I had to be in London recently. I met an unexpected immigrant just off Russell Square.
2026 science fiction mystery novella. Dorothy Gentleman, ship's detective aboard a starship on a thousand-year voyage, is confronted with something that simply shouldn't be possible: a baby.
2025 fantasy-romance epistolary short story. The Wild Witch of the Withering Woods writes to the Wicked Wizard of the Westering Waste in order to get back the package that's been delivered to him in error.
There are already other ways to do this. Of course I had to do it the hard way.
1975 children's fantasy, first of a loose series but it stands alone. After the last king died, Dalemark was effectively divided between its Earls, and the South is more oppressive than the North, but that doesn't matter to Moril and his family of travelling musicians. Well, it shouldn't.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved list comparison and colour mangling. (Note that this ends today.)
There are at several distinct ways of getting accented characters and other non-ASCII symbols in Linux. Confusingly, many of them seem to be called called "compose sequences" and none is apparently well-known.
2025 romantic fantasy novella, second of its series. Margaret Lady Riven is on honeymoon with her vampire husband, at an inn in the middle of the Black Forest…
I was not at this year's EMFCamp. But I'd like to have been.
I had a specific desire: an A4-page-sized way of displaying song sheets, that would work well out of doors.
2023 mystery, fourth in its series. Pentecost and Parker are engaged to look into the disappearance of an elderly woman with a photographic memory.
The vast majority of translation programs need a network connection. This one doesn't.
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved a mathematical search and string substitution. (Note that this ends today.)
Back to the boardgame café.
Some pub names just sound "right" to me. Others are obviously invented by outsiders, whether foreigners or just people not steeped in the culture. Here's a guide to the good ones.
Disc binding seems to be quite a niche thing these days, but I've found it very useful for role-playing material.
More gaming with nearby friends.
When I was working for that large ISP's tech support department, it was a strictly telephone job.
2018 Regency mystery, first of a series, by Sarah Zettel writing as Darcie Wilde. After her father's business dealings came to ruin and he fled with her elder sister, Rosalind Thorne has made her way in the world as a social convenience: she knows everyone, she arranges for the right people to come to the right parties, and so on. But when a young wastrel is found dead in Almack's ballroom…
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved finding properties of arrays. (Note that this ends today.)
There are various good reasons to develop a symbology for colours, and there are several already. Why am I proposing another?
2022 romantic fantasy short stories, more scenes set after the events of Eclipse.
1890 scientific romance novella. In the far distant future of 1948, the machines are revolting…
Back to the Masonic Hall on a slightly too warm weekend (thus rather better than the days before or afterwards).
1998 mystery, eleventh of Granger's novels of Chief Inspector Alan Markby and non-detective Meredith Mitchell. A local lawyer and minor European luminary has his head bashed in outside his kitchen door, after Meredith had given a stunning young woman a lift to his house…
2018 Regency romance. Phyllida Satterthwaite has always been thought more odd than beautiful, but in her London season that oddity makes her a sensation—and one that attracts unwelcome attention. Captain Arthur Heywood came back crippled from the war and feels he has nothing to offer any lady…
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved various analyses of strings. (Note that this ends today.)
How long a pole can you get through a dungeon corridor?
2022 historical mystery; tenth in Huber's Lady Darby series (post-Regency amateur detection). The Gages are staying at a remote castle for a wedding party; but when Kiera is introduced to the owner's famous art collection, she's disturbed to notice that some of the most notable pieces are forgeries…
2024 Cold War espionage and aviation thriller. In 2022, an undocumented bunker turns up during construction work on a former RAF base, containing squadron paperwork and a body with a bullet hole in the skull. In 1964, a highly secret unit was flying Vulcans to test an experimental weapon…