skribeworks

My first introduction to John Varley wasn’t through any of his literary works, but through him being the guest-of-honour for the 1989 Australian National Science-Fiction and Fantasy Convention. Swancon 14 just happened to be held in my home town of Perth.

It was also my first SF&F convention, and is, by a long margin, my favourite and most memorable one. Some of that is because of the newness factor, but I have some very personal reasons, as well: I first danced with my (now) wife at the Masquerade. However, what has especially stuck with me most over the last thirty-six years is John Varley’s guest-of-honour speech. I think of it often, and unbeknownst to me at the time, it formed a large part of my education as a writer.

Yes, I know I’m late with this, but tracking down all the novels – and reading them – took time. And, yes, I know there were six nominees, but one of them I don’t feel qualified to judge (see below).

So, now I have read all of them (including the sixth one), here are my thoughts on the 2025 Hugo Award Nominees for Best Novel.

Here is the second group of #SundayLit stories (the first story is available here). For those unfamiliar with the concept, they are stories written based on a specific prompt which is posted each Sunday on Mastodon. While everyone gets to chose how they respond, all four of my stories take the form of a dialogue, which I found really fun to do. They were previously posted on my @skribe@aus.social account each Sunday from 26th October, 2025 until 16th November, 2025.

Enjoy

I first read Harry Harrison’s, To the Stars trilogy, during my teens. I remember gobbling down Homeworld, and then being forced to wait months until I eventually found a copy of Wheelworld at one of the handful of bookstores that stocked science-fiction. Science-fiction and fantasy were the red-haired stepchildren of literature in the 80s (and before). Obtaining Starworld took more months and a bunch of luck. Ultimately, I remember enjoying the series, and felt they were definitely worth the wait.

However, I have since read them a number of times in the forty or so years since, and I find my enjoyment of the To The Stars trilogy wavering. A number of issues with the structure, the characters, and the style keep cropping up. I’ll explain as we go along.

By the way, while this isn’t a review exactly, it will dive into the specifics (plot, characters, etc) so, spoilers.

Recently, my wife and I watched the wonderful Star Trek: Legacy, a mash-up of Star Trek: The Motion Picture with the soundtrack from Tron:Legacy. Afterwards, my wife suggested that it might be worthwhile to create a mashup using the Tron: Legacy soundtrack (it is one of the best soundtracks ever created) with 2001: a space odyssey. So, I did.

It mostly tells the same story as 2001: a space odyssey, but condensed down to twenty-six minutes (compared to two-and-a-half hours of the original). Plus, it has that outstanding soundtrack. Also sprach Zarathustra and Blue Danube are great, but I prefer Daft Punk.

So here it is (if it isn’t then Peertube embeds are broken – or you need to activate javascript or just watch it here) :

This is the first of the #SundayLit stories, previously posted on my @skribe Mastodon account, using the prompts: openings, happiness, colour, and dreams. I’ve made a few minor corrections and clarifications, and posted it as a whole for the first time. It was written and posted from 28th September until 20th October 2025.

If you like this story, you might also like The Pact, which has a similar feel to it.

Set roughly two-hundred years in the future, Arthur C. Clarke’s Earthlight is a science-fiction drama set on The Moon during a political crisis, between the Earth-aligned governments and a federation of solar system colonies. What is particularly interesting about Earthlight is that Clarke published this in 1955, fourteen years before humans walked on The Moon (in fact, two years before Sputnik 1 first reached low Earth orbit). And he gets a lot of it right. However, it’s not the scientific vision that is most telling about this novel, but the blind spots Clarke displays, which mar a potentially brilliant story.

I am new at Symfony. I still have a lot to learn. However, one of the things that bugged me for ages was that the docs didn’t describe any means for populating forms when editing an existing record. Yes, it presented a function for editing, and making changes to the database through doctrine, but no way for me to dynamically alter the data in the first place. Well , thanks to some help from other Symfony users, I discovered a way that’s not only simple, but most of the code is from the docs (with a few adjustments). Here’s one way that I found to do it.

Since, this Ottie Pancakes stall was established at the beginning of July, I’ve been very sceptical about their proposed opening date. Not just because it seemed very ambitious for them to install all the necessary equipment, and deliver the ingredients for their product within such a short time. The Noowegian Sushi stall next door took more than two months to set-up. But also, because that particular space seems cursed. Will Ottie Pancakes survive? They have to open first.

Last Friday, my wife and I went night cycling. It’s one of the pleasures of living in Punggol, and it’s something we like to do whenever we can (preferably with the kids). Although we don’t always get the option, mostly due to inclement weather.

We had some books to return to the library, so we used that as an excuse to take a nice relaxing ride down to One Punggol, which is a ‘lifestyle hub’ – according to one web page. Apart from the five-story library, One Punggol boasts a seven-hundred seat hawker centre, lots of activity rooms and halls, a roof-top garden – including a BBQ area – plus much, much more. It really is a wonderful facility.

But, as they saying goes, there’s more. Just next door, they’re building a sports centre, that includes a football stadium, pools, gyms, and lots more.

In Perth, my original home town, those sorts of facilities would be restricted to the city centre, or possibly the western (well-to-do) suburbs. Yet, Punggol is at the furthest reaches of the island (which the locals call ulu).

Why can Singapore build such an elaborate amenity in its outer suburbs, but Perth (and the other Australian capitals) can’t?