The Angels and Demons of Our Better Selves

 Two things struck me, and only one of them was the ground.

I was finishing the last in Philip Pullman's Dust books and wondering about demons - surely if yours was a mayfly or a tadpole, then your life would be very short. What if it was a goldfish and it forgot you.

But why didn't he use more imagination about what kinds of creatures demons could be? Why not an Oxtopus, which could be worn as camoflage (harry potter invisibility cloak) or watched like a TV? Why not a Bee Swarm or an Amoeba? What about an entire Mycorrhizal network? or a parasitic worm? Dull really. What if your demon was a murmuration? or one of these seaslugs

Then I was thinking about DIY - having fallen off my bike (easier than riding it) I was reading about things to do to fix your knees. I like fixing stuff - i was delighted with myself fairly recently for replacing the circuit board in our lovely old Henry Hoover - with the help of very nice instructional videos online, plus the fantastic Henry Hoover companies extrremely customer friendly replacement part pricing, i just had to undo four bolts, slide out the old board, unplug it, plug in the new one, and the Hoover sprung into life like new - less than £10 and 10 minutes instead of £160 for a whole new machine.

Wouldn't it be cool if human parts were as easy to replace? Having had eye surgery (and cataracts) i have plastic lenses in my eye, but they aren't adpative, so i don't really get "accommodation". Having earing loss, I have hearing aids (thank you NHS for very nice up-to-date oticon in-ear gadgets) but still, not quite the whole facility back to spanking new. 

And some new knees would be a treat right now, but I hear that even going down on bended aforesaid joints, will still find you waiting many months before the surgeons are ready. If only we could do DiY on ourselves as easily as on our household widgets!

overworld building stories

not enough people writing about the world take as big a picture view as these writers do.

here's my eco-spec reading list as of 3.1.2026. additions or criticisms welcome as welcome as weather.

here be funghi bigger than countries, global networks that bring planetary motion into question, radioactive dogs, and octopi. and the odd human. and synth.

the overstory, by richard powers

circular motion by alex foster

when there are wolves again, by ej swift

the ministry of the future, by kim stanley robinson

all the birds in the sky, by charlie jane anders

the mountain in the sea, by ray nayler

hopeland, by ian mcdonald

venemous lumpsucker, by ned beauman

the calcutta chromosome, by amitav ghosh

for good measure, honoruable mention to the windup girl, by paolo bacigalupi

if you are reading these in the england, then read rain by melissa harrison, purely for atmosphere.

or william gibson's agency series...if only because of its subtle allusion to the "jackpot"