Paul McAuley
@unlikelyworlds.bsky.social
3.6K followers 290 following 900 posts
Scribble scribble scribble Latest novel: Beyond the Burn Line Incoming (12th Feb 2026): Loss Protocol Working on: Heaven's Grand Design Website: https://www.unlikelyworlds.co.uk Agent: Oliver Cheetham at Mic Cheetham Agency
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Reposted by Paul McAuley
junoryleejournalism.com
David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)
SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.
unlikelyworlds.bsky.social
70 - 75s have to pay for it too (unless immunocompromised or living in a care home).
Reposted by Paul McAuley
matthewcobb.bsky.social
Getting my jab today, but thanks to Wes Streeting, I have to pay for it (£90)… Many other 65-69s and immunocompromised ppl will not be able to afford it.
drjoepajak.bsky.social
Latest England COVID-19 hospital bed occupancy up.
COVID-19 positive tests up.
COVID-19 deaths up.
COVID-19 cases up.
Data source @ukhsa.bsky.social
Why?
Limited vaccine eligibility, waning immunity, lower priority by leaders, mixing in poorly ventilated, cramped spaces. Scant use of face coverings.
Latest England COVID-19 hospital bed occupancy up.
COVID-19 deaths up.
COVID-19 positive tests up.
COVID-19 cases up.
Data source @ukhsa.bsky.social
Why?
Limited vaccine eligibility, waning immunity, lower priority by leaders, mixing in poorly ventilated, cramped spaces. Scant use of face coverings.
Reposted by Paul McAuley
carlzimmer.com
Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE
nyti.ms
unlikelyworlds.bsky.social
The season when vast underground empires extend fruiting bodies into the upper world.
A shaggy parasol mushroom growing amongst nettles. A trio of Coprinus species of mushroom growing in leaf litter. Unidentified mushroom growing in leaf litter. Mushroom, possibly Agaricus vaporarius, amongst grass and leaf litter.
Reposted by Paul McAuley
coreyspowell.bsky.social
China's Tianwen-2 is on its way to Kamoʻoalewa, an asteroid that currently doubles as a "quasi-moon" of Earth. The spacecraft will collect samples & bring them back home.

On its outward trajectory, Tianwen-2 looked back and got this lovely view of our planet. 🧪🔭

english.news.cn/20251001/ef3...
This image released by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) on Oct. 1, 2025 shows a view of the Tianwen-2 probe alongside Earth, captured by the probe during its deep-space journey. The newly released image, acquired by a monitoring camera mounted on the probe's robotic arm, showcases China's five-starred red flag and the white return capsule against the backdrop of a distant, blue Earth. (Some slight image processing by me.)
Reposted by Paul McAuley
annecharnock.bsky.social
This is the novel everyone will be talking about. It’s wonderful. And a beautiful blogpost from @catamaroon.bsky.social to mark its release today. 📚💚📚
catamaroon.bsky.social
When There Are Wolves Again is out in the UK today! I wrote something about the book, and keeping going, and some personal stuff I dithered over but, well, it's been A Year.

I'm so glad the book is out there and thank you so much to everyone who has supported it 🐺🤍

ejswift.co.uk/2025/10/09/w...
Hardback edition of When There Are Wolves Again by E. J. Swift, with cover featuring a wolf and branch/leaf/flower design, photographed in the garden with the author's cat in the background being dramatic
Reposted by Paul McAuley
spectrum.ieee.org
Researchers have found a way to get close-up images of nearby #stars and #exoplanets within 25 years. These new probes would be tiny disks with optical sensors, accelerated into space by lasers, travelling at 0.2 times the speed of light. spectrum.ieee.org/high-speed-i...
Reposted by Paul McAuley
Reposted by Paul McAuley
coreyspowell.bsky.social
Amazing: Comet ATLAS formed some 8 billion years ago. It made about 3 dozen circuits around our galaxy. It entered our our solar system & just passed 30 million kilometers from Mars...

...where ESA's ExoMars orbiter captured these images of the interstellar comet! 🧪🔭

www.esa.int/Science_Expl...
Reposted by Paul McAuley
richardkadrey.bsky.social
My new book, THE FLESH KING is out today and available everywhere your get your books. But I’d feel like an ass if I didn’t mention new books by two of my favorite writers: THE ESSENTIAL HORROR OF JOE R. LANSDALE and SHADOW TICKET by Thomas Pynchon. Why not go nuts and get all three?
THE FLESH KING by me! THE ESSENTIAL HORROR OF JOE R. LANSDALE SHADOW TICKET by Thomas Pynchon
Reposted by Paul McAuley
spahn711.bsky.social
Just found this image of the 2021 Fagradalsfjall eruption in Iceland that I've never shared before. Being in the presence of this volcano and feeling the intense heat of the Earth on my skin was genuinely the best experience of my life and its not even close. #photography
An erupting volcano. A black spatter cone with a gap in the front has lava fountaining out, hundreds of feet into the air, smacking against the cone, and flowing along a snaking lava river toward the camera. A plume of gas rises into the air with mostly cloudy sky in the background.
Reposted by Paul McAuley
andybrockman.bsky.social
Everybody makes money out of academic authors except the authors...News.

Wiley is the latest academic publisher to reach a multi-million deal to allow access to its content to AI developers, with no opt out, let alone payment, for the authors who created that content.
Wiley set to earn $44m from AI rights deals, confirms “no opt-out" for authors
The US publisher is the latest to capitalise on deals to give tech firms access to its authors’ content to train their Large Language Models (LLMs).
www.thebookseller.com
Reposted by Paul McAuley
gillyarcht.bsky.social
OMG
donmoyn.bsky.social
Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading, Rio de Janeiro
Very ornate library with beautiful glass ceiling
Reposted by Paul McAuley
pfbvan.bsky.social
Pleased to discover this one back in print, & at a very reasonable price point, too.

"[L]ike its predecessors, a near-faultless technical performance...[plus] 2 new items to the Beauman repertoire: relative structural simplicity and profound emotional resonance."
Reposted by Paul McAuley
bowiesongs.bsky.social
10 years ago today (yikes): the first taste of "Blackstar," in a trailer for The Last Panthers (and a great fake-out by DB, making everyone assume the song would be another "Heat"): www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6J4...
The Last Panthers | Opening Credits with new music from David Bowie
YouTube video by Sky TV
www.youtube.com
Reposted by Paul McAuley
adapalmer.bsky.social
Puffins return to Maine after half a century of absence. Eastern Egg Rock now hosts the only puffin colony in the United States, restored through decades of painstaking work after the birds were hunted out a century ago. buff.ly/RB0Ibz0
#ShareGoodNewsToo
How researchers restored a thriving habitat for Atlantic puffins in Maine
Atlantic puffins face an increasingly precarious foothold due in part to a loss of habitat and to troubles tied to warming ocean waters and climate change. But an effort off the coast of Maine…
buff.ly
Reposted by Paul McAuley
Reposted by Paul McAuley
tomasjmurray.bsky.social
Today is Brian O’Nolan’s (aka Flann O’Brien, Myles na gCopaleen et al) birthday.
With John Ryan, Anthony Cronin, Patrick Kavanagh & Tom Joyce (Bloomsday, Sandymount, 1954)
Reposted by Paul McAuley
folklorewales.com
Six weeks ago, I picked up a year-old tawny owl with a broken leg off the main road near our home and dropped him off at our nearest vet.

After a few days, I received one of the most bizarre phone calls I’ve ever had, asking “So when are you coming to pick up your owl?” 🧵
Tawny owl
Reposted by Paul McAuley
oxinabox.bsky.social
as a girl with a PhD in natural language processing and machine learning it's actually offensive to me when you say "we don't know how LLMs work so they might be conscious"

I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.

We know exactly how LLMs work.