Chick lit in Outer Space

Posted on September 7, 2026 by JC

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, Tor Books, March 26th, 2019

While writing my post on Andy Weir last month, I had looked up the work that his most recent novel, Project Hail Mary lost to in the 2022 Hugo Awards which was A Desolation Called Peace by Jewish author Arkady Martine. It is a sequel to her debut novel, A Memory Called Empire that also won in 2020 which means the only two novels she has written (as of writing), have won the Hugo Award for best novel. This puts her wins one short of the latest “SFWA Grand Master” N.K. Jemisin in total wins but even Jemisin’s debut novel was only nominated for best novel and she had to churn out a few more before finally winning. This had me curious to see how one of her novels compares to Andy Weir. 

As I have done previously, I looked up a copy of her novel in the local library and very unlike my experience with Andy Weir, found a copy without any pending holds. I finished it just recently and have my thoughts detailed below. I will state before proceeding that this is the last time I plan to do this. Between this, John Scalzi and N.K. Jemisin, I believe I have read enough to know for sure that my assumptions about modern Science Fiction and Fantasy are accurate. And I really don’t think I need to further punish myself with authors like Ann Leckie or Mary Robinette Kowal to establish this definitively. According to Fandom Pulse, the latest winner by Alix E. Harrow was a romance clothed in the loose-fitting garment of fantasy. So outside of a male author winning last year, nothing has changed in the last few years and I don’t intend to do this again unless I can have fun doing it. 

Now, onto the novel.

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The Deliberate Destruction of Blizzard Entertainment

Posted on August 27, 2026 by JC

In an article I wrote about leakers/rumour mongers a few years ago, I briefly mentioned Jewish gaming journalist Jason Schreier for his involvement in the outing of a leaker that inspired that post. I stated in the post that he is no better than those he described as “anonymous video-game rumormongers” but he is arguably much worse. Anyone who has followed video game culture for long enough would have at least heard his name and likely in relation to websites like Kotaku and NeoGAF. He has been at Bloomberg for a few years and has also published a number of books on the gaming industry. I have read one titled Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, which covers the development of a number of significant games released (and unreleased), in the previous decade. For the genre, it wasn’t a bad read but was mostly just a few long-form articles stitched together into a book.

His most recent book was published in October last year and is titled Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment. The main subject is one of the great, if not the greatest American game developer and probably the only one that can be directly compared with Nintendo in terms of quality and influence. The book is about “the rise, fall and future” of the company according to the optimistic subtitle. I don’t how closely this matches the contents as I haven’t read it because it is not available in my local library and I’m not buying a copy. If the author would like to send me a review copy, I’d be happy to read it and give my take; which would likely involve me quoting large sections of the text and critiquing what is written while also making fun of him. I don’t expect the author to take me up on this though so instead, I’m going to take a leaf from the journalist’s handbook and rely on “a source” which I will link to below.

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Conan the Rebel by Poul Anderson

Posted on August 21, 2026 by JC

After finishing up the first three of Robert Jordan’s Conan novels in June, I noticed that Poul Anderson had also written a pastiche titled Conan the Rebel that was published in 1980. Having this name behind it alone had my interest but my interest was drawn further upon learning it was set during Conan’s time with Bêlit in Queen of the Black Coast. I found an old paperback for a reasonable enough price and quickly read through it just recently. 

Before the review, let me get a minor annoyance out of the way that has nothing to do with the contents of the novel. I get a bit frustrated at times with item descriptions for used books. This one was described as being in “very good” condition which it certainly wasn’t by the definitions booksellers use. I don’t expect a paperback that is over forty years old to be perfect but this was in fair to good condition at best. The spine is damaged, the pages are yellowed and there are creases everywhere but it was not so bad that it was worth going through the hassle of returning it. I just wish sellers would be more honest. As it happens, this didn’t turn out to be any sort of gem I’ll hold onto so ultimately, it doesn’t matter. 

Now onto the review.

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Thoughts on Andy Weir’s The Martian and Project Hail Mary

Posted on August 7, 2026 by JC

I have been quite critical of modern science-fiction and for good reason. Examples covered on this blog include N.K. Jemsin’s woeful The Fifth Season which saw her win the once prestigious Hugo Award for best novel. She then scored a questionable hat trick after also winning for the two that followed in the trilogy. John Scalzi’s Starter Villain had almost no science-fiction elements and reads like something he lazily turned-out to fulfil contractual obligations with his publisher; yet it still managed to get nominated for best novel in 2024 and he had previously won in 2013 for Redshirts. Then there is Patrick S. Tomlinson’s In the Black which was not nominated for any awards but the fact he was ever published is egregious enough. 

If it is accepted that the Hugo Awards hold the prestige they once did it would  imply that two of the above authors are commensurate with  pioneer authors like Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert as well as greats that followed after such as William Gibson, Orson Scott Card and Neal Stephenson. If you have even a little knowledge of these authors and that doesn’t sound absurd to you, then I don’t know what more to say. Of course, most of these Jemisin would dismiss as “beardy white men” without including her beardy-white-ally Scalzi. I noticed while looking that Poul Anderson never won though he was nominated multiple times and I would take the worst book he wrote over almost any by contemporary authors.

Someone else who has only been nominated is Andy Weir and unlike most contemporary authors, he actually deserved to be.

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A Tactical Tech Retreat

Posted on July 31, 2026 by JC

Over five years ago, I published an article about abandoning my “smartphone” and detailing some reasons why as well as  some observations after having done so. For the last five years, I have used three separate “dumbphones” including the one mentioned in the post. Just this week (as I write), I have begun using an Android mobile phone.

Something else I did about a month back was install Windows 11 on my computer which the author of this article (also me), would have found somewhat shocking. The short story here is I was having a lot of trouble doing what I was used to doing on Nobara Linux and found a guide to making Windows 11 tolerable; at least for now. I have retained Linux on my other computers though and still eventually intend to make a permanant switch.

Given these changes, I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t explain this betrayal and I will do so below.  Continue reading →

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The Rock (1996) Review

Posted on July 19, 2026 by JC

As I briefly reflected on in a previous post, there were changes in action film genre from the 1980s to the 1990s. The last films that resembled those of the 1980s were arguably Total Recall and Navy SEALs which both released in 1990. There was some deconstruction of the genre that followed with both The Last Action Hero and Demolition Man, mentioned in the linked post and many films also took a much sillier turn. You could make all sorts of arguments about what caused these changes. You could point to Die Hard‘s more “everyman” protagonist or James Cameron inserting the somewhat jarring sentimentality into his sequel to the SciFi/Horror film The Terminator. You could argue a lot of things but they certainly changed.

One of the more notable changes in the 1990s was Nicolas Cage leaving his more dramatic roles to become an action star. After his Academy Award winning performance in 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas he went on to star in The Rock, Con Air and Face/Off in 1996 and 1997. Although this was not the end of his dramatic roles, he became known for his action films and continued to appear in a number of others.

I remember well seeing The Rock in the cinemas in 1996 when I was twelve years old and thinking back as I often do on my childhood, I really should not have been allowed to watch this film when I was twelve. This was also my first introduction to Nicolas Cage who my parents probably recognised from films like Raising Arizona and Moonstruck. The Rock is also a film I’ve mentioned in another post and that was also the second film by director Michael Bay and if I was asked to choose a film that most represents 1990s action, this would be my go-to film.

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The Digital Dystopia Descends

Posted on July 2, 2026 by JC

I thought opening this post might be a great opportunity for me to metaphorically dance around about how right I have been proven in the last few weeks on observations I’ve made in a couple of earlier posts. But as with most of my observations, I am going by what others have said and have observed and my thoughts are certainly not wholly original. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, for most of the predictions I make, I would be far happier if I turned out to be wrong. This is certainly the case with the subject that follows. 

The context for this post is the announcement late last month that the “physical” edition of the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI would be an activation code in a rather useless box. Not content with this, they also announced the game would retail for $79.99USD or I should say from that price as additional game content is locked behind an ‘Ultimate Edition‘ that costs an additional $20USD. The Australian pricing puts the “Ultimate” edition at $159.95 which is a price I’d only previously seen for deluxe collector’s editions of games that include a number of novelties as well as the physical game. 

As if to justify all this, Sony, the company that famously mocked Microsoft’s clumsy attempt at bringing an end to physical media in 2013, has officially announced the end of physical media for PlayStation brand beginning in 2028. This came after another revelation that some customers would be losing access to digital films they had bought in September which follows on from another such incident in 2023; that I had heard they backed away from following through with. Microsoft is unlikely to capitalise on this the way Sony did all those years ago and so we will probably see the era of physical media all but ending for video games. 

Naturally, I have some thoughts about this. Continue reading →

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Splinter of the Mind’s Eye Review

Posted on June 26, 2026 by JC

Splinter of the Mind’s Eye is a Star Wars novel published in 1978 that directly follows the events of the first film. It was written by Alan Dean Foster who also ghostwrote the original film’s novelisation. As it is the first original novel published in what later became the Star Wars Expanded Universe and it released before the direct theatrical sequel The Empire Strikes Back, it has become a curiosity for Star Wars fans. I bought a copy of a paperback reprint from the mid 1990s a few years ago and finally got around to reading it recently. Continue reading →

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The Conan Chronicles by Robert Jordan

Posted on June 14, 2026 by JC

The Conan Chronicles by Robert Jordan, Tor Books, June 15th, 1995

Robert Jordan is an American author best known for his The Wheel of Time fantasy series which began in 1990 with The Eye of the World and spanned fourteen novels; the last three being written by Brandon Sanderson after Jordan’s death in 2007. Prior to his breakout success with this series, he was commissioned to write a series of Conan pastiches including the novelisation of the 1984 film, Conan the Destroyer through publisher Tor Books. He was one of many authors to take on Robert E. Howard’s character during this time and he even produced his own series chronology placing his and other author’s works with Howard’s.

Though I’ve not read any of The Wheel of Time series, I was interested in his Conan pastiches as I’d been led to understand they stood out from the crowd. The collection to be reviewed here includes the first three of his six original novels collected into an omnibus. The other three are collected in The Further Chronicles of Conan with only his novelization of Conan the Destroyer being omitted.

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No, Time to Die

Posted on May 31, 2026 by JC

This past week has seen the release of the first video game based on the James Bond 007 since 2012’s poorly received 007 Legends. Outside a couples of pastiche novels, it is also the first major piece of media based on the franchise since 2021’s No Time to Die. I have not played and have no interest in the new game which is titled 007 First Light and serves as an origin story for the character. Nor, for that matter, have I seen the last film and though it is readily available on streaming services, I have no interest in seeing it.

My loss of interest was initially due to rapid decline in quality of the films starring Daniel Craig that began in 2006 with Casino Royale. I didn’t mind the first film but I hated Quantum of Solace and Skyfall got a pass mark for not being as bad but I didn’t much enjoy it either. I’m not absolutely sure if I saw Spectre but that simply means it was forgettable.

As someone who used to love the franchise, this is quite a change. I have read all the original Ian Fleming novels and seen all the films from Sean Connery’s first in 1962 through to the Pierce Brosnan era; many of these multiple times. I was also in the perfect demographic for the now classic video game GoldenEye 007 based on the 1995 film. I played most of the games that followed (and at least one that came before); including many of the bad ones too.

How did a once beloved franchise fall so far in my esteem?

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