Certain times in certain places almost produce stories by themselves. Post Second World War Vienna was one such, a city…
Beautiful movement
Running has been a part of me since I was in my early twenties—not competitive running, but thrashing along rural…
Imagine if everything was exactly the same…
Imagine a world in which the tasks which once provided gainful employment to millions were increasingly carried out by automated…
Entertaining contrivance
What little I’ve read of Neal Stephenson’s work has made me want to read more of it, but I don’t…
Thematic weaving
I don’t know that it’s an intentional parallel, but the protagonist of Emma Hunsinger’s She Would Feel The Same experiences…
A warm voice in a cold world
When I wrote down my thoughts in response to La Belle Sauvage, which is the first volume of Philip Pullman’s…
Radically obnoxious
I’ve never before re-read Nemesis the Warlock, unlike most of the other legendary 2000AD strips, so revisiting it in this…
Sweet reasonableness
Having had occasion to excavate some of my East Anglian roots in response to watching The Dig recently, I was…
Doing it every day
Watching the second film in our self-selected route through Steve McQueen’s Small Axe series, I had in my mind the…
A fairly tail
Well, that’s two ShortBox comics in a row with a cultivated visual naïveté. However, where Núria Martínez’s Outspace is very…
Excavating justice
I don’t come from Suffolk, but I’ve lived here the vast majority of my adult life, and I have family…
Rigorously nourishing
This album was a gift from a friend, who I imagine had it recommended to him for its prog connections,…
Getting off the train
One of the books that has made the greatest impact on me is Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun.…
Expert hand-holding
Worldbuilder, storyteller—these are Philip Pullman’s great strengths for me. As a ‘novel-maker’ he’s stuck in a rather old-fashioned, comfortable mode…
