"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Qin Shi Huang and his love for Mercury

Qin Shi Huang was the guy who basically invented the concept of “Emperor” in China, around 250 b.C., and I’m sure you’re familiar with his grand Terracotta Army. A thing you might be less familiar with? His love for mercury.

In order to boost some of his shapeshifting abilities and when the shit hits the fan, my main character sometimes drinks a mixture he calls amalgama, which is basically any mineral alloy with mercury in it, and it’s basically the only practical way to have liquid metal at hand without going full-on Smaug. While he does that, he warns the readers that the stuff will get them killed and briefly mentions Qin Shi Huang, but why?

We take a look at that today on my Patreon.
Summertime

Omeros in the Caribbeans

Derek Walcott was a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, and painter, and one of the major voices of Caribbean literature. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992, and his work often explores Caribbean history, identity, colonial inheritance, and the meeting of European and African

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August 9, 2026 6:00 am
books and literature

Ioanna Papadopoulou’s The Castaway and the Witch

I had a genuine “oh shit” moment when I read the author’s preface saying this was darker than “Winter Harvest” because – and I absolutely ADORED “Winter Harvest” – that was pitch-black dark. I thought “we’re all going to die”. This maybe has something to

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August 8, 2026 9:00 am
Summertime

The Path You Have to Sing

Alexis Wright‘s Carpentaria, an epic work set in a fictional town called Desperance, opens before there are any people in it at all: an ancestral serpent, “a creature larger than storm clouds,” descends from the stars and drags itself across the wet clay of the

Read More »
August 8, 2026 6:00 am
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Omeros in the Caribbeans

August 9, 2026

Derek Walcott was a Saint Lucian poet, playwright, and painter, and one of the major voices of Caribbean literature. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992, and his work often explores Caribbean history, identity, colonial inheritance, and the meeting of European and African

Read More

Ioanna Papadopoulou’s The Castaway and the Witch

August 8, 2026

I had a genuine “oh shit” moment when I read the author’s preface saying this was darker than “Winter Harvest” because – and I absolutely ADORED “Winter Harvest” – that was pitch-black dark. I thought “we’re all going to die”. This maybe has something to

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The Path You Have to Sing

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Alexis Wright‘s Carpentaria, an epic work set in a fictional town called Desperance, opens before there are any people in it at all: an ancestral serpent, “a creature larger than storm clouds,” descends from the stars and drags itself across the wet clay of the

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