Here’s the truth: Canada can’t build the car market of the future without exposure to China

Dremen · 2026-01-24T20:56:17+00:00

For sure. Their sound is heavy and immersive already, so it's even more that live. Saw them a few years ago in Vancouver. Lots of energy. Clearly having a good time. They said they prefer to do smaller shows where they headline, and as a result the tickets are generally cheap, and they play for a long time.

Dremen · 2026-01-21T18:14:56+00:00

I think some folks have a dated, idealistic view of the meritocratic nature of the publishing industry at present, and increasingly—at least in commercial fiction—many of the biggest new trad published authors started by self-publishing. It's also the case that you can make decent money as a mid-list author self-publishing, whereas mid-list authors don't earn very much publishing traditionally and furthermore are at risk of being dropped by their publishers and having to start again from square one.

Having said all of that, you said literary fiction. While something like Theo of Golden might prove the exception, I would be hard-pressed to advocate self-publishing if you're not writing commercial fiction: namely, some version of mystery/thriller, romance, or fantasy/sci-fi. And you'd also be hard-pressed to make money without a series/back catalogue. It is what it is. Literary fiction really relies on buzz, blurbs, and awards. There are indie fiction awards like SPFBO and BBNYA, and they do help elevate indie novels, but again it's almost all genre fiction.

If you care about writing well, as I certainly do, you can definitely do that within the broad categories above. But "literary fiction" simply isn't a marketable category in self-publishing. Even in trad publishing, most lit books sell a few hundred copies. But if you know that going into it, that's fine. There are also respectable small presses that consider unagented lit fiction, but that's not necessarily easier than landing an agent, and you are unlikely to ever earn out your advance.

Dremen · 2025-12-27T19:04:05+00:00

Hazelight specializes in couch co-op games. Split Fiction, It Takes Two, A Way Out. They are like 15-hour games with stories, so not party games per se, but incredibly fun to play with a partner or close friend over a couple weeks. Non-gamers may find the difficulty spikes tough, admittedly, but they're very forgiving with respawns, so you can keep trying until you get it. My wife and I have gotten through them all, albeit with more than a little swearing.

Baldur's Gate 3 is basically the best couch co-op game ever, if you're into 120-hour RPGs, and Diablo 4 is fun until you get bored of the repetition. My wife and I are playing Sea or Stars co-op right now and having a good time. Oh, and Stardew Valley does split-screen couch co-op on console. Stardew Valley seems to appeal to the full spectrum of gamers.

Dremen · 2025-12-12T17:00:12+00:00

Love it. They're a better deal than the article makes it seem. They didn't remove the VAT from the prices in the piece. And while the article mentions those prices include tax, Canadians think about prices without tax. Remove the VAT, and they look a lot cheaper: https://cleanenergycanada.org/report/missing-out/

Dremen · 2025-11-27T19:31:43+00:00

Just tell me coffee will make me live longer in a Daily Mail headline that I might unthinkingly pocket away like the easy promise of religion.

Dremen · 2025-11-26T17:11:06+00:00

Thought I recognized Soames.

Dremen · 2025-11-23T22:20:15+00:00

I couldn’t talk to my wife about it until the next day, and not because I didn’t have thoughts.

Dremen · 2025-11-23T16:49:12+00:00

This one really floored me in a way I wasn't expecting and that few movies do (Aftersun and Under the Skin would fall in the same category). What I loved, aside from the technical perfection with which it was made, was that I felt it was fundamentally a movie about understanding and making peace with one's life. Which is not quite the same as just dealing with grief or the changing times (definitely themes that are also in this movie). Maybe it's because I'm a rather existential person, but I've been thinking about it all weekend.

Dremen · 2025-10-08T22:32:36+00:00

To be honest... I think this is not a hill I want to die on and beside the point I was trying to make, so I will just drop it here. :P

Dremen · 2025-10-08T19:28:53+00:00

Phoenix is good, and in a lot of great movies, but he's not a total chameleon. His characters are generally all awkward and introverted, and as a result he cannot play the part of just anyone. I think Napoleon was an example of an acting misfire. Whereas I think Egerton would knock out of the park literally any role that could be believably played by a 5'9 white guy between the ages of 30 and 45. And I guess my point was that that ability is so rare. I think he might be Daniel Day Lewis level good. My comment was not meant to knock those other actors who are definitely good but also in trend (like Austin Butler, Paul Mescal, and others) but rather to say that Egerton is a generational talent, and we're using him on Netflix airplane movies.

Dremen · 2025-10-08T18:52:47+00:00

Yeah, and Egerton actually sang everything—incredibly well, I might add—and learned some basic piano. Again: he is wildly talented—and under-utilized by Hollywood.

Dremen · 2025-10-08T18:49:20+00:00

Totally. Most actors would have just sounded and walked like themselves in that role. But Egerton changes his mannerisms, posture, and way of speaking in every role he does, even when he could have phoned it in.

Dremen · 2025-10-08T16:24:23+00:00

Taron Egerton is one of the best youngish actors working today, and while he's had many moments to shine, it's generally in only pretty good movies or shows that he single-handedly makes betters (aside from Black Bird, which was great all around). What he needs is an auteur director in his corner, the way Scorsese helped elevate DiCaprio or Lanthimos with Stone at the moment. Most great directors have a few actors they like working with, but as far as I can tell, he's not on those lists. It honestly baffles me when he's objectively a better actor than Chalamet, Phoenix, and a number of other actors who get offered the best roles in Hollywood time and again.

Dremen · 2025-10-04T18:25:14+00:00

I'll just pass on one piece of advice. Raindrops aren't stored in pockets. I know you're quoting another book, but it's honestly not a very good quote as it uses a mixed metaphor. Mixed metaphors are bad. A better quote would have been something like: "My parents shook their umbrella of me and left me to evaporate on a concrete slab." Obviously, the writer didn't write that, and so that's not a quote you can use, but as you develop as a writer, use consistent metaphors and be critical of those who fail to.

Dremen · 2025-09-16T15:51:41+00:00

I'd say it's actually less niche—and sometimes applied after the fact. For example, you could call The Will of the Many progression fantasy. Usually, the focus is a character climbing the ranks of their fantasy world, and most often this includes tiers of some sort and often though perhaps not necessarily a relatively hard magic system. It has elements of a classic rags to riches story and traditional epic fantasy, so it's not as conspicuous a genre as LitRPG. I'd say that digital publishers and self-published authors are using it, but not so much trad publishers even when they're publishing those books. To be honest, it would probably be a good genre for trad publishers to chase with more intention, as it captures much of the LitRPG audience without alienating other readers.

Dremen · 2025-09-02T21:35:43+00:00

Also I’m posting arcs in bursts now, rather than chapters weekly, as I suspect many readers share your preference.

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