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Cultivating Courage
Hard times are coming. Covid. Response to Covid. Supply chain shock. The Great Resignation meets the Great Termination. Whispers of war. Chaos and disorder in the West. Major inflation. Alliance of corporations and governments to maximise wealth and power at the expense of the people. And things can still get worse. This is a time…
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Book Review: Blood Line by Andrew Vachss
Andrew Vachss was a master of American crime noir. Where most other writers can only attempt to summon imaginary demons on the page, Vachss has stared true monsters in the eye—and locked them away. By profession Vachss was a lawyer who specialized in child protective work. He had previously worked as a federal investigator in…
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When Waves Combine
What happens when the next wave of Covid meets the Great Resignation? Singapore is going to find out—and it will be ugly. The Straits Times presents an optimistic picture of the labour market. Among other things, unemployment fell from 3 percent to 2.6 percent, retrenchments dropped from 26110 to 7820, and the Ministry of Manpower expects…
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The Same Story Told Ten Thousand Times
I’m thinking of a story. Can you guess what it is? It is the story of a young man who is whisked away into a parallel world. There he suddenly acquires a set of rare and overpowered special abilities that make him the strongest being to ever walk the face of that planet. Though he…
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Writing the Weapon and the Cultivator
Different cultures have different ways of treating weapons and martial arts. Bound up in historical, legal and cultural cornerstones, a society’s relationship with weapons speaks to deeper underlying norms. To reach a higher level of worldbuilding in the art of writing, think about how your culture views weapons and warfare. Here are some real-world examples…
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Decoupling From Amazon
Over the weekend, Amazon de-listed Galaxy’s Edge by Nick Cole and Jason Anspach. While the series is now back up on the Kindle Store, this event caused a disruption in cashflow and no small amount of confusion and acrimony from GE fans and their circles. Nick Cole speculates that a hacker got into Amazon. Brian…