Philip Athans
@philathans.bsky.social
Liberal author, editor, and SF, fantasy, horror, and TTRPG fan who has some links at https://linktr.ee/philathans and is happy to have rebuilt a #writingcommunity here. NO to AI. AUTHORS AGAINST BOOK BANS: https://www.authorsagainstbookbans.com
Ah, all the ways #ScienceFiction has said some version of: "This might happen, but here's why it shouldn't." …and was ignored. <Deep, cleansing breath.> www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWh3...
These dystopian novels came true.
YouTube video by Jared Henderson
youtube.com
Happy birthday to H.P. Lovecraft, born August 20, 1890. You were a weird dude, with some issues, but you wrote where no one had written before.
Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, was born on this day, August 19, 1921. What has Star Trek meant to me my whole life…? How do I even begin?
ZERO AI. PERIOD. I do not use any form of LLM, “AI,” or chatbot for any reason at all, and certainly not for writing and absolutely never with any of the edits I do. And though I continue to avoid any version of “the news” for my own mental health, AI, book bans, and other assaults on my own…
ZERO AI. PERIOD.
I do not use any form of LLM, “AI,” or chatbot for any reason at all, and certainly not for writing and absolutely never with any of the edits I do. And though I continue to avoid any version of “the news” for my own mental health, AI, book bans, and other assaults on my own community—anything and everything writing, books, and publishing—continues to haunt everything I do.
fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com
"Relationship among all things appears to be complex and reciprocal — always at least two-way, back-and-forth. It seems that nothing is single in this universe, and nothing goes one way." www.themarginalian.org/2018/04/10/u...
Subjectifying the Universe: Ursula K. Le Guin on Science and Poetry as Complementary Modes of Comprehending and Tending to the Natural World
“Science describes accurately from outside, poetry describes accurately from inside. Science explicates, poetry implicates. Both celebrate what they describe.”
themarginalian.org
Hey, AI assholes… Buying a copy of a book does NOT give you any rights to the contents of that book, including the right to dump it into your plagiarism machine. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Secondhand booksellers in UK and Ireland suspect AI firms behind ‘strange’ bulk orders
Development comes after Anthropic was found to have spent millions on books to scan for ‘data acquisition’
theguardian.com
Yes, let's please talk seriously about "the ethical limits of broadcasting fiction in a way that could incite panic." dirkdeklein.net/2025/02/12/t...
The “War of the Worlds” Incident in Ecuador – February 12, 1949
On February 12, 1949, Ecuador experienced one of the most bizarre and tragic events in its history, triggered by a radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds. This incident, which took place in the c…
dirkdeklein.net
"In today’s world of AI avatars, deepfakes and manipulative feeds, Max Headroom no longer looks like a parody of the future. He looks like an unfinished argument about the present." medium.com/@timventura/...
Max Headroom: 40 Years into the Future
Four decades ago, the future arrived as a stuttering television host with lacquered hair, a molded suit and a smile that never quite…
medium.com
The First 100 Days with Greg Greeley (CEO of Simon & Schuster) A lot of CEOese, but he does feel pro-book. Taking any measure of credit for books published during his first 100 days, which were surely in progress for…a couple years? before he showed up is… iffy. player.captivate.fm/episode/5b58...
The First 100 Days with Greg Greeley
Quickly and easily listen to Open Book with David Steinberger for free!
player.captivate.fm
Seriously, can we…? Read the Novels and Forget Everything Else On the author of “Master and Commander.” hedgehogreview.com/web-features...
Read the Novels and Forget Everything Else
Patrick O’Brian’s life may have been one of dissimulation but his Aubrey-Maturin novels still offer the nutmeg of consolation for thousands of readers.
hedgehogreview.com
"…we have a culture that defines “writer” not as something you do, but as something you produce. Writing should be in the doing. The laboring over small choices on the sentence level." So much to chew on here… post.substack.com/p/an-authors...
An author’s $2 million book deal was pulled over suspected AI use. Where does publishing go from here?
Three writers jump in a Google doc to discuss the fallout from this most recent literary scandal and debate the future of the industry in the shadow of AI
post.substack.com
TWO LESSONS FROM THE DUNWICH HORROR Last week I read H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror for at least the third time. This time I read it in the beautiful Design Studio Press edition illustrated by French artist François Baranger. Even if you’ve read this story more than three times, buy this…
TWO LESSONS FROM THE DUNWICH HORROR
Last week I read H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror for at least the third time. This time I read it in the beautiful Design Studio Press edition illustrated by French artist François Baranger. Even if you’ve read this story more than three times, buy this book—and the other three: The Call of Cthulhu, and a two-volume edition of At the Mountains of Madness…
fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com
Is it weird that about a third of my YouTube feed is stuff like this? youtu.be/eziE7O-27cA?...
The God Before God
YouTube video by Pantheon Mythology
youtu.be
I just received an email from Abigail Adams. Either it was just spam or I've come unglued in time and space. I mean, both of those thing have happened to me before, so… I don't know…
Today in the largely imaginary Reading Crisis: "Adult fiction was the only other trade segment to post an increase in units with sales up 1.9%." www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
Publishing Sales Hit $32.5 Billion in 2025
Total estimated industry sales rose 2.5% over 2024, according to the year-end report from the AAP, and the number of books sold inched up 0.4%, to 3.15 billion units.
publishersweekly.com
"All I know is that we are here, and that we are aware of the fact, and that it behooves us to be aware—to pay heed. For we are not objects." www.themarginalian.org/2026/06/06/l...
Ursula K. Le Guin on the Meaning of Life
We are the survivors of immense and minute events — violent cosmic collisions and subtle genetic mutations, the deaths of innumerable suns and the births of innumerable cells, the splitting o…
themarginalian.org
"…when book censors come for a library, that often spills over into the local bookstores. When they come for a school library, that often spills over into the public library… what starts in one county becomes state law." www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
Defending the Literary Ecosystem: PW Talks with Philomena Polefrone
Last week, the former associate director of the ABA’s American Booksellers for Free Expression initiative joined PEN America as senior program manager of its Freedom to Read initiative.
publishersweekly.com
"Sometimes just being a decent person—a good friend to a few, a dependable partner to one, a well-focused participant in a thoughtfully chosen career—is as heroic and successful as anyone can truly be." youtu.be/gc7wKr0XkN8?...
How the Way You Respond to Boredom Changes Your Life
YouTube video by Pursuit of Wonder
youtu.be
I combat this by always being in direct contact with my inner child… How the wrong kind of nostalgia can endanger a society bigthink.com/mini-philoso...
How the wrong kind of nostalgia can endanger a society
The philosopher Svetlana Boym argues that "nostos" encourages people to reject the world as it is and seek to return to a better time — real or imagined.
bigthink.com
The PUMP has worked, now the DUMP begins… Jeff Bezos is filing to sell $4 billion in Amazon stock after a record post-earnings rally qz.com/jeff-bezos-a...
Jeff Bezos files to sell $4 billion in Amazon stock after record high
The sale comes after Amazon stock touched a record high, extending a rally that began after the company reported second-quarter earnings
qz.com
PRH Initiates New Phase of Iowa Book Ban Case www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
PRH Initiates New Phase of Iowa Book Ban Case
After almost three years of litigation, Penguin Random House and the rest of the Big Five, along with the Authors Guild, Laurie Halse Anderson, and Jodi Picoult, have filed an amended complaint to cha...
publishersweekly.com
You only have to listen to the first three minutes of this to realize how creepy Isaac Asimov actually was--and how he was not just tolerated but egged on by fandom. Even as late as 1982, this side of him was "hilarious." freshairarchive.org/guests/isaac...
Asimov, Isaac, 1920-1992
freshairarchive.org
THE LONG HELLO Last week we looked at the concept of the Long Goodbye, but can that same sense of “okay, the story’s over already,” be flipped into what I guess we’ll call the Long Hello? A sense of “okay, get on with the story already”? Oh, boy… absolutely. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve…
THE LONG HELLO
Last week we looked at the concept of the Long Goodbye, but can that same sense of “okay, the story’s over already,” be flipped into what I guess we’ll call the Long Hello? A sense of “okay, get on with the story already”? Oh, boy… absolutely. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve told authors I work with some version of what Adam Mastroianni called out in “
fantasyhandbook.wordpress.com
"He was nominated for the annual Hugo Award for best science-fiction artist a remarkable 20 times, and won the award 11 times, an unbroken record." …and he deserved every one! dumbfoundingstories.com/2018/01/25/h...
Hash’s Faves” Frank Kelly Freas
This week’s General Fave is the science-fiction artist Frank Kelly Freas, more commonly known as Kelly Freas. He was an incredibly prolific artist; I’m guessing his science-fiction work alone numbe…
dumbfoundingstories.com
One of the greatest #sciencefiction authors you probably haven’t read yet but should ASAP, Clifford Simak, was born on this day, August 3, in 1904. Happy birthday to an SFWA Grand Master!
Of these "20 Great Novels by Poets" I've only read two, and seen the movie adaptation of another--but the rest are now on my TBR list. elifthereader.com/prettythings...
20 Great Novels by Poets - Elif the Reader - Elif the Reader
I love reading novels by poets because I always look for superb narration whatever I read. If a story is […]
elifthereader.com
“They’re obviously not curating [the content]. There’s no human being behind this…” www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
Poetry Foundation Library Scraped for AI-Generated Educational Content
Giggle Academy, founded by crypto mogul Changpeng Zhao to offer “free language learning for kids,” has posted hundreds of copyrighted poems that appear on the Poetry Foundation website.
publishersweekly.com
