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Auston Habershaw

@aahabershaw.bsky.social

1.1K followers 700 following 3.3K posts

Science Fiction/Fantasy author and English professor; shorts in Analog, F&SF, BCS, and elsewhere. Author of The Saga of the Redeemed and If Wishes Were Retail and also Faceless Galaxy; website aahabershaw.com Repped by @awfulagent.bsky.social He/Him

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Auston Habershaw @aahabershaw.bsky.social · Jul 8

Get IF WISHES WERE RETAIL!
A heartwarming comedy about a genie selling wishes in a failing mall! On sale now!

Amazon: a.co/d/7Ft53dI
Barnes and Noble: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/if-wishes-...
Bookshop: bookshop.org/p/books/if-w...
Tachyon (publisher): tachyonpublications.com/product/if-w...

The cover of the novel IF WISHES WERE RETAIL by Auston Habershaw, showing an imposing genie hovering over a harried female cashier who is trying to make sense of his scroll of wishes. Gnomes peek out from the corners.

It has the following blurb from bestselling author Sarah Beth Durst: "Irresistibly Fun and Funny!"

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Auston Habershaw @aahabershaw.bsky.social · 1h

It sounds silly, but lack of media literacy (even with things like comic books and Star Trek and stuff) is half the reason we've ended up here.

Fucking idiots are unable to understand art and they misinterpret it to mean "anything I say or think is good."

Auston Habershaw @aahabershaw.bsky.social · 1h

Every time I see this, I want to grab a rich dude by the lapels and shake him while yelling "IF YOU REDUCE THEIR PAY AND TAKE THEIR JOBS, HOW WILL THEY HAVE MORE MONEY TO SPEND, YOU IDIOT?"

Sarah O'Connor @sarahoconnorft.ft.com · 3h

Investors are betting big bucks on the idea that AI will create an explosion of leisure time...e.g. it was a key part of the public rationale for the massive $55bn takeover of video games maker Electronic Arts. But are they right?? (short thread linked to my column today www.ft.com/content/4011...)

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Chad Orzel @orzelc.bsky.social · 2h

It's amazing how many other contexts you can find in which to use the ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN line "The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand."

Sarah O'Connor @sarahoconnorft.ft.com · 3h

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 2h

I need a montage of famous cops in movies and TV shows flashing their badges and announcing their names, followed by a stream of masked ICE guys refusing to give theirs.

a woman is getting out of a car with the nbc logo on the bottom

ALT: a woman is getting out of a car with the nbc logo on the bottom

media.tenor.com

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Auston Habershaw @aahabershaw.bsky.social · 1h

Share a cartoon from the past kids today probably never heard of. 📺

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Stacey Berg @staceyberg.bsky.social · 1h

“We are not afraid of our own ideas” should be every Democrat’s approach.

At raucous rally, Mamdani argues he’s leading a movement beyond the NYC mayor’s race | CNN Politics

Declaring that he is leading a “movement that won the battle over the soul of the Democratic Party,” Zohran Mamdani used a raucous rally with over 3,000 supporters in Manhattan’s Washington Heights on...

www.cnn.com

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I may be invisible, but you're transparent. @invisiblelad7.bsky.social · 1h

"It took some ingenuity, even for Southerners, to make treason out of that" - epic level snark, no notes.

Stephen West @stephenwest.bsky.social · 19h

How W. E. B. Du Bois responded to government policing of "anti-American" sentiment during the 1910s:

"I took great satisfaction in being able to sit back in my chair and answer blandly, 'We are seeking to have the Constitution of the United States thoroughly and completely enforced.' ”

Federal agents invaded even the offices of The Crisis and the National Association for the advancement of colored people and asked searching questions: " just what, after all, were our objects and activities?” I took great satisfaction in being able to sit back in my chair and answer blandly, “We are seeking to have the constitution of the United states thoroughly and completely enforced.” It took some ingenuity, even for Southerners, to make treason out of that.

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Auston Habershaw @aahabershaw.bsky.social · 2h

We are all cattle at heart.

Auston Habershaw @aahabershaw.bsky.social · 2h

He has now taken off one of his shoes. Is this a bit?

Auston Habershaw @aahabershaw.bsky.social · 2h

You ever stand next to a guy on a train/subway/bus who is unfamiliar with the concept of inertia?

This guy is flopping around like Kramer doing a sight gag. HOLD ON TO THE POLE, YOU IDIOT.

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Steven Schein @mooseshoes.bsky.social · 3h

Cease fire, eh? www.reuters.com/world/middle...

Israel says it opens fire on suspects in Gaza, local authorities report six killed

Israel's military said it opened fire on Tuesday to remove a threat posed by suspects who approached its forces in the northern Gaza Strip, and health authorities in the enclave said at least six Palestinians had been killed by Israeli fire.

www.reuters.com

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Auston Habershaw @aahabershaw.bsky.social · 12h

It took me, like, 10 minutes to figure out what the hell just happened. (Spoiler: they don't show the very end of the play, which is the catcher running up to tag 3rd)

CJ Fogler @cjzero.bsky.social · 12h

what in the hell just happened in Milwaukee

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Wole Talabi @wtalabi.bsky.social · 15h

Genres aren't real. They are mental projections we impose on stories to simplify the way talk about and sell them but stories come unshaped from deep within us and writers shouldn't feel constrained by or even respect genres at all. The story comes first.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com · 20h

If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.

Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?

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Jonathan Ladd @jonmladd.bsky.social · 18h

This is an essential. "Democrats need to beat the Trumpists in elections that we ensure are free" is the best strategy for the next 2-4 years. But it is not a long-term strategy! The only possible long-term strategy is that someone else needs to defeat the Trumpists for control of the Repub Party.

Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 22h

“Win every election” is not a viable strategy for preventing authoritarianism

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Amanda Wong @amandawtwong.bsky.social · 21h

But I am just a plain simple menswear guy

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Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 17h

No he didn’t and no we shouldn’t.

“no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the Earth was flat”

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Auston Habershaw @aahabershaw.bsky.social · 17h

Frankenstein
Treasure Island
Some Twain
That's about it.

Auston Habershaw @aahabershaw.bsky.social · 18h

Yes, this includes your favorites.
Yes, even that one.

Just bin the whole century.

Auston Habershaw @aahabershaw.bsky.social · 18h

Most 19th century British and American literature is tedious and dull, with very rare exceptions.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

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Auston Habershaw @aahabershaw.bsky.social · 22h

I mean, that's a real low bar.
You don't even need *real* Italians.

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Charles Ghoul-ba ✡️ @charlesgaba.com · 1d

So basically this is Iranian Hostage Crisis 2.0, just with a 9-month delay in the payoff for no particular reason.

Il Pomodoro @dabenner.bsky.social · 1d

This seems like confirmation

Then Mr. Trump won the presidency back, and the Biden administration was determined to get a cease-fire in place by January, before it left office. It drafted a peace plan, much of which was quite similar to the “20 point plan” Mr. Trump recently issued. There was slow progress: More than 130 hostages had been released by the time the January cease-fire took place.

“We handed over a cease-fire that silenced the guns, had hostages coming out and aid going in, along with a day-after plan to make it permanent,” Mr. Blinken said. But when the new administration took over, “the moment was squandered,” he added. “Israel and Hamas went back to war for eight months.”

Israeli officials tell a different story. Mr. Biden was a lame duck, they noted, and disengaged. Mr. Trump was a known entity, less likely to lecture Mr. Netanyahu in private or public. They put their money on a new president, and a new negotiating team

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Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 1d

Front page of Scottish newspaper The National today.

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Illiterate Autodidact 🇵🇸🙂👍🇮🇱☹👎 @cigaretteliker.bsky.social · 1d

The virgin AGI existential risk vs the chad global warming

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Minilla Jovovich 🍉 @minillajovovich.bsky.social · 2d

If someone says that something is woke or DEI, they essentially evaporate right in front of me. Nothing they say has any worth. They are simply resource consumers and noise producers.

Casey Explosion @caseyexplosion.bsky.social · 2d

Fashy Cinemasins

That's what this is, the effect the proliferation of "anti-woke" youtube grifters have had on their audiences as a whole, stunting their ability to engage with media and training them to look for "DEI sins" to call out, atrophying their ability to enjoy the games they're playing.

No More Robots @nomorerobots.io · 4d

Here's how we handle manchildren on the Steam forums at No More Robots:

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