Edpool

It's only been 4 days, and we're already at 60% of our goal! If you're into friendship-centered science-fiction and fantasy, be sure you grab this 37-book itchio bundle. You only got *checks watch* 10 more days to go!

...I guess you've got time.

A photograph of a bookshelf crowded with haphazardly-stacked paperbacks, mostly Iain M Banks sci-fi but there is also Firefall by Peter Watts and a wonderful Duckett and Dyer trilogy by the great G M Nair.

Unprompted bookshelf reveal (or at least a fraction of a fraction of a bookshelf reveal). As you can see, nothing but classics here.

Thank you for putting "(primarily fantasy..." in parentheses there, I was halfway through your introduction and worrying I had somehow missed out on the queer disabled transmasc butch SFF subgenre, which sounds fucking amazing. Great to meet you Finn!

Amen, Mr. Dickinson.

That works out nicely, because Finland's current government just decided that we can take slightly less than a fifth of an immigrant this year.

A drunk postcard from Homer Simpson from an episode in 1989 where he writes something like "maybe it's the beer talking Marge but you got a butt that won't quit. They got these big chewy pretzels here (scrawls) five bucks? Get outta here..."

New communiqué from the actual president of the United States of actual America just dropped.

I'm not guilty of this (I'm not! Really!), but it is a timely reminder for me (and maybe others) to go through your con loot and follow up on those impulse snatches - and the more talented and eye-catching the promo material, the harder you should follow up on it because creatives deserve it.

Grinny (Puffin Books) Great Aunt Emma is no ordinary old lady. But why is she…

I just watched it too! It was cool and creepy, but up to about the last 15 minutes of it I thought it was a film adaptation of a book I read when I was a kid: "Grinny", by Nicholas Fisk. You ever read it?

"Weapons" veered away from sci-fi, sadly (in my opinion).

www.goodreads.com/book/show/10...

Discord wants to know how you feel about AI.

Go tell them: discord.sjc1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Gandalf holds out the One Ring with tongs after it's been in the fire, saying "it's quite cool" and looking - how to say this respectfully to both Sir Ian McKellen and the Maiar - moderately fucking unhinged.

How I resolve to half-arsedly market my book(s) in 2026

Happy new year! I'm on vacation in the southern hemisphere and just picked up a paperback of Elder Race in a bookstore in Fremantle West Australia (you were well stocked there), can't wait to get started with it!

We were in first place in this film award voting.

A film made purely with AI just netted over 150 votes in 12 hours.

Now it's personal.

Please. Help us kick this THING's ass fair and square. ART FOR ARTISTS.

Reshare? VOTE!

www.shortoftheyear.com/audience-cho...

I voted, but the contest really needs to be contacted to make it clear to them that people are using plagiarism autofill to flood actual artists out (and to vote??). I would normally not even vote in a contest that allows "A.I." entries but they need to make a statement surely.

Bondi hero who tackled shooter suffered two gunshot wounds The hero who disarmed one of the Bondi Beach shooters has been identified as a father-of-two.

And the hero who disarmed one of the Bondi gun men is Ahmed al Ahmed, a fruit shop owner, who took two bullets in the arm for his trouble. Absolute legend.

Glad I got to see that at the end of a rough night. Tomorrow's going to be a tough one in Australia.

Colouring With Contro Amazon.com: Colouring With Contro: 9798282577952: Hindle, Andrew: Books

I made an ABC colouring book of my dark comedy sci-fi series, from the point of view of the starship's chief engineer. All text by me, all drawings done with pencil and pen on paper, and scanned (okay I used gimp editor to clean up some line bleed).

www.amazon.com/colouring-co...

I mean on the one hand, I wish people were buying my e-books and asking questions about them. But on the other hand, now I'm kind of glad nobody is? Sweet obscurity, just let me write things in peace you ghoulish technocratic clown parade.

I'm glad to see there's apparently a new season coming out! Less glad to see everything else in this story.

In the original story, Santa Claus had eight reindeer. There was Dasher and Dancer, Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid, and Donner and Blitzen. But they were all of them deceived.

"I can't afford to support my favorite author right now, I—"

Reviews.

Reviews are free AND they are a gift to authors that can keep on giving (i.e., exposure, marketing, algo boosts, etc.)

Please, give the gift of reviews to your authors this holiday season. It really can make a difference!

Didn't work with DnD.
Didn't work with heavy metal.
Didn't work with video games.

Definitely going to work with social media.

Honestly if I'm reading a book and the protagonist makes more than three mistakes, I might consider writing a review where I make fun of the protagonist for being a bit of a dingus. But that's about it.

I can't recommend Joonatan's takes enough. Even when we disagree, it's awesome because he makes me think about things in a different way and absorb just a little of his apparently infinite love of movies, shows, games and tech.

Thank you, autocorrect. While I did in fact mean to write "brutish" (and actually did write it), the comedic value of the monster in my story suddenly having a certain *British* look to its face cannot be overstated.

Speaking of wonderful names for things that have definitely been thought of a million times before by other clever people...

A screenshot of a cutting from my book "Panda Egg", which reads: There were so many atrocities in the Destarion’s past, so many horrors among her accomplishments marching back through the millennia, so many nightmares folded into her galleries and decks. It was impossible for tacticians or historians or even immortals to point at any one of them and declare it the defining massacre, the act of war that had shaped the platform’s personality and her twisted relationship with the urverse around her. But the truth was, it had started before any of those calamities. It had started with the Vorontessa, and the race she had failed – not to its extermination, but with a wound so deep and so abiding that extinction may have been preferable. It had started when her sisters had cast her out in disgust, a shepherd with confused tears standing in her eyes and the blood of lambs drooling from her chin, and had departed on their grand adventure without her shadow darkening their path. It had started with the Bookwyrm.

Well have a follow (not just for the kind, completely non-binding promise, but because I literally have a side-character called "the Bookwyrm" 😆)

The Final Fall of Man Visit Amazon's The Final Fall of Man Page and shop for all The Final Fall of Man books. Check out pictures, author information, and reviews of The Final Fall of Man

My main series titles (Drednanth, Bonshoon, Fergunakil, Blaran, Molran, Damorak) are fairly unique, but the series bookends (Eejit, Human) are woefully generic. To be honest, unique isn't necessarily great either if it's not catchy-unique (and my books are not).

www.amazon.com/dp/B074BG6ZTY

A banner image showing a dragon reading a book while a ghost cat plays with its tail. In the background, its raining outside. The text says A Month of Rain and Reads.

We've now entered December, which means A Month of Rain and Reads has come to an end. Thank you to everyone that took part in the month by submitting a post, taking part in the challenges, or sharing our content!

Here's our final wrap up and thank you post: www.readindiefantasy.com/a-month-of-r...

[1] Also, often this shit isn't just made-up random letters with apostrophes in the middle. It's carefully put together by a person who has a lot of linguistic knowledge (as you illustrated), and if someone thinks it's gibberish it may be because they're monolingual / need to broaden their palate.

It certainly bears more consideration than a glib graph, for all that they're usually fun. To me, "made-up words"[1] are an enhancer. If the book is good, they make it great. If the book is bad, they make it grate (sorry but that happened organically).