(1) Connor Johnston opens a different doorway into the commonplace activity of reviewing Doctor Who episodes by “Ranking the Writing Debuts of the Capaldi Era” at Doctor Who TV.
Doctor Who is home to some of the greatest and most confident writers in the history of television, who have each been responsible for some of the most riveting storylines of the last 52 years, and every great writer must start somewhere. So far in Capaldi’s era, five ambitious personalities have made their first contribution to the show, expanding the already respected list of accomplished Who alumni significantly. With Sarah Dollard’s “Face the Raven” having aired last weekend, she has become the final new addition for the show’s ninth series, as such making this the perfect time to reflect on the newer talent we’ve seen grace our imaginations in the last two years.
(2) Passengers are go! “Airbus proposes new drop-in airplane ‘cabin modules’ to speed up boarding” at ars technical UK.
Today, Airbus has been granted a patent (US 9,193,460) on a method that essentially turns an airplane into an articulated truck. The plane, instead of being a single, contiguous hull, would have a huge hole in the middle where the passengers and luggage would normally be. Instead of boarding the plane directly, passengers and luggage would be loaded into a separate “cabin module.” Then, when the module is ready to go, it’s simply dropped into the airplane. If you ever watched Thunderbirds as a kid, it’s a lot like Thunderbird 2.
The post comes with diagrams.
(3) Sam Weller’s “Where the Hills Are Fog and the Rivers Are Mist” in The Paris Review.
Ray Bradbury’s The October Country turns sixty.
“The Dubliners of American Gothic”—that’s how Stephen King referred to Ray Bradbury’s first book, the little-known 1947 short-story collection, Dark Carnival. There’s good reason few readers, even those well versed in Bradbury’s work, are unfamiliar with Dark Carnival: Arkham House, a small press out of Sauk City, Wisconsin, published the book in a modest run of 3,112 copies; the book went out of print just a few years later. Besides a pricey limited-edition reprint in 2001, Dark Carnival exists as a literary apparition.
And yet many people have read some of Dark Carnival without knowing it
(4) Ryan Britt has a daring demand in “The Ghost of Hayden Christensen: Why Anakin MUST Appear in Episode VII” at Tor.com.
The nice thing about Anakin is that he gets to redeem himself in Return of the Jedi—which, if you’re a kid experiencing the Star Wars movies in the Lucas-order, is a pretty neat arc. Also for contemporary kids, Anakin is the focus of more hours of Star Wars than really any other character, thanks to The Clone Wars. So for better or worse, the prequel-era Anakin defines Star Wars for a big chunk of the viewing public.
If all the actors from the classic trilogy are reprising their roles, the giant space elephant in the room is how old everyone has gotten. Let’s get real, the focus of these new films will doubtlessly be on new characters, but it would be nice to have some existing Star Wars characters in there too, particularly ones who don’t look super old. Luckily, you don’t have to do any Tron: Legacy de-aging CG action on Hayden. He looks good!
(5) N K Jeminsin made the New York Times “100 Notable Books of 2015”. Interestingly, it’s in Fiction. The list does not put sf/fantasy in a separate section.
THE FIFTH SEASON. The Broken Earth: Book One. By N.K. Jemisin. (Orbit, paper, $15.99.) In Jemisin’s fantasy novel, civilization faces destruction and the earth itself is a monstrous enemy.
(6) Michael Damien Thomas will work on accessibility at SFWA’s big annual event —
News I forgot to mention. I am now the accessibility head for the 2016 Nebula Awards Weekend. #AccessibleCons
— Michael Damian Thomas (@michaeldthomas) November 20, 2015
(7) With Carrie Fisher returning in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this 2011 comedy video has a new lease on life —
Kaley Cuoco addresses an important issue affecting cosplay girls across the globe: Slave Leia fatigue. With so many choices available to women who cosplay, there’s no reason everyone needs to be Slave Leia.
(8) “Seed bombing to save the bees” at Interesting Engineering.
Seed bombs began as a fun and friendly tactic for greening abandoned lots in urban spaces, but are still a developing idea to be done in large scale. It involves throwing small seed ‘bombs’ from planes onto deserted areas that have suffered deforestation, to gradually begin to recover the ecosystem. This method not only allows the growth of more trees and plants, but helps combat the extinction of bees, indispensable beings for the reproduction of life on Earth….
Each seed capsule is made from biodegradable plastic and functions as a small greenhouse where the seeds grow at first. When they reach the ground, the capsule disintegrates without polluting the environment until it disappears completely, allowing the plant growth to take its natural course.
(9) At Examined Worlds, a philosophical Ethan Mills claims “I’m Thankful For My Regrets”.
Yesterday we celebrated our Thanksgiving holiday here in the United States. One popular tradition is to enumerate what you’re thankful for. I’m thankful for lots of things. Of course, I’m thankful for my family and friends and my cats. I’m thankful that I have a fulfilling career and no major health issues. I’m thankful that I have neither the greed nor the need to go “Black Friday” shopping today. I’m thankful that the new Star Wars movie is coming out soon!
Also, I’m thankful for my regrets. Like most people, I have plenty. I regret that I haven’t done more international travel and that I haven’t done more charitable giving and volunteering. I regret never figuring out this whole physical fitness thing. I regret that I saw Star Wars: Episode I seven times in the theater. I regret voting for Ralph Nader in 2000. I regret that I didn’t spend more time with my mom.
I don’t think regrets have to be the soul-crushing thing they’re made out to be; you don’t have to exterminate them entirely to have a healthy life. I also don’t think you need to go in the direction of some Nietzscheans and existentialists to say that you have to take ownership of regrets and affirm them, because they’ve made you who you are. There is, as Buddhists would say, a middle way between these extremes.
(10) There’s an app for the Battleship Iowa?
The Battleship IOWA experience is at your fingertips – you’re all aboard for adventure! You will never look at the Navy the same way. The Battleship IOWA Interactive Tour will let you experience, first hand, what it was like to live and serve on this historic ship. You’ll be part of the adventure!
You’ll see and hear the fascinating stories behind the ship, its crew, and the part it played in shaping our world and our country. It is virtually impossible to get a feel for the service and spirit of this historic shp by simply reading a sign or placard. The Battleship IOWA Interactive Tour puts you in control of your experience. Dive deep into the content of the ship and explore the areas that intrigue you most. You’ll find crewmember stories, fun facts, ship service records, videos of her in action all in the palm of your hand. Enjoy content that isn’t available anywhere else in the museum.
Mike Glyer and Sierra visit the USS Iowa in 2013.
(11) Tom Knighton’s “Review of Jessica Jones Season 1”:
…The show stars Kristen Ritter as Jones, a private investigator who got super powers after an auto accident that killed her family. She’s not the typical hero. An encounter prior to the show with a mind controller named Kilgrave (played by David Tennant) leaves her with a healthy dose of PTSD and a penchant for whiskey.
Early on, she meets a bar owner who she’s been following for a reason explained later in the series. The bar owner is a large black man named Luke Cage.
Yeah, baby.
Ritter is solid as Jones, nailing the smart mouth and feigned apathy the script called for. Her natural thinness might not normally fit a super strong hero, but personally I think it fits the character nicely. Not only does it make it more impressive when she lifts a car’s back wheels without straining, but it fits the alcoholic aspect of the character pretty well….
(12) Den of Geek’s spoiler-filled review of Jessica Jones focuses on the question, “Is Kilgrave Marvel’s Creepiest Villain?”
The casting of David Tennant makes Kilgrave’s grim demands seem ever more shocking, and this must be deliberate from the showrunners. At points, when Kilgrave’s enthusiasm levels rise a little, he really does resemble a twisted version of the Tenth Doctor. His charisma – combined with his creepiness and callousness – makes for unsettling viewing.
(13) Black Gate’s John ONeill knows why it continually costs more to be a fan who’s passionate about “Collecting Philip K. Dick”.
I have a lot of experience selling vintage paperbacks at conventions and other places, and nobody — but nobody — has skyrocketed in value like Philip K. Dick. The only authors who even come close are George R.R. Martin, James Tiptree, Jr, Robert E. Howard, and maybe Samuel R. Delany.
A big part of the reason, of course, is that virtually all of Dick’s novels were originally published in paperback, which means that — nearly unique among highly collectible authors — the coveted first editions of his novels are all paperbacks.
(14) Not all of CheatSheet’s “10 Sci-Fi Cult Classics That Everyone Should See” are as surprising as Snowpiercer (at #4) – who knew it had been around long enough to be a classic? Some might even agree with its strong preference for remakes — John Carpenter’s version of The Thing, David Cronenberg’s The Fly (#10) and Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (#5).
- The Thing
Audiences in 1982 were more interested in cuddly aliens like Steven Spielberg’s ET than they were in monstrous, shape-shifting ones, which explains the critical and commercial failure of John Carpenter’s The Thing. Thankfully, viewers have rediscovered the film, which stands as one of the greatest horror films and one of the greatest science fiction films. An Antarctic outpost of men struggles to identify and destroy an alien that can assume the form and personality of any living thing it consumes. The men, led by a never-better Kurt Russell, act competently in facing the threat, making it all the more terrifying when they can’t stop it. There’s mounds of existential tension and paranoid distrust to go around in the icy and isolated setting. Carpenter knows how to play off the tension brilliantly, using some of the most tactile and creatively terrifying practical effects in cinema history, courtesy of Rob Bottin.
(15) How Attack of the Clones Should Have Ended!
(16) After reading about Ridley Scott’s plans for more Prometheus movies I look forward to a future video series telling How It Should Have Begun.
Ridley Scott has confirmed that ‘Alien: Covenant’ will be the first of three films that will then link up to the story from the original 1979 ‘Alien’.
The second movie in his ‘Prometheus’ series is in its pre-production stage in Sydney, Australia, at the moment, where Scott confirmed the plans in a press conference.
He said that the newly-named ‘Covenant’ and the next two films will answer the ‘very basic questions posed in Alien: why the alien, who might have made it and where did it come from?’.
Covenant will tell the story of the crew of a colony ship which discovers what it believes to be an ‘uncharted paradise’ world, but is in fact a ‘dark and dangerous’ place, inhabited solely by David, Michael Fassbender’s android character from the first ‘Prometheus’ movie.
[Thanks to Michael J. Walsh, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
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@iphinome Yay!
I’m impressed by people who can write as consistently as your wordcount chart shows.
My wordcount yesterday was impacted by actual meatspace socializing (Nutcracker! Yay) and bitter cold, dry weather that gave me the Sinus Headache from Hell (TM).
At 805 words, yesterday was my lowest count for the month. (I’ve had 4 days under 1000 words so far, and 5 days over 4000, including Nov 1 at 5254: Extreme pantsing are us.)
Rules lawyering: technically, if I manage one sentence before midnight and one sentence afterward, I fulfill the NaNoWriMo challenge of 30 days of updates producing at least 50K of fiction.
Too early to judge whether the Advil has knocked down the headache enough for progress: even without a headache my brain doesn’t turn on until 10 am.
Kew Gardens soil decompaction (PDF) from their 2008 yearbook.
There’s no real substitute for heavy labour to break up compacted soil, fracture it and introduce fresh organic matter in the gaps.
RedWombat
I think those two posts on seedballs deserved trigger warnings: people who have churned out thousands upon thousands of pages on terraforming are now hiding under their beds trying not to whimper too loudly.
Of course, I’m now really looking forward to your foray into space opera!
Meredith
Thank you once again for the detective work; I’ve acquired more goodies.
Kyra
I enjoy your mini reviews, so please keep them coming; I read a lot of historical fiction as well. I’m fairly sure that many fantasy novels are simply ripped off versions of our own history, with the names changed…
::tick::
Well, no and yes. Humans have been meddling in and altering the floral environments on all the inhabited continents for millennia.
When the Europeans got to North America and raved about the Forest Primeval chock full of the Goodness of Providence, what they had actually found was the result of centuries of forethoughtful tending and planting by Native Americans, who were temporarily wiped out owing to imported European diseases. Forests full of yummy nut trees? Planted.
I’m sure RedWombat knows all about this way better than I, but as I gather –voracious invasive species and stupid soil compacting notwithstanding — where people live, the environment does way better if people tend to it with care and mindfulness.
@Kyra (and everyone else who reviews or links or notes deals o’ the day), the part you don’t see is me nodding along with your reviews and links and deals of the day and then going away and quietly clicking to purchase the things that sound interesting. Even when I’m not interested in a particular book, it’s like having a conversation about books, which is always of interest.
Also, please, RedWombat, I would love to hear the specialized ranting. Three years on of soil work and I still can’t grow much of anything anywhere that hasn’t had a foot of topsoil loaded on.
Where I live it’s a thin layer of topsoil over about sixty feet of sand to the bedrock.
We don’t have any compacting problem here so far as I can tell, lucky us. Drainage is pretty good too.
I imagine there are problems with clay-poor soils that I don’t know about, though.
I do love reading people’s reviews.
I got Fallout 4 on the Ps4 yesterday, and my initial impression is arrgh my eyes!
The first 10 minutes are just a hot mess of terrible character models and animations.
That’s all I can say at the moment, as I’ve just left the vault.
I would also reallly like to read more about hardpan and the beating of same into submission, or not and why, RedWombat. Thank you in advance.
On (2) Passengers are go!, the headline says ‘Proposes’ when the article honestly deals with the fact that corporations (and those in the airline industry are typical) file patents with no plan, intention or proposal do actually use them.
It wasn’t very long ago where I saw a story about a design patent that would effectively double-deck the plane, stacking passenger seats that were something like the cups on the ‘Mad hatter’ ride. With little ladders to the upper seats.
Add yet more unnecessarily-confirming reasons why I don’t do business with Amazon.
(4) Ryan Britt:
It will take some extra special effects for Sir Alec Guinness CH CBE (2 April 1914 – 5 August 2000) to reprise his role.
Cheryl S: I find the prospect of RedWombat’s specialized ranting pretty irresistable, too.
Soil science is the most under-subscribed discipline of all. How is it that everyone knows it is the most important piece of the puzzle, but no one steps up to the plate?
I enjoy RedWombat’s rants also.
Yesterdays Telegraph had an article on some aircraft patents including vertical stacking.
I’m not sure I would be willing to fly on a plane put together like LEGO.
@ Kyra and all others who review, recommend and even make random comments.
Please continue. You all add to the value of this group. I don’t always respond, but as others have mentioned, I nod, go check suggestions/links out, chuckle, etc. Often I’m reading many hours after a post and it doesn’t seem helpful to post an “I liked that” so long after the conversation has moved on, but I read and enjoy the various contributions.
@ Red Wombat
I’m voting with those who are interested in your rant on soils.
Mini-reviews are always nice to read. So are full length ones when the fancy strikes (which is why this is not addressed solely to Kyra, as I do mean from anyone.
I’ve found a lot of good stuff, following up mini-reviews and suggestions from around these parts. I’m always glad to see them. (I may not always agree with them, but hey, that’s life, isn’t it? It’d be a funny old world if we were all the same, and all that.)
On the Jessica Jones-related tip, here’s a good (and apparently ongoing) history of Luke Cage and his relationship to how black men are portrayed in popular culture by Patrick Joseph. Enjoy.
John Carpenter’s version of The Thing sucks. The Howard Hawks IS the definitive version. And I still want to know why Hollyweird insisted on the title, “The Thing” a/k/a “The Thing from Another World,” when Campbell’s title, “Who Goes There?” is much, much more spine-tingling.
NB: Do not read the original story if/when you are the only person at home…
(2) Passengers are go! – This looks scary, speaking as a passenger. Also, it looks like it would require reconstructing airports to support it. And I’m skeptical this would save a lot of time, anyway. I doubt this will go anywhere (ahem).
@Standback: That bites (confusing/misleading info leading you to subscribe to Audible). If you want, I bet you could cancel and get your money back; at least, years ago my interactions with Audible Customer Service were always satisfactory when it came to problem resolution.
@Meredith: The publisher description for The Fire’s Stone doesn’t do it justice; IMHO it sounds a lot more generic than it is. ;-( I highly recommend it, and Across the Nightingale Floor! I wish I could write a mini-review worth a damn.
@Kyra: I like reading your mini-reviews, though I’m mostly (99%) only interested in SFF. Keep ’em coming! Also: Nice haul from the bookstore! 😀
@RedWombat: Thanks for the rants! I hadn’t even heard of seed bombing before today.
@Bruce Baugh: Woah, 56% of respondents in that article would like to have an eagle owl land on their head. WTH?!
Mike, you forgot the number titles for this Scroll?
(5) Congrats to N.K. Jemisin. The Fifth Season is a terrific book, from a writer at the top of her game.
I just finished The Fifth Season. Highly recommended!
Here’s a disturbing thought: since Disney bought Marvel, doesn’t that make Jessica Jones a Disney Princess?
(Idea, though not the wording, shamelessly stolen from the author of the webcomic, The Non-Adventures of Wonderella.)
Soil science: it’s one of them “simple in concept but hard in practice” areas of research isn’t it? It’s partly because soil is (fractally) heterogenous; they are mixtures that can be extremely complex. And you can’t really study soil in isolation either, because you have to factor in other local variables (temperature, rainfall, etc.) Soil research is typically interdisciplinary, and well, the more I discover about soil, the more I think that people, especially SF writers, are severely underestimating the scope of the terraforming challenge.
BTW, 2015 is International Year of Soils.
::ticky::
John Carpenter’s version of The Thing sucks.
This is Madness!
Greatest practical effects ever.
Fantastic score by Morricone.
Cool dude rollerskating to Stevie Wonder.
Total Paranoia.
The Rabbit Back Literature Society, by Pasi Illmari Jaaskelainen
Thank you, Meredith, for reminding me of this. I have been meaning to read it for some time, but could not remember the title, the author, or the theme, which made it rather hard to trace.
Lori Coulson on November 29, 2015 at 11:55 am said:
John Carpenter’s version of The Thing sucks. The Howard Hawks IS the definitive version. And I still want to know why Hollyweird insisted on the title, “The Thing” a/k/a “The Thing from Another World,” when Campbell’s title, “Who Goes There?” is much, much more spine-tingling.
NB: Do not read the original story if/when you are the only person at home…
I recall reading in the letter column a few issues after it was published (no, I’m not that ancient, just one of those collectors) and a letter writer had a similar comment, except he was on an oil rig in the Gulf in 1938.
And Campbell was 28 when it was published.
Well, in the event, the guy in the photograph was only lightly scratched. If the owl had really dug its talons in, reactions would be different!
For a short while, I worked at a wildlife center. They had two great-horned owls that lived in a huge circular flight-enclosure. Every morning, I would go in there and clean up rat bones and owl poop. The owls showed their displeasure with human intrusion by hissing and clacking their beaks. The thing was, the two owls nearly always sat on opposite sides of the enclosure, so I could not avoid having my back to one. I knew that if one swooped down on me, I wouldn’t hear it coming. It was a tense business. I listened to their threats and figured that as long as they were hissing and beak-clacking, they weren’t attacking (probably).
From a mostly-lurker that occasionally posts — I love the mini-reviews, I’ve found lots of great books through them, and the book-related comments are the main reason I come here. Although learning weird facts about things like seed bombs is another part of the appeal.
Ouch, I did, didn’t I!
I’ll keep going with the minireviews, then!
And incidentally, fun book plot element which might amuse some of you — I just started reading Afterworlds, by Scott Westerfeld, and it opens with someone selling her NaNoWriMo novel for a $100,000 advance. 🙂
Pshaw. I’m holding out for more than that for mine.
Thanks, all, for feeling for me and my little rant 🙂
In the spirit of scientific inquiry, I’ve discovered that Audible determines your location based on the billing address you list for your credit card. Good to know.
@Standback: Do email them and rant a bit (politely) and I suspect you’ll get your money back. Particularly if you live in a country where advertising standards are regulated. Or if you mention you’ve complained to dozens of your closest friends (us).
@Kyra: I love your reviews, I just don’t always say things. And I appreciate that you cover other genres.
@RedWombat: I live on clay. It’s basically adobe ready-made. And it does not rain, rather famously. My housemate who was willing and able to do battle with it moved out, and neither myself nor the husband are either. She went with raised beds at her new house. We’ve got a few things established, but basically anything that can’t fend for itself dies. Suspect the only thing for it is rototilling with sand and potting soil, and we did that once and it didn’t even work.
I liked your seed bomb rant. I, of course, have no such expert knowledge, but my first reaction to that was “ugh, non-native, invasive species!” Even someone with a black thumb like myself knows that. That said, I still fully support @Lexica’s plan of chucking the flaxseed over the back fence — even if they don’t sprout, they’ll be a nice organic contribution to that soil. I suspect the seed sold for eating is treated so as to not sprout to last longer, but it ought to at least rot.
(2) My first thought was “structural integrity?” I’m not riding in that. I like my airframes whole.
(4) To quote America’s finest leader, President Jed Bartlet: “Just stand there in your wrongness and be wrong and get used to it.”
Flaxseed sold for eating isn’t treated at all, so far as I know. Some people *want* it to sprout to eat it.
I have tossed flaxseed in the bare areas of my front garden and it works well. It’s not a very long-lived plant, so you have to toss it out in waves every couple of weeks. The flowers are pretty little blue things.
I used to toss spices out but they are all treated with radioactivity these days so they don’t sprout.
Our patch of cilantro has been going for over twenty years after tossing out coriander seeds. It self-seeds pretty well without being too invasive (unlike the arugula).
Love the book recommendations and mini-reviews although my budget and TBR are not as happy 😉
@RedWombat your rants are always worthy reading – fun and educational
Noooo don’t go there or who knows what they’ll start dressing her in.
Another thank you to everyone who gives reviews of books and stories. I add them to my list, and from there some go onto my 2015 longlist.
I’ve also bought my supporting membership in MidAmericon, and look forward to finding even more new books and stories to read!
I want to echo the thanks for reviews and recommendations (and anti-recommendations), however brief they may be. My TBR queue is so long at this point that by the time I get around to reading something, I almost never remember who recommended it, but I do remember “that was a File 770 rec”. So, to everybody who’s recommended a book at any time in the past six months or so (since I started following closely), warm thanks from me, and please do continue.
@Peace: Our cilantro managed two years and then died. Heck, our peppermint (famously invasive) only lasted 3 years. Though we’ve got one hyacinth that persists in coming up year after year for 20+ years, just smaller each time. And two chives (remaining from a whole patch) popped up and flowered this summer. Apparently I should look to auguring in more bulbs?
The drought has kept the passion vine from taking over the yard, at least; it used to grow so fast I swear you could hear it. It almost strangled a sapling treelet and does never ending battle with the geranium bush. However, we forgive it since the flowers are lovely and attract little orange butterflies. The fruit’s not bad, and it’s the same color as the butterflies, which is cute.
With ‘Who Goes There’ and its two film adaptions, I think an interesting thing is watching its central theme of paranoia, and the way that changes between 1938 and 1951, and between 1951 and between 1951 and 1982. Or to put it another way, between the lead up to WWII, to the early Cold War to the Post-Detente Reaganite escalation of the Cold War.
@Peace is absolutely right about the problems of just leaving an area to grow wild without intervention–we are already in an altered ecosystem and in many areas, that’s sort of like dropping off a domestic dog by the side of the road because it was a wolf once and should be able to survive on its own. A lawn gone to seed does not magically become tallgrass prairie or rainforest again. But the question of invasive species and ecosystem services and so forth is yet another rant, and I’ve promised a different one.
So! Your Horrible Hardpan Urban Lot And You!
There’s three methods that I’ll recommend that will probably work, depending on what you have available in abundance–money, time, or esoteric knowledge. All methods require labor. All of them, ultimately, are about fixing the dirt.
Disclaimer: This assumes your lot is not a Superfund site, not dangerously contaminated with heavy metals, etc. there are remediation methods for those things, but consult a pro before you grow veggies on the pile of mine tailings.
Disclaimer the Second: Depending on the soil, you can try roto-tilling. I generally avoid it because good soil has structure that this damages, and it constantly plows weed seeds to the top, (remember the soil seed bank?) but on truly monstrous ground, you may have nothing to lose. Success depends on many factors. Just remember that clay heals itself, and that mixing clay and sand is how you make bricks, and don’t expect this to be a magic cure-all–completely wrecked soil won’t heal easily. Stuff like that Kew Gardens article was fascinating!
Onward!
Money: This is simple. Buy topsoil from a reputable place (Not bags at Lowes) build raised beds, accept that weed seeds will come in with the dirt and pretend your hardpan is now bedrock. This works, people do it all the time, it’s as fast as anything in gardens is and pretty much instant gratification. Mix in good compost, befriend some worms, and in a few years, the dirt under the beds will soften a bit and worms will work into it and you’ll have increasingly deep viable soil.
Esoteric Knowledge: Hardy pioneer species for your region. Find ’em, plant ’em, watch over them, kill the weeds as they come in. This will take time, it will be ugly, and you will need at least to drill in plugs for the roots to get some grip on. (A few pockets of dirt will be better and give you more success.) The exact species differ wildly by region, (ours are things like broomsedge and dog fennel) and some may not be commercially available. Viable for purists only. This is a lousy method for vegetable gardening, a slightly better one for prairie restoration, but frankly, if you want to plant a meadow or something, you’re better off smothering a place where plants already grow. Still, you do you. I know at least one place that pulled this off, and it was a polluted site so veggies weren’t an option anyway. Took a decade, but now there’s Indian Paintbrush and other finicky wild flowers there. It’s a success story, but a tough one.
Time: Ok, this is where stuff gets fun. The best method I’ve seen that was dirt cheap and gave you veggies along the way were plastic pickle buckets with the bottoms sliced off, set directly on the ground. (Apply a layer of wet newspaper if you’re feeling generous.) Fill the bottom of the bucket with grass clippings, dead leaves (non-allopathic species only) etc, fill most of it with potting soil, plant veggies. You will have to stay on top of this and water daily or more for thirsty veggies. You will have to refresh the potting soil regularly, as it compacts. Don’t throw it away, but definitely add organic matter. Regular dirt will likely be too heavy in a container, at least at first, but experiment.
It’s the same principle as the raised beds, but small, cheap, and you don’t have to do it all at once. Urban gardeners who do this usually eventually wind up with dozens of circles of viable soil the diameter of a pickle bucket (or whatever–there’s a method for potatoes that uses a garbage can, pick your method.) You can also basically just use the buckets as tiny compost heaps–stuff won’t achieve the heat of a big heap, but let stuff cook down in them, and that’ll feed the soil.
It takes time, it takes care, it will not happen overnight. You’re gaining an inch or two of dirt a year if you’re lucky. (But nature takes a lot longer to make topsoil, so it’s still a bargain.) If you’re fighting with runoff issues, as is common, you’ll likely have to build swales so that the water slows enough to penetrate the dirt a little–hardpan holds no water, and water is the most basic element here. Many ecosystems that are accustomed to large grazers fail without them because hooves cut soil, water puddles in hoof prints, and that tiny amount is enough to sink into the dirt and improve structure.
It’s not as fast or easy as it could be. But it costs very little compared to trucking in tons of soil, you can work more and more pots as you are able, many things are free or cheap, you can still get veggies and herbs going, etc. Get a compost heap in a bottomless bin, compost everything, move it around every year or two and there’s a good chance you’ll leave dirt where it used to be. Layer organic material in corners. (Rabbit bedding and pellets is fabulous for this, incidentally.)
When you’ve got even small amounts of workable dirt, THEN you can get crazy with the nitrogen fixers and the deep-rooted sod-busters and digging in charcoal or fish meal or whatever. But it all starts with making dirt.
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Sorry @Iphinome I was asleep!
You may have managed the 50k, against all expectations, but REAL NaNoWriMos don’t finish until November is over. Is it the 1st of December yet? No? Then where are those 1667 words? Only slackers stop writing before November is over!
@All NaNoWriMo (whole or mini) participating Filers
Gratz for having a go and taking part, gratz for keeping going even if you didn’t hit your word-count aim, gratz for hitting 50k, gratz for keeping going past 50k! Delete as appropriate for your particular level of participation. 🙂 You’re all great in my book.
@Bruce Baugh
I do miss when Millar was producing really good work. I’m sort of hoping he’ll get bored of catering to bros eventually. Nice guy, though.
@Kyra
I enjoy your (and everyone else’s) reviews and mini-reviews, although I don’t reply to them as often as I should due to not having read the books in question yet. 🙂 I find them helpful for adding things to and promoting things further up Mount File770, sf/f or otherwise.
@RedWombat
Thanks for the seed bombs rant and the guide greenifying hardpan! I always enjoy your naturey comments. It isn’t a subject I know anything about so they’re always interesting to read.
@Kendall
To be fair to the publisher, I cut out a lot of the summaries for those posts because otherwise the comment-length would get even more excessive than it already is. They’re usually more exciting in full, but condensing down to (typically) 1-3 (rewritten for reasons of consolidation and brevity) sentences makes it a bit difficult to keep all the interesting bits. I try and keep just enough for people to get the gist of the premise and, if possible, although it hardly ever is in the space, the tone of the book, but I have very mixed success (and of course it does help if the original summary is any good, looking at you, Miéville publisher *grrr*). Fire Stone wasn’t one of my best jobs!
I did like the sound of Fire Stone a lot so I’m glad to see it get a thumbs up. 🙂
@Andrew M
Ha! I’ve been there. Glad to help. 😀
@RedWombat: Do you have thoughts about or experience with things like planting daikon to address hardpan?
Signed: With affection, your devoted correspondent who is stuck in a third-floor one-bedroom apartment with no possibility of outside gardening (other than guerrilla, about which let us say nothing (unless you have advice for how to do it responsibly)), and who must therefore live this aspect of life vicariously, Lexica
For those who enjoyed “Who Goes There?” and / or “The Thing”, I highly recommend Peter Watts’ short story “The Things”, which won a Hugo and was nominated for numerous other awards as well.
@RedWombat: Fascinating! Questions, maybe, once I assimilate.
@Lexica – I know people who swear by it. Plant a daikon, pull it out when it’s shoved a hole into the soil, drop a carrot seed or whatever in.
It relies on two factors–soil and weather. You have to have enough dirt for the daikon to work with, soil that a daikon can get through–they’re tough little buggers, but they can’t go through asphalt or dry clay subsoil, though they’re great in heavy loam that might otherwise defeat a carrot. (Carrots detest heavy soil.)
And alas, I can’t do it myself, because daikons bolt in hot weather, and North Carolina has been skipping Spring lately. (I need to do them as a fall veggie, but this negates the carrot aspect.) So I believe absolutely that it works, but you’ll need to start them very early or have a climate with longer, cooler springs than I’ve got, or get a really heat proof daikon.
Which is a damn shame because the husband loves pickled daikon…