Sluice Issue #22

Sluice  | Arthur H. Manners

Updates, recommendations and links

Issue #22

Hey friends!Spring is here. At last, night-time walks are possible again. It's still raining a lot in England, but the sun's beginning to poke through.

This Week's Recommendations

1. Article: Jason Sanford andChris M. Barkley's report on censorship and exclusion in the 2023 Hugo awards. The recent disclosure of voting statistics in the 2023 Hugo awards (a major annual award in speculative fiction), hosted at the Chengdu Worldcon, have revealed explicit censorship and exclusion of several authors. It's still unclear (and may never be clear) if this resulted from pressure from the Chinese government, but either way the Hugos are due for major overhaul to prevent this from happening again. 

2. TV: Ted Lasso. This show probably needs no introduction, but we got to it late and I wanted to sing its praises. A great example of positive role-models and character arcs—please, TV execs, more like this!

3. Short story: The Portal Keeper by Lavie Tidhar. Another link to a Tidhar story, but I can't get enough. I listened to this great story via podcast while painting my office recently.

4. Podcast: Things Fell Apart, hosted by Jon Ronson (click here to link to BBC Sounds instead of Apple Podcasts). An interesting run of podcasts about the culmination of the culture wars during the Covid lockdowns.

5. Music: Send Me On My Way by Rusted Root. This song is one of my all-time favourites, and it came on my Spotify while I was cooking this week. It's that one from Matilda! Never gets old.

Writing News

• My sci-fi story "Empty Nest" is now available to read for free over at Dreamforge Magazine.In a future where humanity coexists with advanced artificial intelligence, a scientist and her AI partner work with uplifted cuttlefish. The experiment is nowhere near its end when all AI on Earth suddenly depart, leaving behind a stunned human species, a grieving scientist, and a legacy of inter-species communication that may save us all.

General Life Updates

Busy busy! We've had some social occasion every day or so for weeks. April is quiet, thankfully, but May is rammed with weddings (because we're that age now).I'd been working on a story for about 8 weeks to hit a deadline, but a much more concise story with better energy leaped from the bushes and ambushed me. So the last few weeks have been working furiously on that. I just submitted it to a publication that would be a great fit, so I have my fingers crossed. 

Where's Rolo?

Sleeping on my partner's lap, as per.

Until next time, be good.

Best regards,

Art

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