Category Archives: Literature

Women and sci-fi

June 27, 2008 – 7:53 pm

I came across this interesting post on how to get women more interested in sci-fi writing and film. I’m probably not the best chick to ask about this - all my favourite films are sci-fi films, as well as most of my favourite television series. I also have a large sci-fi/fantasy book collection. I think [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Books, Feminism, General, Science | Comments (77)

Not so much gibberish as derivative and boring

April 18, 2008 – 8:37 pm

I was rather amused to see that the Judge hearing the J.K. Rowling copyright infringement case has described Rowling’s plotlines as “gibberish”.
To explain briefly, as outlined in this article from The Times, Rowling is asking the Manhattan Federal Court to block publication of The Harry Potter Lexicon, a guide to places and names in the [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Books, Law, Society | Comments (2)

Out of it

September 21, 2007 – 10:10 am

I can tell that I’ve been out of it lately. How else can I explain that I missed the fact that Robert Jordan, author of The Wheel of Time series, died last week? Condolences to his family.
I hope someone will finish off the series, otherwise I’ll be left with this hanging on the edge kinda [...]

By Legal Eagle | Comments (2)

Phantasms

September 14, 2007 – 7:39 pm

Every now and again, something from your past pops up out of your breakfast cereal and gets you thinking.
Last night I was chilling out with a few cold ones when an email from a good mate in the Australian Skeptics landed in my in-tray. The mate wanted me to tell him my version of an [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Popular culture, Skeptics | Comments (132)

Jonathan Mills is a pretentious git, but The Bacchae is great

August 18, 2007 – 12:33 am

When Australian Jonathan Mills was appointed Director of the Edinburgh International Festival, arguably the world’s most high-powered arts job, not a few locals were shocked and a wee bit pissed off.
Watching his excruciating ‘interview’ (billed as ‘conversations with artists’, supposedly designed to illuminate The Bacchae, or rather, the National Theatre of Scotland’s innovative production) yesterday [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Events, Popular culture, Religion | Comments (8)

She’s Leaving Home

July 4, 2007 – 9:59 pm

As has been reasonably obvious, I haven’t contributed much to the Catallaxy Collective of late. Only part of that is due to work commitments: much is due to me putting my writing energies elsewhere. I’ve long since given up completing Our House before commencing at Oxford, although I’ve been stunned at just how much I [...]

By skepticlawyer | Comments (48)

Do What Thou Wilt

March 6, 2007 – 6:39 pm

Continuing my professional interest in evil…
Without Aleister Crowley, those well meaning people who press cheap tracts on the dangers of the occult into your hands would have to find other ways to waste their Saturday nights. Crowley is a staple - no, a star - of tractdom. Almost inevitably, [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Religion, Skeptics | Comments (11)

Corrida!

February 7, 2007 – 12:34 am

At one point when I was living in Italy, I paid for mum to come and stay with me for a couple of months. She’d never travelled to ‘the Continent’ as the Irish so quaintly put it, and her last holiday had been on the boat on the way over to Australia - in 1950. [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Philosophy | Comments (8)

The straight dope

January 18, 2007 – 11:25 pm

UPDATE: Just to be crystal clear, this is the main reason I wrote this post:
None of the BBP2006 judges made a call on their own work. No one judge had power over all the nominations from any given writer. Mark Bahnisch had nothing to do with the judging. Ken Parish made any final calls. Do [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Blogging | Comments (282)

This Old Man

January 16, 2007 – 8:26 pm

One of the most difficult writing assignments I ever had was a commission to write a piece on my father. Initially, my piece was simply one of a collection of essays by Australian writers on their fathers. Ross Fitzgerald, the cranky but interesting (and loudly teetotal) historian was the editor, and as he’d stood by [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Media | Comments (48)