I recently started reading Becky Chambers, one of the leading voices of cozy sci-fi. As she neatly puts it:

Cozy science-fiction can be very simply summed up as stories that tell you that the future can be good.

Although I love dystopias, I believe cozy sci-fi has its place. Endless pessimism simply isn't healthy.

I've come to realize that, over the past few months, I had begun to cultivate the same kind of mindset through something very simple: walking.

More recently, I read Way Station by Clifford #Simak. Amazing novel! And it's packed full of cozy sci-fi tropes: optimism, quietness, slowness, a sense of wonder, and meaningful connections.

One detail in particular caught my attention. Enoch Wallace, the protagonist, takes daily walks. Walking mattered to him. Lately, it has come to matter to me as well.

Three months ago, I started walking just 30 minutes a day to move a bit more. Since then, I’ve gradually increased the distance to 15,000–20,000 steps a day, split into two sessions.

It has done me a world of good. In many ways, walking is a deeply “cozy” activity. It slows things down. It creates space for the mind to wander, lessens anxiety, boosts mood for hours and sometimes the entire day... I could keep going for a while. As the saying goes, motion is lotion. But to sum it up, it's a kind of healthy mental bubble. As Simak writes:

He walked as if he had all the time there was.

And to quote the American philosopher Thoreau:

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

_

Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.

_

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least — and it is commonly more than that — sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.

If you decide to pick up the habit, I recommend you start small and listen to your body. Don't overdo it at first, and gradually increase. Overtraining is a real thing.

To bring things full circle: if you want to delve into cozy sci-fi yourself, I highly recommend Becky Chambers' Monk & Robot novellas duology (but most of her other books fill the bill). Here's the wiki page for the first one. I also recommend the aforementioned novel Way Station. Together, these three make a solid starter pack.

#thoughts

Image: Julia Royer (copyright 2026)

Probably looking further.

Tons of great authors are Americans, but man, America isn't the only country. Don't misunderstand me though, as a Frog I love the US of A.

I've discovered some amazing Nigerian authors, which is awesome. But what about Ukrainians or South-East Asians? I'm dying to know. As always, don't hesitate to contact me, whether you live in Ankara, Dallas or Phnom Penh. Anywhere there is a burgeoning SF scene. My email is in the “About” section. And I'll inquire by myself anyway.

Any other suggestion welcome.

I was no longer exploring the internet; I merely existed on it. My time online was dominated by consumption – reading, watching, scrolling – but the thrill of discovery was gone. I was constantly absorbing content, but it felt hollow, unsatisfying – Joan Westenberg

—

When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. So create – Why the Lucky Stiff

#thoughts

Drawing: Sei – Ifeoluwase Taiwo (2026) (Instagram)

Today, mass was said for my father, the regretted JC (initials like that can't be made up!). Maximum respect for JC, “le grand chef”, as he was called by the aristocrats as well as the drug dealers of Nanterre. JC drank to make his buddies laugh. One day, one of his friends told him: you don't need to drink to make us laugh. He didn't forget that, but that's not why he stopped. He stopped later, for yet another reason. With JC, I talked a lot. He was a salesman, a good salesman. He told me one day: in life, everything is sales, and in concrete terms that means first of all listening, then putting yourself in the other person's shoes. I'd forgotten that, now I remember. JC had a lot of friends, from all walks of life. I got that quality from him. JC left without saying aDIEU, but I think that now he's well surrounded, because he deserved it (he gave my mother 10 years of Paradise, his last ten years in all sobriety)

#thoughts

Drawing: Julia Royer (copyright 2026)

For me, there are three different ways of reading. Depending on what I'm reading, I choose the appropriate type of reading. Today, I'm going to talk to you about one of them: attentive reading.

• speed reading. It's appropriate for long technical documents where you only need to retain the essentials. Certainly not for novels! Woody Allen famously said: “I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia” (heh).
• Attentive reading: reading carefully. Weighing up each word while remaining conscious of the fact that you're reading. Appropriate for texts of a philosophical or theological nature, for example.
• Immersive reading: I'm talking about good novels and being immersed in them. You're not even aware that you're reading, you're in it.

Let's talk about attentive reading in more detail. To illustrate what I'm talking about, I've chosen a quote from the manga Hunter x Hunter, by Yoshiro Togashi. Background: the manga's main hero is on a quest to find his father. It's the main goal of his life. At one point, the hero receives a message from his father. Here's the quote:

You should enjoy the little detours to the fullest. Because that's where you'll find the things more important than what you want.

For this quote, the most appropriate way to read it is to use attentive (careful) reading. Indeed, the Hunter x Hunter manga is considered by all its readers to be a masterpiece, and it's safe to say that Togashi knows what he says.

So let's reread this quote carefully.

You should enjoy (...) to the fullest: it's not an obligation, but in my opinion you should take it in (to savour the feeling it brings) of...

the little detours: a detour is a route that deviates from the direct path. Of course, it's a temporary deviation, and there comes a time when you have to go back in the direction of your initial destination. If we now take into account the context of the quote recalled above, we understand that the final destination in question, the one where we arrive (or not) after having taken detours is the ultimate goal, the goal of life. Some people have such a goal in life. Others wonder. Some others never think about it. The detours in question must remain “small” so as not to lose sight of the initial objective.

Because that's where you'll find the things more important than what you want: I'll get back to it later (sorry).

Now there comes a time when attentive reading is no longer enough. You need to experience it. My theory is that Togashi intended to reserve the meaning of his sentences for the readers who experienced it, in the same way that numbers stations work. These are supposed to be used by foreign intelligence agencies. If this is the case, their message is coded and intended to be understood only by certain listeners. Here's an example:

Let's take a little detour, shall we? If you're stumbling across this website for the first time from God knows where and don't know where to start, my advice is: start with this! You can trust me on that. And if we take a detour within the detour: for me, reading a beloved author is like talking to an old friend (Léon Bloy, if you're reading me from where you are: salut l'ami !).

I've been wondering about the meaning of this quote for a while now. But last night, on my way home from a walk, I took a little detour. I found, in Togashi's words, something more important than what I wanted (i.e. to go home).

Don't be afraid to take the occasional (small) detour.

#thoughts

photo: Light (John Storm)

I started with Vietnam, a country I'm particularly fond of (I spent the best year of my life there), but the SF scene there is almost non-existent and the few stories I've read aren't very good.

With the help of a Polish friend, the next few weeks will be devoted to finding good untranslated Polish stories.

Finally, if you yourself are fluent in an Eastern language and would like to collaborate with me, please don't hesitate to contact me: sfss_spacefrontier7@proton.me

NB: any other suggestions/comments are welcome.

#thoughts

A simple tip

If you come here (or elsewhere) from your mobile phone and want to immerse yourself fully in the story, I suggest that you put your phone in “do not disturb” mode or turn off invasive notifications (WhatsApp, Facebook etc.).

Photo: “silence...” – Thomas Leuthard CC BY 2.0

#thoughts

Random thoughts

Creative Commons

Recently, I began to immerse myself in Creative Commons literature.

In principle, I can only agree with the existence of CC licenses. Plus they are well designed and quite flexible, but then I've stumbled on tons of crappy stories.

I was about to give up when I came across the writings of Peter #Watts and Lewis #Shiner. I hope I'll discover new authors.

Short stories

The shorter the better.

Reading on a computer is fine for texts of reasonable size, but beyond that it's unpleasant.

And of course, even if the blog looks great on mobile – it's almost as nice as reading an ebook on the Kindle app or an epub app – on a phone, unless you cut the notifications and restrict the use of certain apps for a given period of time, it has become difficult to be able to read even a short article in one go...

#thoughts

Photo: A rainy day at the Biblioteca Marciana and the Procuratie nuove palace in Venice – Wolfgang Moroder (some rights reserved)

#anderson #asimov #bester #bradbury #brown #delrey #PKDick #harrison #herbert #kuttner #lafferty #lovecraft #rand #sheckley #smith #voltaire #simak #vance #vonnegut #yarov #wells

Creative Commons license

#blume #doctorow #shiner #stallman #watts

Standard copyright

#abbott #burnett #standre #ubg #weir

Other

#français #shortinterviews #shortmovies #thoughts

Interviews

• Patrick Abbott
• Adedapo Adeniyi
• Neal Asher
• Misha Burnett
• Travis Corcoran
• Cory Doctorow
• Lewis Shiner
• Wole Talabi
• Marie Vibbert
• Peter Watts