Laugh at me.
It’s been a couple months since I left Grian his Secret Santa gift, so y’all might not have seen that he finally discovered it today in the first few minutes of his video:
If you want a refresh about how Skizz and I brainstormed this present, check out my Christmas 2024 video here:
For the full backstory on the giraffe, you can check out Skizzleman’s Guess The Build video about it!
The pater familia of an immigrant family that owns and operates several parking lots is arrested by ICE.
The eldest tries to manage the business while the second eldest plays vigilante and sneaks up to ICE vehicles during raids to boot them.
I imagine the eldest would be focused on the day-to-day concerns of running the business and dealing with the cutthroat competition, while the the vigilante kid would be stealing boots from those competitors to use against ICE while sowing chaos in the local parking economy.
I’ve just enjoyed The Mercy of Gods, the latest novel by James S.A. Corey, which focuses on some distant future offshoot of humanity that has lost touch with their earthly origins and is suddenly introduced to the rest of the galaxy by way of an imperial alien invasion force. It kicks off a series called Captive’s War, presumably because the POV characters are all POWs attempting to sort out how best to understand their enemies and resist effectively despite bleak prospects and bizarre challenges.
Given that Corey’s nine Expanse novels and many side-stories and novellas consistently impressed me over the last decade, this felt like a safe purchase and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s more of the same style of writing, but with different settings and scope. The concepts of the different alien species were varied and interesting, and I found the characters’ internal struggles and decision-making thought-provoking—even when their choices didn’t strike me as optimal.
The most resonant structural choice of the novel for me was that the story is broken into six parts, and each part opens with a historical analysis from one of the enemy alien captors about where things went wrong for them after capturing these humans. As a science fiction reader, this initially feels recognizable and comfortable, like Asimov opening chapters of Foundation novels. As the story progresses, a disconcerting feeling creeps in that while the captor alien is trying to pin the blame for his failings on a particular human, this may not be that straightforward a narrative. It feels like a Cardassian enigma tale, where every character is guilty, and the exercise for the reader is to determine guilt of what. The answers all seem to be some small manifestation of hope as resistance, which collectively may tip things in future novels.
As the other books in the series aren’t out yet, I don’t know if they’ll stick the landing the way Expanse Book nine did, but what I’ve read is pretty good. I’m confident enough to encourage folks check out this novel while we wait for more.
Recommend.
It’s been a year since HermitCraft 10 began and my fiftieth episode showcases the work still left to do at Hermit Holmdel!
Join me and special guest Allison Chapman, national LGBTQ+ legislative researcher and trans rights activist, as we talk about work to do in America as well!
I apologize to any subscribers who received a ghost notification for my now-deleted YouTube community post on the evening of January 26th, 2025 condemning what I felt to be lax historical research standards in a particular YouTube video.
Folks I trust claim that I don’t fully comprehend the impact that someone in my position can have when criticizing others.
I have removed the community post to avoid any potential unintended harm its persistence may have caused.
Self-employed artists and small-business owners, 2024Q4 estimated taxes are due tomorrow!
If you’re like me and plan to spend January 15th wearing palm leaves, eating bread delivered by a raven, getting buried by lions, and generally partying near a clear pool in celebration of Paul, the first Hermit, it’d be wise to remit that today.
Every year, Sparkling Noise and friends record a cover of a song and create a music video. I’m one of the friends!
My vocal solo starts at 2:50 and the vacuum-sealed giant teddy bear I brought for the Dirty Santa gift exchange is visible briefly at 3:34.
I was just interviewed yesterday on the Imp and Skizz podcast, and it’s already released for your enjoyment!
It’s Tommy time! Community Liaison ThatTommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty!
Long time no see, huh? I’m very happy to be writing to y’all again, so let’s get right into the news!
Once again hermits have gathered to help charity organization Love Tropics! This year they were benefiting Women’s Earth Alliance, to help support women to gain resources and training required to help their local communities. You can find more about Love Tropics here and about Women’s Earth Alliance here.
And if you missed the stream, here’s the VOD!
With last spring’s pre-order being a huge success, everything is on schedule to be shipped in a timely manner. If you want to order more cards you can sign up for their waitlist or get future updates on their site here.
We had another successful quarterly meeting over on the patreon discord! If you missed the meeting or are curious as to how it went, we have the VOD available as well as the minutes of the meeting on this page.
Our next quarterly meeting will be on Sunday January 12th at noon US Central time. If you have an item you’d like to request for the agenda, please submit it under Joe Hills Meta> #next-quarter-new-business-agenda-requests.
Server operator ToxxicGlitter and Joe are working on spinning up a new modded server for folks to play starting this holiday season! It looks like Toxxic has just about finished the preliminary stages and is looking to launch this week! You can find more details over in Joe Hills Meta> #feedback-next-modded-server.
Obituaries:
Survivors:
Obituaries:
Survivors:
Obituaries:
Survivors:
This month’s Everstorm is now live! As always it’s an experimental and temporary server, running until January 2nd. Folks can discover details and share with others or coordinate group logins over in Realms And Servers> #everstorm-dec-2024
We’ve had some parades after the judging of the company towns on 10th Oreward! I’d like to thank Team 15 Years for hosting a wonderful parade, and a thank you to all the participants who made floats!
We also had a parade to celebrate Labor Day! Thank you to Team The Route for hosting the late celebration, here’s the VOD for folks who missed it!
There was also a parade to celebrate World Nuclear Energy Day, hosted by Team Trident Town! I remember it like it was yesterday, which it was at the time of this newsletter going out. Thanks Trident Town, here’s the VOD!
Our next parade will be on Sunday December 15th, at 1pm US Central time. Team 5280 will be hosting their parade in celebration of the Festival of Lights! Folks can join in under Activity-Sign-Ups> #dec-15-parade-5280-festival-of-lights.
There’s been a year’s worth of Hermitcraft since I last wrote a newsletter, so I won’t be linking all the videos! Instead, here’s a handy link to Joe’s Hermitcraft Season 10 Playlist, along with his most recent video!
If you’re looking for a place to find out when Joe is streaming, have I got the answer for you! You can see a calendar of all Joe’s upcoming streams over at this page over here!
Lately Joe has been streaming readings of Moby Dick, and some Hermit Satisfactory! Stay tuned for future notable streams to be mentioned!
Unconfirmed appearances:
If you know any convention organizers in your area and think Joe would be great to hire for an appearance, please have them visit this page on his site, thank you!
As always it is my pleasure to write these newsletters to you wonderful folks in our community. I appreciate y’all being patient while Joe and I were both busy, so I hope you’ll join us as we get back into a steady rhythm of updates.
Thank you kindly!
This has been TommyBoii reporting for newsletter duty.
See you around!