Val Nolan
@vallescurarule.bsky.social
Co-author of Spec Fic for Newbies 1 & 2; author of Neil Jordan: Works for the Page; Sturgeon/BSFA/BFA finalist; Locus Rec List; articles in Irish Uni Review, symplokē, Science Fiction Studies, Irish Studies Review, JGNC; fiction in many venues... He/Him
Pinned
Val Nolan
@vallescurarule.bsky.social
· Oct 23
My three book projects together 😀 Neil Jordan: Works for the Page from Cork University Press, and Spec Fic for Newbies: A Beginner's Guide to Writing Subgenres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror vols. 1 & 2, co-authored with @tiffaniangus.bsky.social, available from @lunapress.bsky.social!
Someday I'll have to accept the truth that I'll never get to explore an alien megastructure... but today is not that day.
November 22, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Someday I'll have to accept the truth that I'll never get to explore an alien megastructure... but today is not that day.
Reposted by Val Nolan
Star Trek is so unrealistic—they should all be non-stop watching funny Tribble videos.
November 21, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Star Trek is so unrealistic—they should all be non-stop watching funny Tribble videos.
Reposted by Val Nolan
May we all be blessed to live in the world made in his image. Bananas be with you.
What if the only object that survives our civilization, the only thing by which aliens explorers can assess us in a million years, turns out to be... the Playmates action figure of the one-off SeaQuest DSV character The Regulator?
November 21, 2025 at 9:45 PM
May we all be blessed to live in the world made in his image. Bananas be with you.
It hardly needs saying but, yeah, Pluribus is *fantastic*. This and Paradise are my shows of 2025.
November 21, 2025 at 9:43 PM
It hardly needs saying but, yeah, Pluribus is *fantastic*. This and Paradise are my shows of 2025.
Me, an academic: "Doctor Who (1963-∞)"
November 21, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Me, an academic: "Doctor Who (1963-∞)"
Always the greatest SF TV show of all time.
literally a whole babylon 5 episode where they talk about the obligation to disobey illegal orders like 49 times
November 21, 2025 at 3:08 PM
Always the greatest SF TV show of all time.
Reposted by Val Nolan
You ever just sit down and realize that the rise of 21st century fascism is capital's answer to climate change?
November 21, 2025 at 9:25 AM
You ever just sit down and realize that the rise of 21st century fascism is capital's answer to climate change?
Reposted by Val Nolan
I dunno, buddy, maybe if it didn't encourage young folks to kill themselves, or drink all the potable water, or pollute the Infoverse with fallacies, or add glue to recipes, or be that guy who lies rather than admits a mistake, or, and this is important, buddy, or IF WE WERE GIVEN A FUCKING CHOICE!
Microsoft Exec Asks: Why Aren't More People Impressed With AI?
Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft's head of AI, vents after the company receives backlash for saying 'Windows is evolving into an agentic OS.'
uk.pcmag.com
November 21, 2025 at 7:09 AM
I dunno, buddy, maybe if it didn't encourage young folks to kill themselves, or drink all the potable water, or pollute the Infoverse with fallacies, or add glue to recipes, or be that guy who lies rather than admits a mistake, or, and this is important, buddy, or IF WE WERE GIVEN A FUCKING CHOICE!
Reposted by Val Nolan
Perfect new reply for all the mails I get about comet 3I/ATLAS being aliens 🔭
November 20, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Perfect new reply for all the mails I get about comet 3I/ATLAS being aliens 🔭
Reposted by Val Nolan
Delighted to have my contributors’ copy of this beauty - packed with information and guidance! Well done Ruth McKee. 🙂
November 20, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Delighted to have my contributors’ copy of this beauty - packed with information and guidance! Well done Ruth McKee. 🙂
Really hope the new Stargate series begins with David Blue turning to the camera and saying something like, "Wow, that was certainly a *crazy* fifteen years of adventures we had getting home from the Destiny!"
November 19, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Really hope the new Stargate series begins with David Blue turning to the camera and saying something like, "Wow, that was certainly a *crazy* fifteen years of adventures we had getting home from the Destiny!"
Reposted by Val Nolan
LLMs give people with delusional belief systems a way to organise those beliefs. The model fills in gaps, supplies connective tissue, and wraps the madness in formal language.
It doesn't make the claims more credible to us, it just tidies them up.
It doesn't make the claims more credible to us, it just tidies them up.
November 19, 2025 at 2:22 PM
LLMs give people with delusional belief systems a way to organise those beliefs. The model fills in gaps, supplies connective tissue, and wraps the madness in formal language.
It doesn't make the claims more credible to us, it just tidies them up.
It doesn't make the claims more credible to us, it just tidies them up.
BSFA Awards longlist nominations are now open! I’d be grateful if BSFA members would consider my @speculativeinsight.bsky.social essay 'The Dublin Portal… Or The Dublin Intrusion?' in the Best Non-Fiction (Short) category. Find it here: www.speculativeinsight.com/essays/dubli...
November 19, 2025 at 1:41 PM
BSFA Awards longlist nominations are now open! I’d be grateful if BSFA members would consider my @speculativeinsight.bsky.social essay 'The Dublin Portal… Or The Dublin Intrusion?' in the Best Non-Fiction (Short) category. Find it here: www.speculativeinsight.com/essays/dubli...
Watched the Last Week Tonight segment on freight trains last evening and... *Wow*... they animated a whole Thomas the Tank Engine riff and got Matt Berry to narrate it 😂 This is absolute *peak* satire!
The Sad Story Of Henry The Engine (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver)
YouTube video by MilkyThomas
www.youtube.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Watched the Last Week Tonight segment on freight trains last evening and... *Wow*... they animated a whole Thomas the Tank Engine riff and got Matt Berry to narrate it 😂 This is absolute *peak* satire!
Reposted by Val Nolan
Toying with the idea of doing my cargo ship blueprints Fact Files style.
I didn't really think I would like it as I had my heart set on the Franz Joseph style, but now I think I might go for a kind of scrapbook aesthetic. Like a fan has collected all of the different blueprints over the decades.
I didn't really think I would like it as I had my heart set on the Franz Joseph style, but now I think I might go for a kind of scrapbook aesthetic. Like a fan has collected all of the different blueprints over the decades.
June 30, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Toying with the idea of doing my cargo ship blueprints Fact Files style.
I didn't really think I would like it as I had my heart set on the Franz Joseph style, but now I think I might go for a kind of scrapbook aesthetic. Like a fan has collected all of the different blueprints over the decades.
I didn't really think I would like it as I had my heart set on the Franz Joseph style, but now I think I might go for a kind of scrapbook aesthetic. Like a fan has collected all of the different blueprints over the decades.
Reposted by Val Nolan
I am not aware of a single author who has a shortage of book ideas. Words, yes. Ways to make the ideas become a book, yes. But I've never met an author who doesn't have ideas just raining down all the damn time.
November 19, 2025 at 7:44 AM
I am not aware of a single author who has a shortage of book ideas. Words, yes. Ways to make the ideas become a book, yes. But I've never met an author who doesn't have ideas just raining down all the damn time.
Reposted by Val Nolan
In the final stages of making my TAS take on this Drexler concept. I still need to add details like windows, hull markings and nav lights. May remove some details too. But I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out.
July 29, 2025 at 9:06 PM
In the final stages of making my TAS take on this Drexler concept. I still need to add details like windows, hull markings and nav lights. May remove some details too. But I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out.
More like Cloudflareout, am I right?! 😂
November 18, 2025 at 2:05 PM
More like Cloudflareout, am I right?! 😂
Mightily deserved! Huge congratulations! 😀
✨ Please join SFWA in celebrating the announcement of our latest Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award: N. K. Jemisin. ✨
Learn more here about @nkjemisin.bsky.social, the Grand Master Award, and how the work goes on after the accolades for all we've already done:
www.sfwa.org/2025/11/16/p...
Learn more here about @nkjemisin.bsky.social, the Grand Master Award, and how the work goes on after the accolades for all we've already done:
www.sfwa.org/2025/11/16/p...
November 18, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Mightily deserved! Huge congratulations! 😀
Reposted by Val Nolan
Hey hey hey, SH has a call for Indigenous submissions.
And I would like to read more Southeast Asian Indigenous writers!
If you are Dayak, Iban, Murut, Orang Asli - please submit!
Also I would like to see more Asian Indigenous:
Taiwanese aborigines.
Ainu.
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
And I would like to read more Southeast Asian Indigenous writers!
If you are Dayak, Iban, Murut, Orang Asli - please submit!
Also I would like to see more Asian Indigenous:
Taiwanese aborigines.
Ainu.
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
Indigenous Author Submissions
On November 3rd, we will be opening for speculative fiction stories written by Indigenous authors. We will be capping submissions at 500.
strangehorizons.com
November 18, 2025 at 3:17 AM
Hey hey hey, SH has a call for Indigenous submissions.
And I would like to read more Southeast Asian Indigenous writers!
If you are Dayak, Iban, Murut, Orang Asli - please submit!
Also I would like to see more Asian Indigenous:
Taiwanese aborigines.
Ainu.
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
And I would like to read more Southeast Asian Indigenous writers!
If you are Dayak, Iban, Murut, Orang Asli - please submit!
Also I would like to see more Asian Indigenous:
Taiwanese aborigines.
Ainu.
strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...
Was helping my dad move cattle this afternoon. This involved bringing togeather two small groups into a new herd and, initially, the animals all just stood around the yard eying each other warily. I said to him, "This looks like a faculty mixer..."😂
November 16, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Was helping my dad move cattle this afternoon. This involved bringing togeather two small groups into a new herd and, initially, the animals all just stood around the yard eying each other warily. I said to him, "This looks like a faculty mixer..."😂
The World: <Nothing>
The World: <Still nothing>
My Brain: "..."
The World: <Silence>
My Brain: "MACGRUBER!"
The World: <Still nothing>
My Brain: "..."
The World: <Silence>
My Brain: "MACGRUBER!"
November 16, 2025 at 3:37 PM
The World: <Nothing>
The World: <Still nothing>
My Brain: "..."
The World: <Silence>
My Brain: "MACGRUBER!"
The World: <Still nothing>
My Brain: "..."
The World: <Silence>
My Brain: "MACGRUBER!"
Somewhere out there in the multiverse, Kevin Costner starred in the *blockbuster* 1991 film Bevis of Hampton: Prince of Thieves.
November 15, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Somewhere out there in the multiverse, Kevin Costner starred in the *blockbuster* 1991 film Bevis of Hampton: Prince of Thieves.
Yowza but that whole "We made a shitty LLM of your dead relative" thing is some serious serial killer backstory guff.
November 15, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Yowza but that whole "We made a shitty LLM of your dead relative" thing is some serious serial killer backstory guff.
Reposted by Val Nolan
Check out the @irishtimes.com tomorrow for my interview with Danish writer, Solvej Balle, about her seven part novel, On the Calculation of Volume, about a woman stuck on one day. Balle started work on it in 1987 (six years before Groundhog Day came out). She is currently working on the final volume
November 14, 2025 at 12:58 PM
Check out the @irishtimes.com tomorrow for my interview with Danish writer, Solvej Balle, about her seven part novel, On the Calculation of Volume, about a woman stuck on one day. Balle started work on it in 1987 (six years before Groundhog Day came out). She is currently working on the final volume