iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Jake Casella Brookins

Vincent @zell2036.com · 7h

This is a Comic about Soup

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 3h

"Eels for days, and you *can* hear the falconer's call for no extra charge!"

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Lincoln Michel @thelincoln.bsky.social · 4h

I've started and stopped like 20 essays on this lol but I think what everyone is pointing out here is the tension. Outside of erroneous uses, "literary" is used simultaneously as "good"(or better "style-forward") modifier *and* as "any fiction without an established genre and built-in audience"

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 4h

(& I'm thinking a lot about for example @dan-sinnamon.bsky.social's work on how big literary authors started using more generic forms for various reasons)

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 4h

Yeah that's exactly it. The big mix of possible best-sellers, possible prize-winners, possible duds, in a wild diversity of styles that don't quite tip far enough in any one direction to get booted to a genre.

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 4h

Maybe what I'm trying to get at is: if we set up a category of "literary" in a way that can function as at least a quasi-genre, then we perhaps give a pass to all the *other* genres for *not being literary*. But if by "literary" we mean "good", well, that's not great for all those other ones.

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 4h

We're definitely in connotation & specific usage territory here: I get using "literary" to mean a certain kind of "language-forward good" but it also bothers me because "literary fiction" is also widely understood to just be "general fiction" — tho might be specific to my experience!

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 4h

staunch anti-monarchist forced to reveal it's never been the royal "we" this whole time

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 4h

... & more into a kind of tough criticism of SF itself, where & why it couldn't or shouldn't be considered literary. I don't think genres are bad, they're useful, but thinking harder about why Atwood & Whitehead & Vonnegut & maybe VanderMeer are shelved where they are might be a worthwhile gadfly.

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 4h

This is a long-winded way of saying that I wish we (we SF-discussers, and I'm not saying Dan & Roseanna & Ryan are guilty of this here) were less into saying how an SF work shades into a straw-and-steel-manned literariness, or in bemoaning SF's exclusion from that crowd...

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 4h

It particularly bothers me with SF, where I think the possibility inherent in all art to awaken, to startle, to encourage new lines of thinking, is particularly strong, but undermined always by habit, by familiarity, by the reduction to trope. And bluntly by bad writing.

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 4h

... & then books that are clearly "of" a genre, concerned with its concerns, but written well, are received as "literary" and thus somehow different or less-genre. I get it, but it bothers me.

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 4h

There's this kind of off-putting (to me) dialectic that happens, where genres (by virtue of having tighter lineages & receptions) develop conventions that, over time, override other prosaic norms...

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 4h

Neither "caricatured topic X" nor "astonishing prose", it's just the stuff that is not content-wise weird enough, with a big ol' asterisk, to be set aside in one of the established genres. It's just what some SF critics call "mimetic", which is to say kind of naively realistic (non-derogatory).

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 4h

...not based on material realities of published books & reading communities. We tend to straw-and-steel man it into "campus affair novels" & "beautiful prize-worthy language". But actually *most* fiction in *most* bookstores & libraries is "literary fiction" in the sense that that's...most fiction.

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 4h

Great episode, and I hate to ding a relatively short conversation for not covering every aspect of a complicated thing, but: I'm fascinated, slash bugged, by how SFF-genre conversations often wind up defining "literary" in a way that is not, properly speaking, generic:

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Ziv W @quitevague.bsky.social · 9h

And, if you've not run into them, Laurie J. Marks' "Elemental Logic" quartet. Absolutely beautiful. I feel it's what you'd get if Le Guin were to write blockbuster fantasy -- less about winning the war than about how the world is transformed by it, and finding strength and hope throughout it all.

Covers for all four books of the Elemental Logic quartet, by Laurie J. Marks -- the covers combine into a single illustration.

The books are "Fire Logic," "Earth Logic," "Water Logic," and "Air Logic."

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 10h

the yalta posting will continue

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 11h

Once I lock just a few more things in, will be sharing the list!

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 11h

seriously though gonna try using this as an incantation against writer's block

"Come," said I to my engine, "let us make a tale."

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 11h

One of my favorite categories of historical museums: Famous Person Lived Here Very Briefly

Brass plaque about Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived in this cottage in Saranac NY for ~5 months.

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The Lexorcist @lexidarlingxoxo.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I’m at the Pizza Hut. I’m at the house of leaves. I’m at the combi s n e a v t a i e o l n fo esuoh & tuh azzip

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Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 05/10/2026

All prisoners should have the right to vote while in prison

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 13h

Super fun list, very good to talk it over with @chloroformtea.bsky.social. Also! Finally revealing this publicly—next year, @mealofthorns.bsky.social is having a C.J. Cherryh series, reading 12+ of her books. Starting w/ @guynes.bsky.social, more guests as we go. Very excited about it!

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Cat Manning @catacalypto.bsky.social · 23h

this is my favorite genre of social media post and I am soliciting links or screenshots to your favorites

Jesse Raub @jesseraub.online
King Darius looking down at Daniel in the pit:
Norm Charlatan @normcharlatan....
Man, what are the Lions doing?

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violet allen @blipstress.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This mf from Ernest Scared Stupid. Nothing fictional has ever scared me as much as this thing.

Horrible troll from Ernest Scared Stupid.

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Happy birthday @alasdairstuart.com! I have to shout out Cherryh's WAVE WITHOUT A SHORE, a book about art & connection & reality that positively changed the course of my life.

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Reposted by Jake Casella Brookins

Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

THIS IS SO GOOD

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Adirondack October: "okay, if you're into that kind of thing"

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Plug-in Hyundai Ioniq, nothing breathtaking but a lot of nice elements & affordable. 1st newish car I've ever had & the assist/cruise features noticeably reduce stress & tiredness on long drives.

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

person at the bar wearing a shirt that said "you are not a burden," which is a very nice sentiment except I misread it as "you are not a modern" and I immediately and loudly scoffed "we have never been modern" to general bemusement

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

reading this like "his name is Victor?! Oh."

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I think Icky Mettle edges out Altered Beast, for me, but if I'm honest I listened to Bargainville and Faithlift 100 times more

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Reposted by Jake Casella Brookins

Jesse Raub @jesseraub.online · 02/10/2026

okay everyone we’ve got like one month to huff all the hopium we can before the election let’s be sure to ride these poll numbers through as many good natured what’s an album from 1993 you likeds and what movie deserves a sequels as we can

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I can easily see this becoming my Elder Millennial Crank Topic. Yes, reasonably accurate 10-day and very accurate hourly 24-72hr range predictions were A Thing in many areas, climate change notwithstanding, prior to defunding & deregulation in important areas.

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

remember when weather forecasts were accurate? that was cool

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

"I'd think, as a fellow creature of the night, you'd share my...DIM view of light pollution!"

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Ryan Packer @typewriteralley.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

George Saunders on using AI: "Writing is the most precious way one person can communicate their essence to another person. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to get better at making myself present in my writing. Why would I want to sacrifice even one iota of that?"

Have you spent time trying to write or revise with AI? Is there an experiment that would be interesting enough to try?

I have not. Not for a second. To me, this whole idea of using AI to write is . . . anathema. A thing to be most radically avoided.

Writing is the most precious way one person can communicate their essence to another person. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to get better at making myself present in my writing. Why would I want to sacrifice even one iota of that? Not even in an email and certainly not in a short story or novel.

Who are we ceding our authority to, exactly, when we let AI write for us? And why? Why surrender our agency (that amazing ability we have to reach across time and space, with our strange, idiosyncratic phenomenon, and land within the sensibility of another human being) to something that, by its very design, pushes the individual sensibility aside? And in the name of . . . what, exactly? Ease, I guess? Efficiency? The person who chooses to write with AI has also sacrificed, from the start, the opportunity of experiencing difficulty, of struggling to say what he wants to say, of making himself evident in his prose, of trying to find out what he believes. By this, he sacrifices a chance to know himself and his mind better. To me, that’s a shame. And it’s dangerous, because, as we are now finding out, it affects the brain and lessens our capabilities. Thanks, but no thanks, get thee behind me, etc.

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

hey reminder if you're thinking of attending @montrealworldcon27.bsky.social, rates go up tomorrow

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Reposted by Jake Casella Brookins

Zachary Gillan @megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I’m guest editing the next issue of Agita; send me your weirdest <1000 word stories about weird art. Authors from marginalized backgrounds encouraged and prioritized. No AI bullshit. The weirder the better. agitamag.com/submissions/

Issue 3: Ekphrasis
Between October 17 and November 17, guest editor Zachary Gillan will accept submissions of weird flash fiction that features ekphrasis.
Ekphrasis is the verbal representation of a work of visual art.
Weird fiction is a verbal representation of the world, in order to unsettle it.
We want stories that live at the intersection of the two. Pieces that emphasize the eerie power of weird art, whether fully ekphrastic or embedded within a traditional narrative. How does the weird seep in as reality is doubly estranged from these two layers of representation? Cursed paintings, uncanny statues, haunted mezzotints-send us your stories of weird art.
Publication date: February 1, 2027

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

maybe they'd still be around if they'd been tryharderlobites. do-or-do-notobites. succeedo- [a wave of Ordovician ghosts so numerous they appear as a solid wall of light sweeps into the room and vaporizes me]

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

very accurate, TNG cast (and maybe simpler=more flexible sets?) is somehow more fun when it gets into "huh, what are we doing here" territory

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Benjamin @benjaminschneider.ch · 30/09/2026

Werner Herzog will be the last human being whose next word no language model can predict

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Vajra Chandrasekera @vajra.me · 30/09/2026

My third novel, HERO COME HOME, officially has a cover! Preorderable from the usual places us.macmillan.com/books/978125...

The cover of my third novel, HERO COME HOME. Four human figures centred, the main image being that of a bearded man looking back over his shoulder (that's Oro, the protagonist), with a circle of symbols behind him. We can see a swan and a key. In the foreground are three people: two women, one with a mysterious marking? scar? who knows!? on her cheek and the other carrying a sword, flanking an older, balding man holding up a pistol. The possibly-scarred woman looks ever so slightly amused, and that is certainly very like her. Everybody else is not happy to be here, or indeed, anywhere

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Jake Casella Brookins @casella.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

long story but I fell down a fact-checking rabbit-hole and am now obsessed with this Shonisaurus drawing, good job Dmitry Bogdanov

A drawing of a large silvery icthyosaur (a dolphin or shark-shaped extinct marine reptile) kind of a chonky boi, with a sharp beak and a jaunty air.

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