I used to use Ubuntu up to 12.04. By the time the support ended, the new versions had the Unity desktop, I didn’t like it, so for a while I switched to Crunchbang (may it rest in peace), and now I’m using Mint Cinnamon. Some of my developers are using Ubuntu with Unity. Everyone is free to pick what suits them; I’m not one to judge them.

Middle manager in an IT company here. My job description is saying “no” to requests outside the official pipeline, in order to shield my team from outside interference and burnout. I need a manager to fight for me whenever I pick a fight with one of the VPs who think we need to drop everything and refocus on their pet project.

Forehead-slapping moment: After broswing this thread and trying to figure out the weird aspect ratios, I realised that you guys are using custom wallpapers on your mobile phones.

That’s how I was taught. Quarter past, half past, quarter to, and add to it the minutes. Then again, I was also taught to hide under my school desk in case of a nuclear attack. I think times may have changed slightly since then…

Last summer, I was in a water park, one of the few people still wearing a watch. A man asked me what time it was, and I replied “half past one and ten minutes”. To me, this was completely natural, and I didn’t even think about it. I’ll never forget his confused look. You could almost see slight movements under his hair as the wheels in his brain worked overtime to translate it into digital time…

The Coode Street Podcast. Their tastes are quite similar to mine, so I usually enjoy their recommendations.

Here are a lot of recommendations from me. I tried to order them to a semblance of categories.

Military science fiction

• The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell. This is a barebones tactical fleet combat series written by a former US Navy officer. Don’t expect much of character development, but stay for the combat scenarios under imperfect information conditions. Very consistent narration throughout the series and its spin-offs.
• Frontlines series by Marko Kloos. Boots on the ground combat series. The author is good at turning around some common tropes, so the twists tend to be fresh and quite unexpected. As it is narrated in first person, the narration is adequate, though not stellar.

Space operas

• In Fury Born by David Weber. A very long one-shot book, which is superbly narrated. It teared me up a few times.
• The Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn. The author is best known for his Thrawn Trilogy, and this book also feels like set in a Star Wars universe, even though a little more light-hearted. Very good reveal at the end, and the narration is more like acting.
• Troy Rising series by John Ringo. One of the few modern uplifting science fiction works I can think of. Another good narration.
• The Interdependence series by John Scalzi. Unless you can’t stand Will Wheaton’s voice, this is a good series. Scalzi matured as an author and Wheaton as a narrator, and together they deliver a solid trilogy. Everything else by Scalzi is hit-and-miss, either due to very raw writing, money-grabbing pointless sequels that are essentially a retelling of an earlier book, or Wheaton’s tendency to turn even the most tragic scenes into a joke.

Light-hearted books

• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. The book is essentially a high school general science book dressed as science fiction, but the writing style and narration gave me quite a few chuckles.
• Will Save the Galaxy for Food by Yahtzee Croshaw. One of the few authors who can pull off narrating their own books. It’s got its own sense of dry British humor that I appreciated.

Best author-narrator combos

• Alastair Reynolds, narrated by John Lee. Reynolds’ prose is usually dark (think of Giger-esque organic gothic visuals), and the characters all sound very dramatic. Lee is absolutely perfect for those.
• Neil Gaiman, narrated by Neil Gaiman. He is incredibly inventive, from The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere, to American Gods and Anansi Boys. He is also absolutely perfect in narrating his works. I don’t know whether his collections of short stories got narrated (I only read those), but if they did, they are the closest thing to Ray Bradbury’s short stories you get these days.

Many thanks! Your description of the first two books as “edgy-confusing-grimdark” is spot on. And the second person narration in the second book just added to the confusion. I will put it on my TBR list, but I don’t feel compelled to read it before the voting closes.

Personal observations:

• Best series: Tchaikovsky deserves the win. And he may get it, partially via sympathy vote as his Children of Time got snubbed by the Hugos so far (not even a nomination).
• Best novelette: I only read Valente’s story. I liked the emotional aspect of it, and I really like her writing style (to the point that I immediately pick up everything she writes), but even I acknowledge that with her it’s more about the form than substance. I’ll have to read the other stories, but I’m not giving her much of a chance.
• Best novel: I wasn’t too impressed by Scalzi. The book felt like a lazy book, written out of necessity to placate his agent, and not something he was passionate again. I’ll be skipping Muir’s Nona. The first Locked Tomb was amazing, but I really hated the narration style of the second one. For the rest, I’m more intrigued than I’ve been in a few years.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Just the right mixture of weird, atmospheric and with a twist. Too bad it just missed out on the Hugo Award.