Non-fiction: Alfred Lansing: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage (1959) Written by the American journalist Alfred Lansing and published in 1959, Endurance is an account of one of the most famous stories in the history of Antarctic exploration, the failed Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914. Shackleton attempted to traverse the Antarctic continent, Continue Reading
Books
Research Blog Antarctica #157 – Quick, Before It Melts (the novel)
Fiction: Philip Benjamin: Quick, Before It Melts (Random House, 1964) Philip Benjamin was a New York Times reporter who had been to Antarctica twice when he published the novel Quick, Before It Melts, later made into a movie. The title is a joke based on the idea that the Antarctic Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #154 – Riding the Ice Wind
Non-fiction: Alastair Vere Nicoll: Riding the Ice Wind (I.B.Tauris 2010) By now, books about moderns expeditions to Antarctica are a relatively big genre. Earlier examples on this blog can be found here, here and here. The challenge of this sort of book is that it’s always the same story. 1. Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #152 – Shackleton’s Journey
Children’s book: William Grill: Shackleton’s Journey (2014, Flying Eye Books) Ernest Shackleton’s failed attempt at crossing the Antarctic continent is one of the most famous stories of early Antarctic exploration. His ship was crushed by ice, and he and his crew had to travel vast distances over ice and then Continue Reading
2015 in works that made me feel something
In retrospect, one of the best things about being fifteen or sixteen was the way you’d see a movie and your mind would be blown by the sheer awesomeness of it all. You hadn’t seen so many things, so everything appeared new. It was wonderful to experience all these ideas Continue Reading
Non-Digital: The Visionary Worldbuilding of 2nd Edition AD&D
I started roleplaying with the Finnish edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and graduated to playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition as soon as I learned enough English to read the books. While there’s been good and interesting stuff done in the 3rd, 4th and 5th editions of the game, Continue Reading
Non-Digital: Old School Fringe
One of my pet themes recently has been how ideas in tabletop roleplaying spread, or fail to reach anyone outside a small, limited scene. Some movements have been quite successful at reaching wider audiences. The American Story Games scene is one of these, and the Danish Fastaval scene another. A Continue Reading
Non-Digital: What’s a Roleplaying Game Book?
The things we call “roleplaying games” are books that tell you how to play and run actual roleplaying games. The game is what happens when you sit down with the other players and play. I’m writing one of these books. Chernobyl mon amour (Tšernobyl, rakastettuni in Finnish) is a roleplaying Continue Reading
Non-Digital: Expressing Play Culture (Also: Chernobyl)
I’ve been writing and designing a tabletop roleplaying game called Chernobyl mon amour for some years now. I started soon after visiting the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation myself in 2010. It’s taken a lot of time to consider some of the ideas in the game, and a core reason for Continue Reading
Research Blog Antarctica #137 – Arktos
Non-fiction: Joscelyn Godwin: Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism and Nazi Survival (Adventures Unlimited Press, 1996) Arktos is a book about the idea of poles and polar regions in occultism. It goes through things like Nazi occult ideas related to the poles and the history of the concept of Continue Reading