Posts for November 2017

2017-11-18: Free software log (October 2017)

I've not been taking the time to write these promptly in part because I've not found the time to do much free software work. Thankfully, November will at least contain some work-sponsored work (on a package that isn't widely used yet, but maybe we can make it appealing enough).

Anyway, that's for next month. For October, the only thing I have to report is refreshing the signing key for my personal Debian repository (generating a new key for the new release) and finally updating the distributions to move stretch to stable, jessie to oldstable, and create the new testing distribution (buster). If for some strange reason you're using my personal repositories (there probably isn't much reason just at the moment), be sure to upgrade eyrie-keyring, since I'm going to switch signing over to the new key shortly.

2017-11-18 14:08 — Permanent link

2017-11-23: Holiday haul

Catching up on accumulated book purchases. I'm going to get another burst of reading time over the holidays (and am really looking forward to it).

Alfred Bester — The Stars My Destination (sff)
James Blish — A Case of Conscience (sff)
Leigh Brackett — The Long Tomorrow (sff)
Algis Budrys — Who? (sff)
Frances Hardinge — Fly By Night (sff)
Robert A. Heinlein — Double Star (sff)
N.K. Jemisin — The Obelisk Gate (sff)
N.K. Jemisin — The Stone Sky (sff)
T. Kingfisher — Clockwork Boys (sff)
Ursula K. Le Guin — City of Illusions (sff)
Ursula K. Le Guin — The Complete Orsinia (historical)
Ursula K. Le Guin — The Dispossessed (sff)
Ursula K. Le Guin — Five Ways to Forgiveness (sff)
Ursula K. Le Guin — The Left Hand of Darkness (sff)
Ursula K. Le Guin — Planet of Exile (sff)
Ursula K. Le Guin — Rocannon's World (sff)
Ursula K. Le Guin — The Telling (sff)
Ursula K. Le Guin — The World for Word Is Forest (sff)
Fritz Leiber — The Big Time (sff)
Melina Marchetta — Saving Francesca (mainstream)
Richard Matheson — The Shrinking Man (sff)
Foz Meadows — An Accident of Stars (sff)
Dexter Palmer — Version Control (sff)
Frederick Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth — The Space Merchants (sff)
Adam Rex — True Meaning of Smekday (sff)
John Scalzi — The Dispatcher (sff)
Julia Spencer-Fleming — In the Bleak Midwinter (mystery)
R.E. Stearns — Barbary Station (sff)
Theodore Sturgeon — More Than Human (sff)

I'm listing the individual components except for the Orsinia collection, but the Le Guin are from the Library of America Hainish Novels & Stories two-volume set. I had several of these already, but I have a hard time resisting a high-quality Library of America collection for an author I really like. Now I can donate a bunch of old paperbacks.

Similarly, a whole bunch of the older SF novels are from the Library of America American Science Fiction two-volume set, which I finally bought since I was ordering Library of America sets anyway.

The rest is a pretty random collection of stuff, although several of them are recommendations from Light. I was reading through her old reviews and getting inspired to read (and review) more.

2017-11-23 12:24 — Permanent link