Today I took a look at James Gurney's second Dinotopia book, THE WORLD BENEATH (1995), a parable about the dangers of a society that overrelies on technology and turns its back on multispecies community. A beautiful book, but not nearly as powerful as DINOTOPIA (1992).

Reading “The World Beneath” by James Gurney (Dinotopia 2)

On James Gurney’s The World Beneath (1995), the second Dinotopia illustrated novel and a parable about the dangers of overreliance on technology at the expense of community.

seanguynes.com

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's not that interesting, but I do think it's symptomatic of something that most every take on Omelas wants to "solve" it.

Michael Jordan 'Stop It, Get Some Help' Meme

ALT: Michael Jordan 'Stop It, Get Some Help' Meme

static.klipy.com

Zachary Gillan@megapolisomancy.bsky.social · 12h ago

Omelas is not that interesting a story and the takes have got to stop

Narratively, I think the revelation that the "weapon" on the Halo is the Floor is pretty brilliant. Playwise, I think the shift to fighting the Flood kinda sucks.

I love when an eBay push notification is like "this obscure Star Trek novel that only you have been watching for the last 28 days is a hot product! get it before someone else does!"

If you are using AI/LLM you are not part of our community. We write. You push buttons trying to make a quick buck. That makes you a scammer not an artist.

Yes, very good take. Any person who’s ever listened to sports radio knows that people disagreeing about things is poison to public engagement.

Robert Borden Stan Account@bordenstan.bsky.social · yesterday

If the academy gets pulled into coming out swinging against the biggest adaptation of Homer in probably a couple generations off the back of one prominent scholar deciding to be Reviewer 2 to Nolan's work, it will say, IMO, pretty damning things about academia's ability to foster public engagement.

You've probably noticed that a lot of right-wing ghouls love The Lord of the Rings: Giorgia Meloni, Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, many such cases. In my latest essay, I set out to put neofascist affinity for Tolkien in religious and historical context - and to show why the far right gets Tolkien wrong.

Fascism and Faërie

Fantastic Antitheses

queerandback.substack.com

It's a really great sf romcom, but the best part is it's Emma Caulfield!

Jessica Ritchey@jmritchey.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Timer (2009). Fantastical rom com where an implant lets the user know how long until they meet The One. A very well observed, and very Californian, comedy of manners with Caulfield excellent as a hopeless romantic who is hopelessly modern and wants the impossibility of love with contract riders.

more important than the bible

sean guynes@guynes.bsky.social · 2d ago

And for my thoughts on DINOTOPIA: A LAND APART FROM TIME, you can read that essay too!

I have a Dinotopia inspired sleeve 😂😂😂 (Well, partial sleeve)

sean guynes@guynes.bsky.social · 2d ago

And for my thoughts on DINOTOPIA: A LAND APART FROM TIME, you can read that essay too!

Reposting from the end of last week, my piece on E.K. Johnston retelling how Padme became queen, her early efforts at politics, her experience of the occupation of Naboo, complete with the torture of a 12 year by droids, periods as a minor plot device, and teen girls sneaking out to go to a concert.

Star Wars: Reading “Queen’s Peril” by E.K. Johnston (Queen Trilogy 2)

On E.K. Johnston’s Queen’s Peril, the second novel in a YA trilogy that recovers the story of Padmé for a feminist-minded audience and retells portions of The Phantom Menace from the Qu…

seanguynes.com

Today I took a look at James Gurney's second Dinotopia book, THE WORLD BENEATH (1995), a parable about the dangers of a society that overrelies on technology and turns its back on multispecies community. A beautiful book, but not nearly as powerful as DINOTOPIA (1992).

Reading “The World Beneath” by James Gurney (Dinotopia 2)

On James Gurney’s The World Beneath (1995), the second Dinotopia illustrated novel and a parable about the dangers of overreliance on technology at the expense of community.

seanguynes.com

This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b

One of the best things YouTubers have ever done is record entire playthroughs of old video games I nostalgically remember but don't actually want to replay. I can sit here working while I watch someone play the game adaptation of Disney's ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE.

"History involves sorting and organizing hundreds of thousands of facts" I remain astounded by how loud and wrong people are about what history actually is.

More book club scam emails, which reminds me I've been slacking on promo. So let me put this into the ether: Audiofuturism will be eligible for a Best Related Work Hugo in 2027. This year's nominees are *stunning* & I would love to be one someday. So I hope you'll read it. bit.ly/audiofuturism

Audiofuturism: Science Fiction Radio Drama and the Black Fantastic Imagination

A revelatory history of Black radio productions from the 1950s to the present Audiofuturism uncovers the vibrant, overlooked history of radio adaptations that placed Black speculative writing before m...

bit.ly

Going outside and realizing it's below 70 degrees

Is it a hot take in the fantasy community to say that Darrell Sweet's cover art for the Wheel of Time books is ass? Because it's ass.

This would seem to imply that the actual only way to fight the fascism fish is with the equally sized Muslims fish.

Working on my essay about the second Dinotopia book and... what a shocking dip in quality. Almost as though Gurney forgot about everything his characters had learned and didn't realize what was interesting about Dinotopia. It goes to weird places and is not great, even if the art is still gorgeous.

Reading “Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time” by James Gurney (Dinotopia 1)

James Gurney’s Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time (1992) is an incredible illustrated utopian novel of an adventurer’s arrival and education in a land where dinosaurs and humans live sid…

seanguynes.com

Reposting from the end of last week, my piece on E.K. Johnston retelling how Padme became queen, her early efforts at politics, her experience of the occupation of Naboo, complete with the torture of a 12 year by droids, periods as a minor plot device, and teen girls sneaking out to go to a concert.

Star Wars: Reading “Queen’s Peril” by E.K. Johnston (Queen Trilogy 2)

On E.K. Johnston’s Queen’s Peril, the second novel in a YA trilogy that recovers the story of Padmé for a feminist-minded audience and retells portions of The Phantom Menace from the Qu…

seanguynes.com

Today's the anniversary of one of my favorite essays I wrote last year, a response to my first reading of Robert Jordan's THE EYE OF THE WORLD (1990). Spoiler: I thought was pretty great! And I put the book in the context of fantasy scholarship that has largely ignored/bashed it.

Reading “The Eye of the World” by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time 1)

Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World (1990) is the titanic first novel in his Wheel of Time series (1990-2013), yet for all its prominence in the fantasy field, it has rarely been given serio…

seanguynes.com

For my essay on the first novel in the trilogy, look no further:

Star Wars: Reading “Queen’s Shadow” by E.K. Johnston (Queen Trilogy 1)

On E.K. Johnston’s Queen’s Shadow, the first novel in a YA trilogy that recovers the story of Padmé for a feminist-minded audience and wrestles with the state of democracy.

seanguynes.com

Here's my look at QUEEN'S PERIL by E.K. Johnston, the second novel in her trilogy about Padmé/Queen Amidala. This one takes place before and during THE PHANTOM MENACE. Not nearly as good as QUEEN'S SHADOW, but it's got its high points and is definitely a "teen girls rock!" novel.

Star Wars: Reading “Queen’s Peril” by E.K. Johnston (Queen Trilogy 2)

On E.K. Johnston’s Queen’s Peril, the second novel in a YA trilogy that recovers the story of Padmé for a feminist-minded audience and retells portions of The Phantom Menace from the Qu…

seanguynes.com

was the party planned by ChatGPT?

regular meghan 나영지 🇵🇸@ruemcclammyhand.bsky.social · 7d ago

oh my god a Y Combinator startup called LemonLime threw a party, brought in a tattoo artist offering free tattoos, and then said they would give an immediate job interview to anyone who got a tattoo of their logo what is wrong with these people.

At last, here's the next up in my essay series on Ballantine Adult Fantasy, which dives into the satirical romances of James Branch Cabell and THE SILVER STALLION (1926):

Ballantine Adult Fantasy: Reading “The Silver Stallion” by James Branch Cabell (Biography of the Life of Manuel)

The fifteenth essay in my Ballantine Adult Fantasy reading series, about James Branch Cabell’s The Silver Stallion (1926), a satirical take on the medieval romance that goes to some truly wil…

seanguynes.com

There's a canon Star Wars Chinese web-novel that has not been translated into English, Lucasfilm's attempt to court a Chinese audience for Star Wars. I am *so* curious to read this! Same with the 4 unlicensed, Hungarian-only Han Solo novels from the 1990s.

The Vow of Silver Dawn

The Vow of Silver Dawn, titled 《白银誓约》 in the original simplified Chinese, is a canon web-novel written by an author under the pseudonym "His Majesty the King." Announced in 2019, The Vow of Silver Daw...

starwars.fandom.com

an interesting side effect of all this talk over criticism: folks asserting that there’s a proper way to be a critic, or decorum to follow. I don’t think there is! There are as many ways to be a critic (or a writer) as there are of being a person.

I really do think Emily Wilson and JCO could conceivably escalate this to the point of dueling

If pocket calculators regularly and randomly gave you incorrect answers to your queries like ChatGPT does, we would have left the technology behind, not insisted that 2+2=5 is HERE TO STAY, BABY.

Uncle Fuzzzy 🦆@unclefuzzzy.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Funny, that’s what we thought about pocket calculators in 1974