We’re nine days into 2025, and it’s already full of exhausting levels of controversy before we’ve even had a turnover in power in my home country of the United States. We’ve seen resignations of world leaders, wars continuing and getting worse and worse (you know where), the owner of Twitter continuing his tirade of lunacy and demonstrating why the billionaire class is not to be revered, California ablaze with a horrendous and large wildfire, right wing thinktanks developing plans to out and attack Wikipedia editors as any fascist-friendly organization would do, Meta rolling out and rolling back GenAI profiles on its platforms, and, just yesterday, the same Meta announcing sweeping changes to its moderation policies that, in a charitable reading, encourage hate-based harassment and abuse of vulnerable populations, promotion and support for disinformation, and other problems, all of which are so profound that people are talking about a mass exodus from the platform to…somewhere. It’s that last thing that brings me back to the blog today. Since the takeover at Twitter, social networks have been in a state of chaos. Platforms have risen and fallen — or only risen so much — and nothing I would call stability has formed. Years ago, I (and many others far more popular than me) remarked that we’ve ceded the territory of self-owned or small-scale third party spaces for massive third party platforms where we have minimal to no control or say and which can be stripped away in a tech-scale heartbeat. By putting all our ducks into a bin of unstable chaos, we’re also expending our time and energy on something that won’t last, requiring us to expend more time and energy finding alternatives, rebuilding communities, and then repeating the process again. In the present environment, that’s impossible to ignore.1 This is all rather reductive, but this post is not the place to talk about all the ways that social networks have impacted control over our own spaces and narratives. Another time, perhaps. I similarly don’t have space to talk about the fact that some of the platforms we currently have, however functional they may be, have placed many of us in a moral quagmire, as in the case of Meta’s recent moderation changes. Another time… ↩
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2014 Hugo Nominee Ballot: Best Fan Writer
Reading Time
There are far too many amazing fan writers out there. This list began with 20-30 names, which I whittled down to 8. Then I flipped a bunch of 8-sided die to pick the final 5 (or something like that).
So, here’s what I picked this year:
Kameron Hurley
One of the things I love about Hurley’s writing is the way she uses personal anecdotes and analogies to address the issues throughout our genre, particularly as they relate to representation and gender. She also writes about the writing world and much more, but I think her strongest work involves her critiques of our genre’s representation problems, particularly this essay at A Dribble of Ink.
Foz Meadows
She is by far my favorite feminist writer in the sf/f world. Her analysis of the SFWA fiasco last year, for example, is well worth reading, if not because you need persuading, then at least to bask in the intensity of her rhetoric and the profound analyses she provides. Her “controversial” writing style probably works against her among certain circles, but I personally think she deserves to make it to the final ballot.
Paul Weimer
This is my only almost-traditional fanwriter selection. I should note up front that Paul is a friend, so I’m a tad biased. That said, there’s something about Paul’s all-encompassing involvement in sf/f that I think must be recognized. He is everywhere, adding his thoughts on everything from books to commentary to sf/f history to his personal connection to genre. He’s like the singularity of the fanwriter. He writes columns for multiple websites (including one of mine — The Skiffy and Fanty Show). He tweets more than any other human being on the planet (or close to it), reads and reads and reads and just shares his love for sf/f in a way that is exhausting, but also so endearing. Genre loves Paul. It must love Paul.
Abigail Nussbaum
Easily one of the best reviewers in the blogosphere, Nussbaum’s detailed and well-reasoned posts are responsible for her inclusion on this list. This review of Sofia Samatar’s A Stranger in Olondria, for example, is a glorious piece of work. Her many posts on films and literature are practically essential reading, so if you haven’t checked out her blog, you need to do so now.
Justin Landon
Remember when Justin wrote some thing about the Hugos and pissed off a bunch of people? Me, too. And it was beautiful. He writes about a lot of other things, too, such as books and what not, but I suspect he is best remembered for his criticisms of what he sees as the flaws or issues within our genre. And he has this extraordinary ability to spark conversation, which I think is hard to come by sometimes.
And that’s it. So, what did you pick?
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A Reading List of Dystopian Fiction and Relevant Texts (Apropos of Nothing in Particular)
Why would someone make a list of important and interesting works of dystopian fiction? Or a suggested reading list of works that are relevant to those dystopian works? There is absolutely no reason other than raw interest. There’s nothing going on to compel this. There is nothing in particular one making such a list would hope you’d learn. The lists below are not an exhaustive list. There are bound to be texts I have forgotten or texts you think folks should read that are not listed. Feel free to make your own list and tell me about it OR leave a comment. I’ll add things I’ve missed! Anywhoodles. Here goes:
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Duke’s Best EDM Tracks of 2024
And so it came to pass that I finished up my annual Best of EDM [Insert Year Here] lists. I used to do these on Spotify before switching to Tidal, and I continued doing them on Tidal because I listen to an absurd amount of EDM and like keeping track of the tunes I love the most. Below, you will find a Tidal playlist that should be public. You can listen to the first 50 tracks right here, but the full playlist is available on Tidal proper (which has a free version just like Spotify does). For whatever reason, the embedded playlist breaks the page, and so I’ve opted to link to it here and at the bottom of this post. Embeds are weird. Or you can pull songs into your preferred listening app. It’s up to you. Some caveats before we begin:
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2025: The Year of Something
We’re nine days into 2025, and it’s already full of exhausting levels of controversy before we’ve even had a turnover in power in my home country of the United States. We’ve seen resignations of world leaders, wars continuing and getting worse and worse (you know where), the owner of Twitter continuing his tirade of lunacy and demonstrating why the billionaire class is not to be revered, California ablaze with a horrendous and large wildfire, right wing thinktanks developing plans to out and attack Wikipedia editors as any fascist-friendly organization would do, Meta rolling out and rolling back GenAI profiles on its platforms, and, just yesterday, the same Meta announcing sweeping changes to its moderation policies that, in a charitable reading, encourage hate-based harassment and abuse of vulnerable populations, promotion and support for disinformation, and other problems, all of which are so profound that people are talking about a mass exodus from the platform to…somewhere. It’s that last thing that brings me back to the blog today. Since the takeover at Twitter, social networks have been in a state of chaos. Platforms have risen and fallen — or only risen so much — and nothing I would call stability has formed. Years ago, I (and many others far more popular than me) remarked that we’ve ceded the territory of self-owned or small-scale third party spaces for massive third party platforms where we have minimal to no control or say and which can be stripped away in a tech-scale heartbeat. By putting all our ducks into a bin of unstable chaos, we’re also expending our time and energy on something that won’t last, requiring us to expend more time and energy finding alternatives, rebuilding communities, and then repeating the process again. In the present environment, that’s impossible to ignore.1 This is all rather reductive, but this post is not the place to talk about all the ways that social networks have impacted control over our own spaces and narratives. Another time, perhaps. I similarly don’t have space to talk about the fact that some of the platforms we currently have, however functional they may be, have placed many of us in a moral quagmire, as in the case of Meta’s recent moderation changes. Another time… ↩
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