Dave Higgins's Blog, page 99

Why Do Average Things Happen to Average People?

Political Correctness. Affirmative Action. Safe Spaces. Any change in favour of a group also imposes a change on others outside the group. So, why does the good to some people outweigh the bad to others? A few days ago, I came across a reignited debate over the World Fantasy Awards replacing the H P Lovecraft […]

Change of Life by Samantha Bryant

Mixing questions of gender and age bias with fast-paced fights and nail-biting reversals, Bryant continues her exploration of mature superheroism. This is the second volume in the Menopausal Superhero series. Following the defeat – and subsequent escape – of mad scientist, Cindy Liu, Linda/Leonel (the tiny woman in a strongman’s body) and Jessica (the lighter-than-air […]

One-in-a-Fifty-Five-ian

I already knew the differences between different people’s DNA were tiny, but this comparison gave me a better feeling for what the numbers mean: There is more genetic diversity in 55 chimps than in 7 billion human beings. – Juan Enriquez, We can reprogram life. How to do it wisely. Humans are genetically almost identical: […]

A Fine Length

While the young (and not so young) often believe in a black-and-white world; and even those who accept other hues at times wish for simpler choices. However, compromise might be a necessary part of civilisation; thus it is more useful to judge a person not by whether they compromise, but by the compromises they make. […]

A Room Full of Elephants by Anthony Camber

Fusing satire, office politics, and experimental physics, Camber creates a tale that sits equally well beside Tom Sharpe or Douglas Adams without being a copy of either. Keith works as a software tester for a start-up in Cambridge. When he isn’t insulting his colleagues, he bickers with his husband, Nick, and submits to his cat, […]

Embrace Your Inevitable Doom

This adaptation of a WWF poster popped up in my social feeds this morning. As a pastiche, it’s both enjoyable and technically skilled. However, it’s also so woefully cheerful it is almost certainly a false flag action by R’yleh’n cultists. As any scholar knows, the Necronomicon details the inevitable reclaiming of the world by the […]

Defining Unsafe Spaces

One of the topics that comes up often in discussions of equality, diversity, and political correctness is safe spaces. Areas where a particular group is protected from encountering expressions (or even other groups) that they perceive as a potential source of trauma. These discussions almost always swiftly move to include how it’s a new thing, […]

Honest Fibs by Nicholas C. Rossis

Mixing metaphysics, brutal action, humour, and sudden reveals, but maintaining a focus on accessible characters, Rossis offers a collection of speculative fiction that will appeal to many palates. This collection contains five short stories set within the eponymous sixth, along with four stories extracted from his other collections. ‘Honest Fibs’: When the fish stop biting, […]

Fear Death By Summoning

Dangerous Treasures, Hugh Hancock’s latest Mythos-magic-for-geeks tale, is now available for free. “These geeks think of themselves as 2016’s Indiana Jones. Too bad the thing they’ve awoken knew Cthulhu. Personally. A story of Lovecraftian horror, frantic action, and deepweb forum culture.”

Possibility Does Not Mean Utility

Last week Seth Godin proposed improving US presidential primaries by holding them on social media. As an outsider who is always startled to rediscover each time I watch the West Wing that US elections actively take up one-quarter of the executive term, I fully agree that the system could be improved, and that the internet […]