iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Shousetsu Bang*Bang @s2b2.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

HELLO WORLD! Come check out our technology-themed latest issue, Binary, for a whole bunch of sexy queer love stories that will have your processor humming. The whole issue is live and free (as always) to read at www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/issue...

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Erin Lockwood @erinkaylockwood.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

On "woke language": yes, most of these terms aren't things Dems actually say but are a way for centrists and the GOP to attack them. But also: many are terms intended to extend dignity and recognition to folks who our language excludes or cannot speak of. I'm not ready to concede the value of that.

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 16/08/2025

A beautiful example of this: Damion Searls’ analysis of a sentence by Robert Walser, from his own translation. He takes a sentence and opens up a world, unveiling the magic in its imagery, syntax, and rhythm. “The large lake resembled a child who is completely silent because asleep and dreaming.”

theparisreview.org

Counterpunch by Damion Searls

October 21, 2014 – On a sentence by Robert Walser. It is worth remembering that there once was a time when every letter, number, and punctuation mark printed on paper

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Shousetsu Bang*Bang @s2b2.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

It's time to get caught up in our new issue! Come enjoy all the webs, weavings, cycles, and callbacks of our April issue, Quantum Entanglement! www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/bang-... Shousetsu Bang*Bang: Always smutty, always free, and always all kinds of queer!

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mar 🛸 @remnantglow.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

I'd like to share with y'all a project I've poured my heart and soul into over the last couple of years: a database cataloguing every single older (pre-21st century) LGBT science fiction book I've managed to track down - currently just over 200 titles 🚀 LINK: tinyurl.com/oldgaySF

A banner that reads OLDER LGBT SCIENCE FICTION: A DATABASE in big letters, and tinyurl.com/oldgaySF in smaller print below. The background is an orange-tinted retro-looking photo of a row of radio telescopes.

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Shousetsu Bang*Bang @s2b2.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

Start (or finish) your work week off right with our new issue, Nine to Five! Our office-romance-themed collection is packed with sexy queer tales that are anything but your usual Monday grind. Get it all for free at www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/front...

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

💙📚 A selection of some of my favorite reads this year. First, the fiction:

Daniel Lefferts - Ways and Means
B. Pladek - Dry Land
Ravella Ives - Cold Comfort
Allen Bratton - Henry Henry
Robert Jackson Bennett - The Tainted Cup
Aube Rey Lescure - River East, River West

Vajra Chandrasekera - Rakesfall
Patrick Nathan - The Future Was Color
M.T. Anderson - Nicked
Garth Greenwell - Small Rain
Alan Hollinghurst - Our Evenings
Clive Barker - Imajica

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

I’ve been meaning to read this for a while and I’m glad I finally found some time during the strange lull before the new year. Reading Imajica has affirmed my intention to be more selective in my reading for 2025—which includes less chasing after new releases, more reading from the backlist. 💙📚

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Shousetsu Bang*Bang @s2b2.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Say good-bye (and good riddance) to 2024 in the best way possible -- with tons of free queer smutty romance! Come join us for our year-ending theme-free big bang at www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/front...

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

I finished Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst earlier this month, a sumptuously elegant novel that is also bleak in a way that resonates deeply with this historical moment. (1/2)

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

I love @amalelmohtar.com's observations on storytelling in Minsoo Kang's novel. The emphasis on "show not tell" in fiction writing can be flattening and can sometimes preclude the rich array of possibilities available in text 💙📚

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 05/11/2024

Thread. Some media recommendations below, to which I'd also add the novel Human Acts by Han Kang (recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature) 💙📚

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Shousetsu Bang*Bang @s2b2.bsky.social · 28/10/2024

Say its name three times and it appears: our terrifyingly sexy October issue, Hauntology! Whether you're looking for some chilling thrills or just some ghost-flavored snuggles, you can get started on your very own Gay Halloween right now at www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/front...

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Kate Violette @kateviolette.com · 03/10/2024

The experience I'm about to share is not "grr kids these days" nor "I'm tougher than these chumps" but rather "I'm genuinely sad kids are missing out on deep reading" Where I went to college (the first three yrs), we had slightly shorter fall/spring terms and a one month January term (aka J term)--

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 01/10/2024

Books I enjoyed from September, including vibrant anticolonial fantasy, lyrical meditations on writing, a postmodern blend of history and myth, and a provocative dissection of cultural trends privileging flow and immersion. 💙📚

Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson

Opacities: On Writing and the Writing Life by Sofia Samatar

Hombrecito by Santiago Jose Sanchez

Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life by Ferris Jabr

The History of Sound: Stories by Ben Shattuck

Immediacy: Or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism by Anna Kornbluh

The Melancholy of Untold History by Minsoo Kang

Clear by Carys Davies

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 28/09/2024

Reminds me of something Toni Morrison once said: "All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was."

"You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally, the river floods these places. 'Floods' is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding: it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”

—Toni Morrison (talk given at the New York Public Library in 1986)

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 15/09/2024

Brilliant essay from @jolwalton.bsky.social which takes contemporary science fiction to task for the ways it has failed to meet the challenge of critically appraising the role of machine learning in society. 1/ 💙📚 sfrareview.org/2024/01/26/m...

sfrareview.org

Machine Learning in Contemporary Science Fiction

⮌ SFRA Review, vol. 54 no. 1 Features download Machine Learning in Contemporary Science Fiction Jo Lindsay Walton “To suggest that we democratize AI to reduce asymmetries of power is a little like arg...

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 14/09/2024

Penzeys is great! FYI I'm seeing some recommendations for the Spice House since they're from the same family, but they are NOT the same. The Spice House is conservative & does not have a good relationship with Penzeys. www.newyorker.com/culture/anna...

Bill, Jr., spun off his own namesake spice company in 1986; Erd and her husband, Tom, took over her parents’ business in 1992. The two companies have not always coexisted peacefully: a Crain’s story from 2009 described a “palpable” tension between brother and sister. But, in the wake of Trump’s election, the sibling rivalry became a fundamental matter of business philosophy. Shortly after the Spice House distanced itself from Penzeys, Erd and her husband began reaching out to conservative bloggers, sharing a special offer for anyone in need of a new spice purveyor: free shipping to those who used the promotional code NOPOLITICS.

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 02/09/2024

One of the horniest novels about grief I have ever read. This beautifully queer book came at a time in my life when I really needed it and genuinely rekindled my love for reading 💙📚

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 02/09/2024

My favorites from August! I loved all of these, although it's been a while since a book has stressed me out as much as Navola did (complimentary) 💙📚

The Anthropologists by Ayşegül Savaş
Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera
Nicked by M.T. Anderson
The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber & David Wengrow
In Tongues by Thomas Grattan
The Other Olympians by Michael Waters
Navola by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Future Was Color by Patrick Nathan

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 29/08/2024

Nicked by M.T. Anderson is at once a queer romance, a bumbling heist story, and a meditation on power & divinity. Set in the medieval Mediterranean, it's the story of a monk (a "holy fool") and a disreputable yet rakish relic hunter and their attempt to "liberate" the bones of St. Nicholas. (1/2) 💙📚

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 29/08/2024

@edyong209.bsky.social is a phenomenal science writer and his newsletter is always a treat. Here he does a close reading of one of his opening paragraphs. It's an illuminating analysis that exposes the craft behind good writing, the intentionality that goes into every sentence. 💙📚

buttondown.com

The Ed's Up - A Writing Case Study

Behind-the-scenes: On writing and practiced intentionality Every June, since 2022, I’ve spent a week on Catalina Island to support the USC Storymakers...

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 26/08/2024

I loved Rakesfall, by @vajra.me: a phantasmagoric exploration of the struggle against injustice in every timeline, every universe, every mythopoeic form. 💙📚 Also, (slight spoilers for a book that cannot really be spoiled in the next post)—

Cover of Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera

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Shousetsu Bang*Bang @s2b2.bsky.social · 26/08/2024

Bask in the steamy rainbow glow of Neon Lights, our newest issue! Now you can enjoy all its sexy love stories and fanciful nightlife adventures -- for free! -- at www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/front...

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 10/08/2024

I'm glad my library hold for this came in before the end of the Olympics. The Other Olympians tells the story of pioneering trans and intersex athletes in the 1930s—but also how fascist ideology underlies modern gender regulatory regimes in sports. 💙📚

Cover of The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports, by Michael Waters

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 05/07/2024

Mean Boys by Geoffrey Mak is a collection of personal essays, both intimate and wide-ranging, that investigates status, desire, and the paranoia of the present era. I especially loved this meditation on the connection between queer aesthetics and spirituality. 💙📚

In queer erotics, the sexual is freed from the biological, the realm of reproductive (heteronormative) function, and into the aesthetic (queer) realm where the ends of pleasure and intimacy are paramount. … In the grafting of theology explicitly within a lineage of queer aesthetics, which finds beauty and erotics when morality is suspended, spirituality, too, can be a tautology for masochism. Job, which scholars believe to be the earliest-written book in the Bible, appears meant to prepare us to face calamity by modeling a spiritual masochism. There is no moralistic lesson to be gleaned from Job’s affliction (God never answer’s Job’s “Why?”), only aesthetics, desire, even perversion. When he asks God, “Does it please you to oppress me?” God does not give an answer, though (incredibly, ridiculously) it must be yes. This might be unacceptable on moral or even rational grounds, only sensible as an erotic truth.

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 20/06/2024

Ursula Le Guin had some choice words for this type of person 💙📚 (if anyone knows the source of this quote aside from Goodreads/tumblr 💀 please let me know)

A writer sets out to write science fiction but isn’t familiar with the genre, hasn’t read what’s been written. This is a fairly common situation, because science fiction is known to sell well but, as a subliterary genre, is not supposed to be worth study—what’s to learn? It doesn’t occur to the novice that a genre is a genre because it has a field and focus of its own; its appropriate and particular tools, rules, and techniques for handling the material; its traditions; and its experienced, appreciative readers—that it is, in fact, a literature. Ignoring all this, our novice is just about to reinvent the wheel, the space ship, the space alien, and the mad scientist, with cries of innocent wonder. The cries will not be echoed by the readers. Readers familiar with that genre have met the space ship, the alien, and the mad scientist before. They know more about them than the writer does.

In the same way, critics who set out to talk about a fantasy novel without having read any fantasy since they were eight, and in ignorance of the history and extensive theory of fantasy literature, will make fools of themselves because they don’t know how to read the book. They have no contextual information to tell them what its tradition is, where it’s coming from, what it’s trying to do, what it does. This was liberally proved when the first Harry Potter book came out and a lot of literary reviewers ran around shrieking about the incredible originality of the book. This originality was an artifact of the reviewers’ blank ignorance of its genres (children’s fantasy and the British boarding-school story), plus the fact that they hadn’t read a fantasy since they were eight. It was pitiful. It was like watching some TV gourmet chef eat a piece of buttered toast and squeal, “But this is delicious! Unheard of! Where has it been all my life?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 17/06/2024

This is a lovely ongoing thread of queer SFF from the past 30 years. So many older queer books that deserve to be read more widely 💙📚

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palizcat @palizcat.bsky.social · 01/06/2024

My favorites from a great month of reading. Special shoutout to Cold Comfort by Ravella Ives, since it deserves more a lot recognition. It's a beautifully written gay historical romance set during the ill-fated Allied intervention into the Russian Civil War 💙📚

Robert Jackson Bennett - The Tainted Cup
Allen Bratton - Henry Henry
Judith Butler - Who's Afraid of Gender?
Ravella Ives - Cold Comfort
Premee Mohamed - The Butcher of the Forest
Anthony Oliveira - Dayspring

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