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WARREN ELLIS LTD Posts

reaching into fog: 13feb26

Published February 13, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Emi Mizukami

Yesterday I wrote my newsletter and then the Beehiiv editor deleted half of it, never to be seen again, which will teach me to write directly into a web page. Everything is so fucking broken these days that even writing into a web-based word processor is like reaching into fog and fooling yourself that there’s something solid in there.

I’m not on Bluesky, I glance at X once in a blue moon, I never bothered with Threads and I can go days without even thinking about IG, but this piece by Sean Bonner made me wonder what the hell is going on out there in the fog:

…a lot of conversations on BlueSky are still about how they aren’t using X. This is a pretty common thing in the beginning of any social site, but I admit I was surprised that this far long that’s still such a common theme there. And it isn’t just X, but posting about not using a whole collection of other apps and services, and also guilting/shaming others for using any of those apps and services. People are even making block lists (more on that next) of people who use other services.

Yesterday evening I made blood orange mimosas.

TODAY:

We are living in a time of great change and great boredom and at the intersection of chaotic change and mind-numbing boredom lies insanity.

I really need to get around to buying a full subscription to 8ball one of these days.

I got given a digital copy of this and am looking forward immensely:

OPERATIONS: really need to crack a broken ten-page section of script today
STATUS: 💀💀💀
READING: THE QUEEN’S AGENT: FRANCIS WALSINGHAM AT THE COURT OF ELIZABETH I (UK) (US+)
LISTENING:


THINKING ABOUT: adding to the notebook system. Also the systems novel.

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: books library newsletters pol russian
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let there be light, for maybe seven minutes: 12feb26

Published February 12, 2026 by Warren Ellis

It has stopped raining for whole minutes.

As I write this, it’s darkening down again. I am still completely tapped out, which is getting really fucking frustrating now. So I’m going to leave this here and hope for a comeback tomorrow.

TODAY:

STATUS: 💀
READING: THE QUEEN’S AGENT: FRANCIS WALSINGHAM AT THE COURT OF ELIZABETH I (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: Ambient Daily 48

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: ambient architecture podcast space
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same river: 11feb26

Published February 11, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Sorin Neamtu

Still sick. Still raining. Both conditions seem permanent.

TODAY:

Accessions:

Picked up a sample of this last year, it was on sale yesterday.

UNIT X: HOW THE PENTAGON AND SILICON VALLEY ARE TRANSFORMING THE FUTURE OF WAR, Raj M. Shah and Christopher Kirchhoff (UK) (US+)

STATUS: deth
READING: A FIELD GUIDE TO REALITY, Joanna Kavenna (UK) (US+)
LISTENING:


MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: ai art fashion newsletters
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i left my soul in bed: 10feb26

Published February 10, 2026 by Warren Ellis

From a new Leonora Carrington retrospective.

Getting out of bed apparently used up all the calories I had remaining in my body.

David Lynch’s estate is now eBaying some of his items.

Solar flare:

New AAASMR music radio show from Angela Winter:

TODAY:

OPERATIONS: still zero energy, so today is for scriptment – that version of scripting where you just slap down dialogue and vague directions and then go back when you feel human to convert it up into full script.
STATUS: two steps from the boneyard
READING: A FIELD GUIDE TO REALITY, Joanna Kavenna (UK) (US+)

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: art music pol radio space surrealism tech
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THE HOUR OF THE PREDATOR, Guiliano da Empoli

Published February 9, 2026 by Warren Ellis

The hour of the predator is essentially just a return to normality. The anomaly was the brief period during which we believed that we could curb the bloody quest for power with a system of rules.


Pair that shit with Mark Carney talking about the end of rules-based international order the other week.

I read this short, witty and fairly scary book over Xmas. It’s a series of pen-portraits of autocrats and global political entities – the opening section on how the United Nations doesn’t actually work at all is both funny and horrible, and feels particularly pointed this month.

da Empoli is a longtime political operator and writer who’s been around power a lot. He’s very good at pointing out how political theatre is reflected across history and across the world right now in ways we don’t always see.

A less common occurrence is for a head of state to appear dressed in an outfit of his own invention, made for him by Miss Universe’s stylist. Yet this is what happened when Nayib Bukele, the young president of El Salvador, appeared in an indigo tunic with golden floral motifs embroidered on the cuffs and collar, giving him a look midway between Simón Bolívar and a Star Wars character.


The details are great. In the round – especially paired with AUTOCRACY INC – it goes a good way towards contextualising our present moment. So impressed was I that I picked up another of his books right after.

THE HOUR OF THE PREDATOR (UK) (US)

Tags: pol
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eaten by pigs: 9feb26

Published February 9, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Bruno Pontiroli

I started to feel a little better yesterday, managed to overextend myself by cleaning out the chicken coop and turning the compost bins, and then got mild food poisoning. I’m ready to lay down on the edge of the property and get eaten by pigs like in DEADWOOD.

I have remembered, for the first time in a week, to do my short stack: 2000mg liposomal nicotinamide riboside with TMG and Pterostilbene, Vit D3 and K2, 1 Floradix for insurance, taken with a bowl of blueberries, blackberries, almonds and honey.

TODAY:

  • How Japan’s prime minister will use her massive new mandate
  • SpaceX shifts focus from Mars to Moon, which seems from here to be about Musk working hard to realign himself with the White House. Also, since the US is all about the Moon in terms of space policy right now, the money is right there, and SpaceX has its eye on ramping to 10,000 launches per annum, largely in pursuit of lofting space-based AI compute. It’s also worth nothing that Japan have now started beaming space-based solar power back to earth via microwave.
  • PROJECT HAIL MARY trailer. People are saying it contains spoilers. It does not. A trailer for a buddy movie that introduces both buddies does not constitute a spoiler.

Bought myself a leather notebook cover that can contain up to six Field Notes notebooks, from InkitLeather here in the UK.

I also had my eye on the covers from Veyrona, but it looks like they might be winding down.

Additionally, I saw something unusual on MUJI, of all places: a Vietnamese variant on the French chore jacket, long-cut/fingertip-length, in a blend of denim and kapok, which I picked up in a medium grey with matching wide-leg trouser.

I’m wearing a new ribbed grey 100% cotton henley that I picked up for a song from a site that didn’t appear to know they were selling it, under a black Carharrt work shirt I’ve had for a dozen years and which seems to be indestructible, paired with a black Carharrt utility pant. I love workwear and I cannot lie. I fell back in love with clothes a few years back and am enjoying it a lot.

STATUS: siiick
READING: A FIELD GUIDE TO REALITY, Joanna Kavenna (UK) (US+) , M SON OF THE CENTURY, Antonio Scurati (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: Just discovered Duo Ruut via Night Tracks on Radio 4:


Had to hunt around a bit, but it is on CD.

About to switch on the Retro Nano and stream some podcasts from the phone: I deleted hundreds of episodes of stuff from the app that I know I will simply never get to.

LAST WATCHED: bit of Ibsen’s THE DOLL’S HOUSE on BBC 4.

THINKING ABOUT: continuing the shift away from devices to writing on paper for everything

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: fashion notebooks space moon pol
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only hover briefly: 8feb26

Published February 8, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Yasmine Anlan Huang

Today I feel like I might have hit the midpoint of The Mange, as I feel a little stronger and clearer. Currently deleting some distraction apps and putting the AI devices in a drawer – the Bee can no longer access current information, it tells me, and the Rabbit can’t perform scheduled tasks without a reminder to perform them, which kind of defeats the purpose of scheduling tasks. Currently shopping for new notebook covers – I have a passport-sized Wanderings notebook cover and a newestor leather cover sized for Field Notes notebooks, of which I still have a ton from years of being on the Field Notes subscription service, and I have a feeling I need at least one more of the latter. Although this might also be the year I crack and get myself a Roterfaden. Scriptorium-monk mode!

Today’s newsletter went out at 10am UK time.

TODAY:

STATUS: it is time to blitz out my inbox, my RSS feed and my podcast queue. Having to clean-slate everything barely six weeks into the year is not where I thought I’d be.
READING: finished THE ART OF WAR, Sun Tzu (UK) (US+) last night. As previously noted, I tend to use winter to read the books I should have read/re-read years ago.
LISTENING: Oh my god, this. I discovered Barn Hoppit last night and this is extraordinary:


LAST WATCHED: FIRST BLOOD. There are, as far as I’m concerned, only two Rambo films: FIRST BLOOD and RAMBO.

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: med money music space
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melt: 7feb26

Published February 7, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Ragnar Axelsson

Day… 9? 10? 35? Of this appalling plague. Managed to summon the energy this morning to do the newsletter, and that’s tapped me out.

TODAY:

You know what? That on its own has convinced me to turn the internet off, open a bottle of Fraoch and read a book.

Accessions:

I read a sample of this last year, and yesterday I got a ping to tell me it was on sale. Fits right into winter reading.

THE GANG OF THREE: SOCRATES, PLATO, ARISTOTLE, Neel Burton (UK) (US+)

READING: THE ART OF WAR, Sun Tzu (UK) (US+)
LISTENING:

LAST WATCHED: lots and lots of news

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: books library neuro photography tech
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5feb26

Published February 5, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Day 7 of this appalling plague. Took this yesterday, down at Old Leigh, because I was told it would be good for me to get outside. Reader, it was not. Two hours in the outdoors absolutely burned me out. I sound like a broken bellows today.

I keep having late-night brainwaves that I do not have the energy or time to follow up on, which is driving me mad. Today I’m looking at Beehiiv’s digital products system, as it might be the outflow for all my excess ideas that I’ve been looking for.

TODAY:

OPERATIONS: the simple targets for today are: prepare and send an invoice, and do a little rewriting. I have to punt the other dozen things to tomorrow. The likelihood of achieving those two things is low.
STATUS: I can barely see or breathe and I’m in a stupid amount of pain, so nobody should expect me to be interesting or useful today
READING: THE ART OF WAR, Sun Tzu (UK) (US+)
LISTENING:


MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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It Stopped Raining Briefly: 4feb26

Published February 4, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Day 6 of the death plague. Not remotely at even half-power.

TODAY:

There’s a new Shackleton record. I thought he’d retired.

OPERATIONS: managed to get a script out yesterday, need to get 8pp out today, but I suspect the day will get in the way. Had to process some foreign right and film-related stuff last night and follow up on some production schedules.
STATUS: apparently I am going out for lunch, presumably so I can infect the outside world with The Death. I’ve ordered a case of beer as therapy.
READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+) (this book is going on forever)
LISTENING: Monument Waves 008 : Atomic Moog (live) podcast

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

Tags: film music podcast pol
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