iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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kuzhali manickavel/குழலி மாணிக்கவேல் @kuzhalimanickavel.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

i'm supposed to be talking about upcoming book events but it feels weird to do that when the country is turning itself inside out fascism is so gross you guys like seriously what the fuck

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Honoured to see Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India up here with some very cool books (and classy monsters)

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Galen Strickland @templetongate.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

My latest book review is for a debut novel from a writer born in Canada, but she moved to India with her parents at 13. Her work has been described as part of the New Weird. The book is short but the title is long. At times scary, other times funny. Recommended. templetongate.net/compendium-o...

templetongate.net

Templeton Gate 3.0 - Literature - A Compendium of Supernatural Entities Found in the Government Girls Higher Secondary School by Kuzhali Manickavel

Reviews of science fiction, fantasy and horror books, films, comics and television shows

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Tfw you're observing a bunch of cute unfamiliar birds and they're being all chirpy and social and you're like aw, nature! And then you ID them and read the Wikipedia page and find out they're brood parasites and suddenly it feels like a zoom jump cut in a horror film

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Daisy Rockwell @shreedaisy.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Huge protests planned in India this weekend against voter suppression. All trains to Delhi have been cancelled and tens of thousands of police deployed ahead of time. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...

theguardian.com

India’s ‘Cockroach’ party accuses government of mass detention of members ahead of weekend protest

Thousands expected to march in Delhi on Saturday, as anger mounts over controversial changes to voter lists in world’s largest democracy

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Josh Cook @joshthelibromancer.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I know I am about as biased as possible on this but go to an indie bookstore. An indie bookstore's vibes are the opposite of...all of this. You'll be surrounded by memories, stories, brave visions of the future that don't ignore our barbarous present. Your brain can be quiet AND full. Seriously.

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

A fine example of Wrestlerly Writing in the Anguish Languish

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kuzhali manickavel/குழலி மாணிக்கவேல் @kuzhalimanickavel.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

dearest friendos, if anyone happens to be in the coimbatore area tomorrow evening around 6, come hang out with me and vinayak varma at kaadambari! we will be talking about weird things! You can buy a saree! Or some pillows! come see us!

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Indrapramit Das @indrapramitdas.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Dont miss this one! My blurb: As fun--& funny--a book about the tragedy of growing up poor & a woman in India as you're likely to read, fishing bright, barbed new folklores & horrors out of the roiling ocean of hopelessness that threatens to drown the life of a small-town Indian schoolgirl.

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Mae Nick Phra Khanong @nickjbrumfield.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The only way we're gonna stop people from using AI to reanimate the dead is someone makes a highly successful horror film franchise based around the premise that this will actually summon vengeful ghosts to kill you

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Alex de Campi @alexdecampi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

new book! new book!

A paperback book with a bold, junji ito-esque red, yellow, and black cover, titled “A Compendium of Supernatural Entities Found in the Government Girls Higher Secondary School”, by Kuzhali Manickavel

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Did not realize that Red Bull was named for a US-backed Thai Nazi gang

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Simon Spanton @simonguy.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

"...with one particular book appearing to be a complete compendium of every paranormal being that exists here. It is unclear why such a wondrous room of knowledge should be suffused with an atmosphere that rips absolutely everything to shreds." Happy book birthday to @kuzhalimanickavel.bsky.social

A photo of a copy of the 2026 Angry Robot edition of A Compendium of Supernatural Entities Found in the Government Girls Higher Secondary School by Kuzhali Manickavel. The cover is by Sarah O'Flaherty.

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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 05/10/2026

This is your occasional reminder that generative "AI" in particular could have been developed on public domain materials and/or licensed and compensated works but the major players intentionally, methodically and systemically chose to steal labor from working creative folks instead

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Indrapramit Das @indrapramitdas.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

THE LAST DRAGONERS OF BOWBAZAR could always do with more readers. It's a tale about growing up in Calcutta in the 90s/00s, in a family that may be members of a diaspora from another reality, in a house that may be a dragons' nest. British Fantasy & Subjective Chaos Kind of Award-winner.

subterraneanpress.com

The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar eBook

Subterranean Press creates readable art, publishing limited editions and groundbreaking original works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Just sent PORTALPETTAI for what must be its 12th or 13th reprint. (Batches of ~200 only, but still!) A portal opens in a small South Indian town; an alien life force seeps through. All living things within a radius of 800m are transformed/recombined! Hijinks ensue! www.blaft.com/collections/...

blaft.com

Portalpettai

by Avakkai and Chukka 24 pages. 5.8" x 4.1". 100 g Zine ISBN: 978-93-80636-29-0 Portalpettai is an illustrated mini-book about an interdimensional portal which opens at a women's college in a small to...

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Listing books for sale on Ama$on as a small publisher is becoming increasingly fraught. Just all kinds of weird bugs, robotic support teams, janky interface, intrusive AI trying to edit/paraphrase your descriptions on Goodreads... uggh it's so awful! Just stop buying books there pleeeease yougaiz

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Vajra Chandrasekera @vajra.me · 03/10/2026

I'm sorry to be missing this (I'll be going up to Bengaluru again soon but unfortunately a few weeks too late to catch any of the launch events) but you must go if you're in town because both Kuzhali and Shalini are awesome

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

A touch of vintage pulp feel here, I approve wholeheartedly

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I feel like I know what this means because maybe I've used it?? When the source language generally has a more poetic and decorative idiom than the target, a lush translation keeps it that way; a non-lush translation trims it down and makes it sound more normal in the target language

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kuzhali manickavel/குழலி மாணிக்கவேல் @kuzhalimanickavel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

four more days nanbargale! today we have a rather cheeky little koothu number of the village persuasion, get down village people! www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFjA...

youtube.com

Vaadi Machiniyae 4K Remastered Video Song | Parthiban Kanavu Movie | Srikanth | Sneha | Vidyasagar

YouTube video by Sathya Jyothi Films

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

What just happened in Tennessee really should convince everybody.

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the bats?

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Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Magical creatures don’t exist, eh? Roughly 400 million years ago, before the birth of trees, there were giant mystery cones called “Prototaxites,” which grew nearly 30 feet tall. We literally have no idea what they were. Plant: no Mushroom: no Animal: no Tell me this isn’t a little bit magic

Sunset with giant mystery cones Prototaxites https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/prototaxites-fossil-explained-why-this-prehistoric-colossus-still-baffles-scientists-1773173

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Blaft Publications @blaft.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Or buy the EPUB direct from us: www.blaft.com/collections/... (We need to reprint the Indian edition -- coming soon -- even sooner if yougaiz spend some money on our website 😅) This book features Tamil lovers in Jaisalmer, corpses in coconut groves, Barack Obama & Angelina Jolie in space...

The Tamil Pulp Fiction book on a table with interesting doilies made of dried grass and what appears to be a carved wooden bunch of poovan bananas

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Blaft Publications @blaft.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Avoid Amαƶon, support indie bookshops / indie publishers if at all possible... but if for some reason you MUST use Amαƶon, TAMIL PULP FICTION VOLUME 3 is now (finally) available in the Kindle store again www.amazon.com/dp/B0758H6J21 (and the print edition in the USA) www.amazon.com/dp/9380636253

The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction, Vol. III. Front cover shows a cyborg village lass wearing a half-sari and toting an aruval (billhook). There's a ribbon in her hair and a lightning storm in the background

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Johnnie Jae @johnniejae.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yesterday was a big day for Indigenous literature as Kinsale Drake, Darcie Little Badger, and Stacie Shannon Denetsosie received the 2026 American Book Award for Beyond the Glittering World: An Anthology of Indigenous Feminisms and Futurisms. redpopnews.com/beyond-the-g...

redpopnews.com

Beyond the Glittering World: An Anthology of Indigenous Feminisms and Futurisms Receives 2026 American Book Award

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I just started Wickhills and idek what's happening yet but it's badass. Stoneskin ōg! Manticore! Ammonite passkey! Yay!

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Reminds me of the junk "educational" content that got churned out (At Scale!) by Bangalore/Delhi startups for a while. Some of this was actually written by poorly-educated, worse-paid, often-intoxicated twenty-something humans, but much of it I'm pretty sure was generated byjus.com/biology/evol...

byjus.com

The process by which modern organisms have descended from their ancestors, with changes in their allele frequencies, is called evolution.

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I used to see this kind of content around 2019-2022 from a lot of shady Indian educational technology companies like Byju's. I can't figure out what is being used to produce it

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I'm really curious about this because while it doesn't sound like human writing, it's also BAD English... like the LLM is a foreign speaker. "Music teaching methods must be integrated with advanced information technology from initial music education to new, creative, extensive education."

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Title: GHOSTS, MONSTERS, AND DEMONS OF INDIA Genre: Folkore Word Count: 145K Funniest moment: People seem to like this section! www.blaft.com/collections/...

People with No Anuses
In the 5th century BCE, the Greek writer Ctesias wrote of a mysterious
race of people living in the Eastern Himalayas, past the source of the
Brahmaputra, who had no anal orifices. They did have buttocks—but no
hole between them.
These people were cattle and goat herders, and they derived all their
nourishment from the milk of their livestock. At night, they would chew a
sweet root which prevented the milk from solidifying in their gut, so they
only ever needed to expel liquid waste. This they did either by urinating
or vomiting.
Strange as this legend may seem, there is a corroborating story about an
Eastern Himalayan tribe of anusless people in the folklore of Mizoram.
It is a tale that involves the folkloric Mizo trickster-idiot character named
Chhurbura, called Chhura for short.
It is said that Chhurbura once visited a village called Mawngping, where
he discovered that none of the inhabitants had an anus. The villagers,
watching Chhura perform his morning rituals, were deeply impressed;
they all wanted a hole like that too. They asked him how he came to have it.
Chhurbura told them that when he was a baby, his mother had made
the hole for him using a burning hot iron poker.
The villagers asked if Chhurbura could perform this operation for their
children, and Chhurbura agreed.

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

*My understanding** is that while all this stuff still needs to get fleshed out/ litigated/ whatev, you MIGHT be able to claim copyright over AI-generated stuff if you keep careful records of all the prompts you entered. But I've not yet heard from authors who do that. **I am very much not a lawyer

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

All other ?s of ethics/environment/technofascism aside: Indian law is currently leaning towards "AI-generated art is not copyrightable"*. So if you submit writing to me that is AI-generated, or has AI-generated illustrations, you're trying to sell me stuff that you don't own. That's fraud! 😡

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kuzhali manickavel/குழலி மாணிக்கவேல் @kuzhalimanickavel.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

if anyone happens to find themselves in Coimbatore on Oct 9 at around 6 pm, you can mosey on down to Kaadambari and hang out with me and vinayak varma! you can listen to us talk about weird things! or you can buy a carpet! the possibilities are endless

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

We drove through Philly last year and almost visited -- choosing to do the Rocky steps instead because we had just done the Museum of Natural History NYC and were about to do the Smithsonian. Now I'm kicking myself! Hope they somehow manage to keep it open!

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Harare Review of Books @hararereview.com · 25/09/2026

Saola - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saola?w...

en.wikipedia.org

Saola - Wikipedia

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Rachel Cordasco @rachelcordasco.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

#SFinTranslation as an area of interest is so contradictory - on the one hand, it's very niche. On the other hand, have you SEEN my spreadsheet? There's SO MUCH SFT, I've barely scratched the surface.

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Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Walking with a Killer 💙💙💙 Are You Mine 💙💙💙

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