Jo Walton
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bluejo.bsky.social
Jo Walton
@bluejo.bsky.social
4.6K followers 120 following 800 posts
Writer of SF and fantasy. Superintelligent shade of the colour blue. "Even better than cold carrots." Vocateur reader. Philhellenist. Loves tea, trains, travel.
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Reposted by Jo Walton
nzjanette.bsky.social
Slightly off topic, but Sunlit Uplands is a wonderful title.

The cover of Everybody's Perfect is gorgeous and intriguing - I'd pick it up in the store even if I hadn't heard of the author.
November 25, 2025 at 12:56 AM
Reposted by Jo Walton
bpdiamond.bsky.social
Every new Jo Walton novel is An Event that reminds me of times I stayed up all night for a book or movie release when I was more able to stay up for such things. I don't read a *lot* of contemporary fiction – my expertise ends around 1970 – but Walton is the most addictive writer I have ever read.
bluejo.bsky.social Jo Walton @bluejo.bsky.social · 21h
I have the proofs for Everybody's Perfect, which means I have to stop writing my current novel, Sunlit Uplands, to work on this old thing, last year's book, which couldn't be more different if I tried. (Which I don't. It just happens.) It's good it's a step closer to you being able to read it but...
A person in a Venetian mask is holding up another mask, there are other masks around, and the Rialto bridge in the background. The overall colour tones are purples. This picture is improved by having my name in big gold letters and the title "Everybody's Perfect".
November 25, 2025 at 12:57 AM
Reposted by Jo Walton
rainbowrowell.bsky.social
I got to read an early copy of 'Everybody's Perfect,' and it's wonderful. Like nothing I've ever read before.
bluejo.bsky.social Jo Walton @bluejo.bsky.social · 21h
I have the proofs for Everybody's Perfect, which means I have to stop writing my current novel, Sunlit Uplands, to work on this old thing, last year's book, which couldn't be more different if I tried. (Which I don't. It just happens.) It's good it's a step closer to you being able to read it but...
A person in a Venetian mask is holding up another mask, there are other masks around, and the Rialto bridge in the background. The overall colour tones are purples. This picture is improved by having my name in big gold letters and the title "Everybody's Perfect".
November 24, 2025 at 10:47 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
desiheart.bsky.social
I love this cover
bluejo.bsky.social Jo Walton @bluejo.bsky.social · 21h
I have the proofs for Everybody's Perfect, which means I have to stop writing my current novel, Sunlit Uplands, to work on this old thing, last year's book, which couldn't be more different if I tried. (Which I don't. It just happens.) It's good it's a step closer to you being able to read it but...
A person in a Venetian mask is holding up another mask, there are other masks around, and the Rialto bridge in the background. The overall colour tones are purples. This picture is improved by having my name in big gold letters and the title "Everybody's Perfect".
November 24, 2025 at 9:11 PM
bluejo.bsky.social
Fifty percent off all books and ebooks from PM Press with the code GIFT pmpress.org/index.php?l=... includes Marge Piercy, Terry Bisson, Nicola Griffith, John Kessel, Nancy Kress, Vandana Singh, etc and Ann Vandermeer's brilliant SF anthology Sisters of the Revolution pmpress.org/index.php?l=...
New Books
pmpress.org
November 24, 2025 at 9:05 PM
bluejo.bsky.social
I have the proofs for Everybody's Perfect, which means I have to stop writing my current novel, Sunlit Uplands, to work on this old thing, last year's book, which couldn't be more different if I tried. (Which I don't. It just happens.) It's good it's a step closer to you being able to read it but...
A person in a Venetian mask is holding up another mask, there are other masks around, and the Rialto bridge in the background. The overall colour tones are purples. This picture is improved by having my name in big gold letters and the title "Everybody's Perfect".
November 24, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
pamnashes.bsky.social
Nothing beats this from Australia’s Morning Bulletin 🤣
Screenshot of a page: Correction THERE was an error printed in a story titled Pigs float down the Dawson" on Page 11 of yesterday's Bully. The story, by reporter Daniel Burdon, said "more than 30,000 pigs were floating down the Dawson River™ What Baralaba piggery owner Sid Everingham actually said was "30 sows and pigs", not "30,000 pigs": The Morning Bulletin would like to apologise for this error, which was also reprinted in today's Rural Weekly CQ before the mistake was known.
November 21, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
shellyk.bsky.social
In Florence, enriched & inspired by Inventing the Renaissance, @adapalmer.bsky.social ‘s amazing book that I’m carrying around in my head. Walking by the Duomo tonight I almost cried (not Stedhalian tears, more bitter). Seeing that impossible Brunelleschi dome actually right there, in our world. 1/
November 21, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
dbellingradt.bsky.social
Enjoy a time-cleansing carrot-radish thread.
joannechocolat.bsky.social Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 3d
In Tesco’s this afternoon: an elderly Polish man at the self-checkout, trying to buy a pint of milk and a white radish. There is no picture for the radish on the machine. The assistant doesn’t know what it is. She asks a colleague: “It’s a white radish.” There is no entry for it on the machine.
November 22, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
ideasroadshow.bsky.social
👨‍🎨 Raphael’s unique character gave rise to a different sort of workshop than that of other leading artists, one where individual initiative was broadly encouraged & mutual respect was the order of the day (ALT)

🎬 RAPHAEL: A PORTRAIT: ideasroadshow.substack.com/p/raphael-a-...

🗃️ #arthistory #art
Vasari states that the four prophets in Chigi’s Chapel in Santa Maria della Pace were painted by Timoteo Viti, a childhood friend who trained in Giovanni Santi’s Urbino workshop and eventually succeeded him as Urbino court painter. The image shows a drawing by Raphael on the left and on the right a detail of the finished fresco.
November 22, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
sueburke.bsky.social
I could have written this, too. | Whatever whatever.scalzi.com/2025/11/22/y...
Yes, All Those Author Services and Book Club Emails Are Fake, and No, Don’t Send Them Any Money
If you’re an author, or honestly if you just happen to be standing near an author these days, then you have probably seen a flood of emails in the past couple of months promising you that who…
whatever.scalzi.com
November 22, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
alexwhitebean.bsky.social
I love doing this style it takes many hours I've been Thinking about doing a book cover in this style. Any ideas? #blueskyart #art #digitalart
November 22, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
ernie.tedium.co
If you have been sharing that Malwarebytes article on the Gmail thing, you should note the giant correction up top.

www.malwarebytes.com/blog/news/20...
Update November 22. We’ve updated this article after realising we contributed to a perfect storm of misunderstanding around a recent change in the wording and placement of Gmail’s smart features. The settings themselves aren’t new, but the way Google recently rewrote and surfaced them led a lot of people (including us) to believe Gmail content might be used to train Google’s AI models, and that users were being opted in automatically. After taking a closer look at Google’s documentation and reviewing other reporting, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Gmail does scan email content to power its own “smart features,” such as spam filtering, categorisation, and writing suggestions. But this is part of how Gmail normally works and isn’t the same as training Google’s generative AI models. Google also maintains that these feature settings are opt-in rather than opt-out, although users’ experiences seem to vary depending on when and how the new wording appeared. It’s easy to see where the confusion came from. Google’s updated language around “smart features” is vague, and the term “smart” often implies AI—especially at a time when Gemini is being integrated into other parts of Google’s products. When the new wording started appearing for some users without much explanation, many assumed it signalled a broader shift. We’ve revised this article to reflect what we can confirm from Google’s documentation, as it’s always been our aim to give readers accurate, helpful guidance.
November 22, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
crikeys.bsky.social
My crazy crochet flower blanket is finished apart from a few ends I'll do in daylight, plus it needs blocking 🧶
Multicoloured crochet flower blanket
November 22, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
laminda.bsky.social
Science will often take you to unexpected and delightful places. In this study, researchers hypothesized that riders in a crowded subway car would be more likely to offer their seat to a pregnant person if there were someone in the subway car dressed as Batman 🧪🦇

www.nature.com/articles/s44...
A man in a Batman costume and a pregnant woman in a crowded subway car, their faces obscured by pixelation. Text on top of the image reads: "Fig. 1: An example of the experimental setting, with Batman and a woman simulating pregnancy stand in a crowded metro"
November 21, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
pastpostcard.bsky.social
Felicity is turning herself upside down to fit me in.
November 22, 2025 at 12:24 AM
Reposted by Jo Walton
theodoragoss.bsky.social
New blog post. :) Short version: "We are on the cusp of an age of unreality, and the danger it poses to us, and to the planet we inhabit, is enormous."

theodoragoss.com/2025/11/23/t...
The Real and the Unreal: A Manifesto
When I was in college, the task of the researcher was to find information. When I was in graduate school, it was to sort through information. This spring, when my students arrive at the university,…
theodoragoss.com
November 23, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
sifu.tweety.fish
y'know, if tech companies weren't so fired up to call every single thing "AI" it would be a lot easier to distinguish "ML spam filter that is well-sandboxed and tuned on your emails" from "giant context and IP-eroding foundation model that makes people paranoid and unhappy"
sifu.tweety.fish tweety fish @sifu.tweety.fish · 2d
since the "google is now training gemini on your email contents" thing keeps bumping around here: it's _not happening_. I say this not to defend google but because I know a lot of people that have broken their filtering and made their lives much more annoying from sheer misinformation.
awest.uk Andrew West @awest.uk · 3d
The malwarebytes Google opting-your-emails-into-ai-training thing is not true. The post is based on one bad tweet.

I know anti-tech lamenting is a Bluesky core principle, but please use the same judgement you would for any other clickbait.

www.theverge.com/news/826902/...
November 23, 2025 at 12:58 PM
bluejo.bsky.social
But this particular one I think is Arthur's Stone on the Gower peninsula
pastpostcard.bsky.social Postcard From The Past @pastpostcard.bsky.social · 1d
We have been to lots of places.
November 23, 2025 at 11:39 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
pameladean.bsky.social
Gorgeous thread full of sandhill cranes.
ajcousins.bsky.social Amy Jo (AJ) Cousins @ajcousins.bsky.social · 1d
Took a day trip yesterday to see the Sandhill Cranes gather at sunset at the Jasper-Pulaski FWA and it was absolutely and totally worth it. 😍 #birds
Photo of 4 Sandhill Cranes flying in silhouette against the hot pinks, purples, and blues of a brilliant sunset
November 23, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
jannileesimner.bsky.social
I often forget just how good it feels to get into the mountains, even for just a little while.
Tucson Mountains at sunset overlooking Gates pass. Sunset yellows and oranges above gray clouds. The background, a long saguaro in the middle ground, desert rocks and scrub in the foreground.
November 21, 2025 at 2:27 AM
Reposted by Jo Walton
farbijan.bsky.social
Whenever this is mentioned, it is obligatory to post xkcd 2381, in which @gretchenmcc.bsky.social shares forbidden linguistic knowledge with the masses.
Black and white comic with stick figures Panel 1: Three stick figures that can only be told apart by their hair. Megan (short dark hair) walks in walks in from the left, looking down at her phone, Cueball (no hair) and Ponytail (light-haired ponytail) are standing next to each other. Megan: Wow - according to the internet, we don't know the true name of the bear. Cueball: What? Panel 2: Gretchen McCulloch, drawn as a stick figure with short, dark, curly hair, comes on-panel from the right. Megan: Apparently there was a superstition that saying its name would summon it. "Bear" and "bruin" mean "the brown one." Its actual name has been lost. Cueball: Wow. Ponytail: Gretchen, is this for real? Panel 3: Zoom-in on Gretchen. Gretchen: Well, sort of Gretchen: The Proto-Indo-European root was *rkto- Gretchen: It was lost in the Germanic languages like English, but survived elsewhere, e.g. Greek "arktos" and Latin "ursus" Panel 4: Back to the second panel, with Megan holding her phone down, Ponytail with her hands in the air, and Gretchen with her hand on her chin. Megan: So could we figure out what the word would have been in English? Gretchen: Hmm. I mean, we'll never know, but given Germanic sound shifts, a reasonable guess might be "arth"? Ponytail: No!! Panel 5: The panel zooms in again to Gretchen. Ponytail (off-panel): Stop! AAAAA! Gretchen: What?? Ponytail (off-panel): Don't say it! Panel 6: Ponytail is holding her palms out. Megan is no longer in the panel. Ponytail: What have you done? Off-panel noise: ROAR (with a wavy speech balloon around it) Gretchen: Oh Gretchen: Oh no
November 21, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Reposted by Jo Walton
theodoragoss.bsky.social
I think I'm about two-thirds of the way through this novel draft? :)
Painting of a woman writing at a desk. "Woman Writing at a Desk" by Henry Clive.
November 21, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
roseporn.bsky.social
I very much enjoy seeing this rose on my walks.
#Roses #flowers #FlowerReport #bloomsky #bloomscrolling #nature #naturephotography #photography #macrophotography #365photo 📷🌱🌴🪴sky
Red double rose flower with petals that are yellow on the underside
November 21, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by Jo Walton
theodoragoss.bsky.social
I love the fallen leaves this time of year.
Fallen autumn leaves.
November 20, 2025 at 3:05 AM