Liz Bourke
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hawkwinglb.bsky.social
Liz Bourke
@hawkwinglb.bsky.social
2.9K followers 840 following 9.9K posts
Ph.D Classics. Reviews @ Reactor Magazine (ex. Tor.com) and Locus Magazine.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hawkwing_lb
Wordpress: https://lizbourke.wordpress.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@hawkwing_lb
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hawkwinglb.bsky.social
Liz Bourke @hawkwinglb.bsky.social · Nov 9
Hello, new followers! I write reviews of science fiction and fantasy novels for @locusmag.bsky.social and for @reactorsff.bsky.social. On my blog lizbourke.wordpress.com/news-and-upd..., I write about the nonfiction I've been reading lately, and the occasional deeper dive on some aspect of SFF.
κῆπος τῶν βιβλιοθηκῶν | a garden from the libraries
Liz Bourke: books, history, writing, and culture.
lizbourke.wordpress.com
hawkwinglb.bsky.social
My email is a terrifying backlog. Otoh, I'm hiding out in my inlaws' spare room while they entertain my very energetic child, so maybe I can make it less terrifying?
November 12, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
lottelydia.bsky.social
oh god, of course every academic in this country has to use a VPN for their work because every university department in this country somehow runs itself off a shared drive folder called admin/ADMIN/humanities/CURRENT_humanities/history/HISTORY_ALL/admin
mikestabile.bsky.social Mike Stabile @mikestabile.bsky.social · 14h
The British government admits it is now monitoring VPNs use by UK residents. Regulator Ofcom has contracted with an AI-powered surveillance service to detect the number of citizens using VPNs to evade the Online Safety Act.

The UK tech minister has said a VPN ban is on the table.
Exclusive: Ofcom is monitoring VPNs following Online Safety Act. Here's how
Ignoring VPNs risks creating ineffective laws, but tracking them threatens people's privacy
www.techradar.com
November 12, 2025 at 10:33 AM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
annleckie.com
I enjoyed Death by Silver quite a lot! Check it out if you haven't yet.
November 12, 2025 at 1:58 AM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
ealadubh.bsky.social
My sister and myself as teenagers, found Sé Sí and were proudly going down the road in long tassled skirts & Indian style patchwork mirrored tops & a young lad ran up to us "quick quick go home, yer Ma is looking for her curtains"
November 12, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
nearbirdstudios.bsky.social
This reply was my favorite
Tweet by Matthew, @MrWeir: "I once wore a silver jacket to college, turned up late for class, said 'sorry I'm late', lecturer said, 'that's ok' then waited til I was halfway across the front of the full class before following up with 'trouble with the spaceship again was it?'.
November 12, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
wildsoda.bsky.social
I can never forget this classic:
A 2021 tweet from @janky_jane that says: “Props to anyone who tries to be fashionable in Ireland. I wore a red beret once in Waterford and someone called me Super Mario.”
November 12, 2025 at 5:51 AM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
aidanobrien.bsky.social
@philipnolan1 “One my colleagues had an ankle-length dark green serge greatcoat, and when he burst through the office doors one day, another looked up and said: "What news of Stalingrad?" 19:58 • 16/08/2021
November 12, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
siobhanmcelduff.bsky.social
Apparently it's fine to blow billions on data centres and simultaneously impossible to spend money on ending child poverty.
November 12, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
siobhanmcelduff.bsky.social
It makes me mad that governments are mad for GenAI, but also completely unwilling to imitate their economic model of 'money doesn't matter! It's worth throwing money at things to get an outcome you want!'
November 12, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
seamas.bsky.social
me, sending this video the morning after having drank eighteen pints and been thrown out of the pub for shitting myself, to the groupchat of surly, silent male friends I message listlessly everyday about football transfers: me last night 😜
antongerashchenko.bsky.social Anton Gerashchenko @antongerashchenko.bsky.social · 20h
Russia presented its human-like AI robot. It fell down as it walked onto the stage.
November 11, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
scott1gray.bsky.social
Zadie Smith.
writeups.org Writeups.org @writeups.org · 5h
With alt text.
You know a country by its values. By what a country values. And it turns out thatwhat a country values can change overtime. Sometimes, though, there's a sort of cognitive delay between the country you think you are in, and the country you've actually become. For example, you can keep selling yourself, to foreigners, as the country of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, and luring busloads of tourists to Stratford-upon-Avon and Bath, and put a statue of George Orwell in front of the BBC, and imagine yourself a cultured and literate nation, which the rest of the world admires for its devotion to the written word - but if you then chronically underfund your cultural institutions, and treat your cultural workers with contempt, many people will suspect you of being full of it. And as the decades pass - and fewer and fewer Shakespeares and Austens and Orwells emerge from your little island - even more people will begin to suspect that in truth you do not value culture at all, and are in fact running a giant heritage museum in which the only cultural workers you respect are the dead ones.
November 12, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
fhayesmccoy.bsky.social
Extraordinary how, in the coverage of this story, no journalist appears to be leading with the question "so do you now require all passengers on your airline who do not have or use a smartphone or other digital device to pay a levy?" To which, of course, the answer is "no, that would be illegal ".
November 12, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
dublininquirer.com
Dublin clampers towed away a car with a child in back – again. After two similar incidents in 2023, DSPS, the council parking enforcement contractor, put in place procedures to keep it from happening again.
Dublin clampers towed away a car with a child in back – again
After two similar incidents in 2023, DSPS, the council parking enforcement contractor, put in place procedures to keep it from happening again.
www.dublininquirer.com
November 12, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
kateelliottsff.bsky.social
Peeps, here we go.
Publishers Marketplace. November 10, 2025. The Flower Court by Kate Elliott. Imprint: Tor. Kate Elliott's The Flower Court, a sapphic romantic fantasy in which a clever young scribe infiltrates the imperial consort quarters to search for a missing noblewoman, only to find herself forced to work with the Dowager Empress’s loveliest and most condescending servant; together with a second novel, both set in the Witch Roads universe, to Lee Harris at Tor, in a very nice deal, in a two book deal, for publication in January 2027, by Russell Galen at Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency (world English). russellgalen@sgglit.com Translation: danny@barorinto.com
November 11, 2025 at 10:26 PM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
cemurphy.bsky.social
YAY!!!
kateelliottsff.bsky.social Kate Elliott @kateelliottsff.bsky.social · 16h
Peeps, here we go.
Publishers Marketplace. November 10, 2025. The Flower Court by Kate Elliott. Imprint: Tor. Kate Elliott's The Flower Court, a sapphic romantic fantasy in which a clever young scribe infiltrates the imperial consort quarters to search for a missing noblewoman, only to find herself forced to work with the Dowager Empress’s loveliest and most condescending servant; together with a second novel, both set in the Witch Roads universe, to Lee Harris at Tor, in a very nice deal, in a two book deal, for publication in January 2027, by Russell Galen at Scovil Galen Ghosh Literary Agency (world English). russellgalen@sgglit.com Translation: danny@barorinto.com
November 12, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
theriotnrrd.bsky.social
You should absolutely read this book. Just incredibly well-crafted at all sorts of different levels. Enjoy it as a classic fantasy heroic journey, savour the world-building, or dig deeper into the craft and reflect on the viewpoints and characters.
Get me my next fix here, is what I’m saying!
kerstinhall.bsky.social Kerstin Hall @kerstinhall.bsky.social · 1d
Convincing you to read my ~preceding~ novel, because I need the sales in order to get this one contracted. 😬

Share yours if you want!
November 11, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
dawbooks.bsky.social
We’re jumping with joy because today is the publication of Shadowplay, the second book of the Micah Grey trilogy 🎪🎪 In this book, Micah must learn two types of magic—one for the stage, and one with deadlier consequences—while navigating a tender new love

buff.ly/R4fvKu9
November 11, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
themountaingoats.bsky.social
one thing younger people may not have clocked is at some point you start thinking about life insurance. lol @ you if you've been up front with your doctor about the life you've lived -- the life insurance people read all the charts and quote you a kingly sum. sin tax. I will die uninsured
November 11, 2025 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
solarisbooks.bsky.social
NEW BOOK ON NETGALLEY ALERT!

Calling all reviewers, librarians, booksellers, and press: @kerstinhall.bsky.social 's Nebula and Locus Award-nominated dark fantasy novel - ASUNDER - has landed on Netgalley UK!

Request: https://geni.us/SolarisNG
Preorder: https://geni.us/asunder
Against a burning flower background, white text "Available on Netgalley UK!" Below, on an eReader, the cover for ASUNDER by Kerstin Hall.
November 10, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
garius.bsky.social
Have I sailed as close as you are legally allowed to do to have a nose at the SS Montgomery?

Of course.

Moment I knew she existed, I was out there faster than Jay Hulme when he spots a rickety ladder in a church.

Here she is:
view out over the thames estuary. A DANGER boy stands in the foreground. A little bit behind are visible a few masts above water. The last remains of the SS Montgomery who, if she explodes, will take out half the windows in Canvey Island.
November 11, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
nochorus.bsky.social
Screenshot of Tweets that say: "Once at my granny's house my uncle excitedly said a James Bond film was on the tv. My Da said "sure they're all the same, a load of lads shooting at one lad then a mountain blows up." My uncle got really mad at how reductive that was then became furious when the mountain blew up. My Da, of course, knew it was the one where the mountain blows up at the end. This was a foundational lesson which illustrated to me that walking the path of the hater means knowing more about something that people who profess to like it."
February 20, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
sarahebond.bsky.social
Waking up to news 🚨 that 6 (!) Roman statues were stolen from Syria’s National Museum, in Damascus, on Monday. No details on which statues yet, but I had a few pics below from the GRB gallery with the famed Al-Lat Athena. Heartbreaking news.
thehill.com/homenews/ap/...
Damascus, Syria - September 28, 2023: Minerva statue. Allat-Minerva, Allat-Athena. Statue of the 2nd century AD from As-Suwayda, Syria. National Museum of Damascus
November 11, 2025 at 12:25 PM
hawkwinglb.bsky.social
Damn, @themountaingoats.bsky.social's Through The Fire Across From Peter Balkan is something else. Absolutely haunting.
November 11, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Reposted by Liz Bourke
jdeheij.bsky.social
Utrecht (city of 377k population) receives €562 million (NZ $1.1 billion) from the government to build tramlines to Merwede.

As the council says; “because without a tram line the city would be one massive traffic jam”.
November 11, 2025 at 9:11 AM