'She's not black. That's what I heard ... that she's Indian'

A post shared on X claims that Maronite bishop Youssef Yacoub called Hezbollah “troglodytes.” When Hezbollah called Christians in Israel ‘traitors’, this is how the Maronite bishop of Haifa, Yosef Yacoub, responded: “Mind your business, terrorists. We Christians are loyal citizens of Israel and grateful we don’t share a country with troglodytes stuck in the 7th […]

It might be time for another war with Britain. The U.K. government is currently hatching an obscene plan to force all pubs and bars throughout the country to close early to prevent “anti-social behavior.” Andrew Gwynne, the U.K.’s public health minister, said the move is for moral and economic reasons, but insisted the government is […]

'She's not anywhere near the level'

An image shared on Facebook purports to show a headline from The Atlantic about migrants eating cats. Verdict: False Logically Facts debunked the claim, labeling the image as “fake” on Sept. 17. A spokesperson for The Atlantic denied the image’s authenticity in an email to the outlet. Fact Check: British comedian John Oliver asked his […]

'Put merit back at the center of our armed services'

A team of Australian researchers has developed a method to morph personalized stem cells into hematopoietic stem cells, something that would promise risk-free bone marrow transplants For a myriad of blood and bone marrow-based diseases including leukemia, a bone marrow transplant is the best standard treatment option available. However, risks abound with the procedure such […] The post Lab-Grown Blood Stem Cells Could Replace Donor Bone Marrow Transplants appeared first on Good News Network.

Books Creating Visual Passion: Behind the Scenes of the Swordcrossed Cover Even from the early sketches, you can feel the sexual tension… By Christine Foltzer | Published on September 24, 2024 Art by Cynthia Shepphard Comment 0 Share New Share Art by Cynthia Shepphard Not everyone knows that I started my career in book design on romance covers. It was the bulk of my work for the eight years that I worked at Grand Central Publishing. While my own reading tastes normally lean elsewhere, working on books with paranormal passion, historical hunks, and luscious costuming during my formative baby designer years—let’s just say it left a mark on my soul. So, when I was told we were working on a queer, enemies to lovers, romantasy that was going to get all the bells and whistles, I was excited!   Looking for an artist for Swordcrossed, I wanted to find someone who would not only capture the desire and heat but also the luxurious fabrics, patterns and details this story exudes. Cynthia Shepphard was the right person for this job. Her work is classical in a timeless sort of way, while still clearly being fantasy. She has a way of capturing body language that makes you feel in the moment with the characters. I reached out to her with the project proposal and the first line of her response read “Omg YES this sounds amazing!!” Buy the Book Swordcrossed Freya Marske Buy Book Swordcrossed Freya Marske Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget Thus, the cover assignment began. I gathered up all of the relevant information. This included the amazing amount of visual resources Freya had provided for us, including costuming, patterns, setting, textiles, dueling poses, and character references. A few weeks later I got the sketches in. *Insert screams of delight and Muppet flailing!* … I mean *ahem professional word of enthusiasm*… Art by Cynthia Shepphard Even from these early line drawings you can feel the sexual tension. We have caught them in the moment that combat turned into passion.Cynthia on creating these compositions—“One of the more interesting challenges early on was trying to get a balance between the fighting and the romance in the swordplay. If you’re that close to your opponent in an actual rapier fight, someone has lost the fight, or maybe one person has grappled the other, which can look awkward when done correctly—I worked with someone who trains with swords to act out how that might go. Even the way a rapier is supposed to be held, with one finger above the quillon looks kinda “wrong” to the untrained eye, so it ended up feeling more appropriate to make this an intimate moment between their rounds of sparring, rather than pretend they ended up locked together like this somehow during a fight.” I later found out this project also inspired Cynthia to purchase her own prop sword in order to get posing as accurate as possible. “Because it came with a free engraving, I had the words “It’s for Reference” emblazoned on the blade.” Photo: Cynthia Shepphard After we stopped shrieking from how amazing these sketches were, we got down to the difficult business of picking one to go to final. In the end we didn’t just pick one. We decide that we wanted to combine elements from several of them to make the perfect cover. The way the swords intersected from one, the tilt of the head from another, the flowing fabrics, and the hint of architecture from a third. Cynthia took our feedback and then sent us over more refined sketches, with various color options. Art by Cynthia Shepphard We went through this process of refining and polishing a few more times. We wanted to make sure the steel was sharp, the heat high and the thirst yearning. And Cynthia brought it! This art has us all thirsty! Art by Cynthia Shepphard From there I had a the magnificently challenging task of designing typography to match this gorgeous cover art. I tried several different designs, and debated which effects would allow this cover to truly sing. Foil, embossing, spot gloss, stained edges, and patterned end papers; this novel has it all! It was truly an honor to work on this cover. A huge thanks to Cynthia and everyone involved![end-mark] Cover art by Cynthia Shepphard; Design by Christine Foltzer Design by Christine Foltzer The post Creating Visual Passion: Behind the Scenes of the <i>Swordcrossed</i> Cover appeared first on Reactor.

Books history Five SFF Works About Creating, Revising, and Obfuscating History Each of these works explores attempts at controlling the past, and rewriting history… By James Davis Nicoll | Published on September 24, 2024 Photo: Chris Lawton [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: Chris Lawton [via Unsplash] A revered social visionary once observed “who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.” How easy it is to guide people towards your desired goals if you control their perception of where they began! Alternatively, poorly documented or entirely forgotten history can leave people rudderless on the currents of destiny. Perhaps some examples would help. Hegira by Greg Bear (1979) Hegira is far vaster than fabled Earth. Hegira hosts a myriad of nations. Hegira is ancient. Distance implies isolation. Isolation plus time would ensure extreme divergence… had the people who created Hegira not taken steps to provide a common history, in the form of vast archives erected at regular intervals across Hegira’s surface. Thousand-kilometer-tall obelisks are engraved with human history and knowledge, with the earliest and most primitive at the bottom, and the most recent at the top. Cribbing from the obelisks offers technological shortcuts, the key to imperial supremacy. Thus, there is incentive for nations to familiarize themselves with the common past. Less clear, the future. Too bad for the Hegirans, as that future is about to become the survivors’ present. On the one hand, Hegira’s designers had clear reasons for designing their megastructure the way they did. On the other, their approach seems needlessly convoluted and inhumane. It’s almost as though their purpose was to provide a pretext for thrilling adventures. Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi (1996) Wandering bodyguard Balsa sees the carriage conveying Second Prince Chagum’s carriage tumble into a raging river. Prudence dictates she leave the boy to his fate. Nevertheless, Balsa rescues Chagum. Her heroism wins Balsa a central role in a national crisis. Chagum hosts a demon, or so his father the Mikado believes. Thus, to avoid scandal and to save the kingdom, near-fatal accidents have been arranged. Chagum’s mother, the Second Queen, wishes to save her son. Against every cautious instinct, Balsa is convinced to protect the boy—a nearly impossible task, given that Balsa has been denied certain critical, strictly need-to-know, information. New Yogo’s royals have been careful to curate an official history that suits propagandist ends. The fellow quoted at the top would approve! To this end, certain embarrassing (directly relevant to the plot) truths have been suppressed. New Yogo’s neighboring nations might glare disapprovingly, if later volumes did not establish that this sort of self-flattering historical revisionism is rife on this continent. Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle (2000) Ash keenly desires a principality of her own. Her army means it is in the interest of the local nobility to provide Ash with title and lands, lest she simply take them for herself. Charles the Bold provides Ash with the status she craves, but with a catch in the form of an arranged marriage to the unlovable Fernando de Gui. Destiny provides Ash with a distraction in the form of invasion by the seemingly unstoppable Visigoths. Centuries later, a historian wrestles with Ash’s history. Certain details beggar belief. The accounts must have been embellished…except, as the historian discovers, they have not. History is far less linear than scholars would like to believe. Many content warnings would be justified, here. Gentle may be the least aptly-named author in speculative fiction. However, unlike other authors I could mention, the unpleasant bits of Gentle’s tales are in no way gratuitous. Daemons of the Shadow Realm by Hiromu Arakawa (2021 onward) Skilled hunter Yuru lives in a peaceful rural village. Of the outside world, he knows little, save that he does not wish to travel there. To leave would be to abandon his sister Asa. Asa cannot travel, as she is permanently ensconced in the village prison. In the wake of a violent attack on the village, Yuru discovers that the village elders have withheld facts, even outright lied to Yuru. Yuru is one half of a treasure the world craves. Asa is the other half. However, the woman Yuru knows as Asa is an imposter. Reuniting with his sister and coming to terms with the world as it is requires learning to navigate an entirely unfamiliar modern world. For a few pages, I thought maybe this was another pleasant rustic tale like Arakawa’s Silver Spoon. Then the dismembering began. The tone is closer to Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist, except somehow even more violent. The Melancholy of Untold History by Minsoo Kang (2024) A prank somehow escalates, transforming four gods into bitter enemies who pursue a relentless feud for centuries. A storyteller, having delivered all his ruler demanded, finds himself slated for death. Bereavement leaves a historian unable to savor his moment of triumph. Three different narratives unfolding in three different settings, yet somehow inextricably entangled. Some readers may struggle with the intricate structure of the book. Persevere. Kang’s examination of how nations create history, and how this plays out on various personal levels, is a delightful fable. Perhaps you have your own favorite examples of histories obfuscated, misplaced, or created out of whole cloth. If so, comments are below. Regale us with new books for Mount Tsundoku![end-mark] The post Five SFF Works About Creating, Revising, and Obfuscating History appeared first on Reactor.