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Science Fiction

Hacking Galileo Book Review

Hacking Galileo Book Review

Hacking Galileo by Fenton Wood is many things: an adventure, a lament for an age now lost, even a manual for subverting obsolete technology. This book is for the adults who once were the spergy GenX and GenY kids who are the stars of this book. The kids who built

Kipling's Influence on Futuristic Fiction

Via Castalia House’s Sensor Sweep, here is a great blog post at Tentaclii listing some well-known authors who credit Rudyard Kipling as being an inspiration to the science fiction in general and them in particular. Despite being a very low stakes story, Kipling’s With the Night Mail is

Linkfest 2022-07-29: Bacchanal

Antigone Journal: Drinking with the Ancients The always interesting Antigone Journal looks at the drinking practices of the classical Greeks and Romans. ISI: The Perils of Re-Enchantment The materialist philosophy that dominated the twentieth century is evaporating, but what is rushing to fill the void is not uncomplicated Christian faith,

A cautionary tale

In the 2022-07-15 Linkfest I linked to a pair of articles detailing rationalist cults: * My Experience with Geoff Anders & Leverage Research * My experience at and around MIRI and CFAR These are well worth reading, as they expose something that is more common than you might think. All of this

Dune Messiah Book Review

Dune: Messiah is the fulfillment of everything that Frank Herbert set up in Dune, the nemesis that inevitably follows hubris. I can see why is it something of a let-down after the magnificent achievement of Dune. There is very little adventure in Messiah, which Herbert blended so skillfully with tragedy

Uller Uprising Book Review

Everytime I read a book by H. Beam Piper, I’m sorry I slept on it for so long. Uller Uprising is a tightly plotted tale inspired by, but not a retelling of, the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. And it has a introduction of some of the hardest science I

Dune Book Review

After years of talking about Dune and its sequels by Frank Herbert, I’ve come to appreciate why the book is good enough to come back to again and again. The last time I read Frank Herbert’s Dune was about a decade ago, and I’ve spent that time