I'm still working to sort this out, but eventually updates in the underlying blog platform have come into conflict with the theme. I didn't catch it because, bluntly, I haven't been posting. I'm temporarily resorting to the default theme, but that lost me some of what used to be the sidebar modules and navigation. I'll either end up paying for an update and updating the sidebar elements, or finding another clean looking theme. As to posting, no promises. I don't plan on moving to substack, but…
This book from Pilum press, doesn't really neatly slot into any categories. It's set in the 1970's, a world I dimly remember from my childhood, in a Texas I have even fainter memories of. Nevertheless it captures something that I have glimpsed the afterimages of, and grew up in the fading echoes. It is real and grounded and almost utterly matter-of-fact, not written at all like your "standard" sci-if or fantasy book, especially of the last couple decades, yet it is magical. It pulls this off wit…
For several reasons, as I run through and do a regular emptying out of cruft I don't need (even working in IT I realistically don't need to keep Tb2 cables around just in case, for a client, anymore), I pondered a bit on the confluence of a couple "new" trends that include minimalism and tiny houses. For those who've kept up with some of the people I follow, the disdain that many feel for "consoomers" of the next big corporate product and weird bobblehead, the need to buy yet another edition of…
There's been some drama on twitter - and what else is new - involving how well a writer should know the canon and deep roots of one's culture, especially related to the genre an author chooses to write in. I'll preface this: I'm not a writer. First, Alexander Hellene's substack : Prerequisites. There's actually a lot to unpack here, but in many ways, the post hinges around this : A writer DOES have an obligation to understand the canon. You don’t have to like every single author in it. You d…
I've gotten copies of Thune's Vision and Shagduk from the two respective Pilum Press Kickstarters, and oddly, it turns out you can now even order them from Target, if you really want to (please order them from Pilum, or even Amazon, but hey), and they have been worth every penny in production and quality, nevermind the storytelling. Since I'm wrapped up in several reads at the moment, I cannot do justice to Shagduk other than to say it started well, but I had to give some time and attention to…