Yevgeny Zamiatin was an enthusiastic supporter of the Russian Revolution in 1917 but by 1924 and the publication of a book ironically entitled We, he was worried that the revolution had brought not freedom but repression and conformity. After being persecuted for many years, he wrote an angry […]
I’m fairly suspicious of nostalgia, and I hate how advertisers leverage our emotions to sell us the same products twice. So while I’m happy that people are rediscovering videogames from their youth, and that the games and their blocky aesthetic are mushrooming up all over the culture, I […]
Marty McKee: Yeah, I know you’ve done a lot of different genres, but I’ve always wondered why that [giant animals] was so interesting to you. Bert I. Gordon: [Pause] I don’t know. [Laugh] Bert Gordon (AKA Mr. BIG, director of The Food of the Gods) doesn’t know why, […]
N (MetaNet Software, 2004) is a perfect pop song of a videogame, an addictive platformer in which you use three keys to direct your ninja towards the gold and away from the robots. Its two-dimensional and mostly two-colour simplicity lure you into its cunning level designs and give […]
Greg Costikyan tells science fiction writers: “I want to be challenged with interesting ideas, distinctive writing styles, unconventional ways of looking at things, and transportation to a world very different from our own. I don’t want to sink into the familiar, I want to be surprised and shaken […]
The following Q&A first appeared, in condensed form, in my column The Panelist for Toronto’s Eye Weekly. Here’s a special, extended version of the conversation. Collecting every Peanuts strip Charles Schulz ever drew, The Complete Peanuts will take a whopping 25 volumes and more than 12 years to […]
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The Cultural Gutter 