Escape Velocity

A curated Collection of Fantasy and Science Fiction Media

Some of My Favourite Media:

Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy
Frank Herbert's Dune
David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas
Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Games Workshop’s Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game
Tonke Dragt’s Brief voor de Koning (Letter for the King) - the book. The Netflix show sucks
Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness
Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher
2K’s BioShock game series
Nickelodeon’s Avatar: the Last Airbender
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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

Review: Spiderlight – Adrian Tchaikovsky

A group of adventurers sets out to defeat the Dark Lord – meticulously following each of the steps foretold by the prophecy. The adventurers’ relationships are tested and their faith in the Light is challenged when their quest requires them to welcome a new member into their party. A creature of the Dark, transformed, bound to help them – but a creature of the Dark nonetheless. But if Darkness helps to fight Darkness, and the Light does not always shine so bright – where does that leave the quest, and what does the ever-lasting war between Light and Dark mean?

Review: The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman

Nobody Owens, Bod for short, orphaned as a toddler, grows up in a graveyard, raised by the dead in a cosy mausoleum. His vampire guardian brings him food, teaches him, and protects him from any threats from the world of the living. Though the world outside the graveyard is foreign and odd to Bod, as Bod grows up and makes friends, his urge to learn what is out there becomes difficult to resist. But he was not orphaned without motive, and he lives with the dead in the graveyard for a very good reason…

Review: A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller Jr.

A collection of three short stories set in a post-apocalyptic world, A Canticle for Leibowitz follows the story of the abbey of the Albertian order of Leibowitz. The monks of the order are the guardians of a collection of pre-war scientific texts that their patron saint Leibowitz saved from the chaos and anger following the so called flame deluge. As time progresses, society is rebuilt, the scientific texts are again understood, and humanity falls into old patterns.

Review: Moon – Duncan Jones

Sam Bell is nearing the end of his three-year contract as the single crew member of a mining base on the dark side of the moon. Due to an outage in the communications equipment, he has been unable to contact either his family or his employers live. With only an AI assistant for company, he feels like he is slowly going insane from loneliness. When his lunar rover crashes, however, things take a turn for the worse.

Review: Master of the Revels – Nicole Galland

After their falling out with the powers that be at D.O.D.O., our protagonists set up an independent diachronic operation with the help of the mysterious Fugger banking family – and soon find themselves embroiled in a deadly conflict with the witch Gráinne to save the world’s technology from being retconned out of existence.