The Cambias Digression

Notes and thoughts on everything from what I had for breakfast to the fate of the Universe.

  • Book Review: Revenger

    It's sometimes very difficult to tell the difference between a genius and a crackpot. Both can be geeky, eccentric, abrasive, or just plain annoying. There is, however, one foolproof "tell" for the crackpot: they don't share ideas. If someone comes up to me at a convention or a book signing and starts going on about…

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  • Retro-Review: Famous Science-Fiction Stories (Part 4 and Conclusion)

    At last we've come to the final stories in Famous Science-Fiction Stories: Adventures in Time and Space. Time to wrap up and make a general assessment. By His Bootstraps, by Anson MacDonald/Robert Heinlein: This is a well-known story, but I hesitate to call it a classic. It has a lot in common with Heinlein's other…

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  • Retro-Review: Famous Science-Fiction Stories (Part 3)

    We're about two-thirds of the way through the book. Did the editors front-load the good stuff, or save the best for a boffo finish? Let's find out. Asylum, by A.E. Van Vogt: Space vampires! One of the first discussions of what SETI researchers call the "Zoo hypothesis!" Identity games worthy of Philip K. Dick! Unconvincing…

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  • Retro-Review: Famous Science-Fiction Stories (Part 2)

    This post continues my look at the ground-breaking 1946 anthology Famous Science-Fiction Stories: Adventures in Time and Space, edited by Raymond Healy and John McComas. It's probably going to take at least four entries to cover the whole book. Last time I got through the first seven stories, and so far the collection has been…

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  • Retro-Review: Famous Science-Fiction Stories (Part 1)

    American literature doesn't have an official "Canon." There's no equivalent of the Academie Francaise to decide what is and what is not Literature with a capital L. But we do have some approximations: high-school or first-year college course reading lists, better-late-than-never Pulitzers, adaptations in Classics Illustrated Comics or Oscar-bait films . . . And of…

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  • Experience Points (Part 2): Problems and Solutions

    Last time I asked if experience points in roleplaying games are necessary, and more or less talked myself into believing they are. But I can't say I'm happy about that conclusion. How come? Because I think experience points and character advancement have a corroding effect on roleplaying campaigns. Here's why: the unrelenting focus on winning…

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  • Experience Points (Part 1): Do We Need Them?

    For any fan of roleplaying games, the answer to the question in the title of this post is "Of course!" or maybe "As many as possible!" But I'm not sure that experience points are necessary for roleplaying games — and I've started to wonder if they're actually harmful. If you're not familiar with roleplaying games,…

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  • Convention Report: Albacon 2017

    (". . . Featuring ME!") I drove west through sleet, rain, and fog — but no snow, which was a huge relief as I was in a car without snow tires — to Albany, which looks as if someone decided to drop the 1960s capital city of a large post-colonial nation into the middle of…

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  • Albacon 2017, Featuring ME!

    On Friday and Saturday, March 31-April 1 I'll be a guest at Albacon 2017, the long-running convention in New York's capital city. There's a really impressive lineup of people attending: Charles E. Gannon, Stephen Hickman, Lawrence M. Schoen, Ken Altabef, Ken Burnside, Debra Doyle, Jim MacDonald, Chuck Rothman, Ryk E. Spoor, Ian Randall Strock, and…

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  • Ozblogging: Tik-Tok of Oz, Part 8 (whew!)

    Having finished the story several chapters earlier, Mr. Baum piles anticlimax on anticlimax by cutting away from the adventurers in the Nome Kingdom to the magical fairyland of Oz, where Ozma has been watching the whole thing on her Magic Picture. I have to say Ozma is a little uncomfortably voyeuristic here. It's one thing…

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The Worldbuilding Index