Recent content by Iopgod

I may have said this before, but it turns out the thing what you need in a film for it to be a Star Wars film is a proper theme-tune-over-text-crawl and the contents of the rest of the film doesn't really matter very much. R1 didn't have one, therefore logically must be terrible and not worth...

I enjoyed these (and The Relentless Moon), but more for the "1950s America IN SPACE!" vibe than the "hard" AH (which I hadn't actually noticed, despite President Dewey). I did, unusually for me, listen to them first (actually, I'm not sure I have even read them as words). Audible has Koval...

As a possibly interesting note, I understand that several of the ideas now thought of as "group theory" were also developed (and proven, for certain values of proven) independently in the context of English change ringing (which is quite concerned with the order bells of different notes ring...

> Come on to the forum and comment if you want an article series titled something like “Thande Gushes About Discworld for 5000 words” instead… Yes please ;) I have to admit I have very rarely cared about continuity in Discworld, possibly because every* book is a standalone, and possibly...

On the other hand, I may have been wrong about the intro: see https://www.tor.com/2019/02/27/the-fantasy-roots-of-pern-dragonflight-part-one/ (especially comment 26) for discussion. On the subject of McCaffery and prequel / sequels, she also has the Dinosaur Planet -> Planet Pirates sequence...

Harper trilogy is how I was introduced to her work (and possibly Sci-Fi as a genre). I think I read the second one (Dragonsong?) first (as you do). Probably a better introduction to the series than Dragonflight (certainly less rape-y).

I'm not sure if the early editions of Weyr Search / Dragonflight etc. had the this-is-a-colony intro. Moretta (and Nerilka's Story, which is set concurrently) has the most discussion of time travelling (and also demonstrates why it was discouraged / forgotten). (It is also has a plague.) Im...

Yes, I remember enjoying that, too!

Recently came across https://thishumanwrites.co.uk/the-advice/ and https://thishumanwrites.co.uk/the-appellant/ which seem to have AH-vibes. 2 short pieces of fiction in the form of legal advice / decisions... the laws and people are fictitious. As I enjoy reading real OTL legal advice and...

I would have no objection to that, any more than I have to those who already celebrate it on the Julian date, or those who celebrate New Year in February. Its just that you (they) wont (or at least might not) get the bank/school holidays to coincide with said celebration...

Hey, they are talking about virtual committees.. virtual voting (presumably without at least the physical voting lobbies) can't be that far away, huh? And then regularising the date of Easter would be the entirely and utterly logical and justifiable next step. Any! Day! Now!

I would like to note the 1928 Easter Act, which officially establishes Easter Sunday as the Sunday following the second Saturday in April (at least for UK secular purposes such as the back holidays, etc.). And it will come in to force just as soon as the PM of the day takes in to account the...

From what I can tell from google groups (which seems to have disabled access to soc.history.what-if for spam(!), but it will still give you a date if you use the search box), Thaxted - Part 1 was posted 17/06/2001, while WI Gordon Banks had played #1...yet another far right UK TL! was posted...

Yes, when they first came out. I generally enjoy Jo Walton's books, and these are indeed quite amusing, if not terribly uplifting (even where the endings are sort-of-happy for the protagonist, the world is not a happy place). I thought many of the details of her Britain were a bit derivative...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacer_(train) Built cheaply (originally with furniture, doors etc. designed for busses), they do not have a great reputation in UK rail circles.