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20jan26

Published January 20, 2026 by Warren Ellis

I found a weird little object online – a USB reader for floppy discs. I still have a few boxes of floppy discs from way back when that I didn’t throw out. There’s a fair chance they’re all as corrupted and rotted as shit now, but I picked up said weird little object and I’m going to see if any of those disks are recoverable. Chances are they have a lot of old Marvel, DC and Wildstorm stuff on, and while it’s not crucial to have copies of those old scripts, and they would be painful to look at, I feel like it would be kind of nice to possess them again. I’ve had so many hard drive and storage issues over the years, so many lost scripts and documents and emails, that I’ve gotten used to considering it all volatile and ephemeral and have learned not to be upset at losing things and to let go of things. To be able to recover just a handful of old pieces would have its pleasures.

In retrospect, I should have printed off literally everything and gotten filing cabinets and, I dunno, a full library system or a zettelkasten index or something, and stayed analogue. I have this memory of a bit in the old MAX HEADROOM show where Blank Reg tries to sell a cyberpunk kid a book on the grounds that it’s a “non-volatile storage medium.” Oh, bugger me, the clip’s on YouTube-

TODAY:

Accessions:

CUTS BOTH WAYS, Ed James (UK) (US+)

The 9th Rob Marshall book. I have a great fondness for these less than cosy Scottish crime novels. This one seems to be in the nature of a put pilot for a new series, so it’s probably not the one to start with.

OPERATIONS: script, foreword, prose series development, outline, newsletter
STATUS: what is this outside world you speak of
READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: Night Tracks
LAST WATCHED: GERHARD RICHTER PAINTING

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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19jan26

Published January 19, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Stephen Willats

I fully intended to walk outside to get coffee and sit with the notebook this morning, but it’s pushing noon and I’m still in the office chair, probably getting piles and trying to deal with the day’s problems. Pretty much all of which are of my own making, because email and messages are silent. I’d even thought about getting a cab down to Leigh to visit the new Little Fin cafe, but no, here I am reading a PDF for a book I’m running out of time to write the foreword for, looking at the research materials for a prose thing I only have 12 days left to land, and figuring out ways to somehow bring my venerable and moribund newsletter back from the dead.

Everything feels weirdly silent today. Can the internet hold its breath?

New issue of NEURAL magazine arrived, so that’s tonight sorted.

TODAY:

OPERATIONS: script, foreword, outline
READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: The Early Music Show
LAST WATCHED: three more episodes of MOONSHINERS: MASTER DISTILLER

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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17jan26

Published January 17, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Abruptly stopped feeling like winter at all. It’s like 9 or 10 C out there today.

I’m posting this late because I’ve been trying to assemble flatpack storage boxes to collect CDs into so that I have a little more space in the office to throw shit out so I can get new shelving in here to unpack all the CDs into. Which is a ridiculous vicious circle because I have nowhere to put the boxes I’m filling CDs with. We’ve been living here more than thirty years and we’ve filled the fucking place. And the kid moved out a dozen years ago, so it’s just the two of us and three cats. Very much reaching that “what if I just put the cats in boxes, put them outside and then threw a lit match into the house” point.

TODAY:

TELEMETRY:

  • Pontiac Spirits (ghost mix) by The Besnard Lakes

Accessions:

Molly Crabapple’s new book finally entered pre-orders for Kindle, so I bought one now for delivery in April. It is getting some great blurbs and early shouts.

I recently read da Empoli’s THE HOUR OF THE PREDATOR (notes to come), which was very good, so when I saw WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN on sale I snapped it up.

HERE WHERE WE LIVE IS OUR COUNTRY, Molly Crabapple (UK) (US+)

THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN, Giuliano da Empoli (UK) (US+)

Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore’s TRAGIC MAGIC just released – my CD copy will be in the post next month, apparently, but I’ve grabbed the mp3s down and they’ll be stuffed onto a SD card for my mp3 player sometime this weekend.

OPERATIONS: picked up a new consult job yesterday – the next thirteen days are rammed and I need to move faster.
STATUS: Slept better, but now it’s time to resume the work of properly disconnecting from the phone in the evenings. Trying to hunt down my old cookbooks – where the fuck did I put the Faviken and Noma books? Everything in the house feels very chaotic and disorganised and I don’t have enough hours in the day. Need to make more blood orange orangeade tonight – herself has discovered she likes it with elderflower tonic.
READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: Ultimate Calm, currently
LAST WATCHED: MOONSHINERS: MASTER DISTILLER. Three episodes. Because I unashamedly love that fucking show.

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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16jan26

Published January 16, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Hello from out here in the Thames Delta. I haven’t written here in a few days, so I’m attempting to make a fresh start with a single daily note for a while.

TODAY:

TELEMETRY:

Accessions:

I was bad at the start of the year and bought myself a few books in Kindle sales. I presume they both do what it says on the tins.

  • THE REVOLUTIONISTS, Jason Burke (UK) (US+)
  • THE VISIONARIES, Wolfram Eilenburger (UK) (US+)

OPERATIONS: production has been, frankly, fucked this week. I have a script to land and I still need to rebuild the template for the newsletter. Two weeks into the new year and I’m at least four weeks behind.
STATUS: Haven’t been feeling my best and it’s been one of those weeks here where nobody seems to want to allow me the sole uninterrupted use of my own (very tired) brain. Best night’s sleep in a week – 8hrs 7m.
READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (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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12jan26

Published January 12, 2026 by Warren Ellis

I blew off everything last night: made harissa lamb shanks with truffled mashed potato, then a jar of cold ginger tea, then a jar of blood orange orangeade. But it turns out I still can’t make hummus.

TODAY:

  • Here in the UK, Ofcom is “investigating” X over sexual deepfakes, which could lead to a fine of 10% of X’s global revenue, while Musk is appearing in public with Pete Hegseth, signalling a return to the Trump administration fold.
  • Erich von Daniken died. At least one generation will remember his weird books being on the shelves of every charity shop in the world.
  • Autofocusing eyeglasses. (which makes me smile, see STATUS below)

OPERATIONS: Today is scripting and figuring out my schedule for the next few weeks, because I am appallingly behind and need to sort myself out.
STATUS: My near vision has been slowly deteriorating over the last five years or so, and I’ve been needing very strong light to read some print. Herself saw me struggling to read a small-print label yesterday, and handed me a pair of her +2 reading glasses that were laying around, as an experiment. And suddenly holy shit. Mortifying. I held on to the glasses and spent an hour reading THE NOMA GUIDE TO FERMENTATION without needing a powerful reading light. I’m 58 next month and have just ordered my first pair of reading glasses. I am mortified, to be honest.
READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+) and THE NOMA GUIDE TO FERMENTATION (UK) (US+)
LISTENING:


LAST WATCHED: rewatching SMILEY’S PEOPLE on iPlayer

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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morning computer greenland

Published January 12, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Dennis Lehtohen’s villages of Greenland.

From April 2025:

American tech entrepreneurs have opened up talks with officials about placing research-oriented freedom cities on the island of Greenland, according to a report in Reuters.

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Last week, news website Reuters reported that at least three anonymized sources had claimed investors in America’s tech industry have been eyeing the island, owned by Denmark, as a site for new cities.

According to the reports, the communities would be freedom cities, established with minimal regulations to promote business.

Reuters reported that the “discussions are in early stages” but suggested that the plans are being “taken seriously” by the prospective US ambassador to Denmark, Ken Howery.

“The vision for Greenland, one of the people said, could include a hub for artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, space launches, micro nuclear reactors and high-speed rail,” reported Reuters.

February 2-8, 2025: 2 °C warming locked in, Greenland melt worsens, geoengineering hopes, Indian coal rates, wet bulb heat thresholds, global debt hits $323T, heavy metal pollution in China, UK Food Security report, 1M American kids with Long COVID, Swedish mass shooting, Philippines death threats against president, USAID closure, thousands killed in eastern DRC, hypernormalization…

morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.

My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/

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15dec25

Published December 15, 2025 by Warren Ellis

The midnight salvia is somehow still going. I need to start rebuilding and replanning the garden next month.

TODAY:

OPERATIONS: Basically, all the things.
STATUS: One of those days where you just wake up exhausted. It’s a damp day. Email is full of delivery notifications. Also I have to start wrapping Xmas gifts and do a small repair on a sack – a few years ago I bought a personalised gifts sack for herself from Fortnum’s, and one of the letters of her name has started peeling off. Am I the arse who buys personalsed large gift sacks from Fortnum and Mason? I am.
READING: THE CELESTIAL HUNTER, Roberto Calasso
LISTENING: UNCLASSIFIED
LAST WATCHED: A episode and a half of THE WAR BETWEEN THE LAND AND THE SEA, which I do not need to see any more of

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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6dec25

Published December 6, 2025 by Warren Ellis

TODAY:

I need to get around 10 pages of script and probably one rough outline out the door today. I also have 3000 unread stories in my RSS reader! Most of me is ready to curl up somewhere with a book.

Currently rebuilding the board for the newsletter, which returns on 11 January 2026.

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AUTOCRACY INC, Anne Applebaum 

Published November 18, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Many of the propagandists of Autocracy, Inc., have learned from the mistakes of the twentieth century. They don’t offer their fellow citizens a vision of utopia, and they don’t inspire them to build a better world. Instead, they teach people to be cynical and passive, because there is no better world to build. Their goal is to persuade people to mind their own business, stay out of politics, and never hope for a democratic alternative: Our state may be corrupt, but everyone else is corrupt too. You may not like our leader, but the others are worse. You may not like our society, but at least we are strong and the democratic world is weak, degenerate, divided, dying.

A short grim book. It details how the world’s tyrants have formed a kind of dark web that insulates them against actions by liberal democracies, including the economic weapons derailed in CHOKEPOINTS. It’s grim reading – Applebaum is a coldly angry writer. There aren’t any laughs. But the details are really interesting.

In 2023, the FBI arrested two people for operating an illegal Chinese “police station” in New York City, a set of offices used by Chinese security officers to monitor Chinese citizens and dissidents. The Dutch government says it has uncovered two illegal Chinese police stations in the Netherlands as well, and there are accounts and rumors of others.

Love the detail of it, hating all the horror stories – including the Chinse cyber influence op that caused a social media mob that led a Taiwanese diplomat to kill himself. It’s important reading, but not happy reading.

Like the founders of so many other successful start-ups, the original investors in Wagner’s African operation appear to be contemplating the creation of a franchise. A team from Britain’s Royal United Services Institute has described the current Russian offer to sitting dictators and would-be dictators as a “regime survival package.” This bundle of aid can include personal protection for the dictator; violent assaults on his political enemies; help in fighting an insurgency; broadcast or social media campaigns that echo the themes of multipolarity and anticolonialism; kleptocratic contacts that help the elite hide money (and possibly benefit the Russians as well).

AUTOCRACY INC, Anne Applebaum (UK) (US+)

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The Polycene

Published November 10, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Many climate scientists call our current epoch the “Anthropocene” — the first human-driven climate era. Many technologists call it the “Information Age” or now the “Artificial Intelligence Age.” Some strategists prefer to call it “the Return of Geopolitics” or, as the historian Robert Kagan put it, “the Jungle Grows Back.”

But none of these labels capture the full fusion taking place between accelerating climate change and rapid transformations in technology, biology, cognition, connectivity, material science, geopolitics and geoeconomics. They have set off an explosion of all sorts of things combining with all sorts of other things — so much so that everywhere you turn these days binary systems seem be giving way to poly ones. Artificial intelligence is hurtling toward “polymathic artificial general intelligence,” climate change is cascading into “poly-crisis,” geopolitics is evolving into “polycentric” and “polyamorous” alignments, once-binary trade is dispersing into “poly-economic” supply webs, and our societies are diversifying into ever more “polymorphic” mosaics.

As a foreign affairs columnist, I now have to track the impact and interactions of not only superpowers, but also super-intelligent machines, super-empowered individuals taking advantage of technology to extend their reach and super-global corporations,as well as super-storms and super-failing states, like Libya and Sudan.

I was musing about all this one day with Craig Mundie, the former head of research and strategy at Microsoft. I told him that in nearly every domain I was writing about lately, the old binary left-right systems were giving way to multiple interconnected ones, and, in the process, shattering the coherence of both the Cold War and post-Cold War paradigms.

At one point Mundie said to me, “I know what you should call this new era: the Polycene.”

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