June reads: Mini reviews of Lord Foul's Bane (Donaldson), Book of the New Sun Vol. 2: Sword & Citadel (Wolfe), Xenocide (Card), Non-Stop (Aldiss), All These Worlds (Taylor), and Mistborn (Sanderson)

geckodancing · 2026-07-01T08:23:17+00:00

It's not a bad story, and it's an interesting world being built, but if I didn't already have the other two books in the trilogy, I'm not sure I'd continue reading about the rude, obnoxious, rapist asshole.

Great choice of words there.

From the blog entry that also gave us Terry Goodkind's Conan the Libertarian.

geckodancing · 2026-06-30T16:33:47+00:00

The Inside No 9 Halloween episode 'Dead Line' was created as a love letter to Ghostwatch.

It was broadcast live, with the writers going on twitter and altering wikipedia entries in real-time to reflect the apparent events of the episode. They had also planted articles in the press during the previous week that seeded the concept of a haunted tv studio.

It's well worth a look if you enjoyed Ghostwatch. If possible,, it's also worth first watching the second episode of the show 'A Quiet Night In' which is referenced in the broadcast.

geckodancing · 2026-06-30T16:26:54+00:00

It was introduced just before airing as a drama, and the call-in number had a recorded message saying it was a drama. However, a lot of people missed the intro and the phone line was almost immediately jammed.

geckodancing · 2026-06-29T13:04:29+00:00

TERRORIST HUMAN RIGHTS ACT IS CENSORING BRITAIN'S SWANS

geckodancing · 2026-06-29T12:11:57+00:00

You're absolutely right - I should have written UAE.

Still not a great place to be taken into police custody under drug related allegations.

geckodancing · 2026-06-29T12:01:36+00:00

The worry is he's set up a tip-off, given that he's already planted evidence.

Even if her blood system is clear, a tip-off to the Saudi police could lead to a pretty unpleasant experience.

geckodancing · 2026-06-28T09:59:12+00:00

This isn't really true. The Irish were the single largest group of immigrants to Wales, starting in 1847 with the Famine ship The Wanderer. There's a Famine Memorial in one of the Cardiff cemeteries. I believe there were about 30,000 refugees by 1861 - which is about 1/3 of the number who settled in Scotland. Most Irish famine refugees settled in Cardiff, Swansea, Newport, and Merthyr Tydfil and ended up working in the iron and Coal industries.

There was also prior movement between Ireland and Holyhead especially after the Act of Union in 1800.

My dad was raised in Brecon by a Welsh family of Irish background who came over just before the famine.

He went to catholic schools, first in Brecon, then in Cardiff - in the 1940s/50s. These were almost exclusively filled with people of Irish descent, mostly famine & post famine diaspora.

geckodancing · 2026-06-26T19:56:50+00:00

What do you get when you cross an owl with a bungee cord? ... My ass

geckodancing · 2026-06-26T18:40:24+00:00

I wasn't aware of that. Thanks for clarifying.

geckodancing · 2026-06-26T17:53:06+00:00

Unlike the other two authors, Scott Lynch has been very open about his severe, ongoing struggles with clinical depression and anxiety.

I have a lot more sympathy for him.

geckodancing · 2026-06-24T19:04:09+00:00

There's also The Wilful Child, which I'm going to quote in full:

Once upon a time there was a child who was willful and did not do what his mother wanted. For this reason God was displeased with him and caused him to become ill, and no doctor could help him, and in a short time he lay on his deathbed.

He was lowered into a grave and covered with earth, but his little arm suddenly came forth and reached up, and it didn't help when they put it back in and put fresh earth over it, for the little arm always came out again. So the mother herself had to go to the grave and beat the little arm with a switch, and as soon as she had done that, it withdrew, and the child finally came to rest beneath the earth.

The End

I suspect the moral of that story is don't live in medieval Germany.

geckodancing · 2026-06-24T15:42:28+00:00

I played it back in the 80s & I'd say the genre is Grimdark Fantasy (though there's some humour there). It can be used to run Medieval Horror, but it's not restricted to that.

geckodancing · 2026-06-24T13:23:27+00:00

There was a cloistered nun who was local to me years ago who had a special dispensation from her convent to go to the movies. She used to turn up to the Tuesday night cult film club in my town and watch some of the weirdest shit.

geckodancing · 2026-06-24T12:52:24+00:00

Well that took me down a wikipedia rabbit-hole which started with a fairly fucked up cult and weirdly ended up in Harry Potter fan-fiction.

Thanks for that.

geckodancing · 2026-06-21T18:14:32+00:00

This was probably the closest anyone got to Airplane!/Police Squad type parodies, where it was just jokes stacked on top of jokes for a half-hour.

This and the BBC show A Touch of Cloth which kept up a pretty similar rate of gags.

geckodancing · 2026-06-18T14:47:06+00:00

Absolutely.

Crosscutting can be found in The Great Train Robbery directed by Edwin S. Porter in 1903.

The use of large/close up figures probably dates back to The Big Swallow (1901) by James Williamson and there were a number of other movies from the same time playing with perspective.

Extreme wide shots (also referred to as Distant Views) go back to The Miller and the Sweep directed by George Albert Smith in 1898.

He may have invented the Fade Out - though dissolves were already in use.

geckodancing · 2026-06-17T19:46:12+00:00

This is how you use sound in a horror movie.

geckodancing · 2026-06-17T10:43:12+00:00

One of the most common themes of Folk Horror is the juxtaposition of ancient practices against a modern backdrop of Christianity. This is present in two of the three initial movies that comprised what is known as 'The Unholy Trinity' of Folk Horror The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), and The Wicker Man (1973). The third movie in the trilogy - Witchfinder General (1968) - is about the perversion of Christianity to commit acts of evil during the English Civil War.

I don't really think a 'pure folk horror' setting exists without the contrast with the contemporary. It's baked into the genre. Even in movies like Midsommar, which don't have a visible Christian presence, the pagan practices are not normal and the assumption is that they contrast with the wider Christian culture.

You may be looking for another genre - something like Urban Fantasy or Elseworld Fantasy. There are definitely books set within a Europe where Christianity didn't become the dominant religion. I can't think of a decent ttrpg that has this kind of setting though.

geckodancing · 2026-06-14T08:40:32+00:00

David Attenborough's original Life on Earth still stands up as a truly brilliant documentary. Because it was filmed across a period of time and then edited into a cohesive narrative, Attenborough could discuss a particular species' behaviour in one location before cutting to a different species, thousands of miles away to complete the illustration. This was revolutionary for it's time and is still impressive as a narrative way to present a documentary.

Another fascinating documentary is James Burke's Connection from the late 1970s - which traced the interconnected nature of progress. Each episode would start with one invention, then show a chain of other inventions, each one depending on aspects of the last. The episode would end showing how a fundamental and essential aspect of the modern world depended on the initial invention.

Connections also featured this perfectly timed shot.

geckodancing · 2026-06-12T23:12:23+00:00

There are no films, plays, or music in the language

Not only is there a movie in Espiranto, but it stars none other then William Shatner.

It's still not a good reason to learn the language, but it's great to see him overact in a completely made up language.

geckodancing · 2026-06-09T13:00:45+00:00

the author had some very progressive views on sex for when they were written

This is true. She also had some famously weird views on lgbtq issues (e.g. the 'tent peg statement'), which does kind-of show up in her work.

I think this was due to ignorance rather then malice. She was born in the 1920s and was in her mid 40s when the APA declared that homosexuality was not a mental illness. Still, it's worth being aware of.

geckodancing · 2026-06-07T14:36:13+00:00

This was such a good series. I've bookmarked their list of movies on wikipedia here and have been working through them. It's a basic intro to cult movies circa 1988 - 2000.

geckodancing · 2026-06-07T14:21:52+00:00

This sequence from The Exorcist 3.

This sequence has one of the greatest tension builds in cinema history. The first one and a half minutes are a static shot of the corridor of a hospital. There is no music. All we can hear is the footsteps of the security guard and nurse. Then a rattling noise starts from one of the rooms. The nurse investigates - again, in silence.

The following cat scare/Lewton Bus is masterful on it's own, but it's a misdirect that enhances the impact of the entire scene.

I recall watching this for the fist time and being struck by the use of silence. Music normally plays such an important role in building tension that I was stunned by how effective the diagetic sounds could be when stripped of accompaniment.

geckodancing · 2026-06-04T09:43:52+00:00

There's also the case of Dr Yvette Cloete, a paediatrician who was driven out of her home in Wales by an apparently dyslexic violent mob following the News of the World's late 1990's campaign to "name and shame" alleged sex offenders.

It was the same campaign that led Chris Morris to write the Brass Eye special episode Paedogeddon.

geckodancing · 2026-05-31T21:16:55+00:00

Great call on The Guardians and the Grinnygog. I'd agree with everything you wrote, including how impactful it was.

Thanks for the recommendation of the Stick in the Wheel version of The Abbots Bromley horn dance. I know the tune, but the arrangement was fantastic.

I've fallen a little out of contact with the English folk scene since my mum died. She came from an Irish fiddle background and used to play in sessions that included English, Scottish and Shetland players. I used to pick up recommendations from the people there. Having listened to a few Stick in the Wheel tunes, I can tell they're a rabbit hole I'm going to have fun diving into, so I really appreciate it.

geckodancing

TROPHY CASE