April 30. Qs? contact Tahlia at artshow@wiscon.net.

I have some new xylitol sweets (Peppersmith brand) that don't have other sweeteners in them. So far I've tried the pastilles (more like tablets) and the gum. I think the gum wins for tooth stuff. The pastilles aren't really chewable.

The packets are plastic free, so that's a bonus.

An illustration of a piece of rock shale with various Cambrian organisms fossilized on it. Clockwise from the top is Hallucigenia, Opabinia, and Marrella. At the center is Naraoia. They are mostly blue-gray and illustrated on top of a dark blue-gray background.

a little Burgess Shale action

#sciart

I've written quite a bit today. Removed a minor character who wasn't really needed and wasn't that interesting.

A grey and peach tortoiseshell kitten lying in a basket with a grey cushion in it. Her front get are splayed upwards, belly visible, but her head is turned in such a way that it looks like it's completely missing because cats are just noodles with paws apparently

She's beauty and she's grace, she lost her whole damn face

They had to put restrictions on child content because of COPPA in the USA. A lot of it isn't sensible, but YouTube got taken to court over it, so they're very strict on it now.

Closeup of two bubbles floating on the dark surface of relatively still water. The bubble in the foreground is surrounded by tiny ripples of golden light, like thin rings of Saturn. In the center of the bubble, half a dozen small dots of light inside a darker outer circle. In the background, a second bubble, blurry and darker.

I've photographed bubbles in this fountain before, but yesterday it was dark enough that the underwater lights gave everything a lovely glow.

The Claws of the Ounce ebook by Paris Vivian - Rakuten Kobo Read "The Claws of the Ounce" by Paris Vivian available from Rakuten Kobo. The myth of the full moon is just that: a myth. However, the lives of some shapeshifters are ruled by cycles much subtle...

If you want to read about snow wereleopards and werelions in 2010s South Ontario, The Claws of the Ounce is waiting for you!

Kobo: kobo.com/ebook/the-claws-of-the-ounce
Itch: parisvivian.itch.io/the-claws-of-the-ounce

#BookSky #IndieAuthor #UrbanFantasy #shifter

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They didn't notice he was called He-Man, so I imagine not!

Bigots: Why does He-Man have PRONOUNS!

Me, a non-binary person: Yay, giant green kitty!

Thrilled to share that my novel, DOWN IN THE SEA OF ANGELS, made it to the longlist for the British Science Fiction Association’s Best Novel category, along with books by my agent siblings @voidcricket.bsky.social and @cassnewbould.bsky.social !

www.bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-awards-...

A long-haired black cat pokes his head around the side of an open laptop. He has green eyes and looks like he might be getting into mischief.

A furry black cat paw, grasping the top of an open laptop screen. The rest of the cat is hidden, but you can imagine what he’s doing.

A long-haired black cat with green eyes is on the other side of the open laptop now with his pause, extended and face barely visible. He is doing crime.

Helping.