This one's been nagging at me all month. I know it shouldn't matter to me, but it does. The current state of the Star Wars franchise, is schizophrenia. Too may projects and products. Uneven scripting, uneven tone, uneven quality. Terrific acting talent and special effects going to utter waste. An entire literary arm of the... Continue Reading →

Just to double-tap this, along with my writing sister Sarah A. Hoyt: Happy birthday, Grandpa Heinlein! Few other practitioners of the speculative have had such a profound and lasting impact. My authorial lineage is through Niven and Pournelle, whose own authorial lineage is through Heinlein, and I've met countless fans and fellow authors who all... Continue Reading →

Spotted yet another internet apologia explaining why it's okay if female protagonists don't have to work for their powers, wins, abilities, victories, et cetera. Stuff like this always makes my eye twitch because in my opinion the gender of the protagonist is immaterial. It's not like Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley was birthed onto the screen... Continue Reading →

I would ordinarily put something like this on my own blog, but because Dave Chappelle explicitly embraces his profession as an artist -- and defends stand-up comics as a cohort of legit artists -- the reaction to Chappelle's last NETFLIX special has me thinking: are we finally at the much-anticipated tipping point where even liberal... Continue Reading →

It's been my opinion for the past three years that any Star Trek produced in the 21st century is merely Star Trek in name only. The label is on the box, yes. But with each iteration, the product strays farther and farther from the prime days of the Kirk-era films + TNG/DS9. [NOTE: It's true... Continue Reading →

For this series of posts on the HBO disaster epic Chernobyl I've spent a lot of time discussing the sociology and politics of gripping storytelling, mainly because such a retroactive examination of both the nuclear disaster and the failing Soviet state demands that the sociology and politics be confronted. Chernobyl happened (both in fact, and... Continue Reading →

It's a proven fact that a percentage of soldiers, even though they've trained and drilled for days or weeks or months, cannot pull the trigger when ordered. Some entirely human part of their minds and their emotions refuses to do it. To take a life. All the reflexes are there. They've got no problem on... Continue Reading →

Last week's continuation of my series on the epic disaster drama Chernobyl spent a lot of time focusing on the power structure of the former Soviet Union, and how this power structure rippled destructively down into the lives of the men who not only caused the reactor catastrophe in the first place, but then also... Continue Reading →