Sword Fighting with Neal Stephenson and His Mongoliad Co-Authors
It’s not even 10:30 in the morning, and I’m already holding an archaic deadly weapon in my hands. I’m in a nondescript warehouse in Seattle, to which I’ve traveled so that award-winning science fiction novelists can demonstrate how they could cut me in half if they felt like it. Somebody has just pulled a sword…
How I Helped L. Ron Hubbard to ‘Take Over the Planet’
Back when queer activist Kate Bornstein was a boy named Al, she was a leading member of the Church of Scientology. She served aboard L. Ron Hubbard’s flagship, and even worked directly with Hubbard on a campaign to control Scientology members more completely. Bornstein’s new memoir A Queer and Pleasent Danger explains why she found…
My Vision of Game of Thrones‘ Bran Stark, Atop Winterfell
Last week, io9 featured a post about the making of my Eddard Stark artwork for George R.R. Martin’s 2012 A Song of Ice and Fire Calendar. This week, let’s have a look at the process behind my Bran Stark artwork. https://gizmodo.com/how-i-brought-game-of-thrones-ned-stark-to-life-5911362 Here’s how I met the challenge of illustrating Ned Stark’s nimble, tower-climbing son, one…
The Secret to Becoming a Magician (in 1882)
What’s amazing about the complete scan of 1882’s brilliant, batty, bizarre How to Become a Magician over at the Public Domain Review isn’t just the fact that it tells you how to make ice in a “red-hot vessel” (you’ll need a platinum cup and “sulphuric” acid). Rather, it’s that this book has that weird Victorian…
When the Apocalypse Throws You Back in Time
When we try to imagine the world after an apocalypse, we often end up thinking of a particular era from history. It’s not surprising — because the end of the world as we know it often means we’ll lose a lot of the fruits of progress. People often talk about bombing someone “back to the…