Simon Spanton
@simonguy.bsky.social
"I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself."
Wandering. Wondering. Freelancing. Often acquiring and editing SFFH for Angry Robot Books. Live in Edinburgh. Views my own and independent of my employers. Photos my own unless otherwise etc.
Wandering. Wondering. Freelancing. Often acquiring and editing SFFH for Angry Robot Books. Live in Edinburgh. Views my own and independent of my employers. Photos my own unless otherwise etc.
Pinned
Simon Spanton
@simonguy.bsky.social
· Nov 26
"Out on the pale criss-crossed sand, high-stepping, fringed, gauntleted, stalked some fantastic leviathan..."
To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
"Upon it floated swans like boats and boats like swans, both lost in the nothingness of the heartless beauty."
January 9, 2026 at 11:13 AM
"Upon it floated swans like boats and boats like swans, both lost in the nothingness of the heartless beauty."
Reposted by Simon Spanton
Reposting this because the kind replies contain recommendations for so many excellent folk to follow that it may be helpful for others.
Thank you to everyone who responded and keep the links coming!
Thank you to everyone who responded and keep the links coming!
So. We need to fill our feed out a little. Tell us who we should be following for the good genre and genre adjacent stuff. Authors, reviewers, commentators, all the good people.
Fun, serious, wry, excitable - bring them all.
Fun, serious, wry, excitable - bring them all.
January 9, 2026 at 9:17 AM
Reposting this because the kind replies contain recommendations for so many excellent folk to follow that it may be helpful for others.
Thank you to everyone who responded and keep the links coming!
Thank you to everyone who responded and keep the links coming!
😬
my favourite typo was when I was an assistant at Bloomsbury - in a subtitle, 'the' ended one line, then also began the line below. It took six months post-pub for it to be noticed.
January 8, 2026 at 5:54 PM
😬
Cooking tea music.
January 8, 2026 at 5:50 PM
Cooking tea music.
Reposted by Simon Spanton
Delighted to have received a grant from a submerging writers foundation, which supports mid-career authors while they age, procrastinate and feel their early promise ebb away. Grants like this are essential to the production of unmarketable work of limited appeal.
January 8, 2026 at 5:45 PM
Delighted to have received a grant from a submerging writers foundation, which supports mid-career authors while they age, procrastinate and feel their early promise ebb away. Grants like this are essential to the production of unmarketable work of limited appeal.
Reposted by Simon Spanton
So. We need to fill our feed out a little. Tell us who we should be following for the good genre and genre adjacent stuff. Authors, reviewers, commentators, all the good people.
Fun, serious, wry, excitable - bring them all.
Fun, serious, wry, excitable - bring them all.
January 8, 2026 at 3:46 PM
So. We need to fill our feed out a little. Tell us who we should be following for the good genre and genre adjacent stuff. Authors, reviewers, commentators, all the good people.
Fun, serious, wry, excitable - bring them all.
Fun, serious, wry, excitable - bring them all.
George's calm, saintly demeanour is all very well, but note that he has skewered the poor dragon through both its jaw and neck with his lance and, as if his point wasn't made, is now smacking it with a five-foot long greatsword.
No wonder his hugely ballocked stallion is looking a little askance.
No wonder his hugely ballocked stallion is looking a little askance.
January 8, 2026 at 2:32 PM
George's calm, saintly demeanour is all very well, but note that he has skewered the poor dragon through both its jaw and neck with his lance and, as if his point wasn't made, is now smacking it with a five-foot long greatsword.
No wonder his hugely ballocked stallion is looking a little askance.
No wonder his hugely ballocked stallion is looking a little askance.
"Janet began to hate the sea. There was so much of it, flowing, counter-flowing, entering other seas, slyly furthering its interests beyond the mind's reckoning; no wonder it could pass itself off as sky; it was infinite, a voracious marine confederacy."
January 8, 2026 at 1:51 PM
"Janet began to hate the sea. There was so much of it, flowing, counter-flowing, entering other seas, slyly furthering its interests beyond the mind's reckoning; no wonder it could pass itself off as sky; it was infinite, a voracious marine confederacy."
Woot! SUCH a fantastic series.
(As you might well have hoped from the creator of Reservation Dogs.)
(As you might well have hoped from the creator of Reservation Dogs.)
January 8, 2026 at 1:18 PM
Woot! SUCH a fantastic series.
(As you might well have hoped from the creator of Reservation Dogs.)
(As you might well have hoped from the creator of Reservation Dogs.)
They say never meet your heroes but she would be so worth the risk.
What an extraordinary writer and fierce spirit.
What an extraordinary writer and fierce spirit.
January 7, 2026 at 3:41 PM
They say never meet your heroes but she would be so worth the risk.
What an extraordinary writer and fierce spirit.
What an extraordinary writer and fierce spirit.
Forging on through the first working Wednesday afternoon of the year like...
January 7, 2026 at 3:38 PM
Forging on through the first working Wednesday afternoon of the year like...
Reposted by Simon Spanton
I do love a carnyx. Imagine being a regular Iron Age guy and hearing this in the distance like the voice of God.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6oS...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6oS...
Ancient War Horns (Carnyx + Bronze Lur)
YouTube video by Vingul
www.youtube.com
January 7, 2026 at 12:14 PM
I do love a carnyx. Imagine being a regular Iron Age guy and hearing this in the distance like the voice of God.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6oS...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6oS...
"One Ringo to rule them all and in the darkness park them."
January 7, 2026 at 12:02 PM
"One Ringo to rule them all and in the darkness park them."
"The boy never thought it strange that his father should be a rainstorm, his mother an apple tree; it was so; that was all; and he loved the tree quite as much as if she had been a person. I am the tree's son, he thought; I am the rain child; they are both looking after me."
January 7, 2026 at 11:41 AM
"The boy never thought it strange that his father should be a rainstorm, his mother an apple tree; it was so; that was all; and he loved the tree quite as much as if she had been a person. I am the tree's son, he thought; I am the rain child; they are both looking after me."
All of these. But oh boy, the car, obviously, hanging there amongst the crows.
But also that first one, that first one...
But also that first one, that first one...
A (slightly belated) happy new year! Allow me to introduce myself to those of you unfamiliar with my work; I’m Lee, I’m a painter from England, I’m a fan of abandoned buildings, moody narratives and quiet, mildly foreboding landscapes.
January 7, 2026 at 10:17 AM
All of these. But oh boy, the car, obviously, hanging there amongst the crows.
But also that first one, that first one...
But also that first one, that first one...
This is a wonderful piece.
Here is a piece I wrote about banned books.
Featuring none of my favourite people - Joey Barton, Rishi Sunak, Bro-normative and his best female-coded-services gal
And some of my favourite things - libraries, dangerous ideas, unthinkable kinks, spanking flamboyance
dorseteye.com/alert-alert-...
Featuring none of my favourite people - Joey Barton, Rishi Sunak, Bro-normative and his best female-coded-services gal
And some of my favourite things - libraries, dangerous ideas, unthinkable kinks, spanking flamboyance
dorseteye.com/alert-alert-...
Alert! Alert! Freaks and Weirdos and Scary Ideas! - Dorset Eye
In a mindless scroll through social media yesterday, due, I hasten to add, to a friend’s indignation rather than my own preferences, I accidentally noticed ex-footballer Joey Barton. Joey Barton, foun...
dorseteye.com
January 7, 2026 at 10:04 AM
This is a wonderful piece.
Reposted by Simon Spanton
"Hard times are coming, when we'll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope...realists of a larger reality."
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
January 7, 2026 at 9:34 AM
"Hard times are coming, when we'll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope...realists of a larger reality."
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
"The day broke wild and shaggy. What light there was seeped into the glass buildings as though ashamed. All but a fraction of the guests who had attended the Cusp-Canines' party lay like fossils in their separate beds, or, for various sunken causes, tossed and turned in seas of dreams."
January 7, 2026 at 9:19 AM
"The day broke wild and shaggy. What light there was seeped into the glass buildings as though ashamed. All but a fraction of the guests who had attended the Cusp-Canines' party lay like fossils in their separate beds, or, for various sunken causes, tossed and turned in seas of dreams."
"I knew that she would come, like bitter winter, like the storm clouds rolling to us dark across the fields."
@ellenkushner.bsky.social
@ellenkushner.bsky.social
January 6, 2026 at 4:07 PM
"I knew that she would come, like bitter winter, like the storm clouds rolling to us dark across the fields."
@ellenkushner.bsky.social
@ellenkushner.bsky.social
The Trouble with Cacti.
—
Cactus, Sierra Nevada Mountains, Lone Pine, California
—
Cactus, Sierra Nevada Mountains, Lone Pine, California
—
January 6, 2026 at 2:28 PM
The Trouble with Cacti.
Whatever issues I may or may not have with the TV Amadeus it did at least mean that I watched the 1984 film again (Abraham's old Salieri surely an inspiration for Oldman's old Dracula?). It also prompted me to get this, which I'd not heard before and is incredibly lovely.
So two times a win.
So two times a win.
January 6, 2026 at 11:37 AM
Whatever issues I may or may not have with the TV Amadeus it did at least mean that I watched the 1984 film again (Abraham's old Salieri surely an inspiration for Oldman's old Dracula?). It also prompted me to get this, which I'd not heard before and is incredibly lovely.
So two times a win.
So two times a win.
"Empty, silent, forbidding as a lunar landscape, and as uncharted, a tract of Gormenghast lay all about him.
There was no sound, no call of a bird or screech of an insect to break the silence of the stone. No rivulet slid lisping across the flagstones of Great Halls.
He was quite lost."
There was no sound, no call of a bird or screech of an insect to break the silence of the stone. No rivulet slid lisping across the flagstones of Great Halls.
He was quite lost."
January 6, 2026 at 10:25 AM
"Empty, silent, forbidding as a lunar landscape, and as uncharted, a tract of Gormenghast lay all about him.
There was no sound, no call of a bird or screech of an insect to break the silence of the stone. No rivulet slid lisping across the flagstones of Great Halls.
He was quite lost."
There was no sound, no call of a bird or screech of an insect to break the silence of the stone. No rivulet slid lisping across the flagstones of Great Halls.
He was quite lost."
Yes this one. But also the utter joy and purity of My Neighbour Totoro.
Never watched a Ghibli film before my forties so the childlike wonder of the films was all the more powerful.
Never watched a Ghibli film before my forties so the childlike wonder of the films was all the more powerful.
Laputa / Castle in the Sky for sure. The robots! The pirates! The score! (And the silence!) The tree! I first saw it when I was 7 or 8 maybe, and it sank right into my marrow.
January 5, 2026 at 5:56 PM
Yes this one. But also the utter joy and purity of My Neighbour Totoro.
Never watched a Ghibli film before my forties so the childlike wonder of the films was all the more powerful.
Never watched a Ghibli film before my forties so the childlike wonder of the films was all the more powerful.
Cooking tea music.
All This is Chance by Lisa O'Neill.
And never did a singer look more like she sounds.
All This is Chance by Lisa O'Neill.
And never did a singer look more like she sounds.
January 5, 2026 at 5:30 PM
Cooking tea music.
All This is Chance by Lisa O'Neill.
And never did a singer look more like she sounds.
All This is Chance by Lisa O'Neill.
And never did a singer look more like she sounds.