Author: publius

Fools! I will destroy you all!!

ASFO 2025–10–04

Deutsches Museum in Munich, the Locomotion Museum in Shildon, a consideration of the potential role of a “very light rail vehicle” and the true nature of the harm done by the Beeching Axe, a video showcasing the famous Flying Scotsman steam locomotive and the horrifying dietary habits of British railwaymen (with some blink–and–you–miss–it nuclear–energy content), and a brief appearance by Drax the Destroyer… also an invitation to SDFers in Britain who might like to meet up.

ASFO 2025–09–27

Are the working poor of today better off than the kings of old? I provide one reason to think they are, and describe some of my adventures in international travel, and a really nifty pair of cuff links I bought in a charity shop for the princely sum of £2. Also a discussion of the finer details of nuclear waste disposal, in the context of asininity at Asse. Unfortunately this show was interrupted in the middle by some kind of network failure.

ASFO 2025–09–20

Much of this episode is about travel, starting with my plans for the coming few weeks, and digressing to the Brenner Base Tunnel, and to Bucky Fuller’s fascinating idea that Man has long misidentified himself as a member of the vegetable kingdom.

ASFO 2025–09–13

Back in Munich, I find myself musing upon news from the USA which strikes me as less than newsworthy, news from Hungary which is not entirely surprising but could hardly have come at a worse time, and news from Mexico City which will probably be forgotten very soon.

ASFO 2025–08–30

Good news from Boca Chica, with a logistical note to say that nobody is going to Mars in 2026 ; hopeful news from outstate Michigan ; downright stupid news from Fairbanks, and some kind of answer to the question “what goes into a $200 million airplane, anyway?” ; bad news from Taiwan ; “is Europe failing?” ; and a meditation on what is and is not “political” which reflects on a great deal of other news.

ASFO 2025–08–16

Quoting myself? A bad habit, but sometimes I say what I mean best. “It’s good to grow some of your own food, but it is both morally and practically obligatory to get most of your Calories from industrial agriculture, because it uses two orders of magnitude less labour per Calorie. Anything else is headed back to serfdom, because Marx was quite right (and you won’t hear me say that often) that the mode of production strongly determines the form of social organization. Leave pastoral fantasies to the Far Right.”

Supplementary Show

2025–08–18 A conversation with smj in the hours immediately following the Worldcon, partaking somewhat of the character of an after–action report.

ASFO 2025–08–09

A minute of silence, please, for the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. I spend some time, at the end of the half–hour, speculating on why otherwise intelligent and good–natured people believe and spread false statements about civil nuclear energy, and so far as I can tell, much of it comes back to The Bomb. In the middle, I explain more about my plans for the Worldcon ; somewhat unfairly use SDFer tyn, host of the excellent aNONradio show The Third Ear, to make a point about reading comprehension (the paper referred to can be found here) ; and question whether wasps qualify as radiation workers within the intent of the law.

Rocket to the Morgue

by Anthony Boucher

This murder–mystery novel is notorious as a roman a clef, that is, many of its characters are thinly–veiled portraits of real people — more particularly, well–known science–fiction writers in the Los Angeles area in the period immediately before the Second World War. (In fact, the action takes place just one month before Pearl Harbor.) The venerable LASFS itself appears in the guise of the “Mañana Literary Society”. We are, however, at a loss to know why nobody ever returned the favour by writing stories of the adventures of Dr Derringer, the fictional–within–the–fiction character so crucial to the plot.

  • 2025–08–05 Foreword by F Paul Wilson, and sections 1—6 of The First Day : Thursday, October 30, 1941
  • 2025–08–08 Section 7 of The First Day ; The Second Day : Friday, October 31, 1941 through section 5, in which we discover that Dr Derringer himself appears to be engaged in trying to murder the literary heir of his author!
  • 2025–08–12 Recorded aboard a train, with train noises in the background, The Second Day beginning at section 6 ; The Third Day : Saturday, November 1, 1941 in which the locked–room mystery is set up, up to section 4, in which a police sergeant is embarrassed by a combination of back–seats and nuns
  • 2025–08–15 Another train recording, and sent out on the wrong date by my error — beginning at section 5 of The Third Day, through the first section of Interlude : Sunday, November 2 to Thursday, November 6, 1941
  • 2025–08–19 The third train recording, and second mis–dated recording, beginning at Interlude, section 2
  • 2025–08–26 The Ninth Day : Friday, November 7, 1941
  • 2025–08–29 Commencement of The Last Day : Saturday, November 8, 1941
  • 2025–09–02 Conclusion of The Last Day
  • 2025–09–05 Afterword : Saturday, December 6, 1941 and Author’s Afterword (December 12, 1951)