Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Kurt Phillips

@kurtphillipstx.bsky.social

Not new, but one of my favorites. It’s right up there with Fairytale of New York

youtu.be/C24KIIh_OzM?...

The Killers - ¡Happy Birthday Guadalupe! ft. Wild Light, Mariachi El Bronx

YouTube video by TheKillersVEVO

youtu.be

November 28, 2025 at 9:16 PM

Kurt Phillips

@kurtphillipstx.bsky.social

a man wearing a blue shirt and tie is saying yup .

Alt: a man wearing a blue shirt and tie is saying yup .

media.tenor.com

November 28, 2025 at 4:03 PM

Reposted by Kurt Phillips

A. Elizabeth West

@damewritesalot.bsky.social

Thanks, Gabino!
Enter a world where ghosts walk in meatspace, portals exist, and interdimensional shenanigans abound!

Books 1 & 2 of the Tuner Trilogy
#TUNERVILLE
#CONFLUENCE

boomkaartbooks.com/books/

A large blue portal, its edges crackling with white energy, opens in a field of stars. The books Tunerville and Confluence are being sucked into it. Tunerville screams, "Help!!" Confluence says, "Whee!" Both books are by A. Elizabeth West.

November 28, 2025 at 3:27 PM

Reposted by Kurt Phillips

🐣 Migi ➡️ hibernating til 2026

@tdcloud.bsky.social

It's itchio's creator day where they don't take their usual cuts, so it's a great time to pick up one of my queer, fucky short stories over there! bsky.app/profile/tdcl...

🐣 Migi ➡️ hibernating til 2026 @tdcloud.bsky.social · 17h

Wowzers, what a great time to pick up my itchio exclusive titles! These tend towards the dark and fucky, so if that's your cup of post-thanksgiving tea, go, go, go!

tdcloud.itch.io

November 28, 2025 at 3:09 PM

Reposted by Kurt Phillips

Tristan Beaver Brain Zelden

@tristanzelden.bsky.social

Just a few more weeks until the release of my second book, Unfold. 2/3 workplace drama, ends on a third of creature feature mayhem a.co/d/ahstt2Z

Unfold

Amazon.com: Unfold eBook : Zelden, Tristan: Books

a.co

November 28, 2025 at 3:11 PM

Reposted by Kurt Phillips

Dale Jacobs

@tigerpride.bsky.social

Thanks, Gabino! Here is a book that blends creative nonfiction about my Mom’s life and my grief at her death with an examination of the comic books of 1976. It’s experimental in form, asking the reader to make connections in the way one puts fragments together when reading comics.
#FridayReads

November 28, 2025 at 3:02 PM

Reposted by Kurt Phillips

Rhiannon Grist

@rhiannonagrist.bsky.social

Thanks Gabino! My debut novel is now available for preorder 🪓

After an incident at work, Tamsin escapes to the Scottish countryside to start over. But her new home comes with an odd neighbour, strange folktales, and disturbances at night 👀

Preorder: geni.us/homesick
Goodreads: tinyurl.com/3mdv69dp

November 28, 2025 at 3:14 PM

Kurt Phillips

@kurtphillipstx.bsky.social

Great cover!

November 28, 2025 at 3:46 PM

Reposted by Kurt Phillips

Oddity Prodigy Productions

@oddityprodigy.bsky.social

Thanks so much Gabino!

Our latest anthology WHERE LEGENDS WALK was just released last week! We're very proud of this collection of over 30 superhero short stories, and it's available on all major online book retailers as well as our own shop:

oddityprodigy.square.site/s/shop

The cover for the superhero anthology WHERE LEGENDS WALK (depicting five superheroes of varying designs standing before a cityscape) is laid over a blue radial background with halftones.

Text reads as follows:

"On Sale Now!

WHERE LEGENDS WALK
A Superhero Anthology Edited by Jacob Jones-Goldstein and Nicholas Leamy | Foreword by J. M. DeMatteis

Featuring over thirty prose tales of superheroes, with a foreword by legendary comic author J. M. DeMatteis!

wherelegendswalk.com"
The cover for the superhero anthology WHERE LEGENDS WALK (depicting five superheroes of varying designs standing before a cityscape) is laid over a blue radial background with halftones.

Text reads as follows:

"On Sale Now!

WHERE LEGENDS WALK
A Superhero Anthology Edited by Jacob Jones-Goldstein and Nicholas Leamy | Foreword by J. M. DeMatteis

Featuring over thirty prose tales of superheroes, with a foreword by legendary comic author J. M. DeMatteis!

wherelegendswalk.com"

November 28, 2025 at 3:16 PM

Reposted by Kurt Phillips

Kent Priore

@kentpriore.bsky.social

THE MONSTERS AMONG US is a viscerally cinematic and immersive dark fantasy/horror novel.

Winner of the Firebird Book Award, and Shirley Jackson Award nominee…and also 20% for Black Friday when bought directly from me:

docs.google.com/forms/d/1Nkd...

November 28, 2025 at 2:55 PM

Reposted by Kurt Phillips

Scott Stein

@sstein.bsky.social

The basic premise of the setting of my novel series is it's always Black Friday. Even before I knew it was narrated by a coffee machine robot, I knew it took place in a mall that spanned the continent, where people lived and never left.

www.amazon.com/dp/B08RB4S319

scottsteinonline.com

screenshot of starred review of The Great American Deception in Publishers Weekly, full text at https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-946501-21-9
The Great American Deception
Scott Stein. Tiny Fox, $14.27 trade paper (228p) ISBN 978-1-946501-21-9
Stein (Mean Martin Manning) delivers a madcap sci-fi take on the hard-boiled detective genre in this fun, near-future romp that’s chock-full of rapid-fire wit, tongue-in-cheek literary allusions, and playful futuristic absurdity. Arjay, a sentient, top-of-the-line coffee machine with an excess of pep, tags along on the cases of old-school PI Frank Harken within the luxurious but dystopian confines of the Great American—a giant, autonomous, U.S.-coast-spanning shopping mall. Though the grumpy gumshoe is not always thrilled by Arjay’s presence, he can’t deny that the bot makes a “damn fine” cup of coffee. When one of the Great American’s inhabitants, Pretty Lovely, hires Harken to find her sister, kidnapped heiress Winsome Smiles, Harken and Arjay are plunged into Great American’s underbelly, where they encounter genre staples including mobsters and incompetent cops. Stein keeps the stakes high and the laughs coming, juxtaposing the gritty mystery and dystopian setting with Arjay’s perky narration to excellent effect. Sure to appeal to fans of Douglas Adams, this zany, uproarious mystery is a constant delight. (May)

review in Kirkus reviews of The Great American Deception. full text at:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/scott-stein/the-great-american-deception/

In a giant, futuristic mall, a coffee machine with artificial intelligence excitedly narrates the exploits of its new owner, a retro-style, hard-boiled gumshoe.

Stein’s (Lost, 2019) satirical SF detective yarn at least initially owes much to Douglas Adams before the material finds its own humorous tone. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fans may recall Adams’ ancillary detail of robotic home appliances with “Real People Personalities,” often annoying, single-minded entities. And coffee machines were among those conveniences so accessorized. Arjay, the first-person (or first-gadget?) narrator here, is such a device, an ever upbeat, persistent, and talkative “top of the line” coffee maker. Arjay gets delivered to Frank Harken, a private eye of the old school, whose beat is the Great American, a fortresslike, coast-to-coast shopping/dining/entertainment/residential mall (shades of Somtow Sucharitkul’s Mallworld). The mall is a consumer paradise and haven for the elite in an otherwise ill-described (but doubtlessly unpleasant) future United States. Because of a prime directive to serve coffee in any circumstance, Arjay is mobile, resourceful, multilimbed, and filled with extra goodies such as laser cutters. The AI becomes sidekick to bemused tough-guy Harken. The chipper appliance recounts their initial case together, a missing custom-dentistry heiress named Winsome Smiles, connected to shady characters and now apparently kidnapped. Arjay’s enthusiastic narration takes readers through not only the standard private investigator clichés (mobsters, clueless authorities, duplicitous dames), but also bizarre boutiques and services (“legstentions”), literary references encompassing The Princess Bride and Edgar Allan Poe, and—in a very Hitchhiker touch—reams of persnickety Arjay non sequitur footnotes. (Sample: “Assas…

screenshot of review of The Great American Betrayal on Vulture, naming it one of the best comedy books of 2022

full text at the full list at https://www.vulture.com/article/best-comedy-books-2022.html

November 28, 2025 at 3:08 PM

Reposted by Kurt Phillips

Pixies a/k/a Map Nerd

@mcburnellauthor.bsky.social

Thanks so much for this Gabino!

The Tipping World is now COMPLETE! It has
magic
intrigue
swordfights
gay stuff
reality breaking
In a complete 9 book series!

Start the legend: books2read.com/PathofEndles...
mcburnell.itch.io/a-path-of-en...

9) Cover of a book called Symbols’ End by MC Burnell depicting a slender young woman seated on a bench in a fine gown in the rain; the walls of the garden are close and too tall. Text reads: THE GRAND FINALE. Symbols’ End, Vol. 9 of The Tipping World.

November 28, 2025 at 3:00 PM

Reposted by Kurt Phillips

Elford Alley

@elfordalley.bsky.social

I got a Black Friday deal!

Black Friday book sale! My horror-comedies Apartment 239 and the sequel, High Strangeness, are both just 99 cents!

Apt. 239
amzn.to/3TizhOT

High Strangeness
shorturl.at/fCEZ9

Apartment 239

Amazon.com: Apartment 239 eBook : Alley, Elford : Books

amzn.to

November 28, 2025 at 3:01 PM

Reposted by Kurt Phillips

Jessica writes "some messed-up stuff"

@authorlevai.bsky.social

I chipped a molar on my morning granola, so I have to go to the dentist. 🦷⛏️

It would make me feel better if you checked out my books. They're perfect for this stressful time of year because they're short and exciting and have families bickering maybe even harder than yours.
linktr.ee/authorlevai

The poster's two novellas, available for purchase/library borrowing. THE GLASS GARDEN has a kaleidoscopic cover, THE NIGHT LIBRARY OF STERNENDACH: A VAMPIRE OPERA IN VERSE has batwings and a book against a starry sky. They books are resting on a lawn strewn with autumn leaves.

November 28, 2025 at 3:16 PM

Reposted by Kurt Phillips

TC Parker/Dr Nat Edwards (she/her)

@tcparker.bsky.social

Thanks Gabino!

Loads of my books are on sale/heavily discounted this week at the Nefarious Bat online store - along with titles from @anna-orridge.bsky.social and @shaunamceleney.bsky.social :)

There's a whole 🧵 of them here - and we'd be hugely grateful if people would consider buying direct! ⬇️

Nefarious Bat Press @nefariousbatpress.bsky.social · 1d

Here we go... the ultimate 🧵 of our We're Not Bezos Batcave deals

Want to sate that horror, crime and fantasy fic hunger at a discount - without dipping a toe in the Big Evil River That Everyone Hates?

We can help! 📚💙

🧵 follows...

November 28, 2025 at 2:55 PM