Connooga 2024!

 

Me at Connooga in 2017, which was apparently as blurry as the pre-pandemic years now feel.

After taking a few years off for the pandemic, I returned to Connooga last year (or at least for Saturday in a somewhat diminished capacity). This year Connooga is this weekend: Feb. 23-25! 

For Connooga 2024 I might try Friday and Saturday, and maybe Sunday, although duty requires I be elsewhere later that evening... for the early premiere of Dune, Part 2! (I'll be sure to share some preliminary nonspoilery thoughts of this movie I've been eagerly anticipating for three years.)

This year I won't be on a bunch of Connooga panels as I have been in the past. Unfortunately, the panel track I was part of (Deep Thought) was discontinued. Maybe next year I'll try to get on a few panels just to see how it goes.

Sci-Fi Kant: The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts

 

The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts has been on my list for years, and a cold snap in January seemed like the best time to read it. As a philosopher and science fiction fan, I was already on board for science fiction with a Kant angle, but the obvious links to Lovecraft and John Carpenter's The Thing made it so much MY THING (itself?) that I'm shocked it took me so long to get to it. I'm sure I would have read it sooner if I realized it was so funny (not quite as outright zany as Douglas Adams or The Illuminatus Trilogy and not quite on an Iain M. Banks wavelength, either, but in some category of hilarity nearby). 

Tilting Tolkien: Godslayer by Jacqueline Carey

 

Godslayer is the sequel to Carey's Banewreaker, or really it's more of a continuation of one long story. I felt about this second one much the same as the first one: I love the idea of it, but didn't find the execution quite as compelling as I hoped. Also, sometimes authors' styles just don't click with you, and that's probably part of it for me (your taste may vary). 

Favorite Utopias New and Old: A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers and The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

 

I was recently in the mood for some unabashed utopian science fiction. I had been saving the second volume of Becky Chambers's Monk and Robot series for the right moment. And I've been meaning to reread all of Iain M. Banks's Culture series ever since I frequently gushed about it so much on this very blog back in the mid-2010's.

I need some time to mull it over, but I think Chambers's Monk and Robot series may be one of my all-time favorites. I’d say I want to give it a million stars if that sort of hyperbole didn’t feel contrary to its entire ethos.

I loved it so much that I couldn't think of how to review it properly. So instead I wrote this weird... review? Or whatever this is...

Considering Our "Inescapable Network of Mutuality": MLK Day 2024

 

I had a great time at Chattacon this weekend, which included a fun panel on Dune and Philosophy!

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day here in the US. I was looking forward to following up my Chattacon experience with my local MLK Day march and parade, but today we're having some winter weather. The local MLK Day festivities have been postponed.

Chattacon 2024!

 

I'm excited to be attending Chattacon once again this year! Chattacon 49 will take place this weekend (Jan. 12-14, 2024) at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee!

Holiday Horror 2023, Part Two!

 

Is it too late for Part 2 of my Holiday Horror 2023? I don't know, but I'm doing it anyway! It may be early January, but the true horror of the holidays is with us all year, so check out some thoughts on Night of the Comet, I Trapped the Devil, The Sacrifice Game, and There's Something in the Barn ... and because I count New Year's as part of "the holidays," Strange Days, and Midnight Kiss.