iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 14h

Having a go at blackwork embroidery. It’s very simple, but the geometric patterns make my brain happy.

Embroidery hoop with white fabric in, upon which are three squares of backwork embroidery. The top is purple, the middle yellow, the bottom red. In between them is faintly visible the same pattern but in white.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 15h

Eyes emoji and grabby hands, especially once ARCs become available

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Niall Harrison @niallharrison.bsky.social · 17h

I have helped to programme a thing! Who fancies a day trip to Newcastle in November?

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 19h

New column up, this time of a book I had an unqualified great time with. I sometimes find books that are just enjoyable in this way hard to talk about, so this is a little of an attempt at explaining exactly what it is that felt good to me.

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Stan Fresh @stan-fresh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Oh, this is a bit of a tangent, but something I'd love to hear some smart people talk about is how to recommend books where just describing what's so appealing about them will reveal twists and turns in them that are best experienced by the reader fresh.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Currently reading a book where the answer to “what’s it about?” is a lot of umming, a ten minute ramble, and then a concluding “well, sort of, but a bunch of other things too”. And I think, at the moment, those are my favourite kind (though too early into this one to tell if I’ll love it or not).

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Ed Morland @edmorland.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

"unable to breathe as she held the flute in her trembling hands, and felt in its cracks the decades." It's been half a decade since I first read it but the opening chapter of The Vanished Birds is still a marvelous thing.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Whatever else I think of Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, I contain only hatred whenever Fabio comes on screen. Or speaks. Or is brought to my attention in any way.

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Ancillary Review of Books @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org · 26/09/2026

Do you like reading *about* speculative fiction? Do you like revising and offering feedback? Do you have strong but civil opinions about comma placement? ARB could use your help!

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org

Call for Volunteer Editors!

The Ancillary Review of Books is looking to grow our editorial team! ARB is an online magazine that publishes reviews and critical essays, centered on speculative fiction and related non-fict…

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Listening to this interview is fascinating. Two main thoughts: 1) The blessing that is an interviewer so well informed, so thoughtful as Armfield is here. 2) Listening to M John Harrison talk about his books makes me feel very stupid and also that I do very much actually want to read them all now

londonreviewbookshop.co.uk

M. John Harrison & Julia Armfield: The End of Everything | London Review Bookshop

The great M. John Harrison – ‘The closest thing we have to a present-day Wyndham or Ballard’ according to the New Statesman – returned to the shop to present…

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Got to love a recipe that has so much cinnamon it switches from measuring in teaspoons to grams.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Amusing? Apt? Something? To read this shortly after discussing May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry.

Photo of a page of Scores by John Clute, which reads:

“To misunderstand the past, it is not only necessary to have one in mind. There must also be an intuition that the past is ultimately unfathomable, that historians ultimately limn a time abyss. Then we can know that our understanding is misunderstanding. This intuition postdates Gibbon. It postdates Sir Walter Scott as well. Not until the discovery of the geological time cave in the story of the West did we properly begin to imagine that our past was unknowable; and that our own world, too, in time, might turn into fairy tales.”

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I have now read all of the Le Guin prize shortlist, triumph for me. Will probably reread Mad Sisters as well though, just to refresh my memory but like, I have done it, they have all passed through my brain.

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Pip Wren @lollibeepop.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

A joyous fat bear week to all 🐻

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

You know sometimes you have a realisation of something that's been true for a while and you've just never actually managed to coherently grasp it? Well I just realised I dislike retrofuturism as an aesthetic. And I think it explains a bunch of things I vaguely disliked without pinning down why.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

First attempt at making madeleines. I deem this result “could be worse”.

A bowl of six madeleines that are a bit overcooked on one side and too light on the other

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

To somewhat continue the weird book reading year thing… so, Audition by Pip Adam, huh. Wow. (I’m only part way in, but that part is ODD)

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I already own a digital arc of this so I didn’t /need/ to buy a copy but Fitzcarraldo editions are just so pretty.

Paperback of The Mulai by Munir Hachemi. It’s a Fitzcarraldo book, so it’s a stark blue paperback with just the white text of the title, author name and publisher on the cover.

Title page inside the book, on which the author has written “To Roseanna, thanks for reading. Let’s keep making glyphs.” And signed their name.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The goodreads reviews of The End of Everything are just phenomenal.

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Abigail Nussbaum @abigailnussbaum.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The Great Tolkien Reread meets "The Riders of Rohan". Specifically, Éomer, the first of several characters who seem to have been designed to echo Boromir, and to reflect on his strengths and weaknesses. wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2026/09/the-...

wrongquestions.blogspot.com

The Great Tolkien Reread: The Riders of Rohan

Illustration by jorahh , 2025 'What do you know of these horsemen, Aragorn?' [Gimli] said. 'Do we sit here waiting for sudden death?' 'I hav...

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Misha Grifka Wander @mishagw.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Ancillary Review is looking for more editors! Message me if you're interested in copy-editing, dev editing, or graphics creation for a Hugo finalist magazine of spec fic criticism! It's volunteer-based and fits with your schedule <3

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

And @thebookerprizes.com review two. @chloroformtea.bsky.social on Rebecca Perry. This novel has been received widely as historical fiction; Mary Beard spoke about it in these terms in the launch. But it inherits all kinds of generic play and can easily be seen as a fantasy - certainly a fantasia.

strangehorizons.com

May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry

May We Feed The King may be misread; but in the open spaces where that opportunity lives there is more space for joy and wonder.

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Sandstone @quartzen.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I liked The Everlasting and The Isle in the Silver Sea well enough but I'm kind of wishing for a fantasy read that's more "I want to be an awesome lady knight" than "I want to fall in love with an awesome lady knight"... any recent recs, especially ones that aren't YA/MG, romantasy, or erotica? :(

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

My horrible little orange bastard creature is once again playing with a live moth he’s caught in between me and the only exit from this room.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Our book club has read two books about someone having special cross-space teleportation powers and HOO BOY are they very fucking different from one another.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Our local charity shop is not currently taking books. This is a bit of a bugger when I’ve got a rucksack full of them and two stacks at home.

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Eddie Clark @dreddieclark.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

My review of This Is Where The Future Bleeds by Mike Brooks is up on @nerdsofafeather.bsky.social. A hugely fun, funny fantasy romp that also has something reasonably savage to say about extractive capitalism.

nerds-feather.com

Book Review: This Is Where The Future Bleeds by Mike Brooks

Quality fantasy romp with a side of anti-capitalist fury Mike Brooks is a writer that rarely disappoints. He's one of the most consistently...

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I’m sitting at my desk with a blanket over my legs, and this is what I can see at my feet when I look down.

An orange cat with eyes closed lies on a fleece blanket, his back tucked under a fold

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Why is tiktok so obsessed with soup???

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Continuing to play Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave and uh… I think I picked the wrong track. Swapsie time away from team Murder Hobo/Creepy Priest, I think.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

What A Fish Looks Like by Syr Hayati Beker. Absolute top tier novella.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

So reboots and retellings are different things, right? Definitionally. Are modern versions of Sherlock Holmes reboots or retellings?

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Dan Hartland @danhartland.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Booker longlist week at SH closes with @chloroformtea.bsky.social on the stranged fantasia of Rebecca Perry's May We Feed The King. This is a story in which immersion and its absence are constantly in play, and in fact become the major tools the author uses to just play."

strangehorizons.com

May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry

May We Feed The King may be misread; but in the open spaces where that opportunity lives there is more space for joy and wonder.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Started playing Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave. Even by Fire Emblem standards, deeply unserious game.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

We’re playing Split Fiction (and having a fun time, the co-op is very well done), but I have a LOT of thoughts about the assumptions the game has about both fantasy and SF, and the people who write it.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I may have been sliiiiiiightly obsessed with this book when I finished reading it. Really glad to have had the opportunity to write about it (and have my enthusiastic ramblings made more coherent by Dan’s editing).

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Nerds of a Feather @nerdsofafeather.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Book Review: Palaces of the Crow by Ray Nayler Nayler is back on animal consciousness, but this time with a whole lot more of man's inhumanity to man to go with it says @chloroformtea.bsky.social at the blog: www.nerds-feather.com/2026/09/book...

nerds-feather.com

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Interesting to read The Apple and the Pearl, which is a great example for close third person making the characters feel genuinely /close/ and then to immediately follow it with a book that somehow uses close third but holds the characters at arm’s length (The Vanished Birds).

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Fueling up ready to go see the Bayeux Tapestry

Ed looking cheerful in a cafe, in front of him a table with a tea, a mocha and a plate of six large madeleines

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I've had a good year, so these are all the five star books I've read that were published in 2026 (so far!).

The Misheard World by Aliya Whiteley, The Language of Liars by S. L. Huang, The Mulai by Munir Hachemi, On the Calculation of Volume IV by Solvej Balle translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell, What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed, The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo by Zen Cho, May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry, The Apple and the Pearl by Rym Kechacha

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Renay⁷ @renay.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

More people should read my favorite four books so far this year. 😌

cover collage of four books: Notes From a Regicide by Isaac Fellman, The Language of Liars by S.L. Huang, Slow Gods by Claire North, and Ode to the Half-Broken by Suzanne Palmer.

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Roseanna Pendlebury @chloroformtea.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Reading The Apple and the Pearl by Rym Kechacha and it’s just exactly what I want out of stories about fairies. By which I mean, mostly not /directly/ about the fairies.

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undiminished somewhere 🌕 @tallesteden.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Telling a reader that a book is good: 🥹 owo please read this it's real good Telling a fellow reviewer that a book is good: 😈😈😈😈😈

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