Wandering Adventure Party

Hello I'm giving Mastodon another go after quietly despairing about the awfulness of normie social media.I'm a late diagnosed autistic humanoid, living in tranquil rural sometimes- bliss with my wife and dog, in Cornwall, UK.I'm a freelance copywriter, voracious reader and aspiring writer of crime fiction, history geek & nature lover.It would be good to connect with nice folks whoever and wherever you may be.#Introductions#actuallyautistic #books#writing#crimefiction#history

#JustFinished Brigands & Breadknives by Travis BaldreeThese books just get better and better. A lovely story of growth and freedom.Fern has a mid-life crisis and ends up in some situations she never expected. Everyone learns to live happier lives. And the goblin steals the show! Among other things. #Fantasy #SFF #books #bookstodon

@ami_angelwings@urusai.social I could probably make an argument for Roboute Guilliman and the Primarchs to Warhammer 40K. Mostly because I despise moves that keep trying to shine heroics onto 40K and promote any notion that the imperium can and should be saved.

@ljwrites @dilmandila @Tooden Personally, I don't think it should be either expected or required for Ugandans to know all that much about white Europeans who have been dead for more than a century.I mean, how much do even educated white Europeans know about black Africans who have been dead for more than a century?

Are there any book clubs on Mastodon? The in-person ones around me keep petering out or are hard to get to, and the ones I’ve seen online are toooo big for my tastes. I have a slight preference for fantasy/sci-fi, but any genre is good. I just want to talk about books! #bookstodon #books #reading

Not so happy. Financially, 2025 was probably the worst year I had since I started translating for a living. I lost most of my long time clients - retirement, sickness etc. - and new ones are hard to find. So I am on self promotion now - anyone here who wants his English book translated into German? No option for you? Talk to me. Most of my authors are glad for the additional income.References on my blog - see profile.#translations #books #writing #author

#JustFinished Slow Gods by Clare NorthI read this twice in a row. I felt like I didn't give it the gravity it deserved the first time. This is largely a treatise on the limited but grand power of love and acceptance with a realistic exploration of what lies outside it.Or, a pilot who should be mad runs around known space as a natural disaster unfolds. He grows from a lost, bewildered, callous boy into ... well, more. You'll need to read it to find out.#SciFi #books #bookstodon #SFF

#ReadingCommunity For those of you who are on #Tumblr, I am doing a #reading poll over there."I'd like to know: How many #books do you ca. read per year?I sometimes see baffling numbers how much some book bloggers read (like a lot more than 100 books per year).So I am doing this poll. Please reblog.I mean novels, novellas, non-fiction books, short story collections.NOT: magazines, fanzines, graphic novels, comic books, fanfictions"https://www.tumblr.com/amaliazeichnerin/802218687332515840/as-the-year-is-coming-to-a-close-id-like-to

@neenamaiya Thanks! It's always great to hear that these tales are finding a new, appreciative audience - they've been lying forgotten in those old tales for far too long!I do admit that I tend to pick the more bizarre tales for translation, instead of those which follow rigid schemes. But there are only so many "Giants throw rocks at things!" narratives I can take.

‘Paladin’s Grace’ by T. Kingfisher asks what happens to a paladin after their god dies? In the case of Stephen it’s mope around for a few years until he meets a nice girl, stumbles onto both a murder and an assassination plot… but it’s the meeting a nice girl bit.I’m normally not a fan of “I’m not worthy of love” plots (I’ve just seen too many of them) but there’s more meat on those bones when the issue PTSD and violent blackout.If I was going to take issue with any part of the book it would be the author’s need to double down on the sequel hook. As far as I can tell the book that follows isn’t even a direct sequel, it looks more like a spinoff with a different paladin of the dead god picking up the thread.#Reading #Books #Fantasy

#JustFinished Rethinking Narcissism by Dr. Craig MalkinI wrote a whole review and deleted it. I liked this one much better than the previous book on narcissism I read. This one had what seems like good advice and a framework that includes the clinical levels of narcissism as well as those with what my therapist calls narcissistic tendencies. He also gives different advice for the two types.I particularly enjoyed his discussion of root causes and 1/#selfhelp #books #bookstodon #narcissism

@gutenberg_org No idea - it was decades ago, and I didn't read any translations (although I also watched the Disney movie in my youth).

#JustFinished The Incandescent by Emily TeshExcellently done. Very different from her Desperate Glory, but that doesn't detract from it at all. The story has a slow reveal for the real conflict, but you aren't left bored waiting for it. The build up is masterful. The idea of a school of magic for kids has been done, yes. But this world feels so much more realistic and complete. I felt like this book was an intentional counterpoint to HP. 1/2#SFF #books #bookstodon #fantasy #LGBTQ

@ljwrites @Firlefanz @steaphan I, too, am an author-translator, and I don't bother with machine translation. For one thing, the texts I translate were usually written in 19th century German and use a lot of phrases that are simply no longer in use today.For another, the translation itself is actually the _least_ part of my work - I must also explain all the local cultural, historical, and geographical contexts for these texts. And if I don't think about this during the translation process, the end result will be much worse.

@vga256 I am using KDP, and I haven't heard any complaints - although it's been a few years since I ordered the latest print copy for myself.I don't know where exactly in this process they use ML. But a few years ago I uploaded both the interior and cover PDFs, ordered print proofs, and then made adjustments. Once you finalize the layout, that should be it.

#JustFinished Beautyland by Marie-Helene BertinoThe strangest slice of life I've ever encountered. I feel like this was, like some other books I've read, SciFi only peripherally. I also feel like it's the kind of book wanna-be pretentious wine snobs would love. I finished it but I'm still not sure why. Yes, I may be being harsh.#SFF #SciFi @bookstodon #books #bookstodon

Happy Halloween, everyone!#HappyHalloween #Halloween #SpookySeason #books