Lightyears of Lore

Posted on November 10, 2026 by JC

Starquest: Outlaw of the Outer Stars by John C. Wright, Tuscany Bay Books,
June 24th, 2025

In my review of Catburglar of the Constellations in July last year I promised to get to the next book “in a month or so”. This “so” became “over a year later” and I almost feel I owe an apology for being so late. The previous novel was published in May last year and since then six further novels have been published with the ninth,  Space Princess of Arcadia back in July of this year. So as of writing, I still have five to read after this which doesn’t include the three yet-to-be-published that will complete the saga. So if the series finishes with Book 12, I am now a third of the way through the series.

Given the time between reading the first three and Outlaw of the Outer Stars, I found I had to re-read my reviews to remind myself of what I said about them and catch up on some details I’d forgotten and I flicked through the three previous books to check a few more. Much as I anticipated (by simply looking at the front cover), this novel mostly focuses on Athos Lone who has accidently become part of the crew of the pirate ship, The Devil’s Delight; the ship introduced in the first novel.

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The Long Overdue End of BioWare

Posted on October 31, 2026 by JC

If you’ve followed gaming long enough, you would be familiar with Electronic Arts long history (as far as electronic entertainment goes), of buying successful developers and shutting them down after they believe they’ve squeezed all the profit they can out of them. Some examples include Origin Systems, Pandemic Studios, Bullfrog Productions and one most felt by me: Westwood Studios. This is not an exhaustive list either. Many of these studios were also still producing quality products when they were shutdown and/or merged with another studio owned by EA. This has been something of a morbid joke amongst gamers for over twenty years. 

The latest in this increasingly long list is BioWare which comes two years after the release of the widely mocked Dragon Age: The Veilguard two years ago this month. Though it generally reviewed well among “official” critics, it sold poorly and was not well-received by people who actually play games; most importantly among fans of the series (which once included me). It was also the third game in a row after Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem to perform poorly over a decade after their last big success, Dragon Age: Inquisition. While Inquisition sold over twelve million copies, sales data for these other three is hard to pin down which suggests they didn’t sell well as EA would have certainly released the figures otherwise.

While I have lamented the loss of a number of studios closed by EA, I really couldn’t care less about BioWare. It is there own fault as I will explain below.  

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The Emerging End of Gears of War

Posted on October 8, 2026 by JC

During September last year I made a post reflecting on the long-term reception of ‘Gears 5‘ which despite ending on a cliff-hanger, has been left in narrative limbo to this day. The main proof of this was the 2024 reveal of Gears of War: E-Day which is a prequel that has just released as I write. Well, that is unless you’re a gaming “journalist” or paid a premium to play it early. The decision to allow the latter, while typical for much of the industry today. may soon be seen to have been a mistake as those with early access were able to reveal the bait-and-switch with plenty of time left for the target audience to cancel pre-orders or reconsider purchasing day one. 

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Fake and Gay

Posted on September 27, 2026 by JC

I can’t now remember where I saw this but I recall someone writing about the Internet term “BASED” assuming that it’s origin simply the opposite of “debased” which is a synonym for depraved or degenerate; “BASED” then would logically be the antonym of “debased”. Although it has more or less come to mean exactly this and the presumption of the writer was logical enough, it’s actual origins are far less coherent. In reality it originates with a rapper called “Lil B” AKA “THE BASED GOD”. Wikipedia’s article refers to an earlier use of the term relating to cocaine and claims it was “co-opted” during #GamerGate which is true in the same way that “gay” was “co-opted” by sodomites and was appropriated as a pejorative in retaliation. From here, it spread to the right-wing with phrases like “based and redpilled” becoming more common over the last decade. 

The more absurd truth about its origin has me wondering what might be true about the origin of many other words and phrases now in common use. As an example, we trace many neologisms to Shakespeare though he was known to do a lot of borrowing and so it is just as likely he did not invent half of what is now attributed to him. It is amusing to wonder just how much overthinking may have been done with etymology over the centuries. 

Another phrase that has become more common (at least in Internet parlance), is “fake and gay” which has its origins in the golden age of the Internet and hilariously on 4chan where a real leaked intelligence report was dismissed as “fake and gay” by the Anon legions. Yet much like “BASED”, there is more truth to it than it’s surface origins suggest.  Continue reading →

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The Long, Agonising Death of The Simpsons

Posted on September 17, 2026 by JC

Ten years ago this month, I wrote one of the earliest posts on this blog called ‘The Decline of the Simpsons‘ which I referenced again last year on a similar post about another long-running animated series, South Park. I won’t be writing another about The Family Guy, as I was never really into it to begin with and it began broadcasting a few years before I stopped regularly watching television anyway. All three of these shows are amazingly still running as of writing which means there is enough of an audience left to make them worth producing.

By coincidence, I recently came across an infographic by Roshaan Khan with exactly the same title as my post. It was actually made in 2020 and visually presents IMDb user ratings for each episode up to Season 31. It supports my claim the series began to seriously decline in quality beginning with Season 10. I was simply going to add a link to this in my original post but I found I had more to add and so decided to make a dedicated post.

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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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