R.T. Ester

@shoutoutmapes

THE GANYMEDAN (Out now from Solaris Books) Agent: Jason Yarn He/him

972 Siguiendo2842 Seguidores1998 Publicaciones

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R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· 28d

Interzone 305 is here!

NTERZONE 305
INTERZONE.PRESS/PATREON
IZ 305
FEATURING:
ALIYA WHITELEY
REBECCA
NICK LOWE
UNA
JOSH PEARCE
KELLY
E.G.CONDE
PAUL
NICK
BEN TUFNELL
MAME BOUGOUMA DIENE P AAL
VAL NOLAN
RACHAEL CUPP
COREY JAE WHITE
ALEXANDER
COVER ART based on a detail from PHILOCTETES IN THE
ISLAND OF LEMNOS by JAMES BARRY
ZAHABI
MCCORMACK
JENNINGS
KINCAID
MAMATAS
MCAULEY
GLASS

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· 29d

Made a friend

Great blue heron aura farming at the grassy edge of a pond. Morning.

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Jul 8

Tried to get my steps in this morning on my way to work

'Is there someone you forgot to ask meme' template. Kevin Hart, well dressed = boyfriend. Sidewalk = girlfriend. Sun = Jesus

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Jul 7

Talk your shit, King

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Jun 28

Missing him more every day

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Jun 23

If you enjoyed Altered Carbon or The Expanse or Murderbot, you may also enjoy this one. It's called The Ganymedan by R.T. Ester, and it's available to read here (free shipping today for anti-prime day): bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Jun 18

Jordon Gordon-Leavitt

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Jun 13

The face I make when one of the contenders isn't being very respectful of the view

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Jun 10

The driveway of a house with red spray paint on the garage doors reading 'stop now, don't email my wife'

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Jun 9

Left work today looking like this

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Jun 6

Listening and learning

Post from threads:

"Hey celebrities, before you get too comfy here, I want to cover a few important things: We DO NOT do celebrity worship here. You're just another person. We DO care who you voted for and what you..."

davidkrumholtz:
This is actually othering and bullying
lifeandalex

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· May 30

Reviews for The Ganymedan on goodreads 👀

"...an astonishing debut ambitious, intelligent, and unafraid to stare into the
abyss of consciousness and morality."

"Very nearly perfect..."

"Heartfelt, intelligent, and darkly funny at times, The Ganymedan is a breath of
fresh air."

"Sci-fi that engages with tropes and actually does something with them: sentient robots, evil rich humans and the depravities they stoop to..."

"A dark and hauntingly melancholic science fiction novel full of mystery and a vivid, gritty atmosphere."

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· May 23

Shot of USS Voyager. "Week of hell (part 21)

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· May 23

Low angle shot of USS Voyager. Caption: "SALAMANDER EPISODE"

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· May 15

They did the meme

Meme of Trump as a CPC party member. "The bullet pierced my ear, but I can still hear the voice of the Party."

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· May 8

New type of guy discovered on my morning walk: 🐍

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Apr 21

What a picture

Screenshot from The Phoenician Scheme. Benicio Del Toro as Korba in a desert background. "Help yourself to a hand grenade."

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Apr 17

Happy World Public Transit day to me 🚈🚈🚈🚈🚈

Two button pins in bright red and purple.

"DART celebrates world public transit day."

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Apr 7

Insane stuff

Brainstorming sessions often
produce outlandish ideas. Hedley
hoped that this one, which came to
be known internally as the "countries
plan,"would be dropped. Instead,
according to several people involved
and to contemporaneous documents,
OpenAI executives seemed to grow
only more excited about it.
Brockman's goal, according to Jack
Clark, OpenAI's policy director at
the time, was to "set up, basically, a
prisoner's dilemma, where all of the
nations need to give uS funding 3 and
that "implicitly makes not giving us
funding kind of dangerous." A junior
researcher recalled thinking, as the
plan was detailed at a company
meeting, "This is completely fucking
insane.

He was aghast: "The premise, which
they didn't dispute, was 'We're
talking about potentially the most
destructive technology ever invented
what if we sold it to Putin?'"
(Brockman maintains that he never
seriously entertained auctioning A.I.
models to governments. Ideas were
batted around at a high level about
what potential frameworks might
look like to encourage cooperation
between nations- something akin to
an International Space Station for
AI," an OpenAI representative said.
'Attempting to characterize it as
anything more than that is utterly
ridiculous.

Executives discussed the approach
with at least one potential donor
But later that month, after several
employees talked about quitting, the
plan was abandoned. Altman "would
lose staff," Hedley said. "I feel like
that was always something that had
more weight in Sam's calculations
than 'This is not a good plan because
it might cause a war between great
powers. ) "

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Mar 30

This is clearly a deceptive practice but I'll be honest i dont feel too bad for any passenger who thought they had booked a nonstop flight. There has to be a reason you didn't want to just get on a bus to start with. A really good reason.

One woman, traveling from South Bend
Indiana, to Chicago O'Hare, cleared security and arrived at her gate, only to notice that her checked luggage was being loaded onto a parked coach bus.

Screenshot of google maps showing it take 2 hours and five minutes to drive from South Bend, Indiana to Chicago O'Hare

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Mar 23

My short story "Tommorrow. Today.", appearing in Clarkesworld's December 2025 issue, got an excellent review in Locus magazine! locusmag.com/review/clark...

Review by A.C. Wise
March 18, 2026
Clarkesworld 12/25

In December's Clarkesworld, R.T.Ester's 'Tomorrow. Today." is a brief but effective story, packing a lot into a few thousand words. As a baby, Malcolm was given less than two years to live, but thanks to brain scans, he's able to upload into a new body every four years. The story opens on the eve of his next upload, with Malcom finally old enough to choose for himself if and when he wants to transfer. The story does a lovely job of showing Malcolm struggling with his sense of self
alongside his father's desire to both protect him and give him autonomy. Ester gives both characters space while exploring how memory and physicality tie into identity.

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Mar 3

Also included with Interzone 304 is an excellent review of my novel The Ganymedan by Paul McAuley!

INTERZONE 304
BOOK ZONE
PAUL MCAULEY
SPACED FLIGHT
Bester's
Alfred
From
The
Demolished Man and Philip K.
Dick's D o Androids Dream of
t
Nick
Electric
Sheep?,
Harkaway's Titanium Noir and
Alastair Reynolds' Halcyon Years,
science fiction frequently finds a
good use for the gritty style and
cynical attitude of hardboiled and
noir films and fictions. There's a

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Mar 3

I'm thrilled to be included with this amazing group of authors and feature writers for Interzone 304. My story BodySwap(dot)gov is about a botched military engagement in the middle eastern desert and the behind-the-scenes scramble to control the fallout. shop.interzone.press/b/IxvFR

INTERZONE 304
CONTENTS
IZ 304 / MARCH 2026
CLIMBING
STORIEs // Aliya Whiteley
column, 1600 words
Mutant popcorN // Nick Lowe
column, 8850 words
County Colours // Val Nolan
story illustrated by Emma Howitt, 12,730
words
BODYSWAP.GOV // R.T.Ester
story, 3460 words
REBOOT THЕ
SKY // Dominic Green
story, 7390 words
The IsLand WIthout
SPICE // Jennifer Jeanne
McArdle
story, 8230 words
2 pages left in chapter
1%

NKATA // Simon Guerrier
story, 4270 words
CoPS ANd RoBBErs #1:
The Bridge // Rachael Cupp
story, 4570 words
DAnCInG IN THE
LIBRARy // Una McCormack
story, 1460 words
Book Zone // Kelly Jennings.
Paul Kincaid, Paul McAuley
Val Nolan
book reviews, 12,120 words
THE A to Z of
ZELAZNy / Alexander Glass
story, 2010 words
FoLDEd Spaces // Val Nolan
story, 1630 words
INTERZONE * PATREON
2 pages left in chapter
1%

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Mar 2

This was pretty good.

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Jan 30

Saw someone say church group buying up ticket, which I think may explain what's happening about my local Cinemark. Or the republican party machine here buying favors.

Theater seat layout for MELANIA at a local Cinemark. Fully sold out

Theater seat layout for MELANIA at a local Cinemark. First two rows have been filled.

Theater seat layout for MELANIA at a local Cinemark. Almost sold out

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Dec 31

He gets all his tariff ideas from this guy who looks like he's still angry cars now require seatbelts

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Dec 30

Helpful reminder

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Dec 28

I can't find anything similar on people who join ICE, but I'm sharing this anyway because I used to think stuff like this about people who joined the military and was happy to have it debunked.

AFBA
May 27, 2020
New research
debunks myths
about who enlists
and why
Articles
Share
n
According to the Department of Defense,
there were 1.3 million members of the armed
forces as of March 2020. A recent study dives
deeper into who these people are, where they
come from and how popular beliefs about
their origins and reasons for enlisting may be
further off than many might think.

JAFBA
Widely held
misconceptions
Since service in the armed forces became
voluntary in 1973, after the draft was
abolished, many Americans believed it would
attract primarily disadvantaged groups and
young people with limited prospects.
However, new research published in the
Journal of Strategic Studies reveals that this
stereotype does not reflect reality. The study
shows that military service attracts a diverse
range of people as a result of its attractive
career possibilities and competitive benefits.
The study, titled "A mercenary army of the
poor? Technological change and the
demographic composition of the post-9/11
U.S.military," debunks the myths that often
permeate academic and mass media
publications. It explains that many assume
that the majority of enlisted personnel come
from poor rural communities or economically
disadvantaged urban environments, who see
the armed forces as an "escape" or
"sanctuary."
researchers pointed out, this is not only
a problematic stereotype, but it also implies

As the researchers pointed out, this is not only
a problematic stereotype, but it also implies
that the demographic makeup of those out on
the front lines is disproportionate to the U.S.
population as a whole -- hence the "rich man's
war, poor man's fight" perspective.

Class-based conclusions
The researchers tested two assumptions. The
first - the opportunity cost theory - "implies
that individuals from more disadvantaged
socio-economic backgrounds, lacking the
skills to compete in the job market, have more
to gain and less to lose from joining the
military." H
However, according to their findings, the
majority of recruits have in fact come from the
middle class, with above-average levels of
affluence. Contrary to popular belief, the
poorest (and wealthiest) communities are
underrepresented in the armed forces.
The study concludes that "men and women
who serve are likely to embody the values and
culture of the median voters. This affects not
only the nature of the military itself, but also
the calculations in terms of costs and benefits
of democracies electing to go to war."

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Dec 26

Seated for the second time today

Poster for One Battle After Another. Digital artwork with stills of key characters from the movie.

R.T. Ester@shoutoutmapes· Dec 22

The Avatar sequels were first announced around the time the first one came out. Maybe people on bluesky didn't know, but it's funny seeing the "liked the first one well enough but was completely blindsided by the plans for sequels" refrain in these replies.