All Tomorrow’s Parties (Bridge III), by William Gibson

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A Thing I’ve Read 15/26: All Tomorrow’s Parties (Bridge III), by William Gibson

The third and final entry in the Bridge-trilogy returns characters of the previous two novels to the titular bridge, where something civilisation-shatteringly enormous is supposed to happen.

There is a noticeable change in tone and style that I lack the vocabulary to properly adress, and there is also a kinda disappointing ending to the whole thing. Compared to the other two books the red thread leading through it feels arbitrary, with no-one of the cast having any real stakes in anything, and the way it ends feels lackluster.
What I assume to be the crowning moment glory happens in a little paragraph, the implications are never discussed and not even hinted at, and… yea, I am a bit disappointed with the whole thing.

The cover of All Tomorrow's Parties, by William Gibson. On a black background it shows on the bottom a massively overexposed photonegative of a part of a suspension bridge, turning more painfully white the further down one looks. In the upper middle, author, title, and a quote are shown in very blocky letters, with the words "title", "author", and "quote" pointing to their respective elements.

Dave the Diver

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A Game I Have Actually Finished 02/2026: Dave the Diver

What is this?
Have I finally seen ending credits of something again..?

I have!
It’s not yet finished, there’s still some open points to take care of, and a DLC with a whole new region, but the base game story is DONE!

Some story spoilers below.

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There is no Antimemetics Division, by qntm

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A Thing I’ve Read 14/2026: There is no Antimemetics Division, by qntm

The Cover of There is no Antimemetics Division by qntm It shows a a dark forest expanding in the distance over hills, fog hanging around, under a sunset-sky in reds and yellows. Author and title are written in blocky letters on the upper and lower part. Prominently in the middle of the picture and the forest stands a gigantic black monolith, slightly askew.

This was originally an SCP fan-fiction, for proper commercial publication the serial number got filed off, but it’s very much an SCP fiction.

As such, it deals with the doings of a secret organisation dealing with Unknows, strange and supernatural phenomena, specifically with the Organisation’s division of Antimemetics, dealing with Concept Eaters, Anti-Ideas, and the holes in our perception, and with what happens if things go bump in the night but nobody is able to notice.

I’m a bit torn about this one: I adore theme and setting, but I do not like some of the writing choices made, the sudden thematic shift in the middle and the deus-ex-machina resolution. However, it does work as a story, so if what-if-weird-stuff is your thing, have a go.

I’ve consciously decided against cognitohazard-jokes or random censorship for readability, and against a “this book does not exist”-joke because I’d need to write it and cannot be bothered.
There is nothing beyond the MORE-tag.

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Valuable Humans in Transit, and other stories, by qntm

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A Thing I’ve (re-)Read 13/2026
Valuable Humans in Transit, and other stories, by qntm

A short story collection. A science-fiction short-story collection, to be exact.

A theme in most of them is the uploading of consciousness, in one way or another, which seldom goes well (or rather, the process mostly goes well, BUT), with the remaining ones dealing with other “less than great” technological what-ifs.

It’s a good collection, and if my summary doesn’t put you off completely go grab a copy.

Adventures in Raspberrying

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I have been annoyed by youtube-ads for a long time.

I’ve been specifically annoyed by the fact that my TV is one generation too old to install a custom OS that allows a custom yt-app that eats ads.

I’ve been ragingly annoyed by the fact that there were pre- and post-roll ads and THREE midroll-ads in an eight-minutes-video.

Something had to be done.

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Adventures in Linux

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The last time I have tried Linux before this recent adventure that will be the topic of this post was probably 15 years ago, during university. I have tried parallel operations on my desktop PC, and I have tried it on the netbook. It was horrible.

To expand a bit more on that: a primary use case of my computing devices is and has always been gaming. Way back when, WINE did exist, but it was mostly a “set everything up yourself, good luck”-approach. Steam? Dream on. The older the game the better the chance to somehow get it to work, by virtue of someone else having done it, but it was always an uphill battle. The elsewhere mentioned screen-size problem of my netbook also did not help.

I do not doubt that those of you who only ever used the internet, a text editor and programming languages would not have had that kind of problem. This is still a post about my lived experience, so shut it.

Why trying it again now? Because gesticulates vaguely to the overall situation I wanted to get away from Microsoft. And in the last few years the overall situation on Linux has been changing…

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Short Things I’ve Read (2026 collection)

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When He Calls Your Name, by Catherynne M. Valente
In which the author takes a folk song and turns it into folk horror, and more I cannot say without spoiling.
https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/when-he-calls-your-name/

Exhalation, by Ted Chiang
In which a community of air-driven automatons discovers their own incarnation of entropy.
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/

Introduction to 2181 Overture, by Gu Shi
In which cryosleep is developed, and has some impacts on society.
https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/gu_02_23/

Idoru (Bridge II), by William Gibson

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A Thing I’ve Read 11/2026: Idoru (Bridge II), by William Gibson

This is the story about a rockstar wanting to marry a virtual Idol. More specifically, it’s the story of Chia, a member of the Lo/Rez-fanclub, and Colin, a data analyst with pattern recognition superpowers hired by the Lo/Rez security team, both (persons and groups) attempting to figure out what the hell is going on about those rumours.
The novel is a bit of a wild goose chase through Tokyo, with multiple other parties getting involved along the way.

I found it an enjoyable read, with maybe a bit of an anticlimatic ending (which, admittedly, still fits the story very well, it just felt a bit… “okay, and?”). Let’s see what Bridge III will bring, eventually.

The cover of Idoru, by William Gibson. On a black background it shows on the right a photonegative of a long-haired person with big, dark glasses. On the left, author, title, and a quote are shown in very blocky letters, with the words "title", "author", and "quote" pointing to their respective elements. The quote says "cyberpunk doesn't come any more stylish than that" and is from a "Sunday Telegraph", and I have Some Questions about this.
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And Shall Machines Surrender (Mandate I), by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

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A Thing I’ve (re-)Read 10/2026: And Shall Machines Surrender (Mandate I) by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

The cover of And Shall Machines Surrender by Benjanun Sriduangkaew. It shows under a bright, starry sky and in front of blurred city lights a dark-skinned, black-haired woman in pants and a jacket that is open in the back and held closed with straps, leaving a window open on the back. She wears several pieces of blue-ish glowing jewelery. Around her head floats a stylized solar system, viewed from above.

A fugitive, deserter and war criminal travels to Shenzen Sphere, a place created by and ruled over by AIs who left their humans, to get away from her previous life – and is promptly greeted by a former “acquaintance”, together with whome she is now tasked to figure out several high profile suicides among Haruxpexes, the human/machine-hybrides used by Shenzen to… breed? incubate? create? to do things with new AIs.
Of course there’s more to it, and large-scale political intrigue follows.

It’s a novella, so it’s a rather quick read.
There’s also more of them, which I plan on getting into now that I refreshed on the first one.1

It is also *very* horny, going into S/M and CNC. You have been informed.

  1. Spoiler: it’s not going well. There’s just too many books. ↩︎