Sloan

I’ve read bits and bobs by Robin Sloan before (thanks to link-meister Alan Jacobs), but I’ve never really spent time on his site or in his newsletter. I’ve been enjoying it very much recently, especially this edition. Some favs:

• His habit of creating “mini-sites” for his books. I love this idea and would love to do it with my own projects.
• Random asides, like this: “The wheel gets a lot of credit — and sure, wheels are handy — but more and more, I think the key to human civilization is probably: the pump.”
• Or this: “A starling only knows a murmuration from the inside — a scrum of dark feathers, the bird beside them breathing hard. They can’t see or understand the larger object. […] Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe one starling gets to watch. Maybe, every morning, a single bird is chosen to sit it out, and regard, with wonder and satisfaction, their own species.”
• And, of course, the ongoing updates about his olive oil production business.