79: You Get to Be a Little Cat

John wants new gloves, Alison is foreshadowing, and Liz scrolls past spiders.

Please email your letters of comment to comment@octothorpecast.uk and tag @OctothorpeCast (on Twitter or on Mastodon) when you post about the show on social media.

Content warnings this episode: Spiders (chapter 6)

• Letters of comment
  • Raj
  • Bridget Bradshaw
  • Chris Garcia
    • Bigbug (Netflix)
    • OSS 117 (Amazon)
    • Brice de Nice (Hoopla)
  • Lori Anderson
  • Curt Phillips
• Chengdu is a shower (but not as bad as the BBC)
  • They have opened Hugo nominations
  • Conversions for Chinese language nominees: “A factor of 1.6 will be used when converting from English words to Chinese characters. As such the fiction category breakpoints will be: 1) Short Story: fewer than 7,500 English words or 12,000 Chinese characters. 2) Novelette: between 7,500/12,000 and 17,500 English words or 28,000 Chinese characters. 3) Novella: between 17,500/28,000 and 40,000 English words or 64,000 Chinese characters. 4) Novel: greater than 40,000 English words or 64,000 Chinese characters.”
• Nebula nominees are out
  • Strange Horizons argues erroneously that Our Flag Means Death is fantasy, actually
• BSFA nominees are also out
• Everything Everywhere All at Once prop auction(s)
  • Everything Everywhere All at Once shop
• Picks:
  • John: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (ebook, paperback, Amazon)
    • Force Majeure Outer Dark Trilogy Part 2 Episode 1 - “In Space, No-One Can Smell Your Frog”
    • The Dark Room by John Robertson
  • Alison: Allegiance by George Takei
    • Light Perpetual by Francis Spufford (ebook, paperback, Amazon)
  • Liz: Los Espookys **(HBO, Now TV)
• Credits
  • Cover art: ”MidJourney Into Space” by Alison Scott
    • Alt text: Three adorable little rockets with faces corresponding to John, Alison and Liz above the text “Octothorpe 79”.
  • Theme music: “Fanfare for Space” by Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0)
  • “Announcement” from Orange Free Sounds (CC BY-NC 4.0)