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 Fancast
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I love this category for entirely biased reasons: I’m eligible for one and a lot of my favorite shows are eligible, too. It’s also a category which I think deserves to exist. Podcasting is such a specific medium, so it really doesn’t belong in Best Fanzine or Best Related Work or Best Dramatic Presentation (unless your podcast involves audio plays or audiobooks, of course). So the fact that I get to vote in this category now is pretty awesome.
But you’re here for my nominations. So here goes (in no particular order):
The Coode Street Podcast
This remains one of my favorites, and the only “long time fans talking about the history of sf/f” podcasts on my list. Gary and Jonathan always have something fascinating to say about whatever topic they’re covering, and their endless knowledge of the field adds considerable depth to the conversation without making it unfit for a general audience.
The Writer and the Critic
I’m fairly new to this show (as in the last year-ish), but it was recommended to me by so many people that I couldn’t ignore it. And for good reason, too. Their concentrated examination of individual works of sf/f is refreshing and informative. Also: it’s Australian, which is pretty cool, right? Mostly, however, I just think they are one of the best places to get in-depth analysis and discussion of sf/f works.
Galactic Suburbia
I came back to GS last year after a bit of a hiatus. Originally, I didn’t much care for the show because they spent so much time talking about “politics” (the word I’m using to describe the gender kerfluffles in our field). They still talk about “politics,” but I think I’m in a much different place today than I was in 2012, so either I don’t notice it as much or I agree with their take more often than not or they’ve reduced the amount of time they devote to “politics.” I have a feeling it’s the middle one. Whatever the reason, I’m now a regular listener of this show for one simple fact: their opinions on things happening in sf/f and the works we read are compelling and align with my own interests.
The Incomparable
Honestly, I have no idea if they’re even eligible in this category. But Fred Kiesche is absolutely correct: if you don’t know, nominate anyway and let the Hugo folks figure it out. So I’m nominating The Incomparable, which is one of my favorite shows from last year. Their insightful commentary and humor have kept me quite entertained since I started listening to them after Worldcon last year. They are not unlike The Writer and the Critic in that respect.
The Skiffy and Fanty Show
I’m on the show. I’m nominating it. So sue me. Why am I nominating it? Because I think it’s a good show. We’ve improved so much in the last year, and with this whole new crew, things are just getting better. Of course, I’m totally biased, so you can smack me around if you like.
And that’s my list. What am I missing?
Note: I realize there are some big shows missing from the list (SF Signal, for example). The main reasons for this are either that I didn’t listen to those shows last year OR I didn’t think they were award worthy (maybe perfectly serviceable shows, but without meeting my admittedly rigid standards for what I want in a show).
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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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