Max Gladstone

Productivity hack: do not fill your day with boredom busters. Ditch the mobile games, the doomscrolling, the TV binge, and whatever else you noodle on when you're bored.

Then fight boredom by making something. Paint a picture, write a story, sing a song, code an app. Making stuff is awesome.

Mail Order Magic March comes to you with Sunday Morning Transport stories by Stephanie Burgis, Eric Smith, Sarena Ulibarri, and Leah Cypess.

It's the last month of 2025, & this year, I published two short stories, one novella, and one novel. ❤️

My short story "Mail-Order Magic" is one of the most personal pieces I've ever written, and it's free to read at
@morningtransport.bsky.social : www.sundaymorningtransport.com/p/mail-order...

ManaWriter by Riddle Fox Games a virtual writerdeck based on snes rpg's

Hey @aidanmoher.com I found you (and me) a new writing tool: riddlefoxgames.itch.io/manawriter

Recently finished Dead Hand Rule by @maxgladstone.bsky.social, and I gotta say, the Craft Sequence/Wars series is a treasure :D

Without spoilers, the final villains are such a genius apotheosis of the themes of the entire series, and as quite a narrative feat, feel absolutely unstoppable.

These look so great!

That's hilarious.

I can't get over studios having a successful, original *ensemble mystery* franchise on their hands and not caring about making more money off of it. It's not even a question of getting distracted by AI bullshit, it's a six-year-old series!

I wonder about the success rate of a prohibition policy vs. a guidance that all teachers unironically try to do 6-7, like, four times in a day

My running theory, even with a kiddo of the proper age in the house, remains that by the time I've heard of something, it's over

Setting aside the Keir Starmer of it all, it is very strange to me how often random kiddo shibboleths are met with scorn, incomprehension & attempts at control. Even if you don't like it, adding more aggro energy to a (likely already) tense parenting / caregiving situation won't help much

An analysis that dovetails nicely with what I've seen from other sources incl. Elizabeth Warren's work on the 2 Income Trap.

Wait, teachers *prohibit* 6-7?

*closes eyes*
*rubs temples*
*breathes deeply through nose*

Source: https://www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-life-is-a-lie

Median US households (income $80K) are in poverty if the same calculations as in 1963 are used to rebase the poverty line threshold.

My I Am Not Enron T shirt is raising a lot of questions about whether I am Enron

America gave the world the Internet and now they’re turning it into a useless sewer and I for one welcome the silence of decay the slow fungal overgrowth of analogue reconsuming the information space get me some paper and a damn pigeon

me (the third guy to try this shit on john wick): haha skill issue

Oh, you know what, I'd forgotten (over the weekend) that we were talking about audio. That's a whole different set of rights. I'll look into it further

Craft Sequence Visit Amazon's Craft Sequence page and shop for all Craft Sequence books. Check out pictures, author information and reviews of Craft Sequence

Another reader reports that these links work for them:

First 6 on Kindle: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B074CC7G8...
Craft Wars on Kindle: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BGHBZQ6...
First 6 on Kobo: www.kobo.com/gb/en/series...
Craft Wars on Kobo: www.kobo.com/gb/en/series...

@amalelmohtar.com @maxgladstone.bsky.social

Fascinating! I’ll look into it. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen - Topic Darkness On the Edge of Town

"Darkness on the Edge of Town," Bruce Springsteen. youtu.be/0LpdEyGhNxM?...

Was not expecting to have SUCH parent feelings reading it for the first time this year. When the doctor satellite first sees the spiders! “I may have misunderstood some things.” Mistletoe straight to the heart. How parenting changes you, how you raise your kids &, if you’re lucky, come to know ‘em

Oh, yes! Great point

There’s a great “Made of Meat” / ”Wiki-History” story here

Oh and Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time! We see the spiders getting better thanks to nanotechnology accelerated evolutionary pressures. Also, if you haven’t read it since becoming a parent, that is a GREAT parenting book

Yes, you’re a giant sentient mantis civilization, but you probably DON’T want to actually eat all your mates? Stuff like that

I can’t think of a natural evolution example, beyond handwavy Star Trek/ Arisian stuff. Bear’s Whitespace books are space opera where most sentient species practice “rightminding”, a suite of voluntary talk therapy/pharmaceutical adjustments to help a galaxy of planetary apex predators get along

I really like the notion of something like “lying” as an unpatched exploit in HumanOS, “we’ll get to it next cycle” say the exhausted devs

Haha yeah, makes sense!

Clearly what we need here is the nam-shub of enki, let me get my katanas and my motorcycle

I do feel a lot like the guy who wrote “Don’t Invent the Torment Nexus” these days