Some of My Favourite Media:
PETER
Welcome to my curator page!
While I spend most of my waking hours slaving away as an attorney for a large commercial law firm, I like to spend my free time escaping from reality in all sorts of stories and games – fantasy, sci-fi, horror, you name it. When I’m not reading, writing, or painting miniatures, I like to hit people (or more likely, get hit) with a sword.
In my speculative fiction, I like plot-heavy stories that still make you connect with the characters, and world building that is not just interesting and exotic, but that actually works on a historical, geographic, economic or scientific level. I like stories that put your brain to work. I’m a sucker for the classics and love to read older stuff to get an idea of how genres and tastes evolved over time. I like games that have a strong narrative element – even in board games, I like the ones that give you the feeling you’re setting up a colony on a distant planet over ones that may be more balanced but feel less alive.
Nowadays, what with my job and life in general getting in the way, I don’t spend nearly as much time gaming or reading as I used to, but I still listen to as many audiobooks as I can and I try to make time for everything else. But sometimes, everything that is out there that I would still like to see or read or play is overwhelming. If you feel the same, please look around! Your time is precious, and we all want to spend it on the very best the genre has to offer!
Realistic or grimdark settings
Characters getting punished for their mistakes
Tightly written plots and well-foreshadowed plot twists
When magic is a mystery (and you sometimes wonder whether it is magic at all)
When the story structure itself wows you
Realistic economic and geographical worldbuilding
Writers that trust their readers to figure it out by themselves and do not feel to need to explain every detail
When the stakes in a story grow beyond the point where it is relatable
Love triangles and sappy romance
Superheroes
When stories or games take way more time than they have any right to
Whiney main characters
Really competitive games
Poorly executed politics
Pet PeeveS
Historical inaccuracies in medieval fantasy settings (especially in combat)
Humanoid aliens in sci-fi
Characters inexplicably having really modern mindsets/sensibilities in settings where that makes no sense
Needlessly edgy characters in order to make things ‘dark’
The thing where the dainty woman always has to be the archer even though shooting a 100+ pound warbow takes far more strength than properly wielding a sword
Characters that do dumb stuff but get away with it
Writers coming up with a new name for their orc-race despite the fact that they are clearly just reskinned orcs
Fantasy names with a bunch of open vowels and unexplained ‘ä’s or ‘â’s
Recent Contributions
Collected: Primordia by Wormwood Studios
COLLECTION: Primordia is a beautiful and atmospheric point-and-click-game, following the story of Horatio Nullbuilt, an android living in a crashed ship in the desert wasteland, who has his life turned upside down when a hostile robot steals his ship’s power core. Horatio is determined to scavenge the post-apocalyptic wasteland for a new core, but Crispin, his self-built sidekick, suggests that perhaps it would be easier to find one in Metropol, the city of glass and light…
Review: Blue Mars – Kim Stanley Robinson
Part 3 in the Mars Trilogy – With the terraformation of Mars well underway and the Earth recovering from a series of apocalyptic floods that reshuffled the deck of power, tensions between the planets start to rise as overpopulated Terra views the the unsettled lands of Mars with jealous eyes. Once more, the members of the First 100 must play their part in the politics that ensue to save the Red Planet from a wave of Terran imigration that will swamp the ambitious Utopian project on Mars.
Review: Children of Mother Earth/Kinderen van Moeder Aarde – Thea Beckman
Part 1 in the Children of Mother Earth Trilogy – Following the nuclear apocalypse of World War III and a resulting shift in the Earth’s axis, the formerly ice-covered island of Greenland has turned into the lush paradise of Thule. Its inhabitants are determined to build a society that will not devolve into the violent cauldron of pollution and hatred that was 21st century civilisation. Pacifistic, matriarchal, and deliberately not-industrialised, the culture of Thule rejects everything that led to the destruction of the previous world order. But when Thule is ‘discovered’ by steam-powered warship from the Badener Empire that arose out of the ashes of former Europe, all of Thule’s beliefs are challenged.
Review: The Peripheral – Amazon Prime
Flynne’s brother is hired by a shady company out of Columbia to beta-test the most real sim videogame ever played. Flynne subs for him, and can hardly believe what she is playing. As her suspicion towards the simulation grows and she pushes to speak to their ostensibly Colombian employers, she learns that this is no mere simulation. This starts a process that will rock Flynne’s perception of the world she lives in to her core.
Review: The Peripheral – William Gibson
In near future rural US, Flynne’s brother, a retired marine, makes a little money helping rich folks beat video games. One day, Flynne subs for him, dropping into a surprisingly real game world where she witnesses the gruesome death of one of the game characters.
In a not quite as near future London, Wilf Netherton drops out of contact with his former boss after an attempt to make a documentary on the inhabitants of the great pacific garbage patch goes south spectacularly. A new opportunity to use his skills as a publicist soon presents itself.