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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The Mage Errant bookstore rerelease is today! I've been a full time author nearly eight years, but getting my books on store shelves is genuinely a childhood dream come true. www.reddit.com/r/Progressio...

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Nobody: Absolutely nobody: Me, who should be working: "Georgism is the Live Laugh Love of economic reform"

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alix e. harrow @alixeharrow.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

"books should start with action" "the first pages must introduce the protagonist" "world building should be invisible" hush child ms. robin mckinley is speaking

CHAPTER

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The magic in that country was so thick and tenacious that it settled over the land like chalk-dust and over floors and shelves like slightly sticky plaster-dust. (Housecleaners in that country earned unusually good wages.) If you lived in that country, you had to de-scale your kettle of its encrusta-tion of magic at least once a week, because if you didn't, you might find yourself pouring hissing snakes or pond slime into your teapot instead of water. (It didn't have to be anything scary or unpleasant, like snakes or slime, especially in a cheerful household magic tended to reflect the atmosphere of the place in which it found itself-but if you want a cup of tea, a cup of lavender-and-gold pansies or ivory thimbles is unsatisfactory. And while the pansies-put dry in a vase-would probably last a day, looking like ordinary pansies, be-fore they went greyish-dun and collapsed into magic dust, something like an ivory thimble would begin to smudge and

crumble as soon as you picked it up.) The best way to do it was to have a fairy as a member of your household, because she (it was usually a she) could lay a finger on the kettle just as it came to a boil (absentminded fairies could often be recognised by a pad of scar-tissue on the finger they favoured for kettle-cleaning) and murmur a

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The pre-order short story is still available! It's a really fun one, too, if I do say so myself!

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ToonHive @toonhive.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

‘COYOTE VS. ACME’ has now officially surpassed the $30M amount Warner Bros. originally planned to write the film off for. The film is now projected to earn over $60M domestically.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

It's the way to do it, the line is so much shorter!

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Got my first DragonCon panel here in ten minutes! Title: Gods, Geography, and Jet Streams: Making Your World's Climate Feel Real Time: Fri 10:00 am Location: L401-L403 Marriott (Length:1 Hour)

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Oof I'm sorry, I had to wait in that line last time I came to DragonCon. It's a LOT

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

On the flip side, sitting on my first ever in-person panels this weekend, super excited for that!

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

In Atlanta for DragonCon and just got offered a Waymo by Uber. I have literally never hit the decline button faster, folks.

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REwadent Evil @ewacat.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

this has to be one of the greatest clips of all time, i will sit and watch it through whenever it comes up because i love him and i love his delivery and i love how there's always a Herzog ending to the tale. god he's one of the greatest to ever do it

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Otherwise, publishers just seem to assume that all reader market segments are fungible, which has led to the current insane system.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

It's a system built for the benefit of publishers, not authors or readers, and it's a BADLY built system that doesn't understand that these are different reader market segments entirely! Like, ebooks replacing mass market paperbacks was because it was the same market segment buying both.

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Matthew R Francis @bowlerhatscience.org · 26/08/2026

as a theoretical physicist and a professional writer, I can tell you from personal experience that the ideas are *always* the easiest thing. I can generate lots and lots of ideas! But like insects that lay hundreds of eggs, most of those ideas will be eaten before they reach adulthood.

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Annalee Newitz @annaleen.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

What if -- and hear me out -- we gave all the cis guys in the paramilitary a bunch of shots of T, made them bulk up all their muscles, and then installed data centers inside their newly stacked bods? IT COULD WORK.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Both! I personally find Metabolism more interesting- and they're certainly the more successful in terms of real-world construction- but Archigram gets psychedelic as hell! Some of the earlier linear city theorists had a lot of wild ideas too.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Oh lord, I don't even know. Probably some of the more niche branches of the megastructure architectural movement of the 60s and 70s, I read a bunch of their writings for my current series? Or maybe some of the weird art history rabbit holes I fall down, but I'm kinda just an art history fanboy.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

And seriously: your ability to creatively worldbuild is contingent on your knowledge of our own world. Want inspired, creative worldbuilding? You need to stuff your skull so full of fun facts about our own world that they start leaking out your ears.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Also, since I do particularly out-there secondary world fantasy, most of my research is for inspiration, so there's not really a single specific question I could ask an LLM. And when there is, it's a highly specific scientific question that I need a trustworthy right answer to, which... sorry, LLMs.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Ayuuuuuuuup. Not to mention, a lot of the research I do involves materials that not only aren't on LLMs, but in fact aren't even on the internet! I have to buy a surprising number of out of print works for the stuff I do. (Which gets unpleasantly expensive at times.)

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Really good book! For all their silly senses of humor, the Weinersmiths are generally serious, sober researchers.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Yeah, I cannot imagine why it would need lights strong enough to be seen from Earth. But I'm very much a casual space fan these days, so maybe there's been some real weird ISS remodels I didn't hear about hah.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Yeah same. I *think* it's sunlight reflecting off the ISS, and not its lifhts, though I'd need to ask a space-knower to be 100% sure.

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Tade "Will Eat Your Heart in the Marketplace" Thompson @tadethompson.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

No, silly Adobe AI, I don't want you to summarise the contract. I need to read every word.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

The worst part of being a leftist is having to spell bourgeousie regularly

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

I couldn't make it to Spain, alas, but I'm at least going to have a great view of the partial eclipse from here in Portugal!

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Reading Alan Moore's From Hell for the first time- goddamn, don't know how it took me so long, this is great.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

I've decided to get into Soulslikes

A pile of books- all three volumes of Marx's Das Kapital (the Penguin versions), David Harvey's Companion to Capital from Verso Press, and also the autobiography of Mother Jones because I couldn't be bothered to remove it from the pile and also there's probably a joke about theory vs praxis in there lol

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

As a short story guy, damn I wish there was a bigger market for them, like there was pre-2000. But yeah, full agree, short stories are so much less forgiving to write. They're also one of the best possible writing exercises, imho.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Dangit I'm slacking, it's been months since I've pissed off a group of AI bros with my Luddite yammering. Jealous!

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Film you’ve watched more than six times with a GIF. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, Marvel, Disney, or Ghibli.

static.klipy.com

Burt Gummer: Household Chemicals (Tremors)

ALT: Burt Gummer: Household Chemicals (Tremors)

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Now I get a fairly normal life due to a single fairly simple operation when I was a toddler. Ignoring that... One grandpa was a farmer, the other a real estate agent. I would have been terrible at either, especially the farming. I grew up on a farm, some people just don't have what it takes, hah.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Yeah, kinda similar for me- if I had been born even a couple years before I was, odds were that I wouldn't have survived childhood, I'm one of the oldest people in the world with my specific health condition of anything more than mild severity.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

(I literally could even remember specific details about Saturn Devouring his Children, like the apocryphal dick thing, or the bizarre circumstances of it and Goya's black paintings, but I just couldn't remember his fucking name, ugh.)

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

This week trivia night had an artist identification category, and my team turned to me with huge smiles, because I love me some art history. And then I totally brainfarted Caravaggio and Goya. The Goya was fucking Saturn Devouring His Children, too! Urge to shrink into a corncob rising.

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Jessica Smith @thedaybooks.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

It’s nice to see everyone’s textual analysis of The Odyssey It’s almost like the humanities give you entertainment, feelings, pleasure, and fun/interesting stuff to talk about, as well as lenses into both past and current society

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Just a reminder, you can get an exclusive Mage Errant short story (7k words, so not particularly short!) if you pre-order the upcoming Simon and Schuster Mage Errant hardcover!

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

(I grew up reading Derf's comic strip The City in KC's Pitch Weekly, so reading one of his graphic novels always feels like a homecoming.)

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Finally got around to @derfbackderf.bsky.social 's graphic novel on Kent State, and cannot recommended it highly enough. It made me genuinely furious, some of the highest praise I can give a book, and the building tension all through the work to the events you know are coming is incredibly powerful.

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John Bierce @johnbierce.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Just a reminder, you can get an exclusive Mage Errant short story (7k words, so not particularly short!) if you pre-order the upcoming Simon and Schuster Mage Errant hardcover!

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Reposted by John Bierce

MD Presley @mdpresley.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Two more days to grab three urban fantasy books for three bucks. Mystical mysteries Magical libraries Haunted houses Multiple magic systems And an enchanted iPod mybook.to/InnerCircle

Four books in the Inner Circle series, the first three marked at $.99 for July 20-26.

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