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.

600th Post and New Year's Eve 2023 Spectacular!

 

I was planning to write a post "Holiday Horor 2023, Part 2," which would also feature some New Year's horror, but then I noticed that not only is it New Year's Eve, this will be 600th post on this blog! So here is my 600th Post and New Year's Eve 2023 Spectacular!

Review of Reviews: December 2023

 

It's the week between Christmas and New Year's, that blank time filled with cheese, sugar, and not knowing what day of the week it is. I've been having fun reading, but I have been somewhat remiss when it comes to writing reviews. Lest I disappoint the small handful of humans and bots who will read this, here are my reviews of some of what I've been reading lately: Transcendent by Stephen Baxter, The Chrysalids by John Wyndham, The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee, and Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. I also recently finished A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers, but I need more time to process how much I loved everything about it. I'm also returning to an old favorite, The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, which I'm loving just as much if not more than I did when I first read it ten years ago. Anyway, on to this Review of Reviews: December 2023!

Holiday Horror 2023

 

Here at Examined Worlds we have a tradition of writing about holiday horror movies. I guess it's my way of dealing with my complicated feelings about the Most Wonderful/Horrific Time of the Year. It's not that I hate the holidays, really. It's just that it's all a bit much sometimes: the pressure to produce holiday magic at all times through food, cheer, and cheesy decorations, the rampant commercialization that makes you feel like an asshole if you don't buy your loved ones new cars and expensive jewelry, hearing a million versions of the same songs over and over and over and over, each one more insipid than the last ...

Okay, no need to rehash all that. On to the movies!