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The Great Indochina Expedition, Episode 3: Emotional Whiplash Day
Our tour set out again on the morning of December 28, aboard tuk-tuks once again. The first stop was not far from the Rambutan, at a restaurant where we tried a Cambodian breakfast specialty: a noodle soup called Kuy Teav. Suihong, the trainee guide, explained that it’s not the sort of thing one has every…
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The Great Indochina Expedition, Episode 2: Phnom Penh
On our first full day in Cambodia we woke up early — which was surprising as I had expected to be utterly wiped out after the flight. Apparently my body decided that sitting in a chair for 30 hours didn’t count as “real fatigue” so I didn’t deserve real sleep. At breakfast we met one…
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The Great Indochina Expedition, Episode 1: Background and Back Pain
When Dr. Kelly and I were planning the Great Australian Expedition of April-May 2025, one idea which came up early on was to include a side trip to southeast Asia. I’ve always wanted to visit Angkor Wat, and while Cambodia isn’t exactly close to Australia, it’s a lot closer to Australia than it is to…
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Ho Ho Ho
It’s coming up on Christmas Eve, and that means it’s beginning to look a lot like NORAD. The oddest, silliest, yet curiously sweetest Christmas-themed site, another front in the U.S. armed forces’ ongoing war against irony.
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Retro-Review: Hellstrom’s Hive
Hellstrom’s Hive is a novel by Frank Herbert, better known as the creator of Dune. He wrote it in 1972, inspired by a somewhat obscure film by David Wolper called The Hellstrom Chronicle. I haven’t seen the movie, but I gather it’s an odd combination of a nature documentary about bugs, coupled with some alarmist narration by the fictional…
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My Worldbuilding Talk
Last weekend I spoke at the North Amherst Public Library branch about how to do science fiction worldbuilding, at a session organized by the estimable Steven Brewer for the Straw Dogs writing workshop. You can see Steven’s account of it here.
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My PhilCon Schedule
Next weekend, November 21-23, I’ll be a guest at Philadelphia’s long-running science fiction convention, PhilCon, held once again at the Doubletree Hotel in scenic Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Here’s my schedule if you want to stop by. FRIDAY, November 21 6:00 p.m. — Science Fiction Games: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!: A panel…
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Notes on Worldbuilding, Part 18: The Planet Chart
I’ve been putting together a talk about worldbuilding, distilling this whole series down into a couple of hours. As a handout I’ve created this chart, indexing planetary size against temperature to classify planets. It’s intended as a quick-and-dirty guide for people who don’t really want to go into the minutiae of planetary science. Anyway, here…
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More Crunchy Game Content: Even More Traveller Vehicles!
Now updated! Here are some more vehicles for the Traveller roleplaying game, designed (as before) using the Cepheus Engine rules from Moon Toad Publishing. As before, the entries are followed by some notes about the design. TL9 GRAV CRANE This is a heavy cargo mover, capable of picking up containers or whole vehicles up to…
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Happy Lepanto Day!
Today marks the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, a fight between the allied Spanish and Italian navies and the Ottoman Empire. It took place in 1571, at the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth in Greece, and was the last great naval battle fought by oared galleys. The battle was a surprise upset —…
The Cambias Digression
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