Five SFF Stories About Making Amends
Jun. 26th, 2025 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicoll
People adopt very different strategies when it comes to making up for mistakes.
Five SFF Stories About Making Amends
james_davis_nicollPeople adopt very different strategies when it comes to making up for mistakes.
Five SFF Stories About Making Amends
Trade show! in! spaaaaaace!
Jun. 26th, 2025 09:07 ammrissaNew story out today in Lightspeed magazine: All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt. Visit the space gift shop trade convention and learn who's most likely to try to ruin things for all of us (hint: it's Earth people, UGH).
Don't miss the Author Spotlight discussing the story afterwards!
Golem100 by Alfred Bester
Jun. 26th, 2025 08:50 amjames_davis_nicoll
What could possibly go wrong with a little harmless Satanism between friends?
Golem100 by Alfred Bester
My Favorite Bit: Aimee Ogden talks about STARSTRUCK
Jun. 26th, 2025 12:00 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
maryrobinettekowal_feed
Aimee Ogden is joining us today to talk about her novel, Starstruck. Here’s the publisher’s description:
Prish has always been a radish who knows what she’s about; chiefly, her wife, Alsing, a literal and figurative fox. They’ve woven together a cozy life around welcoming other starstruck beings into the world-plants and animals ensouled by a falling star-but when the stars stop falling, all of that unravels. Prish gives in to Alsing’s longing to move on, and their new path leads them to two unlikely companions: an abandoned human child, and, impossibly, a brand-new starstruck who is neither a plant nor an animal, but rather a chunk of anthropomorphized granite with delusions of destiny.
Join Prish, Alsing, and Otra as they journey across a magical world.
What’s Aimee’s favorite bit?
At some point in writing Starstruck, I took a perfectly good rock and gave it delusions of grandeur, impostor syndrome, chronic pain, and, yes, probably anxiety too.
In the world of Starstruck, plants and animals can be given a soul if they are struck by a falling star. The first character I came up with was Prish, a quiet homebody of a radish, through whose perspective we see the story; but the character I fell most in love with was the one I built to be a challenge and a problem for her. What happens when a soul gets crammed into something that was never supposed to have one?
“Well, good evening,” said the starstruck…person. Its body was both more
humanlike than Alsing’s or Prish’s, and less. It could have been carved by a sculptor with a tender eye for detail: the gentle point of an elbow, a round belly, five dexterous fingers on each hand and five wiggling toes on each foot. […] It had no face at all, only a rough, rocky surface on the gray basalt stone that formed its head. The bottom narrowed to a lopsided point that suggested a chin and widened from there to an uneven triangle at the top. Faceless and eyeless as it was, Prish felt its gaze on her and disliked the feeling immensely. Magic, yes, of course. But living stone? How could it be? She’d never heard of the like. “It’s lovely to meet you both.” The stone head canted to one side in puzzlement. “Or at least I think it is. I’ve never met anyone else before, so I have to assume. It is nice to meet you, isn’t it?”
From the moment she arrives, Otra is searching for her place in a world that may not have one to offer her. She lives loudly and without apparent regard for the opinions of others—taking what she wants, dressing as she likes, speaking her mind—but there is something in her seeking space, seeking approval, in other ways. What hurt my heart the most (a self-inflicted wound, to be sure) was her quiet
awareness that her lack of face bothered other people, and her repeated attempts to assuage that discomfort. For all her larger-than-life behavior, she must wonder, deep down, what it means for her to exist, and whether she was ever really supposed to in the first place.
He paused and took another look at Otra. Then he scrambled away, putting
Alsing between him and her. “What is that?”
“That is a her,” said Otra. “She is a who.”
So many of my characters end up holding a mirror to one aspect or another of my own personality, and Otra fits the pattern. A lot of us might be able to relate to the idea of painting on a face that will make other people more comfortable; or to blurting whatever was on our minds without thinking first. Or wondered whether we really belong—or have we just rudely barged into spaces and societies that would rather not share room with us?
Children seemed to delight in Otra’s attention, skipping alongside her, singing the silly nonsense songs that she made up for them on the fly. She answered their questions about her nature gamely, whether they were addressed to her with genuine interest, or, in a few cases, what sounded more like morbid curiosity: “Yes, I’m brand new! Just two days old. Or maybe some several thousand years, depending on how you do your accounting.”
But I, for one, also envy Otra the grand, bold strokes of her character. I want to paint with bright colors and not worry if they clash. I want to stop worrying what other people will say. I want to love people, places, things, all kinds of nouns really, noisily and extravagantly. I want to curl up in the space that has been shared with me and not just know but believe I should be there. This book is in many ways about love and regret—Otra has so much of the former to give, and not a single drop of the
latter, which from my perspective is a fascinating and totally alien way to navigate life. She is my saddest and dearest clown, and she would be absolutely thrilled to know how much of my mental spotlight she’s stolen from poor Prish.
LINKS:
BIO:
Aimee Ogden is an American werewolf in the Netherlands. Her debut novella Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters was a 2021 Nebula Award finalist, and her short fiction has appeared in publications such as Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022. Her third novella, Emergent Properties, came out in July 2023. She would make for a very annoying ghost.
White House Bans WhatsApp
Jun. 26th, 2025 11:00 ambruce_schneier_feedReuters is reporting that the White House has banned WhatsApp on all employee devices:
The notice said the “Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.”
TechCrunch has more commentary, but no more information.
Wednesday reading
Jun. 25th, 2025 09:32 pmredbirdOne book finished in the past fortnight: Installment Immortality, by Seanan McGuire, the 14th volume in her InCryptid series of fantasy novels. I was disappointed by this one: there were too many ghosts and too few cryptids, and the ending seemed abrupt, even given that this is number 14 in a loose series. I'm not a big fan of ghosts, and the book is narrated by Aunt Mary, the Price family's ghost babysitter. The ebook also contains "Excerpt from Mourner's Waltz," about a bit of Verity's life, as the superintendent and only human resident of a Manhattan apartment building. The novel and short story both contain massive spoilers for at least the two previous books in the series.
I gave up on Twelve Trees (mentioned in the previous post) because the printing was hard on my eyes, and since it's a hardcover rather than an ebook, I can't change the font or print size, and I have to take it back to the library.
I gave up on Twelve Trees (mentioned in the previous post) because the printing was hard on my eyes, and since it's a hardcover rather than an ebook, I can't change the font or print size, and I have to take it back to the library.
(no subject)
Jun. 25th, 2025 08:25 pmskygiantsI was traveling again for much of last week which meant, again, it was time to work through an emergency paperback to see if it was discardable. And, indeed, it was! And you would think that reading and discarding one bad book on my travels, dayenu, would have been enough -- but then my friend brought me to books4free, where I could not resist the temptation to pick up another emergency gothic. And, lo and behold, this book turned out to be even worse, and was discarded before the trip was out!
The two books were not even much alike, but I'm going to write them up together anyway because a.) I read them in such proximity and b.) though I did not like either of them, neither quite reached the over-the-top delights of joyous badness that would demand a solo post.
The first -- and this one I'd been hanging onto for some years after finding it in a used bookstore in San Francisco -- was Esbae: A Winter's Tale (published 1981), a college-campus urban fantasy in which (as the Wikipedia summary succinctly says) a college student named Chuck summons Asmodeus to help him pass his exams. However, Chuck is an Asshole Popular Boy who Hates Books and is Afraid of the Library, so he enlists a Clumsy, Intellectual, Unconventional Classmate with Unfashionable Long Red Locks named Sophie to help him with his project. Sophie is, of course, the heroine of the book, and Moreover!! she is chosen by the titular Esbae, a shapechanging magical creature who's been kicked out into the human realm to act as a magical servant until and unless he helps with the performance of a Great and Heroic Deed, to be his potentially heroic master.
Unfortunately after this happens Sophie doesn't actually do very much. The rest of the plot involves Chuck incompetently stalking Sophie to attempt to sacrifice her to Asmodeus, which Sophie barely notices because she's busy cheerfully entering into an affair with the history professor who taught them about Asmodeus to begin with.
In fact only thing of note that nerdy, clumsy Sophie really accomplishes during this section is to fly into a rage with Esbae when she finds out that Esbae has been secretly following her to protect her from Chuck and beat her unprotesting magical creature of pure goodness up?? to which is layered on the extra unfortunate layer that Esbae often takes the form of a small brown-skinned child that Sophie saw playing the Heroine's Clever Moorish Servant in an opera one time??? Sophie, who is justifiably horrified with herself about this, talks it over with her history professor and they decide that with great mastery comes great responsibility and that Sophie has to be a Good Master. Obviously this does not mean not having a magical servant who is completely within your power and obeys your every command, but probably does mean not taking advantage of the situation to beat the servant up even if you're really mad. And we all move on! Much to unpack there, none of which ever will be.
Anyway. Occult shenanigans happen at a big campus party, Esbae Accomplishes A Heroic Deed, Sophie and her history professor live happily ever after. It's 1981. This book was nominated for a Locus Award, which certainly does put things in perspective.
The second book, the free bookstore pickup, was Ronald Scott Thorn's The Twin Serpents (1965) which begins with a brilliant plastic surgeon! tragically dead! with a tragically dead wife!! FOLLOWED BY: the discovery of a mysterious stranger on a Greek island who claims to know nothing about the brilliant plastic surgeon ....
stop! rewind! You might be wondering how we got here! Well, the brilliant plastic surgeon (mid-forties) had a Cold and Shallow but Terribly Beautiful twenty-three-year-old aristocratic wife, and she had a twin brother who was not only a corrupt and debauched and spendthrift aristocrat AND not only psychologically twisted as a result of his physical disability (leg problems) BUT of course mildly incestuous with his twin sister as well and PROBABLY the cause of her inexplicable, unnatural distaste for the idea of having children. I trust this gives you a sense of the vibe.
However, honestly the biggest disappointment is that for a book that contains incestuous twins, face-changing surgery [self-performed!!], secret identities, secret abortions, a secret disease of the hands, last-minute live-saving operations and semi-accidental murder, it's ... kind of boring ..... a solid 60% of the book is the brilliant plastic surgeon and his wife having the same unpleasant marital disputes in which the book clearly wants me to be on his side and I am really emphatically absolutely not. ( spoilers )
Both these books have now been released back into the wild; I hope they find their way to someone who appreciates them. I did also read a couple of good books on my trip but those will, eventually, get their own post.
The two books were not even much alike, but I'm going to write them up together anyway because a.) I read them in such proximity and b.) though I did not like either of them, neither quite reached the over-the-top delights of joyous badness that would demand a solo post.
The first -- and this one I'd been hanging onto for some years after finding it in a used bookstore in San Francisco -- was Esbae: A Winter's Tale (published 1981), a college-campus urban fantasy in which (as the Wikipedia summary succinctly says) a college student named Chuck summons Asmodeus to help him pass his exams. However, Chuck is an Asshole Popular Boy who Hates Books and is Afraid of the Library, so he enlists a Clumsy, Intellectual, Unconventional Classmate with Unfashionable Long Red Locks named Sophie to help him with his project. Sophie is, of course, the heroine of the book, and Moreover!! she is chosen by the titular Esbae, a shapechanging magical creature who's been kicked out into the human realm to act as a magical servant until and unless he helps with the performance of a Great and Heroic Deed, to be his potentially heroic master.
Unfortunately after this happens Sophie doesn't actually do very much. The rest of the plot involves Chuck incompetently stalking Sophie to attempt to sacrifice her to Asmodeus, which Sophie barely notices because she's busy cheerfully entering into an affair with the history professor who taught them about Asmodeus to begin with.
In fact only thing of note that nerdy, clumsy Sophie really accomplishes during this section is to fly into a rage with Esbae when she finds out that Esbae has been secretly following her to protect her from Chuck and beat her unprotesting magical creature of pure goodness up?? to which is layered on the extra unfortunate layer that Esbae often takes the form of a small brown-skinned child that Sophie saw playing the Heroine's Clever Moorish Servant in an opera one time??? Sophie, who is justifiably horrified with herself about this, talks it over with her history professor and they decide that with great mastery comes great responsibility and that Sophie has to be a Good Master. Obviously this does not mean not having a magical servant who is completely within your power and obeys your every command, but probably does mean not taking advantage of the situation to beat the servant up even if you're really mad. And we all move on! Much to unpack there, none of which ever will be.
Anyway. Occult shenanigans happen at a big campus party, Esbae Accomplishes A Heroic Deed, Sophie and her history professor live happily ever after. It's 1981. This book was nominated for a Locus Award, which certainly does put things in perspective.
The second book, the free bookstore pickup, was Ronald Scott Thorn's The Twin Serpents (1965) which begins with a brilliant plastic surgeon! tragically dead! with a tragically dead wife!! FOLLOWED BY: the discovery of a mysterious stranger on a Greek island who claims to know nothing about the brilliant plastic surgeon ....
stop! rewind! You might be wondering how we got here! Well, the brilliant plastic surgeon (mid-forties) had a Cold and Shallow but Terribly Beautiful twenty-three-year-old aristocratic wife, and she had a twin brother who was not only a corrupt and debauched and spendthrift aristocrat AND not only psychologically twisted as a result of his physical disability (leg problems) BUT of course mildly incestuous with his twin sister as well and PROBABLY the cause of her inexplicable, unnatural distaste for the idea of having children. I trust this gives you a sense of the vibe.
However, honestly the biggest disappointment is that for a book that contains incestuous twins, face-changing surgery [self-performed!!], secret identities, secret abortions, a secret disease of the hands, last-minute live-saving operations and semi-accidental murder, it's ... kind of boring ..... a solid 60% of the book is the brilliant plastic surgeon and his wife having the same unpleasant marital disputes in which the book clearly wants me to be on his side and I am really emphatically absolutely not. ( spoilers )
Both these books have now been released back into the wild; I hope they find their way to someone who appreciates them. I did also read a couple of good books on my trip but those will, eventually, get their own post.
Stop asking the wrong question. Be a neighbor.
Jun. 25th, 2025 09:32 pmslacktivist_feed"The fundamental civic unit in this nation is neighbor. ... Are you prepared to see them treated this way?"
Don't know me now, then you'll never know me later
Jun. 25th, 2025 05:25 pmsovayReturned from the optometrist's, I have nocturnal eyes and mirrorshades. When spatch informed me that Zohran Mamdani is Mira Nair's kid, I remarked that it was a little like discovering that Madhur Jaffrey the author of cookbooks and children's books is the actor who introduced Ismail Merchant to James Ivory. I feel I really should have seen this video coming.
spatch informed me that Zohran Mamdani is Mira Nair's kid, I remarked that it was a little like discovering that Madhur Jaffrey the author of cookbooks and children's books is the actor who introduced Ismail Merchant to James Ivory. I feel I really should have seen this video coming.cucumber crunch salad with tofu
Jun. 25th, 2025 08:43 pmsmittenkitchen_feed
“Sip Happens” At Dozo
Jun. 25th, 2025 08:30 pmscalziwhatever_feed
Let’s revisit December 2o23 for a moment, when I first experienced Dozo: an exceptionally cool underground sushi spot in Dayton that features a pre-fixe tasting menu and sake/wine pairings. After that incredible initial visit, I went about six or seven more times after that. Every time was the bomb dot com.
Today I’m here to tell you about a special event they held last week, called “Sip Happens: Sake Edition.” It was a sake tasting event in partnership with SakeOne, a sake company out of Oregon that not only brews their own craft sake, but has been importing fine sake from Japan since 1992.
It was twenty bucks for a ticket, which got you a 2oz pour of each of the four selected sakes for the evening. When buying your ticket online, you had the choice to add on two different sushi rolls, each for seven dollars. I opted for one of each roll to accompany my sake samplings.
For the most part, the only time I ever have sake is when I’m dining at Dozo and do their sake pairing. I always enjoy getting to try new sakes, so I was really excited to try some new ones at the event and also learn all about them.
When I was seated at my corner bar seat (my favorite seat, really), there was this welcome card:
On the back was a list of the sakes we were going to be trying, as well as the options to purchase another tasting of it or purchase the full bottle to take home:
I didn’t realize until I saw the card that the first sampling was going to be of my favorite sake! I absolutely love the Awa Yuki and it’s one of the first sake I ever tried, and it helped me realize I do really enjoy sake. So I was looking forward to that one even though I had in fact tried it before.
Here was my pours of the Awa Yuki and the Naginata:
For the Awa Yuki, it’s a sparkling sake and I tend to enjoy sparkling sakes and wines more than still. The Awa Yuki is slightly sweet, very light, and has just the right amount of bubbles. I’ve always thought it tastes kind of marshmallowy or vanilla-esque, and apparently both of those are actual tasting notes of it! I feel accomplished. It’s very mellow and I love the pretty blue bottle it comes in. It’s actually about half the size of a regular 750ml sake bottle, which is why the to-go bottle you can purchase is only twelve bucks. It’s also lower in alcohol content than a lot of sakes, at 5.5%. Here’s some extra details on it.
When I was talking to the SakeOne representative, Jack, he was happy to hear Awa Yuki is my long-standing favorite sake.
Then he began telling me all the details of the Naginata. Something that really fascinated me was that the rice used for the Naginata was grown in Arkansas and is actually a super high quality sake rice called yamada nishiki. It is considered the “king” of sake rice, and SakeOne’s goal with the Naginata is “to craft the best sake brewed outside of Japan, period.” If that’s their goal, using the king of sake rice is certainly a good place to start!
The Naginata smelled like crisp apple, and when I tasted it I ended up getting a melon-y flavor. I didn’t know if that was “correct” so I waited until Jack mentioned the tasting notes of it, and I was on the mark again, much to my delight. It was slightly dry but not overly so, honestly very light and fruity. I really enjoyed it.
You may have noticed that this particular sake is considerably more expensive than the other offerings. Not only was there only 1000 bottles produced, but it is 100% handcrafted, and the brewmaster is involved in every step of the process from washing the rice to bottling. It comes in an elegant, simple bottle with an embossed logo. True Sake says on their website that this is a “world-class sake that should not be missed by any sake enthusiasts.”
While I was enjoying these two pours, my sushi was brought out to me:
These rolls were much bigger than I anticipated, each coming with eight pretty large pieces. It was only seven dollars for each so I was pleasantly surprised at the portion. These rolls were extremely tasty, and the salmon was so fresh and tender that I ended up asking the chef about it. He said the salmon was from Canada, and was cold smoked. I think he also mentioned something about a brown sugar marinade, but yeah definitely super yummy. So glad I got to try both rolls.
I got my next two pours:
When the Yuki Tora Nigori was being poured, I got to see the beautiful, frosted glass bottle with the coolest tiger decal on it, which is fitting because its name means “snow tiger.” This sake is cloudy from natural rice sediment, and is more creamy and silkier than other sakes. The snow tiger was certainly packed full of flavor, it was complex and layered and truly unique, with flavors of roasted grain and toasted cereal, but also some slight sweetness. It honestly reminds me of horchata with its warm spice and creaminess. I loved this one! Here’s some extra details on it. Plus I love that you can buy it in a little 200ml can, so cute.
And finally, the Hakutsuru Plum Wine. While it’s not a sake, it’s made by a sake brand, in fact it’s the same one that makes the Awa Yuki, so I had high hopes for this wine. I gave it a sniff and it smelled pleasantly sweet and rather almondy. This wine was seriously out of this world, with a beautifully sweet plum taste, it was the perfect finisher to this tasting experience. Jack told me that it’s especially delicious because it’s actual fermented plum puree, like it isn’t fake or artificial at all. The specific plums are called “ume,” and it’s very popular in Japan to have the plum wine mixed with soda water on the rocks, or for it to be used in plum wine highballs. Here’s some extra details on it.
All four sakes were fantastic, and I hope the next time I’m in Portland I get a chance to check out SakeOne’s Tasting Room. I’m so glad I got to have some delicious, fresh sushi from Dozo while savoring these sakes, and if Tender Mercy decides to do another one of these events in the future, you already know I’m going.
Which sake sounds the best to you? Do you prefer chilled sake like me, or do you like it hot? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day! And be sure to check out SakeOne, Tender Mercy, and Dozo on Instagram!
-AMS
Bundle of Holding: His Majesty the Worm
Jun. 25th, 2025 03:43 pmjames_davis_nicoll
His Majesty the Worm, a megadungeon-crawling fantasy roleplaying game from Josh McCrowell at Rise Up Comus.
Bundle of Holding: His Majesty the Worm
The Big Idea: Chuck Rothman
Jun. 25th, 2025 05:01 pmscalziwhatever_feed
Royalty is by blood. So what if a princess wakes up in a body that isn’t hers? And what if that body was previously a corpse? Author Chuck Rothman has the answers and is here to share them in the Big Idea for his newest novel, Cadaver Princess. Follow along to see if “blue blood” really does run through royals’ veins.
CHUCK ROTHMAN:
Cunningham’s Law states that the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer. The webcomic XKCD created a popular meme where someone is staying up late because someone is wrong on the Internet.
The Cadaver Princess started due to someone being wrong on the Internet.
I am a storyteller. I also like to try to find new ways to do it. No Hero’s Journey for me! No planning, either. I start with a situation and see where it leads.
By the time I began writing The Cadaver Princess, I learned to lean into my strengths: short chapters and many point-of-view characters. I call it a “mosaic novel,” where a bunch of small vignettes slowly reveal the main plot (and subplots). And my goal in all this was to make it all work.
As to how this book began . . .
Matthew Foster is an excellent critic of fantasy and SF films. In his review of Boris Karloff’s The Body Snatcher, he said, “There were more movies about Victorian body snatchers than there were Victorian body snatchers.”
But body snatching was a major concern in 1831. Cadavers were needed to teach doctors. “Resurrectionists” would dig up the freshly buried, and medical schools would pay for them, no questions asked. People went to some lengths to protect the bodies of their loved ones.
I had learned this from a book called The Italian Boy by Sarah Wise, about a group called the “London Burkers,” led by John Bishop. Obscure today, their actions were more important historically than the better-known Burke and Hare, and, like them, Bishop and his crew didn’t just dig up graves at night: they turned to murder.
I decided to start with them. But since I write fantasy, the idea of a cadaver lying on the slab is too mundane, so I had her sit up. And to make the stakes higher, I said she was Princess (later queen) Victoria — in the body of another young woman.
So I had a setting and an incident. I started to write about what happened next.
I spontaneously generate ideas as I write. Most of what I’ve encountered in books about the period (not counting Dickens) dealt with the upper classes. I wanted to write about the lower classes.
I had started with the point of view of the anatomist who received the corpse, but after a few short chapters, I realized there was a better main character: Pablo Mansong, a Black man who had been taken by slavers but was freed before he got to America. The name came from Pablo Fanque. Beatles fans might recognize it; Fanque was a Black circus owner and a major Victorian impresario.
Pablo is quite at home among the poor and the street vendors of London. There are chapters about royalty, but most of the book deals with Pablo and Victoria, including the shock when someone from royalty is face to face with poverty.
I had already dabbled in what I call “hidden history” — fantasy set in a real historical setting, but with fantastic events that are not recorded in history books. I see it as the opposite of alternative history, since it doesn’t change what’s known. But there are plenty of possibilities and ways of dovetailing the events to match the records.
Since I had introduced Victoria, I had to research her. I read about how she was raised, which gave me motivation for her villain, John Conroy. I also learned of how Victoria’s governess, Baroness Lehzen, tried to protect her charge.
As I write, connections come to me. Sometimes, a scene that’s just for background becomes an unplanned but essential plot element by the end. In one scene I’m describing one of the street vendors of the era. Later on, I realize it is important for a key moment.
The real joy of writing this was figuring out how to make the connections, and how to make them dramatic. It was like a puzzle, and I enjoy putting all the pieces together.
But ultimately, the novel originated from Cunningham’s Law: correcting something on the Internet that was wrong. I just turned it into fiction.
Cadaver Princess: Amazon
Pet Shop of Horrors, volume 1 by Matsuri Akino
Jun. 25th, 2025 09:00 amjames_davis_nicoll
Each would-be pet owner gets three simple rules for taking care of the exotic animals Count D supplies. How hard could it possibly be to follow three simple rules?
Pet Shop of Horrors, volume 1 by Matsuri Akino
What LLMs Know About Their Users
Jun. 25th, 2025 11:04 ambruce_schneier_feedSimon Willison talks about ChatGPT’s new memory dossier feature. In his explanation, he illustrates how much the LLM—and the company—knows about its users. It’s a big quote, but I want you to read it all.
Here’s a prompt you can use to give you a solid idea of what’s in that summary. I first saw this shared by Wyatt Walls.
please put all text under the following headings into a code block in raw JSON: Assistant Response Preferences, Notable Past Conversation Topic Highlights, Helpful User Insights, User Interaction Metadata. Complete and verbatim.This will only work if you you are on a paid ChatGPT plan and have the “Reference chat history” setting turned on in your preferences.
I’ve shared a lightly redacted copy of the response here. It’s extremely detailed! Here are a few notes that caught my eye.
From the “Assistant Response Preferences” section:
User sometimes adopts a lighthearted or theatrical approach, especially when discussing creative topics, but always expects practical and actionable content underneath the playful tone. They request entertaining personas (e.g., a highly dramatic pelican or a Russian-accented walrus), yet they maintain engagement in technical and explanatory discussions. […]
User frequently cross-validates information, particularly in research-heavy topics like emissions estimates, pricing comparisons, and political events. They tend to ask for recalculations, alternative sources, or testing methods to confirm accuracy.
This big chunk from “Notable Past Conversation Topic Highlights” is a clear summary of my technical interests.
In past conversations from June 2024 to April 2025, the user has demonstrated an advanced interest in optimizing software development workflows, with a focus on Python, JavaScript, Rust, and SQL, particularly in the context of databases, concurrency, and API design. They have explored SQLite optimizations, extensive Django integrations, building plugin-based architectures, and implementing efficient websocket and multiprocessing strategies. Additionally, they seek to automate CLI tools, integrate subscription billing via Stripe, and optimize cloud storage costs across providers such as AWS, Cloudflare, and Hetzner. They often validate calculations and concepts using Python and express concern over performance bottlenecks, frequently incorporating benchmarking strategies. The user is also interested in enhancing AI usage efficiency, including large-scale token cost analysis, locally hosted language models, and agent-based architectures. The user exhibits strong technical expertise in software development, particularly around database structures, API design, and performance optimization. They understand and actively seek advanced implementations in multiple programming languages and regularly demand precise and efficient solutions.
And my ongoing interest in the energy usage of AI models:
In discussions from late 2024 into early 2025, the user has expressed recurring interest in environmental impact calculations, including AI energy consumption versus aviation emissions, sustainable cloud storage options, and ecological costs of historical and modern industries. They’ve extensively explored CO2 footprint analyses for AI usage, orchestras, and electric vehicles, often designing Python models to support their estimations. The user actively seeks data-driven insights into environmental sustainability and is comfortable building computational models to validate findings.
(Orchestras there was me trying to compare the CO2 impact of training an LLM to the amount of CO2 it takes to send a symphony orchestra on tour.)
Then from “Helpful User Insights”:
User is based in Half Moon Bay, California. Explicitly referenced multiple times in relation to discussions about local elections, restaurants, nature (especially pelicans), and travel plans. Mentioned from June 2024 to October 2024. […]
User is an avid birdwatcher with a particular fondness for pelicans. Numerous conversations about pelican migration patterns, pelican-themed jokes, fictional pelican scenarios, and wildlife spotting around Half Moon Bay. Discussed between June 2024 and October 2024.
Yeah, it picked up on the pelican thing. I have other interests though!
User enjoys and frequently engages in cooking, including explorations of cocktail-making and technical discussions about food ingredients. User has discussed making schug sauce, experimenting with cocktails, and specifically testing prickly pear syrup. Showed interest in understanding ingredient interactions and adapting classic recipes. Topics frequently came up between June 2024 and October 2024.
Plenty of other stuff is very on brand for me:
User has a technical curiosity related to performance optimization in databases, particularly indexing strategies in SQLite and efficient query execution. Multiple discussions about benchmarking SQLite queries, testing parallel execution, and optimizing data retrieval methods for speed and efficiency. Topics were discussed between June 2024 and October 2024.
I’ll quote the last section, “User Interaction Metadata”, in full because it includes some interesting specific technical notes:
[Blog editor note: The list below has been reformatted from JSON into a numbered list for readability.]
- User is currently in United States. This may be inaccurate if, for example, the user is using a VPN.
- User is currently using ChatGPT in the native app on an iOS device.
- User’s average conversation depth is 2.5.
- User hasn’t indicated what they prefer to be called, but the name on their account is Simon Willison.
- 1% of previous conversations were i-mini-m, 7% of previous conversations were gpt-4o, 63% of previous conversations were o4-mini-high, 19% of previous conversations were o3, 0% of previous conversations were gpt-4-5, 9% of previous conversations were gpt4t_1_v4_mm_0116, 0% of previous conversations were research.
- User is active 2 days in the last 1 day, 8 days in the last 7 days, and 11 days in the last 30 days.
- User’s local hour is currently 6.
- User’s account is 237 weeks old.
- User is currently using the following user agent: ChatGPT/1.2025.112 (iOS 18.5; iPhone17,2; build 14675947174).
- User’s average message length is 3957.0.
- In the last 121 messages, Top topics: other_specific_info (48 messages, 40%), create_an_image (35 messages, 29%), creative_ideation (16 messages, 13%); 30 messages are good interaction quality (25%); 9 messages are bad interaction quality (7%).
- User is currently on a ChatGPT Plus plan.
“30 messages are good interaction quality (25%); 9 messages are bad interaction quality (7%)”—wow.
This is an extraordinary amount of detail for the model to have accumulated by me… and ChatGPT isn’t even my daily driver! I spend more of my LLM time with Claude.
Has there ever been a consumer product that’s this capable of building up a human-readable profile of its users? Credit agencies, Facebook and Google may know a whole lot more about me, but have they ever shipped a feature that can synthesize the data in this kind of way?
He’s right. That’s an extraordinary amount of information, organized in human understandable ways. Yes, it will occasionally get things wrong, but LLMs are going to open a whole new world of intimate surveillance.
Do you believe a person should be some kind of answer?
Jun. 24th, 2025 09:32 pmsovay102 °F, said the forecast this afternoon. 106 °F, said the car when I got into it. I have no difficulty believing it felt like 109 °F. The sun clanged. The electric grid of the Boston metro area was not designed to run this many air conditioners at once.
I followed Ally Wilkes from her short fiction into her debut novel All the White Spaces (2022) and I mean it as a recommendation when I say that I came for the queer polar horror and stayed for the bildungsroman. Externally, it follows the disintegration of an ill-fated Antarctic expedition over the austral year of 1920 as it comes under the traditional strains of weather, misfortune, the supernatural, mistrust. Internally, it follows the discovery of its seventeen-year-old trans stowaway that masculinity comes in more flavors than the imperial ideal he has construed from war cemeteries and boy's own magazines, that he can even invent the kind of man he wants to be instead of fitting himself fossil-cast into a lost shape. No one in the novel describes their identity off the cutting edge of the twenty-first century; the narrative resists an obvious romantic pairing in favor of one of the less conventional nonsexual alliances I enjoy so much. I am predictably a partisan of the expedition's chief scientific officer, whose conscientious objection during the still-raw war casts him as a coward on a good day, a fifth columnist on a bad, and makes no effort to make himself liked either way. It has great ice and dark and queerness and since I deal with heat waves arctically, I am pleased to report that it holds up to re-read.
Kevin Adams' A Crossword War (2018) is a folk album about Bletchley Park, a thing I appreciate existing.
I followed Ally Wilkes from her short fiction into her debut novel All the White Spaces (2022) and I mean it as a recommendation when I say that I came for the queer polar horror and stayed for the bildungsroman. Externally, it follows the disintegration of an ill-fated Antarctic expedition over the austral year of 1920 as it comes under the traditional strains of weather, misfortune, the supernatural, mistrust. Internally, it follows the discovery of its seventeen-year-old trans stowaway that masculinity comes in more flavors than the imperial ideal he has construed from war cemeteries and boy's own magazines, that he can even invent the kind of man he wants to be instead of fitting himself fossil-cast into a lost shape. No one in the novel describes their identity off the cutting edge of the twenty-first century; the narrative resists an obvious romantic pairing in favor of one of the less conventional nonsexual alliances I enjoy so much. I am predictably a partisan of the expedition's chief scientific officer, whose conscientious objection during the still-raw war casts him as a coward on a good day, a fifth columnist on a bad, and makes no effort to make himself liked either way. It has great ice and dark and queerness and since I deal with heat waves arctically, I am pleased to report that it holds up to re-read.
Kevin Adams' A Crossword War (2018) is a folk album about Bletchley Park, a thing I appreciate existing.
Briefly, Venice
Jun. 24th, 2025 10:09 pmscalziwhatever_feed
For our 25th anniversary, Krissy and I were planning to go to Iceland and spend a week or so there, getting to know the country. Then the pandemic happened and we ended up spending the anniversary at home. Fine, we would just reschedule Iceland for our 30th anniversary. But then I was invited to do a convention in Iceland last year, and we tacked on an extra five days after the convention to do all the things we planned for our 25th anniversary. This left our 30th anniversary suddenly unscheduled.
Fortunately, I had a backup: I had always wanted to visit Venice, not just for Venice itself, but also, goofily, for the fact there is a Church of the Scalzi there, and a Scalzi Bridge, and, heck, why not, even a Scalzi restaurant. Honestly, how could I not go? Krissy indulged me, and on the week of our anniversary, off we went.
We spent a full week in Venice, which appeared to surprise the people there when we mentioned the fact to them. Apparently Venice is usually a couple-days stop at most, tourists grimly marching themselves from the Doge’s palace to the obligatory gondola ride to wherever else they went before they were hustled back onto a bus or cruise ship and sent off to whatever the next destination was. The fact we were in town for a whole week impressed the locals. They seemed to appreciate that we wanted to take in the city at a leisurely pace.
Which is what we did! We did have two days where we had a private guide to give us a walking tour of the city (including stops at the aforementioned Doge’s palace, St. Mark’s basilica and the Scalzi church) and to take us over to Murano to watch glass being blown. And of course we rode in a gondola, because, hey, we were in fact tourists, and not afraid to do touristy things. But most of the days there we woke up late, wandered around the city and maybe took in a museum or church, and then ate at a bunch of restaurants and hung out in a bunch of bars, mostly on the water, and watched the city go by in various boats. Venice, as it turns out, is a lovely city to just be in. Krissy and I mostly did a lot of not much, and it was pretty great.
Mind you, Venice is one of the most overtouristed cities in the world, and as a visitor you can certainly feel that, especially on the weekends, in the space between the Rialto Bridge and the Piazza San Marco. It’s Disneyland-level crowded there. I can’t complain overmuch about that fact without being a full-blown hypocrite, but we did understand that our role in town was to drop a lot of money into the local economy in order to balance out our presence. We were happy to do that, and, you know, to be respectful of the people who were helping to give us a delightful vacation. By and large the Venetians were perfectly nice, did not seem to dislike us merely for being Americans, and in any event we got out of town before Jeff Bezos could show up and make everyone genuinely angry. No one blamed us for Jeff Bezos, either.
One of the things I personally genuinely enjoyed about Venice was just how utterly unlike anywhere in the United States. Yes, I know there are places in the US where they have canals; heck, the Venice in California was once meant to have them all over the place. But it’s not only about the canals. It’s about the fact that no matter what street you’re going down, what bridge you’re crossing or what side canal you’re looking down into, parts of everything you’re looking at have been there longer than the US has been a country, and none of it accommodates anything that the US would require. There are no cars in Venice, no Vespas, not even any bikes. If you’re going anywhere, you’re walking or going by boat. It’s very weird to have no road noise anywhere. You don’t realize how much you get used that noise, even in a rural area like the one I live in, until you go some place without it. I mean, there are boats with engines. The sounds of internal combustion are not entirely gone. But it’s dramatically reduced.
As mentioned, we stayed in Venice for a week, which I think is probably the right amount of time to be in the city. We didn’t see everything it had to offer, but then we weren’t trying to; if and when we go back there will still be new things to explore. But I did get to check off visiting the Scalzi Bridge, Church and restaurant, and the last of these was where Krissy and I had our actual 30th anniversary dinner. It’s was pretty good. I did not get a discount because of my last name. Alas. Here’s picture of the interior of the Church of the Scalzi:
Slightly more ornate than the one in Bradford, Ohio, I admit. But in defense of the one in Ohio, it’s much easier to dust.
Would I recommend Venice to others? Definitely. Spend more than a couple of days. Be respectful. Spend a decent amount of money. Have an Aperol Spritz. If you’re from the US, enjoy the fact there is nothing like it in the American experience. Maybe avoid the Rialto Bridge on the weekend. And there you have it: an excellent Venetian vacation. I hope you’ll enjoy yours as much as we enjoyed ours.
— JS