Camestros Felapton

Welcome to Susan’s Salon. This post has an open comment thread for people to discuss any topic they would like. Happy, sad, weird or just catching up with events. Yes, you can promote things in the comments if you want. The only rules are: nothing hateful and no cranky disputes/arguments. Susan’s Salon is posted early Monday morning Sydney time, which is usually still Sunday in most places in…

We’ve all read those cautionary tales about not angering or disrespecting faires, elves, “the little people”, whatever they call themselves these days. You know, all those sprites, brownies, hobgoblins etc, etc. Tons of stories about it, little cautionary tales: don’t do that, do do this. There’s not a shred of evidence behind it, there’s not a scintilla of fact on which you can build any…

It wasn’t so very long ago that if you spoke to a libertarian-flavoured libertarian, they would be able to explain a clear, if misguided, view of legal rights. It would go something like this: “Democracy is all very well, but it allows a majority of voters to persecute an unpopular minority of voters. By enshrining a clear set of legal rights, the individual is protected from the arbitary power…

The fraught issue of how many names should be listed for any given Hugo Award finalist is back on the agenda. A set of smart people have a proposal at this year’s Business Meeting to limit it to 8 (https://www.lacon.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/2026businessmeetingagenda.pdf F.7 Limitation on Listed Contributors for Hugo Award Finalists, page 48). The argument presented makes a lot of sense. It…

Welcome to Susan’s Salon. This post has an open comment thread for people to discuss any topic they would like. Happy, sad, weird or just catching up with events. Yes, you can promote things in the comments if you want. The only rules are: nothing hateful and no cranky disputes/arguments. Susan’s Salon is posted early Monday morning Sydney time, which is usually still Sunday in most places in…

It was a fun space fantasy with lots of explosions, with a good cast. The plot is a sort of mash-up of True Grit and Fury Road, but with the aesthetics of Guardians of the Galaxy. It doesn’t really rise above any of that, but it delivers on what it promises. Aside from that, I don’t have much more to say. It is not a film with hidden depths, just a cute person with (occasional) god-like powers…

Just clearing up some disputed facts and internet rumours. Camestros Felapton spent much of his youth building an underground labyrinth that eventually was given council approval. Camestros Felapton studied at several universities, but only one filed an injunction against him. Camestros Felapton has never visited Belgium. Visiting France is not the same as visiting Belgium. Look, here is a…

Sometimes a joke or a less-than-serious remark can make you re-evaluate your own thinking. Over on BlueSky, writer & podcaster Jack Graham was writing about the unlikelihood of J.D.Vance becoming the heir to MAGA. Graham had described Vance as an empty suit, controlled by the right-wing technology elite (i.e. Peter Thiel). He concluded his thoughts with this mini-horror story: “…he is looking…

I was collecting links for something I won’t be posting for a few weeks yet – checking social media for references to the Dragon Award1. Anyway, look who turned up on search for something else: “Is he still around? Good grief. He probably never read it. My encounter with him – where he informed Guardian readers my book (up for the Dragon Award) was white racist wish fulfilment… The hero is…

The Empire of Orrun has eight castes, with each one named and exemplified by an animal. Fox, raven, bear, tiger, ox, monkey, hound, and dragon are also deity-like figures who, according to legend, have intervened to save the world, but they are also portents of the final end of everything. If the Eight (as they are known) return again, it will be the final time, and they will bring…

Welcome to Susan’s Salon. This post has an open comment thread for people to discuss any topic they would like. Happy, sad, weird or just catching up with events. Yes, you can promote things in the comments if you want. The only rules are: nothing hateful and no cranky disputes/arguments. Susan’s Salon is posted early Monday morning Sydney time, which is usually still Sunday in most places in…

Steven Spielberg’s latest film is a return to the topic of alien contact and government cover ups. It’s a longish film (145 minutes) but it sets of at a quick pace with lots of car chases, secret facilities, and people on the run from shadowy organisations. When I say “a quick pace”, we are already well into the plot in the first scene. Dr. Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) has a backpack full of…

I haven’t written about the former Puppies in awhile. As I’ve discussed before, they’ve been a handy sample of people to watch as the US right began to orbit around Donald Trump. Vox Day, the earliest of the Pups to endorse Donald Trump way back in 2015, has completely shifted to being an opponent of Trump via the coping mechanism of pretending that Trump was swapped out for a shorter…

In 1968 Philip K. Dick published Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep a story which follows many of Dick’s signature themes around the fragile nature of reality and belief. The “electric sheep” of the title is not just a cute joke, but also an element of the setting, in which animals have become so rare that people keep artificial animals as pets. This adds to the dream/nightmare quality of the…

On Bluesky there is a bit of a Dungeon Crawler Carl discourse going on. The short version is people pointing out that first book in the series is bad, and defenders of the series claiming that it gets better. I should add that yes, book 1 is rough and yes, it does get better but it is a few books in before I’d say it is actually good. It’s sort of like a trashy sci-fi TV series or cartoon that…

Welcome to Susan’s Salon. This post has an open comment thread for people to discuss any topic they would like. Happy, sad, weird or just catching up with events. Yes, you can promote things in the comments if you want. The only rules are: nothing hateful and no cranky disputes/arguments. Susan’s Salon is posted early Monday morning Sydney time, which is usually still Sunday in most places in…

At Marvel Comics it wasn’t only the X-Men who were having issues with time travellers from dystopian futures. In 1983, The Incredible Hulk found himself fighting a soldier who has accidentally been transported back in time, from a war-torn future. The story was interesting enough but observant readers quickly spotted the resemblance between the comic and the first episode of season 2 of the TV…