The last two days of the Summer Fair for Low Spice & No Spice Romantasy!

Two days left to grab those fantasy romance books for free (in exchange for your email)! They all go away on August 1st.

Hop on over to BookFunnel and browse to your heart's delight.

https://books.bookfunnel.com/summerlowspiceromantasy/pvv6cd6lcn

Feel free to boost!

#Romantasy
#LowSpice
#ReadersOfMastodon

If anyone knows how to get in touch with author Y.M. Resnik (Cast of Wonders, Worlds of Possibility, khōréō, Interstellar Flight, Diabolical Plots, etc), please let me know!

We'd like to accept one of her stories but the email we have on file keeps bouncing back!

"Mr. & Mrs. Mahi" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16227342) started out looking like another great Raj Kumar Rao movie.

But then towards the middle of the movie I started seeing issues. The main character is a guy who loved cricket but couldn't make it. He then realizes that his wife is great at cricket and starts coaching her.

However, the way the story goes, for most of the movie, the wife doesn't appear like a character on her own. She's just an extension of what her husband wants. His dreams, his desires.

When the wife makes it in cricket, the husband isn't happy for her success. Instead, all he cares is that he is not known as the architect of her success.

I became very annoyed at this point. Why couldn't the husband just support his wife? Why did he need everybody else to know that he was the reason his wife became a great cricketer?

I loved the movie up to that point because he'd found somebody with whom he shared something he loved. But when he started using his wife as a means to achieve his dreams and started resenting her, the movie just soured for me.

There are multiple issues with the movie was written — how the father treated his son, how the husband treats his wife, how the wife's father treats his daughter etc. And I do realize that they needed the conflict for the movie to have different notes and not be monotonous.

Once past that wobble though, the ending was great. So I guess overall, it's worth watching if you can bear the rough patch in the middle.

#Movies #Hindi #Sports #Cricket

I am going to bed in a moment because I start work at 5:30am tomorrow, but managed to stay awake long enough to post the latest chapter of City of Unnumbered Stars, and it is... the dinner!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/57429055/chapters/146946844

#writing #scifi #writingcommunity #originalscifi #ao3 #fiction #sciencefiction

The wife and I played more "No Man's Sky" this weekend. It's interesting to me that the new game update has been out maybe slightly over a week and it's already had two bug-fix updates on PS5 since then?

We originally had a couple of crashes while playing the game. Didn't have any crashes so far after the latest update. So maybe the crashes are fixed? I guess we'll see ...

But the game's still enjoyable 🙂And this is an 8 year old game.

#Gaming #PS5 #NoMansSky

Still looking for #LilyTheCat, who disappeared June 28 in West Menlo Park. She may have been accidentally or deliberately transported or force adopted.

She’s a very popular cat who has dog friends and even likes small children. For dozens of kids, she was the first cat they ever held.

If you see her, please help her come home so she can once again be the middle school yearbook mascot.

https://lilythecat.org

Fantasy, Lore, & More: The Secrets We Save

Hi, I'm indie fantasy author, Melinda Kucsera, and in this episode, Kel E Fox is joining me to talk about her book, The Secrets We Save. What's it about? In a world where humans live hundreds of years and can perceive deception as easily as breathing, it takes a rare magic called Whispering to tell a lie. Ursa has denied this magic to become a pilot, while Del embraced Whispering and left his family to work as a spy.

http://melindakucsera.com/2024/07/28/fantasy-lore-more-the-secrets-we-save/

In an island city where the Cat Men of the Thieves Guild rule supreme, DaVic, a private eye with more quips than credits, takes on a job for the Thieves Guild from a mysterious femme fatale. This job lands him on the on the run through the dark streets of Sir Lanka, trying to stay one step ahead of those who pursue him.

In trying to unravel the mystery, he ends up finding a sidekick in the form of a Thieves Guild Tea Leaf, KarJa. With her help, the duo start cracking the case and when Sir Lanka is brought to the brink of war by way of a clash of ideals between the Guild and a nascent revolution, would DaVic and Karja be able to stop a bloodbath? Or will they be too busy helping tree-like aliens who are wary of human contact, or dealing with a bunch of alien scientists who are conducting experiments in the very heart of Sir Lanka?

Find out in "Sir Lanka Files". Coming August 15th, but now available for pre-order on Amazon.

https://books.farook.org/sir-lanka-files/

#ScienceFiction #Humour #BookPromo #Bookstodon #FediBooks #Writing
A book cover titled "Sir Lanka …

TL;DR: HELP ME REUNITE WITH MY PENCIL BOX😭

I know this is a long shot but if you spot a pencil box that approximately looks like this stuffed with fountain pens, crochet hooks and a penguin key chain, please let me know?

Highly likely in Dublin City Centre by the River Liffey

It is not that valuable in money, but it does have my fountain pens and I am so sad. 😭 😭 😭

Mine is more maroon than rainbow but it looks like this.

BRB going to cry my eyes out

#mastodaoine #Dublin

🎉 August Queer Romance Club book pick - Dionysus in Wisconsin by EH Lupton 🎉

By a Mastodon author, @pretensesoup, it’s been shortlisted for the 2024 Lamba Literary Award in Gay Romance and the 2024 Midwest Book Award for fantasy.

Available on #Hoopla, #KoboPlus, all ebookstores and perhaps your library, or EH has kindly offered copies if access is difficult for you (DM her if so).

QRC is open to all, read at your own pace over the month and post about it under #QueerRomanceClub and @queerromanceclub — CW for spoilers if going into details but general observations can be open.

No rules: let’s hear reactions, theories, reviews, favourite quotes etc.

Please also feel free to tag EH in to your QRC post this month, and she’s open to Author Q&A so throw your questions her way.

#books #GayRomance @gayromance @bookstodon #BookClub #AuthorsOfMastodon #IndieAuthor

My wife told me to take the spider out instead of killing him.

Went out. Had a few drinks. Nice guy. He's a web designer.

Specialises in debugging.

I #AmReading Herald Petrel by @strangeseawolf, and I’m more or less halfway through. It’s a fun, fast-paced sci-fi story, an easy read even though it deals with some difficult subjects like loss of a loved one, PTSD and death. Check out Strange Seawolf if you don’t know them — they’ve been sharing some fun things about the book ☺️

Publication day again!

A bittersweet moment for me, as this is not only the final volume in my second trilogy but also the last story set in a world, and featuring characters, I've been working with for almost 12 years.

Part of me is glad it's done, and looking forward to new projects. And part is sad to say goodbye to a cast of characters I've come to know so well.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DB8GL9Y3

#writersOfMastodon #bookstodon #SffWriter #writersLife #fantasy #sff #writingCommunity

My Gavin Rownt medieval mystery, "The Players' Boy" is number 7 in Amazon's Medieval Historical Fiction category for Kindle books, number 14 for books overall. It only exists as an ebook.
#Today #Writing

New fediverse account. Time for the obligatory #introduction.

Former #Boulder denizen displaced to Idaho as of 04/24. I'll be back someday, probably sooner than later.

Things I blab about most:

* Fullstack #webdev
* #Linux user / #FOSS developer after-hours
* #Homelab alchemist
* #Metal #music maker
* Practitioner of mediocre #writing
* Avid reader of #scifi, #fantasy, and technical works of all kinds
* Non-motorist by choice

Don't be surprised if, months from now, my feed consists of nothing old-man-yells-at-clouds type rants about missing unit tests and PMs trying to bypass design work.

hi Mastodon! #introduction

Giving a try to Mastodon. Seems like it might be a promising space for #landscapephotography

My name is Anton, and I'm a #photographer. I'm based on the Gold Coast in #Australia. Most of the time I shoot #seascape with occassional #forest, #mountains. I also enjoy #minimalism and #BlackAndWhite.

If you like what you see, feel free to follow me.

A wide ask here so please boost: my grandfather is trying to get rid of an old business computer, and I was wondering whether any vintage computer people might want it. It was purchased for $50k from The Ultimate Corporation in the early 80s. This ran the Pick operating system, and my best guess is the hardware was originally manufactured by GE or Honeywell. It's about the size of a half-rack and currently lives in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. It has sat covered in plastic in a chemical warehouse for the past 35 years. Where do people usually post stuff like this other than here? Thanks!

#RetroComputing

My lovely wife did a cover for my next book: "Sir Lanka Files"

Hoping to publish on August 15th.

More details here: https://shop.farook.org

#Books #IndieAuthor #BookPromo #BookPromotion #ScienceFiction #Humour #Bookstodon #FediBooks #Writing
A book cover titled "Sir Lanka …

macOS by Tutorials 2.0 is now available.

You can buy the book at https://sarahreichelt.gumroad.com/l/oximx

Read more details about the book at https://troz.net/books/macos_tutorials/

If you would like a preview, you can read the introduction, table of contents and chapter 1 at https://troz.net/books/mos_2.0_sample

If you previously bought the book through Kodeco, contact me at books@troz.net for a 50% discount code.

"Find Me Falling" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19862722) is a beautiful movie. It feels very British for some reason, but I guess it's not?

The locations in Cyprus are beautiful, the music is great, and the story is lovely. Well worth watching 🙂

#Movies #English #Netflix