"State has ordered books by 13 authors, 12 of them women, to be removed from every public school, classroom and library"

Just upgraded to a point release that should fix up some issues with federation to services outside of lemmy. Carry on everyone and enjoy.

Previous release notes here: https://join-lemmy.org/news/2023-12-15_-_Lemmy_Release_v0.19.0_-_Instance_blocking,_Scaled_sort,_and_Federation_Queue

Welcome to the highly anticipated update! Tons of changes in this release, but you might have noticed you were signed out. All sessions were terminated to allow for a more secure user auth flow. New post ranking algorithms and instance blocks for users are the headlining features, but there were almost 400 commits since 0.18.5 so please read the release notes if you are curious about the other big changes. Enjoy the update!

I have been trying to put into words how I feel about this novel by Greg Egan. This novel leans very far into the "hard sci-fi" side of the spectrum and it isn't for everyone. Egan is a mathematician and a software engineer and those areas of expertise are relied on heavily to craft the world we inhabit in Diaspora. I have read this twice now, both times enjoying the technical masterpiece of Egan's world. The beginning is tough to read, it is slow and extremely verbose. There's no hand holding in the conceptual world you have been thrown into. If you are having trouble, the Wikipedia page is helpful to lean on and the glossary in the back of the book is a must to reference in the earlier chapters. As you get the hang of the world though, the story just flows forward. I enjoyed the pacing and characters journeys as well as the general theme of the novel. Highly recommended if you enjoy a technical and dense sci-fi novel.

Dear Authors and lllustrators,

I want to update you regarding the Book Fairs Share Every Story/Celebrate Every Voice case.

First, I want to apologize on behalf of Scholastic. Even if the decision was made with good intention, we understand now that it was a mistake to segregate diverse books in an elective case. We sincerely apologize to every author, illustrator, licensor, educator, librarian, parent, and reader who was hurt by our action. We recognize and acknowledge the pain caused, and that we have broken the trust of some of our publishing community, customers, friends, trusted partners, and staff, and we also recognize that we will now need to regain that trust.

This case will be discontinued starting with our next season in January. For the remaining fairs in the fall, Book Fairs is working on a pivot plan as we speak. We will find an alternate way to get a greater range of books into the hands of children. We remain committed to the books in this collection and support their sale throughout our distribution channels.

Our commitment to BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ authors and stories remains foundational for our company. Scholastic believes in the basic freedoms of all individuals. We oppose discrimination of any kind on the basis of age, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, or national origin. We are committed to providing access and choice, and to helping young readers develop critical skills needed to exercise democracy and build a society free of prejudice and hate. Equally important, we pledge to stand with you as we redouble our efforts to combat the laws restricting children's access to books. This will not be our last communication on the matter, but we wanted to get this initial Word out. We look forward to working to create a better and more just future together.

Sincerely,

Ellie Berger

President

Scholastic Trade Publishing

Scholastic found that it either had to give in to the hardliners who wanted to ban books for children or to not allow that, and they seem to have decided to give in.

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL26513113W/Time_Shelter_-_a_Novel?edition=key%3A%2Fbooks%2FOL35858097M

Help! I'm looking for interesting microbloggers who focus on the literature space (especially speculative fiction) to follow. Preferably on mastodon since I can consume the rss feed of their content.

New short story from Ken Liu published by Tor.com.