Thomas D. Lee

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The opposite of nominative determinism

Has anyone spotted a gammon-faced King Arthur in the wild?

You'd have thought that misspelling the word 'Britain' on her conference pamphlets would demonstrate the benefits of studying English

Can't wait to hang out with cool author friends in Brighton at @worldfantasy2025.bsky.social 🥳

I'll be on the Politics in Fantasy panel with @elizachanwrites.bsky.social and other exciting people at 13.00 on Halloween itself (because there's nothing scarier than politics in 2025 🤣) See you there!

'Hengist, if we murder Vortigern, where are we going to put his corpse?'

'Ah, I'm glad you asked, Horsa. I've invented something called a 'barn...'

Oh cool!! Backs up the whole Susan Oosthuizen hypothesis about 'The Emergence of the English', that the Saxon settlement was largely peaceful and gradual. If they're building barns in Oxford in 6th c. then they're not violently fighting the Britons.

BBC Laura Kuenssberg Show Accused of Anti-Green Bias After Cancelling Zack Polanski Interview The new Green Party leader was the only major party leader not to have been granted a conference interview on the flagship BBC show

The Greens requested an interview on the Laura Kuenssberg Show with Zack Polanski when he was elected leader, but were denied, with a promise to interview him during Green conference instead.

This was then scrapped citing the Manchester synagogue attack. Polanski is both Jewish and from Manchester

Email michael.coyle@lawdit.co.uk with the name of your works and ideally a screenshot proving that they've been stolen

(I'm not the first person to share his address here, but I hope he's not getting too much spam!)

a bald man in a red shirt is making a funny face and saying `` i will make them pay '' . Alt: A gif of Captain Picard from Star Trek: First Contact saying 'I will make them pay!'

I've added my name to Michael Coyle's case against Anthropic in the UK. If you've had your work stolen by Anthropic, if it's on LibGen, then I encourage you to do the same. We can make these fuckers pay. (And even if they don't pay us what we deserve, it might cover the rent for a month or two!)

A stubborn old idea which only really benefits writers who are independently wealthy and who don't need to make a living out of this gig. Wanting to be fairly remunerated for your time and labour doesn't make you a sellout or an arch-capitalist, it makes you a socialist!

The Poor Poet by Carl Spitzweg, which depicts a starving poet living in a leaky garret and burning his books to keep warm

We can say 'it's not about the money' and focus on the injustice of the crime but I think we should be wary of thinking that it's somehow vulgar or obscene for us to demand remuneration for having our work stolen. That's getting into 'all writers should live in a leaky garret' territory.

a cartoon dog is carrying a train on its back . Alt: A gif from Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers of Gromit riding a model train and hurriedly placing track in front of the train

I'm not some millionaire, I did reasonably well out of my first book, I can just about cover the rent and food and living expenses by living off my advance and doing teaching work (which, fortunately, I enjoy). But my financial situation looks like this, and I'm sure many other authors can relate.

a cartoon of a man asking where 's the money . Alt: A gif of a Fat Tony from the Simpson's asking 'where's the money'

Anthropic stole my work. I have complicated feelings about piracy and the value of art and so on, but in summary:

I know they've been replaced with something worse but let's still take a moment to celebrate the demise of the Tory party as a political force

RIP Jane Goodall.

I love the little bell on his hat

It could be on a space station. Maybe near Cardassian space. I'm thinking a Ferengi bartender? Oh, wait....

How often do these transphobes actually use the pond, when they're not wearing fake moustaches and doing bizarre publicity stunts? I'm guessing not very often.

"single-use plastic of the mind" had me GAGGED

Currently at:
— only buy tech too old to have AI built in
— painstakingly disable AI every time they add it to something that used to work perfectly well
— if it can't be switched off, abandon the platform or tool
— if there are no good alternatives, avoid the AI parts
— patiently wait for the crash

First plane to cross the Atlantic!

See I'm an old plane nerd but I'm a big fan of the Vickers Vimy Commercial, which looks like a child's drawing of an aeroplane

The thing about AI is that it ultimately doesn't matter how realistic it gets, or looks, or sounds, or seems - those are all red herrings. The problem at its heart is that nothing it produces comes from a real person, and it therefore has no aesthetic value. That's it. No more needs to be said.

Even if you're not ready for mince pies and sleigh bells you can still book tickets to see me chatting with @caimhmc.bsky.social about RING THE BELLS, the latest book in his The Stranger Times series, which features demonically possessed Santas and the ghost of a legendary nightclub. See you there!

Fastest Clive Barker impersonator in the west

This has got to be some kind of record

I had no idea that they'd written a book!!!!

a gnome with a sign that says ai images are not art Alt: a gnome with a sign that says ai images are not art

Since it clearly needs to be said:

If you used an AI cover for your handcrafted selfpub novel, it's not too late to change it! Please do!

We all want to read your work - and that won't happen while you use AI.

You can find 1000s of free stock images online.

Consider this an industry PSA.