Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until then, she lives with her three cats, Millay, Farrokh, and Zevon, in Maine. She is also right behind you. Just kidding! She’s too busy reading.
Twitter: @MissLiberty
Hello, my little Khankhuuluus! In today’s round-up of recent sci-fi and fantasy links, I have stuff to share with you about breathing, forgotten 1990s sci-fi shows, Antarctic ice radio signals, and more!
The Witch Roads Author Kate Elliott on Her Favorite Books to Recommend
If you haven’t had a chance to check out The Witch Roads by Kate Elliott yet this year, I highly recommend it. It’s one of the best fantasy novels of 2025. So, that’s me making a recommendation to you. And Kate Elliott has a few recommendations for us. After all, authors are readers, too. And I am always interested in what great authors like to read.
“Q. Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?
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Reading is so personal that I can’t imagine a specific book I would always recommend to any reader. Reading recommendations are more of an art that allows me to talk to other readers (always fun!), hear what interests them that they have to recommend to me, and consider what I want to say in return. For example, I’d likely not recommend non-fiction to someone who wants a fast-paced novel to dive into. And if a person told me they don’t like fiction, I wouldn’t try to convince them that, ‘No, it’s just that you haven’t read this one novel that I really think is great.’
If I am going to recommend, how will I do it? Will I drill down and figure out a book that will match their specific interests? Or perhaps a book that isn’t something they would normally pick up would be a good option.
Let me offer six examples, which doesn’t even scratch the surface, but these are books I’ve recommended multiple times.”
Click through to find out what they are!
Let’s Talk About Some Weird Science: Your Breath Print
Everyone knows that fingerprints and DNA (mostly) are two things that are unique for each person on the planet. But now scientists have done a study that they say shows the way each person breathes through their nose varies so much that we can be identified solely based on it. Hence, breath prints.
From The New York Times article: “The study was conducted in 100 people who wore sensors for 24 hours, and the technique proved effective in distinguishing among individuals more than 90 percent of the time. The researchers who led the study also found that certain quirks of breath were linked to people’s scores on questionnaires about anxiety, among other traits, suggesting that breath monitoring over many hours may provide a useful window into mental states and disorders.”
That’s all fine and good, but breath prints aren’t going to help solve murders. (For more on the science of breathing, check out Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor.)
7 Great Sci-Fi Shows From The 1990s Nobody Talks About
ComicBook.com recently posted this list about sci-fi shows from the 1990s that nobody talks about. And while I completely agree with numbers 2-7, I am perplexed by the number 1 choice: Farscape. I love that show! I always thought it was a big success. Am I alone in thinking this? I’ve watched it multiple times over the years and was always under the assumption it was a hit. Space and Henson creatures? How could it not be? It certainly didn’t get the respect or huge viewership it deserved, but I don’t know if it should be on this list.
I remember almost all the other shows, but didn’t watch them. The exception is the Robocop show. I had no idea that even existed, probably because it was on in 1994, and I was busy graduating and being sad about Kurt Cobain and stuff. I also need to watch Earth 2 now that I know that three of my favorite character actors were in it (Terry O’Quinn, Clancy Brown, and Tim Curry). Did you watch any of these shows?
Yes, More Stuff About Murderbot
The New Yorker talked to Martha Wells about Murderbot, adapted from her fantastic Murderbot Diaries series, as well as AI, being a “thirty-year overnight success,” and lots of other great stuff.
“The most popular latecomer to this canon is a character who calls itself Murderbot. Whereas those antecedents invoke the cosmic stranger as fundamentally unknowable, Murderbot’s novelty lies in its relative scrutability—it’s aloof to people as a matter of preference. Murderbot has been realized in fleshly form in the sculpted body of Alexander Skarsgård, on the new Apple TV+ series of the same name. But it—always “it,” and never “he”—was first the invention of a sixty-one-year-old fantasy writer named Martha Wells. Wells seems to like humans, or at least some of them, just fine. But, she asked me recently, ‘why would a machine want to be one?'”
I continue to love the series adaptation and highly recommend it. It’s really funny and, while I will admit to being skeptical when he was announced as Murderbot, Alexander Skarsgård has completely won me over. The rest of the cast is wonderful as well. If you haven’t picked the series up yet, there’s no time like the present!
The Call Is Coming from Under the House
Scientists have started picking up strange radio signals being broadcast out of Antarctic ice, and they have no idea what is causing them. Well, that’s not creepy at all.
According to Stephanie Wissel, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Penn State, “My guess is that some interesting radio propagation effect occurs near ice and also near the horizon that I don’t fully understand, but we certainly explored several of those, and we haven’t been able to find any of those yet either,” Wissel theorized. “So, right now, it’s one of these long-standing mysteries.”
The big question I want to ask is, who is using the microwave this time? (This is one of my favorite stories. I tell it to myself whenever I think I did something ridiculous.)
Okay, star bits, now take the knowledge you have learned here today and use it for good, not evil. If you want to know more about books, I talk about books pretty much nonstop (when I’m not reading them), and you can hear me say lots of adjectives about them on the BR podcast All the Books! and on Bluesky and Instagram.
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