Ian Stead

Ian Stead

One of the people I followed on Google+ was Ian Stead, who has done a lot of space and Sci-Fi related art, including a number of excellent renderings of Traveller ships. These have been used for a number of Traveller-compatible shipbook and related products in the last decade or so. While he hasn't updated his website [https://biomassart.wordpress.com/] much, it's worth a visit.…

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Rights and Responsibility

Or... skin in the game. Despite it being put together by Sargon of Akkad - who used to occasionally make a good point - I gave his overview of the politics of Starship Troopers [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVpYvV0O7uI] a fair shake. FWIW - if you go in understanding that it will be filtered through his somewhat leftist-if-not-sjw worldview and that he bought into the lie that Nazis and fascists are somehow right wing, it nevertheless does completely disassemble the notion that ST is in any…

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Why the SJW Stuff Matters - An Intro, and ComicsGate

Why the SJW Stuff Matters - An Intro, and ComicsGate

A comment on my battletech review over at discord a while back asked why I made a fuss at all about the SJW stuff in it? If it made someone happier to see odd genders included, or a "diverse" command staff (that was hispanic, oriental, etc., no white men, or even whites), what does it hurt? Similarly, over the latest Comicsgate kerfluffle, a regular blogger over at Superversive wrote On Nike and Vox Day And Why You Shouldn’t Care About Either [https://scifiscribe.com/2018/09/04/on-nike-and-vox-…

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Soda Pop Soldier

Soda Pop Soldier

Ages ago I read what was – at the time, for a younger self – a “groundbreaking” book by Neal Stephenson calledSnow Crash. It was an interesting blend of real and virtual word technothriller, had some interesting ideas, a fun opening chapter, and despite putting out a number of books I’ve gladly reread like *Anathem, *SC did not age well. Mostly for it’s self-awareness, as demonstrated most clearly by the name of our viewpoint character, Hiro Protagonist. Nick Cole’sSoda Pop Soldier gets compare…

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