Bejeweled.

 Ta-da! I filled the glass trees with jewel-beaded fruit from Xmas donations at the store. So pretty!

I met my friend John for coffee yesterday, and to receive my copy of his new book, Bellosio: An Age of Miracles---a world-building tale (like Dune or Game of Thrones--but no magical animals, he promises) + a whiff of A Canticle for Liebowitz.
(Available here at Bookshop.org.)

He'd told me the germ of the plot when we sat outside, face-masked, the first chilly spring of Covid.
Later, as I've done with some of his other books, I read the first few chapters and gave feedback, which he said was very helpful.
Still, I was shocked to see the dedication:

Me and Descartes!

I felt real, like the Velveteen Rabbit-- kinda like when I first saw my name on a Library of Congress heading--even though that was for hack-writing a geography book for Lerner Pub.
(I mean, that was good work, but it wasn't personal work.)

I felt honored and pleased and shy. “It wasn’t that big a deal.”
But other makers-of-things have told me that personal support--including actual editing and critical feedback, as well as emotional--means a lot.
Independent creative work maybe doesn't get enough solid support. It is a big deal.

Speaking of sci-fi, these are the books on my sci-fi bookshelf. I'd just mentioned one of my favorite books is World War Z.
I also very much enjoyed Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weil the guy who wrote The Martian, but better.

Also Walter Tevis's Mockingbird and Joanne Sinisalo's Troll: A Love Story.

But I've mentioned a hundred times, one of my favorites is the sci-fi Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells.
I recovered the dust jackets, to help me envision the various skin colors of the  characters, including the main character, Murderbot, who also has no gender or sex.
(The original art makes it look like a white male, which is already our default: I want to shake off that programming.)

It’s a sci-fi world we’re living in… 

Isn't it amazing we even exist, this little bundle of atoms with consciousness?

Enjoy life, everyone!