wait; I'm an eminent manuscript?

Another day, another spam-bot that doesn’t have English as a first language.  Funny how these “journals” always need just the one more article, of just two pages.  The legitimate journals I’m involved with don’t have that breathtaking degree of precision on page numbers.  Maybe we’re missing a trick?

Dear Dr. S Stepney,

Good Morning…..!

Can we have your article for successful release of Volume2 Issue 5 in our Journal?
Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research (BJSTR) having Impact Factor 0.548.

In fact, we are in need of one article to accomplish the Issue prior 10th of March; we hope that the single manuscript should be yours. If this is a short notice please do send 2 page opinion/mini review/case report, we hope 2 page article isn’t time taken for eminent people like you.

Your trust in my efforts is the highest form of our motivation, I believe in you that you are eminent manuscript brings out the best citation to our Journal.

Anticipate for your promising response.

Sincerely,
Angela Roy | Associate Editor | Biomedical Journal

I note that the previous 20th February publishing apocalypse deadline has been extended to the 10th of March.

I know some people can mix up “your” and “you’re”.  This is the fist time I’ve seen a mix up between “your” and “you are”, however.  Hence my asserted existence as an eminent manuscript.

Oh, and my “promising response”?  I promise to name and shame.  For the record, here’s a (growing) list of the spam-so-far:

• Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research (BJSTR) 
• Current Trends in Biomedical Engineering & Biosciences
• Interventions in Pediatric Dentistry (IPDOAJ)
• Modern Approaches in Dentistry and Oral Health Care (MADOHC)
• Orthoplastic Surgery & Orthopedic Care International Journal
• World Congress on Dental and Oral Health, Las Vegas

sequestering carbon, several books at a time LXXXI

The latest batch:

book review: Down Among the Sticks and Bones

Seanan McGuire.
Down Among the Sticks and Bones.
Tor. 2017

---

We first meet ‘identical’ twins Jack, apprentice to a mad scientist, and Jill, wannabe vampire, in Every Heart a Doorway. This is their backstory: their terrible life in Mundania, their escape to their own fantasy land, their training there and how it made and broke them, and why they returned back to their parents’ house (I cannot say to their home).

This is another novella, and so not much space to spare on inessentials. I suppose it is necessary to spend several chapters to show why their prior home life as Jacqueline and Jillian is so bad that the fantasy land is such a release. But I would have like to see more of Jack’s life in particular: apprentice to a mad scientist. We move very briskly from their arrival to their pitchfork-assisted departure, and get to understand very well why they end up as they do.

I’m very glad that Wayward Children has turned out to be a series.

---

For all my book reviews, see my main website.

book review: All Systems Red

Martha Wells.
All Systems Red.
Tor. 2017

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Planetary survey missions must be accompanied by a Security Unit: a protection robot supplied by the lowest bidder. The current survey team don’t know that their SecUnit calls itself ‘Murderbot’, and has overridden its governor module. But when mysterious things start happening, they are going to be very glad it has.

This is a zippy little novella, just 150pp of snark as we listen to Murderbot narrate its story, and discover more about its background. There’s not time for a lot of character development other than the first person narrator, but we get an interesting world, an engaging protagonist, and the set-up for a lot more action and robot-soul-searching.

This makes a good contrast with that other recent ‘robot learning to live in a human world’ tale, A Closed and Common Orbit. They are quite different in feel, but both are thought-provoking.

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For all my book reviews, see my main website.

TV review: Arrow, season 4

My name is Oliver Queen. After five years in hell, I returned home with only one goal: to save my city. But my old approach wasn’t enough. I had to become someone else. I had to become something else. I had to become … the Green Arrow.

At the end of last season, Oliver and Felicity drove off into the sunset, leaving the Scooby Gang to keep Star City free of bad guys, while they tried to get over the way Oliver had deceived them all.

At the beginning of this season, Oliver and Felicity return, to help out with a new Big Bad. There’s lots of confusion and deception, as we discover who Damien Darhk is, where he gets his power from (including a nice parallel Island of Hell story), what Felicity’s codename is, whether Oliver will win the race for Mayor, who is going to get killed (not a spoiler, as we see Oliver crouching by a gravestone early on), and whether Oliver can go for a season without deceiving his friends about Important Facts in order to Protect Them (hint: he can’t).

The stakes are higher than ever: Darhk is after much more than the destruction of Star City. And with a cross-over episode with the Flash, and some weird time travel changing the past/future, Oliver manages to screw up his relationship with Felicity twice.

By the end of season, everyone has been put through the wringer. And many arrows have been shot.

---

For all my SF TV reviews, see my main website.

book review: Witches of Lychford

Paul Cornell.
Witches of Lychford.
Tor. 2015

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Judith is one of the few people in Lychford who can see the Truth: the proposed new supermarket will destroy the protection the town has against the beings that live on its borders. But no-one believes a mad old woman.

Lizzie, the local vicar, should have been briefed about the town’s needs when she took up her post. But the old ways are being lost, and she has not been brought up to date.

Autumn, Lizzie’s childhood friend, who became estranged when Lizzie joined the church, is a sceptical scientist, yet she runs the local magic shop. She would be a key part of the town’s defence, but she can’t bring herself to believe what happened to her in those lost years.

This is only 140pp long, so counts as a novella rather than a novel. But it packs a lot of content into its relatively few pages, and I found it to be a compelling story. We get to see the menace of the proposed new supermarket unfold through the eyes of three unlikely, and somewhat unwilling, allies. After an excellent build-up, things come to a head rather quickly, but with a satisfactory conclusion. Although this one disaster has been averted, I’m sure there is more trouble awaiting our trio around the corner.

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For all my book reviews, see my main website.

book review: Blood Engines

T. A. Pratt.
Blood Engines.
Bantam. 2007

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Marla Mason is the witch in charge of Felport, but maybe not for much longer: a challenger is preparing a spell that could destroy her. So she’s gone to San Fransisco with her not-entirely-human sidekick Rondeau, to track down the one artefact that can help her. But her old friend who knows its location has been killed. Marla finds herself in a lot more trouble than just dodging a rival trying to take over her city: someone is trying to take over the whole world. And unless Marla can get her act together, he might just succeed.

This starts off with Marla being too much of an idiot. She’s supposed to be a reasonably competent witch, but she keeps arrogantly ignoring someone who just happens to pop into her life at key moments. But after a few chapters of ineffective running around, she eventually decides to notice the seer, and things start moving. It turns into a snappy and rather imaginative urban fantasy witch-against-the-big-bad tale, with an exciting denouement, an interesting resolution of her original problem, and some decisions that are going to come back to bite her later.

I’ll never look at hummingbirds in quite the same way again.

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For all my book reviews, see my main website.

but presumably not with Gaul

For those of you who don’t know, the bloke in the picture is Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, Brexiteer, and a potential contender for Leader of the Conservative party (and hence, Prime Minister).

Yes, really.

(For those in further doubt, the picture is real, but the quote is Private Eye’s.)

it's not just dentistry...

I’ve been getting a lot of suspiciously similar spam requests from dentistry “journals”.  Today, I got one from a less specific journal, but it looks like it’s from a remarkably similar bot that doesn’t have English as a first language:

Dear Dr. Susan Stepney,

Hope all is well at your end.

We are happy to inform your that Juniper publishers have recently indexed in International Scientific Indexing (ISI) an another mile stone in publications that have been achieved by the support of eminent like you.

Hence, we are in shortfall of article for successful release of Volume 12, Issue 3. Is it possible for you to support us with your 2 page Opinion or Mini Review for this issue before 20th February?

Once again, I honestly request you to be a part in the success of our Journal.

Please acknowledge this email receipt within 24 hours.

Sincerely,
Denuelle Bennett
Current Trends in Biomedical Engineering & Biosciences (ISSN: 2572-1151)

I’m not sure what publishing apocalypse is happening on the oft-quoted 20 February, but it’s rapidly approaching!

Also, what’s with the “Hence”?  How does the shortfall follow from the indexing?  Or am I overthinking things again?


For the record, here’s a list of the spam-so-far:

• Current Trends in Biomedical Engineering & Biosciences
• Interventions in Pediatric Dentistry (IPDOAJ)
• Modern Approaches in Dentistry and Oral Health Care (MADOHC)
• Orthoplastic Surgery & Orthopedic Care International Journal
• World Congress on Dental and Oral Health, Las Vegas

okay, this is getting silly

Just how many spam dentistry journals are there?

I thought the earlier dental request was silly.  Today I got two more spams, one from "Crimson Publishers":

Dear Dr. S Stepney,

Good Morning…..!

Can we have your article for successful release of Volume 1 Issue 3 in our Journal OOIJ?

We are in need of one article to accomplish the Issue prior 20th February. We hope that the single manuscript should be yours. If this is a short notice please do send 2 page opinion/mini review/case report, we hope 2 page article isn’t time taken for eminent people like you.

Please, track the below link for manuscript submission
http://crimsonpublishers.com/online-submission.php

Anticipate for your promising response.

Sincerely,
Lacey Spencer
Orthoplastic Surgery & Orthopedic Care International Journal

and another one from "Lupine Publishers":

Dear Dr. S Stepney,

Good morning! You’re up for great things today.

I would like to inform you that in this instance, we are in need of One Research Article to apply for ISSN for the Modern Approaches in Dentistry and Oral Health Care (MADOHC).

Could you possibly arrange this by 20th of February?

Hope your continuous support for our journal.

Regards,
Susan Robert

I am a bit tempted to plagiarise a well-known paper in this area and submit it.  But not that tempted.  Yet.

sequestering carbon, several books at a time LXXX

The latest batch (we were running out of shelf space, so put up another couple of shelves, then immediately went to Amazon...)

chewing over a request

Another spam dentistry journal request.  I’ve had a higher proportion of dentistry spam due to one published paper (which isn’t about dentistry), than computer science spams from all the rest of my papers.  Dentistry must be big bucks.  But I don’t think this particular journal has much of a future, if they are so desperate as to ask me for their inaugural issue!

Dear Dr. S Stepney,

Good Morning!

We are in shortfall of one article for successful release of Inaugural Issue of our Interventions in Pediatric Dentistry: Open Access Journal (IPDOAJ).

Is it possible for you to support us with your manuscript for this issue before 25th of February? If this is a short notice please do send 2 page mini review/case report / Review Article /Research Article, we hope 2 page article isn’t time taken for eminent like you.

We are confident that you are always will be there to support us.

Await your response.

Sincerely,

Nancy Ronald

From Lupine Publishers no less: it’s like they are advertising their predatory nature!

moar Lego

What my other half gets up to: