How to Tell Time Using a Cat
The Lampworks Lamplighter SF & Fantasy News & Reviews
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In this issue
How to Tell Time Using a Cat
While in Japan for New Year’s Day, we encountered a shrine dedicated to cats. The place was the former residence of a progressive feudal lord who experimented with bringing western technologies to Japan. 
The compound was an eclectic mixture of sites: the remnants of an early steel-making furnace sat next to a classic Japanese garden with its tranquil Koi pond. (I guess they didn’t have zoning laws.) On a hillside there we found the cat shrine.
A plaque at the shrine tells of the seven cats who accompanied Lord Yoshihiro into battle (not willingly, I imagine) to serve as his timepieces. By looking at their eyes, Yoshihiro could tell the time of day.
My cats are best at telling temperature. On a cold day, they’re tight little knots of fur, nearly spherical. With warmth, they gradually uncoil to a straight line. Stretched before the fire, they lengthen more, becoming little bows. (Cats are the only known particles that move slower rather than faster when heat is applied. That’s my contribution to the physics of cats.)
I’ve recently read (and reviewed below) the two most recent books in the Murderbot Diaries. The angsty cyborg is always fun to read, so I was excited to see that it’s coming to Apple TV as a ten-episode series starring Alexander Skarsgård. If they stay faithful to the books it should be great fun (with periods of mayhem). It will be interesting to see how they handle Murderbot’s snarky inner monologue, which makes up so much of the character of the stories.
Our Books
Sellenria: The Starship and the Citadel
Chuck Boeheim, Daniel Elswit
Believing in the impossible may be my only chance of survival.
I was a professor of archaeology at the University of Trondhjem. I did digs via telepresence and lectured in simspace classrooms. Life was stable and predictable, just the way I liked it. But then I found a relic that turned my world upside down. Now I’m stranded without hope of rescue on a pre-technological planet full of monsters and mysteries, hundreds of light-years from home. After a terrifying and nearly fatal encounter with a creature that couldn’t possibly exist, I was rescued by a fey assassin who decided that I should become her apprentice. I became advisor to the king but now I’m on the run after we were framed for the assassination of his brother. It’s mad enough to be a fantasy simspace, but it’s deadly real.
The most confounding part is that these people think my ancestor was an ancient warlock and that I can wield those same powers. I’m a man of science, of order, of logic; I don’t believe in magic.
But that’s not the way this world works.
Find it on amazon
What We‘re Reading
Visit our archive of reviews and recommendations on the Books We Like page of our website. You‘ll find over one hundred recommendations in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Non Fiction.
Fugitive Telemetry
Martha Wells
A murdered body has been found on peaceful Preservation Station. Station Security are out of their depth, but are reluctant to ask their resident SecUnit, Murderbot, to help in the investigation. SecUnits are much better known for causing corpses than for investigating them, after all. Murderbot takes the job anyway. It has to know more about an investigation, right? It’s watched tens of thousands of hours of entertainment media that covered lots of murders. Unfortunately, real life isn’t like that.
Buy on amazon
System Collapse
Martha Wells
This book picks up immediately after the events of book five, “Network Effect” (despite the flashback novella “Fugitive Telemetry” being listed as book six). Murderbot, its pal ART the sentient ship (though it won’t admit the ‘pal’ part), and the human crews are still trapped in a hostile star system. Said hostiles consisting of a) remnants of ancient alien biotech with an imperative to escape the system and the ability to take over either cyber or meatware systems to accomplish that goal, b) a rapacious company that wants to mine the planet, enslave the colonists, and make a side-buck on selling the dangerous alien tech, and c) the colonists who have no intention of being rescued from anyone.
But Murderbot is struggling from a serious system fault that results in reboots at the worst possible times. Can it trust its own performance enough to keep everyone safe? The glitch is so serious that it’s blocked it even from itself. Any of the humans could tell it what the problem is, though. It’s just not something Murderbot can admit to itself.
Buy on amazon
Translation State
Ann Leckie
Ann Leckie returns to the universe of the Ancillary Justice series with a standalone novel. Three misfits from three societies: a human heiress looking for an occupation after losing her family and position, a foundling of uncertain heritage (tentatively identified as human) looking for a place to belong, and a Presger Translator grappling with what we might call imposter syndrome, but which it has no word for. They come together to solve a missing-person case and end up catapulted into the midst of an incident that could trigger the next galactic war. It’s only through understanding themselves and each other that they can thread the diplomatic needle that faces them. Leckie writes some of the most alien aliens in the business today.
Buy on amazon
Nine Starships Waiting
Roger Zelazny
Vendici was a manufactured assassin. He was either an immortal animus who had thrust every knife in history and pulled every trigger – or he was a construct of Comstat, the AI that planned humanity’s future. He was deployed to defeat the forces that were massing to rebel against Comstat. But Comstat may have made him too well.
This is a classic Zelazny novella, out of print for nearly forever. It’s rich in poetic language and layers of classical allusion. It’s a beautiful story to read and one to ponder after you’re finished.
Buy on amazon
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Library of Eternity
Jay Toney
Devon and Jadsia are smugglers who deal in exotics, mainly information. Their success has earned them the wrath of both their employers, and the people they obtained the information from. They are being hunted. Their only hope is to flee to a place where the people have never heard of them, and where they won’t be found.
Free via StoryOrigin
Wedding of the Torn Rose
Brian Mendonca
What starts as a fairy tale rescue spirals into an intricate web of dark fantasy laced with intrigue and magic. After the downtrodden merchant Kaine saves the runaway Princess Lydia from an unexpected monster, he feels inexplicably drawn to her. Lydia’s uncanny knowledge of his deepest secrets looms over him, suggesting she knows more about him than he has revealed.
However, there is little time to investigate this mystery. The princess is betrothed to the magic wielding Throatian Kingdom, and Lydia’s father has rewarded Kaine with a job offer he cannot refuse.
As the rehearsal dinner for Lydia’s arranged wedding unfolds, tension simmers amidst foreign customs and whispered conversations. The Throatian Royal family, draped in magic, is keen to forge an alliance with the Darian Kingdom. Meanwhile, Lydia, now fully aware of her royal responsibilities, summons Kaine for a private meeting in the chilling stillness of the graveyard. Her impending wedding signifies more than a pact of sword and sorcery, and something else—dark and twisted—stirs in the shadows.
With time dwindling short, and the ceremony happening the next day, will Kaine unshackle himself from his past to embrace the guardian he is destined to become? Or will the ties binding him to Lydia be torn apart like petals in the wind?
Journey with Kaine and Lydia as they attempt to prevent a war and save a kingdom in the first volume of the Symphony of Crowns and Gods series.
Free via StoryOrigin
Beast Be Gone
A L Billington
Creatures in your basement? Undead spooking your castle? Infestation of goblins? Beast Be Gone will clear out those pesky pests and save your health and business – (no dragons)
Adventurers rampage across the land, stealing everything from bread rolls to ancient heirlooms, slaughtering countless innocent monsters in their hunt for glory.
Eric, the owner of Beast Be Gone pest control, knows that most creatures can be removed with a bit of repellent, however, the adventurers want to do things the flashy way; blowing up half of the dungeon with fireballs in the process.
With no work left, Eric is broke and desperate. That is until a young woman equipped with mechanical gadgets becomes his apprentice. Together they uncover the mystery of a diabolical plot that answers the timeless questions about adventuring…
Why are there so many Chosen Ones? Are goblins inherently evil or are they just misunderstood? Why do all the shopkeepers say they have the best swords in the land? What are the socio-economic implications of all these sword merchants?
Somebody wants a world full of adventurers, but why…?
Free via StoryOrigin
The Bear and The Raven
M. R. Parsons
Her village wants her to settle down and raise babies, but Revna is not ready to trade in her shield for a cradle. For now, all she wants is the same as the band of warriors she travels with–adventure and glory. But all of the glory will belong to her cousin Torsten when he lifts the hammer and claims his place among the nobility of her village.
At least that’s what she thinks until she listens to a seeress’s cryptic words of gods coming down from the stars not long before a man in her party begins to change. He was cruel enough before, but now his physical body matches his cold, hard heart.
Can Revna survive the seemingly supernatural forces infecting them, or will she perish before she can claim a seat next to the gods among the stars?
Free via StoryOrigin
The Survivors
Richard Rimington
In this tale of space opera and cosmic adventure, the Ambassador of a mysterious and ancient family must forge a path through chaos to overcome the terrible enemies that desire humanity’s destruction.
Her plan to avert galactic catastrophe will unite a band of survivors who have faced every imaginable danger and disaster.
This story forms a prologue to the Infinite Void series.
Free via StoryOrigin
Colours of Fantasy
Caroline Sciriha
Colours of Fantasy is an anthology of short stories that range from magical realism to sci-fi fantasy. They are short enough to be easily read while commuting or during a lunch break. Read about paintings that are truer than true-to-life, or the heart-wrenching decision Poseidon’s human son-in-law has to take, or perhaps you’ll prefer a glimpse of life after an apocalypse, or a story about a space pirate with an uncomfortable past.
Free via StoryOrigin
