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17aug26

Published August 17, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Imagine a story where the events in our lives that happen online are never depicted or mentioned. A day would seem twelve hours long and the protagonists would spend two thirds of that time asleep.

I was gifted this Panerai Table Clock by a client a few weeks ago. I should be keeping it in its box, as it’s crazy expensive. But what’s the point in having things and not enjoying them? So it lives on my work desk, sitting on top of the little box containing a medal I was given in Ireland years ago. It’s a reminder to myself that I need to stay disconnected from the internet. Testing a site blocker on the laptop today.

Had dinner at the local haute restaurant on Friday night and it was as ever fully insane. There was a mushroom risotto with walnuts, walnut ketchup, fresh Parmesan and riced mushroom in place of the rice that was simply MAD and they made it just for us. We also got experimented on with a few dishes and god damn please keep doing that. We have been informed that we are Regulars now, and that is delightful.

I had an Idea on Saturday and realised I’d lost the day to sitting thinking about it, which was annoying, so I’ve booked myself a gig for next Saturday to make sure I leave the house. I am naturally so bad at leaving the house and I really need to.

ACCESSIONS:

MAIGRET IN VICHY, Georges Simenon (UK) (US+) was on sale, and it’s one I haven’t read.

MUD DUCK, Travis Malone (UK) (US+), because the author emailed me yesterday and since it’s currently free on Kindle (in the UK at least, I dunno about the US right now) it was easier to just grab a copy there.

Recently divorced and having drank himself to unemployment, Iain McHughes has no idea who he wants to be anymore. When his former rehab roommate offers him a second chance he hasn’t earned by way of a business opportunity he can’t afford to pass up, he loads everything he owns into his car and points it west on I-10.

Somewhere between San Antonio and Las Vegas, in the miles of nothing between the man he used to be and the man he hopes to become, mania, anxiety and a CB radio are the only tools left at his disposal that can help him rewrite his eulogy. Mysterious towers dot the countryside, phantom voices bleed through his radio, and Iain struggles to ascertain whether his mind is deteriorating or the world around him is. When Iain’s new business partner inadvertently pushes him into the middle of a dangerous business transaction, Iain must finally determine the legacy he wants to leave, and what it will cost him to leave it.

OPERATIONS: updating the boards, getting into scripting with one hand and story development with the other
STATUS: slow to get started.
READING: THE KILLER’S MARK, MW Craven (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: THE REGYKLA VARIATIONS I-III, ASHTORETH & ONSTURICHEIT

LAST WATCHED: PORTH TRETHEK, Mark Jenkin (2020)


DRINK: Black Cherry Mead.

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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20jul26

Published July 20, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Wearing a Victor Victoria shirt from the Nineties and a Swatch Metropolis from the Eighties and accepting that all this is “vintage,” not “last year.” Julbo don’t even make those shades anymore. DEPRESSING

ACCESSIONS:

While I was reading PHENOMENA by Annie Jacobsen (click this link and scroll halfway down for my initial notes), which is in large part about remote viewing used by the US military, I kept being reminded of this book I read when I was a kid. Written in 1973, FLIGHT FROM TIME ONE was about a cadre of military remote viewers sending their “astral bodies” out into the world, and I remember there was a bit about sliding into an alternate reality termed Algeria-A, or Time Two. So I hunted a copy down on eBay for a whole one pound plus postage. I’m going to be very curious to see how it reads to me, more than forty years later.

OPERATIONS: This week is a bit of a sprint – essay for a reprint collection, story solve, generate two new projects – but hardly the worst.
STATUS: attention reclamation attempt once again
READING: IF RUSSIA WINS, Carlo Masala (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: SEA SWALLOWED WANDS
DRINK: Boulevardier, amended – half-shot Campari, half-shot red vermouth, one shot whisky, dash of orange bitters. Victory.

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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wavy

Published June 2, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Craig Hubbard.

Searching hard for my motivation today, because I am not particularly in my body or particularly with it. Not enough coffee in the world, everything is kind of wavy, and I really need to wipe down the boards and reset things. And also start backing things off this machine in prep for the arrival of the new one. But a musician has been sending me raws of her new music videos and maybe I’ll just sit and watch them for a while.

Received in post, a gift from the author as routed through my literary agent: A POCKETFUL OF HELLFIRE, Alan LaRue (UK) (US+)

Alan LaRue was a devoted reader of the Ken Socrates World News Organization when he was young. Like any fan, he read all the articles and books, he knew and adored the Gonzo journalism, the crazy adventures and the wild personalities. He was especially enamoured with Ken himself, the wildest and most Gonzo of them all. He had even written and sent in few fan letters full of glowing praise and insight only a truly dedicated follower would appreciate. The letters included his return address, and a joking offer of drinks on him, someday, should Ken ever find his way to Alan’s neck of the woods.

Then, after the sad collapse of the KSWNO, after its founder being missing, assumed dead for years, Ken showed up at Alan’s door, looking for those drinks, and his quiet life as a librarian and amateur pie baker was turned on its doughy little head. Humanity itself was under dire, imminent threat and, according to Ken, only they could save it.

TODAY

TELEMETRY:

  • Here’s the weird flex of the day: the cover of Charli xcx’s new record MUSIC, FASHION, FILM is a simple shot of… John Cale, Marc Jacobs and Martin Scorcese. And an ashtray.

OPERATIONS: script and pitch
STATUS: The weather has turned cool and rainy, and the mancub is sad and needs comforting, as he’s been living in the garden ever since the top of the summer arrived. Or, as I have long suspected, he thinks I control the weather and he figures that if he’s nice to me I’ll bring the sun back.
READING: THE REVOLUTIONISTS, Jason Burke (UK) (US+) (hey, it’s a really long book)
LISTENING: “Vika Hidas,” Draamakuu:

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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retired: 1jun26

Published June 1, 2026 by Warren Ellis

After losing several hours yesterday to running every fix and check I could think of, I came to the sad conclusion that this laptop, a T580 from 2018, is now starting to fail and therefore must be sent to live on a farm. This machine has had its keyboard replaced twice over the years and kept on chugging, but now its chipset is dying. So I caught the end of the Lenovo May sale by a whisker and ordered a new ThinkPad. I doubt the new machine will have the durability of this faithful monster, which I will be sad to retire.

June already.

New newsletter went out yesterday.

TELEMETRY:

A biotech startup called Bexorg is doing something that sounds like it was ripped straight from the pages of a cyberpunk novel — or from the script of “RoboCop,” for that matter.

The company is extracting human brains just hours after their owners died and then hooking them up to specialized life support machines, Science reports. While the masses of pink mush no longer host electrical activity, most of their key functions remain intact, allowing scientists to test experimental drugs, such as potential treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, like never before.

You’d hope that the disembodied cerebrums are most assuredly dead. But according to the reporting, an extracted brain hooked up to one of Bexorg’s proprietary life support machines, BrainEX, “hovers between life and death.” There’s no spark of consciousness, and yet the brains are kept running on an artificial lung, kidney oxygenate, blood, and other fluids.

Georgia Hart.

How to fold and read an “infinity book” – tried to embed the video here from two sources but no luck

Dan Henry 1939.

OPERATIONS: got the new cover for a graphic novel reprint currently codenamed PROJECT WALLOPS, so we will be headed to solicits shortly. I need to get a script off the desk today and then figure out how to zero out all the fucking money I spent yesterday
STATUS: I am physically de-teched until such time as the Google app that replaced the FitBit app is fixed to the point where it no longer hallucinates bicycles
READING: THE REVOLUTIONISTS, Jason Burke (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: a musician sent me her two new videos last night and I am playing them repeatedly today.

Also, THE ECHOING GREEN by Zachary Paul and Celia Eydeland:

And, while I was walking: MNMT 516: Conflation Port, because techno is good for walking.


LAST WATCHED: THE HOLCROFT COVENANT
DRINK: Flint Vineyard Rose

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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19may26

Published May 19, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Annoyingly, this is just a quick logging, as I lost yesterday to trying to figure out new accounting software I’ve been told to use which doesn’t seem to want to work for me, inbox is at 160, I have three unopened packages, and I’m a few days behind on work production.

So on Saturday afternoon I went to the Jazz Centre to see blues guitarist Chris Corcoran play.

And on Saturday evening I went to Konsztrukting Soundz, which I’m going to try and note in a separate post at some point, but one of the performers was harpist Rhodri Davies:

Accessions:

Rhodri Davies was selling CDs, and I noticed the Eliane Radigue piece he and his sister played on that I discovered online in January, and grabbed his TELYN RAWN at the same time.

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cold snap: 11may26

Published May 11, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Another cold snap. Had to take a rootbound acer out of a pot yesterday and plant it in the ground, sowed some seeds around it, so of course I woke up today to discover the local wildlife turned over the ground and tried to dig the acer out.

New newsletter went out yesterday, in which we are trying something new.

Found on Taco Bell Quarterly:

I think looping and iteration are very much a part of the creative process. Often I find myself starting with a feeling or an idea. I know I want to get to a place and then it’s just a matter of putting in the time, the thought, and the effort until I get there. You can be looping and looping, and then sometimes you’ll have a conversation with a friend, or you’ll encounter new ideas about technology while you’re working, and that’s what kicks off new ideas. Maybe you’re running a lot of loops simultaneously and they’re all informing each other—so it’s not so much a closed, but expansive system. I don’t think of loops as a trap.

Simon Reynolds’ Hauntology Parish Newsletter.

Accessions: the new Laura Cannell arrived.

OPERATIONS: dev day. Too many half-finished ideas and outlines hanging
STATUS: running all the damn heaters in the middle of May
READING: THE REVOLUTIONISTS, Jason Burke (UK) (US+)

…when Timothy Leary, the counterculture icon who advocated the use of hallucinogenic drugs, wanted to travel to Jordan he was rudely rebuffed.


LAST WATCHED: Season 1 of THE BOYS.

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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sailing by: 6may26

Published May 6, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Alex Senna.

Public Domain Review.

“Internet Cinema” at DO NOT RESEARCH

Accessions:

OCEANINE, Jolanda Moletta: digital-only for me, as the only other offering is vinyl, but necessary.

Oceanine, Jolanda Moletta’s third album and her first for Beacon Sound, is a powerful and ethereal statement of artistic community. Expanding on her previous work, each track represents a collaboration with a different female vocalist (see list below), with the foundational elements being generated entirely by her own voice.

PLAYFORD 1, Barn Hoppit: also digital-only, but fuck it, I love these people.

OPERATIONS: scripting day, converting up development notes
STATUS: it turned colder, so I’m staying in
READING: THE REVOLUTIONISTS, Jason Burke (UK) (US+), THE PASSAGE OF POWER: THE YEARS OF LYNDON JOHNSON Vol 4, Robert A Caro (UK) (US+)

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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fig: 4may26

Published May 4, 2026 by Warren Ellis

This is going to be a fig.

  • I am very much sick of people sticking -maxxing on the end of words, just like I’m sick of -punk as a suffix, but the looksmaxxer pentastack is worthy of note, the “enhancement” cocktail consisting of Adderall, dextromethorphan, pregabalin, ketamine… and an industrial solvent called BDO.
  • Cellular rejuvenation for life extension may actually have some possibilities
  • 4000 year old magical texts from Syria preserved on clay tablets! There’s an anti-witchcraft ritual in there, and get this:
  • “The purpose extended beyond personal protection. These rites aimed to stabilize political authority, ward off misfortune, and neutralize perceived supernatural dangers that could undermine a king’s rule. This reflects a broader Mesopotamian worldview in which cosmic order and political stability were inseparable. A threat from witches or malevolent forces was not merely spiritual—it was a potential crisis of governance.”
  • “A new study explores the role of sound in medieval English imagery. Employing a combined approach that integrates neurobiology and the framework of the “sound milieu,” the researcher argues that early medieval images were never “silent.” Instead, they could evoke imagined acoustic environments, allowing immersive, multisensory interaction with the scene.”

Accessions:

HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD was gifted me to the author, for which I am very grateful because it looks very much My Shit. BLANK SPACE had conflicting reviews, but when it showed up on Kindle for 99p, I figured I may as well find out for myself.

HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS THE WORLD, Robert Guffey (UK) (US+)

BLANK SPACE, W David Marx (UK) (US+)

OPERATIONS: Crash week. By Friday night I want to have moved at least eighty pages of material out of the office.
STATUS: Major reset. I’ve booked two gigs to go and see on the 16th and currently wondering where I can fit some small amounts of travel in. Inbox at 100, but a ton of those are delivery notifications
READING: THE REVOLUTIONISTS, Jason Burke (UK) (US+)

But despite the defeat of the Arab armies in 1948 they, like most of the approximately 750,000 Palestinian refugees scattered across the region, still believed they would one day regain their villages, land, businesses and property. The nakba, meaning simply ‘catastrophe’, as it became known, prompted feverish debate among the refugees and throughout the Middle East.


LISTENING: SONGDREAMING, Saadet Turkoz & Nils Wogram (UK) (US+)

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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29apr26

Published April 29, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Accessions:

Somehow missed this one on release. Showed up on a Kindle sale.

HOUSE OF DAY, HOUSE OF NIGHT, Olga Tokarczuk (UK) (US+)

PREVIOUSLY:

And I was given a late birthday present:

THE NOMA GUIDE TO BUILDING FLAVOUR, Rene Redzepi etc (UK) (US+)

PREVIOUSLY:

OPERATIONS: I need to finish a piece today, but my mind seems to be wandering towards a couple of new project requests I’ve received.
STATUS: 8hrs 26m sleep, finally clearing the sleep deficit. The wind is BOOMING out there.
READING: finished THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN, Giuliano da Empoli (UK) (US+) last night, back into HERE WHERE WE LIVE IS OUR COUNTRY, Molly Crabapple (UK) (US+)
LAST WATCHED: ARMAGEDDON was on last night and I always have to sit and watch at least the start, for the camera moves. The camera is always pushing in, in that first sequence, hurtling towards the scene.

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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certainly will not finish: 19apr26

Published April 19, 2026 by Warren Ellis

The next door neighbours are clearing their jungle of a garden and the mancub is furious.

I’ve just expired my entire RSS feed, removed some accounts, got rid of a couple of news provisions, and am gearing up for the new week, which needs to be very productive. I’m looking at a line of around 40pp of material out the door by Friday.

Something of a placeholder newsletter this week, as the whole operation is about to take a pivot.

I was out last night at Konsztrukting Soundz 24, (almost) all musicians represented in links here at the gig page.

The first set in particular was marvellous, an improvised 25-minute vocal piece. I love these evenings so much, not least because I never know what I’m going to hear – as I told the organiser before the show, I never listen to the acts in advance online, so I come with open ears.

I may have bought a few CDs that night:

It’s slightly chilly but very bright out there today. Soon as I put this down, I’m heading out there with a list of planned tasks that I certainly will not finish. This is the way of things.

OPERATIONS: none today
READING: finished THE GANG OF THREE: SOCRATES, PLATO, ARISTOTLE, Neel Burton (UK) (US+) last night

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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