Summer's Shadow

Orbital Operations for 31 August 2025

Author

Warren Ellis
August 31, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 13 minutes

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Hello from out here on the Thames Delta. Summer is slowly closing, and autumn is loitering on the garden path. I haven’t gotten even nearly all the things I wanted to get done this summer, or gone out as much as I wanted to, but that’s okay. This is my time of year.

If you don’t know Knepp, look them up: they have an amazing story.

So now it’s figs and almonds for breakfast after my protein shake, a minute steak and two eggs or salmon and samphire with rosemary olive oil for lunch, and soon it’ll be cool enough for me to roast my own coffee beans again and test the bread-maker I was bought for Xmas. I’ve gotten my old Icelandic-wool hoodie out of storage, and I feel ready for the rest of the year.

What’s your autumn ritual?

Substack announced all their users with paid newsletters are now required to offer in-app purchases of Substack subscriptions on iOS. Apple collects 30% of that, so Substack purchases on iOS have had a 30% increase to zero that out. Here’s an opinion about how that is a very bad idea for writers on Substack:

With Substack’s latest launch, writers are actually ceding control of the billing relationship to Apple, which now owns and controls the subscription. These transactions, subscriptions, and customers will no longer be accessible in their Stripe account. Most importantly, that means that if writers choose to leave Substack, they won’t be able to port their paid subscriptions over to another platform like they could previously.

If you decide to look at Substack’s original announcement, don’t read the comments: there’s several peak-Substack moments when at least one user declares it’s all the fault of the Jewish people.

Not physical letters, but digital letters that arrive with traditional mail's rhythm. It's a private group newsletter that everyone contributes to and receives. It's intentionally slow, purposeful, and deeply gratifying — a low-stress, high-signal way to stay connected that creates meaningful moments in a social world dominated by drive-by likes and fleeting attention.

After months in private beta, Letter Club is now open to everyone at no cost.

That seems like it could be a useful thing for a lot of people.

Spotify is adding the option of using direct messages on the app. If you see that in your app controls, maybe turn it off? Spotify is not the most secure of platforms, and do you need DMs while trying to listen to something?

When we look close at culture, we look at viral moments racking up numbers. These tend to emerge from nowhere and promptly disappear into the ether. Only those who can continue to deliver popular content rise to the top. It’s as if we are all watching the audition tapes to be on a reality TV show.

I found this curious line in this interview:

Be a practical everyday tool and utility.

I have no idea why that sentence is so interesting to me, but it is.

Letters about the creative life by Warren Ellis, a writer from England. Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe here for free.

CURRENTLY READING:

Under his lip was a gold labret: a little dog’s head. It slipped in and out of sight each time he took a swallow of soup or chocolate, as if playing in a little skin house.

  • YOU DREAMED OF EMPIRES, Álvaro Enrigue. I almost quit the book during the interminable foreword, eventually just skipping to the actual text. Glad I did. This is a fictional account of the arrival of Cortez and his conquistadores to the place that became Mexico City. They meet Moctezuma, who is near permanently off his tits on hallucinogens and suffering from deep depression. The book opens with one of the conquistadores trying not to throw up at a banquet because he’s been seated between one priest wearing an entire human skin as a cape and another priest wearing literally years of sacrificial blood matted into his hair. The book is by turns funny and coldly scary, and greatly entertaining. (UK) (US)

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If they’re reading it, why aren’t you?

Which of these social network sites do you look at daily?

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Polls on this system can be a bit janky - don’t worry if it asks you to log in or it’s just a pain - but it’s always interesting to see who I’m shouting at here.

My online notebook, warrenellis.ltd , will turn on again around 9am tomorrow morning. I’ve been mostly offline since the end of June, so now it’s time to catch up.

If you’ve never looked at that site before, it’s basically my digital notebook. All the things I can’t easily stuff into a paper notebook, things I want to be able to locate with tags and keywords, and things that are better written on keyboards than with a pen. Up to eight times in 24 hours, generally, often less. Think of it as an exploded, messier and more real-time version of this newsletter.

Please send the office your podcast recommendations for me. Just hit reply to this email. This is my current list:

DESERT ORACLE RADIO might be my perfect podcast: an eccentric 30-minute monologue with background soundscapes. If I were ever to do a podcast, it would be like that. Conversational podcasts seem fun but I don’t have anyone to talk to ha ha ha sob

I wish Angela’s ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN ASMR show had a RSS feed that a podcast app could grab, same with Rosanna Dean’s SOUNDS FROM THE STUDIO.

I’d also be interested in politics podcasts that aren’t riddled with ads - THE REST IS MONEY throws in an ad the second Robert Peston gets to the end of one of his sentences, and while I appreciate that can actually take five minutes, it’s kind of maddening to listen to - or are short - NEWSCAST feels like it’s getting some bloat these days.

Some stuff I only listen to on BBC Sounds: Late Junction, Unclassified, The Early Music Show, Night Tracks and Ultimate Calm. If you have access to BBC Radio, Radio 3 gets weird after 9pm.

You can follow what music I’m buying on Bandcamp. I want to try to get into the habit of making playlists again.

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And that’s me done for this week. Next week’s newsletter is expected to be a return to the longer, more magazine-style format, so OO should be a bit denser and more chewy from then til Xmas as I try and get back up to speed with the weird world and the creative life. I really want to catch up with the world a bit this autumn. Let’s see if I manage it. Take care of yourself, and I hope to talk to you next week.

W

I’m represented by Angela Cheng Caplan at the Cheng Caplan Company and David Hale Smith at Inkwell Management. Please add

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