I seem to be constitutionally incapable of completing a video game these days. I get bored and leave off after about 20 hours of anything I play. I made it at least 30 hours into BG3 -- which I fucking loved, but I can't make myself keep going for some reason!

Sarah Z continues to be one of the most interesting and relevant culture critics of our generation:

tbf though I would enjoy a digital Dominos pizza better than a physical one

new piece by me, just published in Post45!

the 90s were such a diff tine they made a film about a US president flying a jet to fight aliens personally and ppl were like "thats right"

Why not pitch a review to one of the best sff criticism sites out there? They even give you a list of some great forthcoming books to consider!

Also, true! I'm happy to call for both. I actually read quite a lot of academic work digitally but own most of my fiction in print. And I feel the same about many films and TV shows. Digital purchase *should* mean something and we should protect that meaning by law. And physical media isn't perfect.

For some reason, and I really cannot figure out why, this essay I wrote about one of my favorite middle-grade novel, Linda Sue Park's A SINGLE SHARD, is consistently one of my most-viewed pieces. Virtually every week it's in the top 10 of what I've written.

Apropos of nothing: It is an extremely fun and cool time to make your own personal physical media collection, something you can do for film with a simple external Blu-Ray drive and blank blu-rays (or DVDs if you're not picky about storage size and video quality!) It's a great, and important, hobby

Whoa, was just pointed out to me that today is the two-year anniversary of @mealofthorns.bsky.social! It's been a pleasure and an honor to talk to all these fine folks about interesting books:

Sony is taking this away from us

I've spent a good portion of this year rebuilding my physical media collection, mostly trawling thrift shops. I've got close to 400 films now and most of the shows I love (still lots more on my wishlist, just haven't found 'em yet).

The schism is not medieval. These chucklefucks aren't interesting enough for a real antipope. You don't need a historian of the Avignon Papacy or the 11th century for this, you need someone studying Vatican II and the archconservatives who refute it.

Like many others, Sony ditching discs reminded me of that E3 2013 moment when two now-former PlayStation execs made a mockery of Xbox's convoluted digital gaming rights Xbox One plans by showing that you could share a PS4 game by simply handing it to someone But I'd forgotten about this...

A fucking travesty. Especially since Playstation (along with Nintendo) are currently at the heart of the physical media renaissance among fans and collectors. Also talk of a PS6 having no optical drive, meaning no support for Blu-Ra/DVD playing.

me, reading goosebumps in elementary school:

This was a fun, quick look at White Wolf's history, its fans and play community, and its cultural impact—especially of Vampire: The Masquerade (one of my obsessions). This really should've been three separate films on those three different things, but I'll take this as a start.

As always

On the next Game Studies Study Buddies episode:

Look I am stoked to see film like this do well, and this is no small feat, but if you’re talking about global grosses, and you are when you use worldwide numbers, this isn’t true.

"the highest-grossing original live-action film of the 2020s [in the US]" Lever Press has a book coming out next year that reminds people not only that the Chinese film market exists, but it often outcompetes the US. Just look at Hi, Mom (2021).

That scene from Contact—"They should have sent a poet!"—always irked me. I'm perplexed by the discursive/cultural position of poets as the "interpreters of the world." Poetry, of course, has no greater claim than any art to interpretation, though we persist in the Romantics' belief that it does.

My favorite (read: the worst) example of this is when it's a "secret history" or "forgotten history" but really it's common knowledge to everyone in an entire field, but it's "secret"/"forgotten" because the source material is in another language or it's just medieval/ancient.

As much as I understand the publisher desires to frame nonfiction as “hidden,” “secret” or otherwise unveiled, it is essentially profiting off of the audience’a penchant for conspiracy and lack of savvy about what is known/knowable

It feels like this is the inevitable culmination of "hidden histories" and "untold stories" combined with "we can't footnote your work, that would be awkward for the reader." But at its core, it's just the result of an utter lack of respect for the labor and expertise of an entire field.

I've been thinking about this piece for a day now. It's interesting and a good example of criticism that deeply engages with the critic's biography. I like that. And I think Bastien is right that there are some negative approaches to the film, but I'm not sure they are *mis*readings.

Just played a banger 4.5hr game of FURY OF DRACULA. I was Dracula, as usual, but this was the first time I won in 6 years of playing. It was a very close game, too. I had 1 health left and, a bit anticlimactically, I won on a technicality. (Not my image, just for show if you don't know the game.)

There has to be a word or phrase or concept for this thing in a lot of TV where maintaining the status quo (e.g. the set up of characters, positions, jobs, etc.) overrides the fact that, in the storyworld of the show, it would make sense for the status quo to change.

And to think her millionaire media mogul boyfriend got ZERO of those shrimp. It's always socialism for me and not for thee.

And this is one of main reasons Mamdani is more important than a single city's mayor. He doesn't allow the reformists to continue pretending to be incrementalists.

I think of this as the difference between incrementalism and reformism. Incrementalism is simply the acceptance that big changes take time and includes taking partial steps. Reformism is about preserving institutions by making changes that insulate them from criticism.

If you are an academic author and you ever receive an email saying that a community of hundreds/thousands of people are interested in your book... you should definitely contact your editor and marketing person at your publisher. We want to keep track of this bullshit and how the rhetoric changes.

It's so disheartening when authors email me to ask if the effusive, excited book club invitation they received is real. Because it's not. And at least half of my authors with books out this year have gotten these. Even niche academic monographs writers are being hit up!

And just who, exactly, is going to play the 1983 Dragonriders of Pern board game with me on a Tuesday?

I think Pokemon Crystal is the most aesthetically pleasing object I have ever owned. (This is, sadly, not my copy. Cartridges that still work go for $170+.)

I think Pokemon Crystal is the most aesthetically pleasing object I have ever owned. (This is, sadly, not my copy. Cartridges that still work go for $170+.)

Reading the second book in Cherryh's FADED SUN trilogy. It's fine. Interesting, at least, as most Cherryh is -- but the trilogy hasn't yet struck me as anything amazing stand-out.

"What are these? The consequences of my own actions?!"

Reading the second book in Cherryh's FADED SUN trilogy. It's fine. Interesting, at least, as most Cherryh is -- but the trilogy hasn't yet struck me as anything amazing stand-out.

Who cares about D&D novels anyway? Some thoughts on why scholars of fantasy probably should, and a bunch more people, too. This is the first essay in my forthcoming Dungeons & Dragons reading series.

A year ago today I published my first essay on the work of Mervyn Peake, beginning with a look at TITUS GROAN. More than probably anything I read last year, the Gormenghast books have truly stuck with me.

Huzzah! Look at this goofy cover! And read my essay about the second novel in R.A. Salvatore's Icewind Dale trilogy: STREAMS OF SILVER (1989). This is a continuation of my series on D&D novels. Come for the discussion of edgelord villains, stay for Salvatore's attempt at a critique of liberalism.

Excellent thread on UFOs, SFX, and sf cinema:

Ever wanted to read a novel that gave you (1) an extended riff on the Moria chapters in The Fellowship of the Ring, (2) a villain who's the literary embodiment of the "I studied the blade" meme, and (3) lengthy, messy ruminations of the limits of tolerance in a liberal society? You've found it!

Eric Andre couldn't dream of making an interview this awkward

Ever wanted to read a novel that gave you (1) an extended riff on the Moria chapters in The Fellowship of the Ring, (2) a villain who's the literary embodiment of the "I studied the blade" meme, and (3) lengthy, messy ruminations of the limits of tolerance in a liberal society? You've found it!

The Great Tolkien Reread leaves Rivendell with "The Ring Goes South". In which the fellowship is finally formed, some new characters get to struct their stuff, and we are reminded that nature in Middle Earth is sometimes a character in its own right.

Excellent thread on UFOs, SFX, and sf cinema:

Zachary's essay earlier this year convinced me that I want to read these books!

Finally, FINALLY vindicated for my humanity! Huzzah! And to be in such company! (I now leave my computer to contemplate how I have successfully impostered my way into this situation)