Stephen King's "On Writing" is a great read when you are an aspiring #writer, but nowadays, I would recommend starting your creative journey by reading "Digital minimalism" by Cal Newport.

Its gist is:
- quit social media if you can, learn how to use them in a professional way if you can't
- reach for them when they are truly contributing to your goal, not when they only vaguely promise to contribute

Seriously, read it.

#BookRecommendation #WritingCommunity #Creativity

Country Tides: Out Now

https://higginbothampublications.wordpress.com/2026/05/25/country-tides-out-now/

Quasit's Daily Book Recommendations: "The Nightmare People" (1990) by Lawrence Watt-Evans is a good, imaginative horror story with a different slant; with the death of the last member of a classic horror species, a new species of horror gets to arise.

Ed Smith is awake one night when he sees the face of a horrifying •thing• outside his window. The next morning he's woken by the police. They tell him it's a missing persons case.

[“Who’s missing?” he asked.
The cop hesitated again, almost glanced at his partner, and then thought better of taking his eyes off the open door. “Your neighbors,” he said quietly.
“Which ones?”
That drew the longest hesitation yet.
Finally, the cop took a deep breath and answered, in a voice that almost shook.
“All of them,” he said.]

In the days that follow Ed discovers the truth behind that mysterious face and joins up with others who've encountered the Nightmare People as well. The supernatural aspect of evolution plays a VERY interesting role in the story; it's a neat idea, and I enjoy the way it's dealt with.

Watt-Evans has a very broad range, and this book really demonstrates that. He also tends to create protagonists who are intelligent and basically decent people, and that's certainly the case with Ed Smith. It's a refreshing and satisfying horror story.

I'm a long-time Watt-Evans fan; he's written a lot of great books, although this is the only horror novel he's written to date. Most of his books are fantasy, and I'll be recommending some of them soon.

"The Nightmare People" is available from the major ebook producers. There are also physical copies for sale, although I'm not sure if it's still in print. But you can also borrow it for free from the Internet Archive.

https://archive.org/details/nightmarepeople0000watt

Happy reading! 🤓📖

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Quasit's Daily Book Recommendations: "The Best of C. M. Kornbluth" (1976), edited by Frederik Pohl.

I already mentioned this today, so it might as well be my daily recommendation. For one thing, it's a great book!

Cyril Kornbluth was a brilliant author from the golden age of SF. His short stories were witty, clever, and memorable. In fact some of them are still influential to this day.

Two of them fit into the same fictional universe: "The Little Black Bag" (1950) and "The Marching Morons" (1951).

[After twenty generations of shilly-shallying and "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," genus homo had bred itself into an impasse. Dogged biometricians had pointed out with irrefutable logic that mental subnormals were outbreeding mental normals and supemormals, and that the process was occurring on an exponential curve. Every fact that could be mustered in the argument proved the biometricians' case, and led inevitably to the conclusion that genus homo was going to wind up in a preposterous jam quite soon. If you think that had any effect on breeding practices, you do not know genus homo.]

Have you ever seen the movie "Idiocracy"? You can thank Cyril Kornbluth for it; his stories laid out the basic concept with surgical precision.

How about RoboCop? The original, not the inferior remake. Do you remember the TV show that everyone seemed to love watching?

[“Now I’m gonna innaview the first contes-tant. Right here, honey. What’s your name?”

“Name? Uh—”

“Hoddaya like that, folks? She don’t remember her name! Hah? Would you buy that for a quarter?” The question was spoken with arch significance, and the audience shrieked, howled and whistled its appreciation.]

Does that sound at all familiar? It should!

These are polished, wonderfully-written short stories that are insightful and (more importantly) •fun• to read.

And luckily it's available to borrow for free from the Internet Archive.

https://archive.org/details/bestofcmkornblut0000fred

Happy reading! 🤓📖

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Quasit's Daily Book Recommendations: "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld" (1975) by Patricia McKillip

Winner of the World Fantasy Award in 1975, "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld" is a truly lyrical, magical book. Back in those days most fantasy wasn't much more than retellings of "The Lord of the Rings" with a few gender or race-swaps; they were, pretty much without exception, awful.

Patricia McKillip considers this her LOTR copy, but I don't see that at all. This is the story of Sybel, a sorceress and the last of a line of wizards. Her sorcery consists primarily in summoning unique magical beasts to her service. They include:

"BOAR CYRIN
Keeper of Wisdom, who knew the answers to all riddles... save one.

THE BLACK SWAN OF TIRLITH
Who had carried a king’s daughter from the stone tower of exile.

GYLD
Green-winged Dragon who dreamt for eons over the cold fire of gold.

FALCON TER
Immortal Lord of Air, who had torn to bloody pieces the seven murderers of the wizard Aer."

All serve Sybel, who spends her time seeking lost knowledge of rare magical beasts...until she seeks in the wrong wizard's library, and finds herself the hunted rather than the hunter.

There's love, betrayal, revenge, death, and redemption here. It's a relatively short book, but very full and extremely well-written with a thoughtful depth of feeling to it. It's also, unusually (for those times and these) a singleton; no sequels were ever published. Nor written, as far as I know.

You can borrow it for free from the Internet Archive, but personally I'd say this one is well worth owning.

https://archive.org/details/forgottenbeastso0000mcki_x1p4

Happy reading! 🤓📖

#Books #Bookstodon #fantasy
#BookRecommendation #QuasitBookRecs

She framed them. Now she needs them. 👀 Mortal Enemy Murder Club is the cozy mystery sequel that delivers found family, sharp twists, and chaotic alliances. Gloria Chao does it again—this one’s a 5⭐ obsession. Add to your TBR now! #ViewsSheWrites #GloriaChao #BookRecommendation

https://viewsshewrites.com/the-mortal-enemy-murder-club/