Nick Hubble

50-Year Reread of The Lord of the Rings – 3: ‘Elves, Elf-friends and “Friends of Gandalf” A blog series in which I reread LOTR 50 years after I first read it, age 10, over the winter of 1975-76: Introduction: Three Different Books 1: A Sequel to The Hobbit 2: On Hobbits In the previous …

This is the next instalment in my #LotR re-read. Here I discuss the moment when Frodo, Sam and Pippin pass into darkness like a rustle in the grasses and there meet talking animals, exiled elves and, a bit further on, a pagan water spirit. And what do 'friends of Gandalf' have in common? #Tolkien

What's scary about this story is the surveillance it hints at. This trans woman had changed her name, legally, but chose not to change her gender marker. She was apparently flagged in the DMV system as trans and her license was invalidated under a law that supposedly only concerned gender markers.

This sounds very NOW! I'm backing it!!!!

You're welcome. I really enjoyed it!

Such a joy to read this brilliant review of my novella in Strange Horizons! 🥹 Also, published in March - timing couldn't be better 🌱🌸

Huge thank you to Nick! It's a real honour to have their eyes on my work. And I'm always so grateful to Dan who's a fantastic editor and a lovely, supportive person.

Britain Elects | Substack Cutting through the noise with Ben Walker. Click to read Britain Elects, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

📊 Ref lead of 2pts, Grns in second
Westminster voting intention

REF: 23% (-1)
GRN: 21% (+4)
CON: 16% (-2)
LAB: 16% (-2)
LDEM: 14% (-)

via @YouGov, 01 - 02 Mar
Chgs. w/ 22 Feb

👇 Read this
www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

I don't know. I just saw Wuthering Heights and I really liked it. They are actually like that in the book you know. And it is one of my favourite novels.

The Inescapable March by Hana Carolina When fantasy combines wit, humour, and magic as The Inescapable March does, while refusing the quick fix of happy ever after, it allows us to imagine worlds where life is not just a tedious linear …

Up at SH today: @thehubble101.bsky.social on Hana Carolina's The Inescapable March. They find it an "engaging and emotionally intelligent" fantasy which "combines wit, humour, and magic."

Nick also has Thoughts on contemporary fantasy. That the novella sparks them seems another sign of its quality.

Eluned Morgan pledges to "end homelessness in Wales by 2034".

This will seemingly replace their previous 2021 plan to "end homelessness by 2026".

Plaid's social media game obviously causing some irritation.

Cover of Vector 302: Zoefuturism. Cover art featuring fossils in chalk from Botany Bay, Margate, is by Mika Tohmon.

Contents of Vector 302. Editorial by Phoenix Alexander. Guest editorial by Yen Ooi and Stephen Oram. Kincaid in Short by Paul Kincaid. The Resistance by Nick Hubble. 'Princess Donut Will See You Now': Inside the Crawl Making Waves in the LitRPG Genre. A Review of Dungeon Crawler Carl by Marta F. Suarez. Zoefuturism & the Nature of Life by Jesse Rowell. Revisiting Collaborative Imagination through a Zoefuturistic Lens by Joey Eshrich and Ed Finn. A Very British Genealogy of Zoefuturism by Christine According. The Natural History of the Future by Grant Wythoff. This Art Will Die by David Polfeldt. The Making of Asian Pirate Musical by Zhui Ning Chang. Zoetology, Vitalism and the Anthropocene Refugio in the Southern Reach Series by LYU Guangzhou. Relational Cosmology and the City of Mind by Jasper Kang. Relational Activism: Introducing the short story The God in the Box in relation to ZOEFUTURISM by Bette Adriaanse. Eternally Displace Persons? Territorial Bodies and The Ministry of Time.

Fantastic new @bsfa.bsky.social Vector on #Zoefuturism, guest edited by Yen Ooi and Stephen Oram. I don't think I've ever felt quite so connected to the other contributions to a publication. We've moved beyond the closed/open binary to reach the fluid cultures beyond. 'Always multiple, never one'.

Getting longer all the time.

Everyone who has been nominated for a BSFA Award deserves applause, but we are particularly delighted to see PictCon2 Guest of Honour Neil Williamson nominated for Best Collection, Blood in the Bricks.

www.newconpress.co.uk/info/book.as...

I'm always fascinated that some people lie about having a PhD. I'm sure others lie to conceal it because it's not actually that useful (apart from in academia) - people often react funnily when you say 'no, it's Dr actually'. Also, it's kind of an expensive way to out yourself as a masochist.

I haven't started thinking about that one yet. I guess it depends how quickly we get to it. I assume it will be before 2029: maybe 2028, maybe sooner. But the context might be different in even a few months time. Labour might just die completely after May!

Given it's not FPTP, it's quite difficult to work out how to tactically vote Reform other than not voting for them. Ok, might be possible to make an educated guess as to how to reduce Reform from 3 to 2 or from 2 to 1 in some constituencies but still going to be difficult.

A Close Reading of LotR – Episode 10 – Two Beardy Bois Only two chapters today, IV – Treebeard and V – The White Rider, but still plenty to mull over (harum barum), so we shouldn’t be hasty. Joking aside, while Chapter IV at least is …

New LotR post is up! This time, a chapter of Treebeard and a chapter of Gandalf, with a lot of exposition and some properly mythic narrative.

The BSFA Awards shortlists are up, highlighting an array of excellent work. Do take a look, whether or not you're voting. (Especially if you're in need of an alternative to doomscrolling)
bsfa.co.uk/bsfa-awards-...

My Locus piece on 2025 reading, in which I don't really know what's going on with American SF, find some unexpected pairings elsewhere, and have lots of good books to recommend throughout. locusmag.com/feature/the-...

'Change is not a force of goodness, knight. It is the death of history... Change muddied the Isle, and erases what is eternal at its heart: what it was, and what it must always be. You, and your Elsewhere folk... are a canker in the Isle's heart' #change #history #sff #fantasy #romantasy #Britain

There is no such thing as Science Fiction/ Modernism/ English Literature (*delete as appropriate) I was lecturing on Tom Godwin’s ‘The Cold Equations’ this week as part of my Genre Fictions module. During the first 6 weeks of the module, we read a couple of short stories a week ranging from the…

As we're talking about genre and litfic, it seems like a timely moment to repost this piece from four years ago.

All my life I’ve watched America bombing other countries and killing their civilians. My first memory of TV news was seeing dead children in Vietnam when I was about four years old. I’m 56 now and I guess I’ll see more children die from American bombs today. I’d like this to stop before I die myself

Just crossed replies. I will read it!

Not yet either, but I will do.

Oh wow! Super good essay that speaks to exactly why SFF is so important to the world right now. Might also be seen indirectly as making the case that social sciences in general have much more in common with SFF writers (& critics) than is commonly understood.

Yeah, I think similarly. Although, I think the goal is probably just to make Labour a rightwing party, regardless of electoral results. Then maybe 'Labour' can be used as a rightwing 'brand name' in future. If I was Labour left, I'd act now.

Obviously, they would prefer to make Labour a rightwing party and win the next GE, but the point is that they would rather lose than shift left. Time will tell but this could end up getting messier than it currently looks (3/3).

...strategy of going after socially conservative older men and attacking younger progressives is not just a failed positioning strategy but a core ideological commitment of the 'Starter Project'. In other words, the prime goal is to make Labour a rightwing party, even at the cost of losing GE. (2/3)

Green win shows progressive voters are now voting against Labour as well as Reform Gorton and Denton byelection shatters Labour strategy of neglecting its core base while focusing on Reform defectors

This is pretty good analysis. What will be interesting to see is if Starter shifts his stance at all (in the 2-3 months he has left). His initial response this morning - doubling down on the claim that the Greens are extremists - suggests not. This raises the possibility that the McSweeney (1/2)

Real risk for Labour that this accelerates their abandonment by progressive voters, because it shows Greens can win

Green vote trebled from 2024. Labour vote halved

Greens will claim this establishes them as the progressive party to stop Reform in England

(as Plaid claim in Wales post-Caerphilly)