Nick Hubble | Lightnews

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 1d

Intriguing interview on the Vector blog with Sue Dawes, author of The Mune (Gold SF,2025). On the metaphorical tbr pile.

Vector interviews Sue Dawes

What came first, the characters, the language, or the shape of the commune? In some ways, the text suggests that the shape of the commune was predetermined: children needed to be raised communally …

vector-bsfa.com

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 1d

I think it would be more accurate to say that the period 2015-2025 marks the end of British parliamentary democracy as we knew it. And, no, we will not return to the comfort politics of the old 2-party system. So we'd better concentrate on something new beyond the traditional hierarchies & binaries.

Did 2025 mark the end of British parliamentary democracy as we know it? | Andy Beckett

The conventions and rituals that define the way we do politics rapidly eroded this year – setting the UK on a course into the unknown, says Guardian columnist Andy Beckett

www.theguardian.com

Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 1d

#OtD 25 Dec 336 was the 1st recorded celebration of Jesus' birth on Dec 25. His early followers practised an 'informal communism', following Acts 4:32: "No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own but they shared everything they had" stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9728...

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 4d

Can't we just go straight to top 10 fantasy, top 10 SF, top 10 horror and top 10 marginals for 1st quarter of 21st century? And then ... invent entirely new categories from scratch for going forward?

Speculative Insight journal @speculativeinsight.bsky.social · 6d

Maybe the earliest Japanese SF story is about Japan invading Britain, as Eli KP William explains in this new essay .

Subscribe now (AUD30) to read - and get the July-Dec ebook with TWO exclusive essays! www.speculativeinsight.com/subs

(~GBP15 or USD19. Ish.)

Purple background, white text, which says "One proposal for the first work of Japanese science fiction... is the 1857 "A Feel Good Tale of Conquering the West" by Confucian scholar Iwagaki Gesshi. "A Feel Good Tale of Conquering the West" -- Eli K.P. William

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 6d

If the film was simply centred on the hard work moms do to run Christmas and how nice it would be if the others helped, as the review wants, then it would be simply normatively gendered family fodder. The whole point is that she wants that and SOMETHING ELSE TOO. At that symbolic level, it works.

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 6d

Watched this last night and while it's not a great film by any means, both the critic and the person in me feels the Guardian review misses the point. The desire of the Michelle Pfeiffer mom character to win the daytime TV competition is not unnecessary, bizarre and freakish but the point. (1/-)

Oh. What. Fun. review – Michelle Pfeiffer leads Amazon’s underbaked Christmas turkey

Starry cast, including Felicity Jones and Chloë Grace Moretz, can’t save misfiring cross between Home Alone and The Family Stone

www.theguardian.com

Ken MacLeod @amendlocke.bsky.social · 6d

Talking about _The Player of Games_ by Iain M. Banks.
www.newscientist.com/video/250912...

Author Ken MacLeod on the life and work of the late Iain M. Banks

Sci-fi author Ken MacLeod shares stories about his friend, the late Iain M. Banks, author of the genre-redefining Culture series of science-fiction novels

www.newscientist.com

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 7d

Thanks, Luke!

Luke Seaber @thelong1930s.bsky.social · 7d

Panel proposal for @moderniststudies.bsky.social @modernistudies.bsky.social in Loughborough submitted - Alice Dodds, @thehubble101.bsky.social, @mcmccluskey.bsky.social and I talking about weird villages…

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 8d

I was working in the Centre for Suburban Studies at Kingston University when it came out!

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 8d

I was wondering how high CMAT would be? This is one of the albums in this list that I actually bought, all of which are great (I've also got 27, 26 & 18). A good year in all. As I write, I'm listening to last year's no. 2, Cindy Lee's Diamond Jubilee and expect I shall still be playing CMAT as long.

The 50 best albums of 2025: No 2 – CMAT: Euro-Country

Furiously angry and uproariously witty, the Irish singer’s third album was a high-water mark for pop, inspiring a TikTok dance craze and a triumphant set at Glastonbury

www.theguardian.com

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 8d

Aditya Chakrabortty on J.G. Ballard's Kingdom Come (2006). I agree entirely that Ballard diagnosed what was wrong with England, which is why I include a discussion of the novel in my forthcoming book on Culture Wars in Britain.

Want to understand the sickness of Britain today? Look no further – a novel explained it all 20 years ago | Aditya Chakrabortty

The racism, the predatory politics, the banality and cruelty: we struggle to make sense of it, but JG Ballard foretold everything we are living through now, says Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty

www.theguardian.com

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 9d

Talking of Tolkien's LOTR as we were yesterday, reminds me that those of you who are BSFA members might care to nominate my Speculative Insight essay 'Should Galadriel have taken the Ring?' for the Best Short Non-Fiction category, in which I explain how Galadriel is a complex, powerful figure.

Speculative Insight journal @speculativeinsight.bsky.social · Jun 24

In which @thehubble101.bsky.social discusses why they wrote the essay, "Should Galadriel have taken the Ring?" for Speculative Insight.

You can read the essay by subscribing for the year (AUD30), or buying the collection of Jan-June essays (ebook or paper); see www.speculativeinsight.com .

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 10d

Yes, as Abigail suggests, I think the 2020s is providing a context for reassessment and everyone is thinking now is the time. Indeed, I was originally going to do this for the release of The Rings of Power, but I never quite got into position, so I keep putting it back.

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 10d

Brilliant. I'm really looking forward to reading Abigail's blog series! Partly because I was also intending to do this myself, as I first read LOTR in, gulp, the autumn of 1975, when I was 10. However, as usual, I'm running behind. But hopefully in the New Year...

Abigail Nussbaum @abigailnussbaum.bsky.social · 10d

On the third day of Hanukkah, I am kicking off a new project on my blog: a series of short critical essays as I read - for the who-knows-how-many-th time - The Lord of the Rings. Today's essay is an introduction, and new posts will go up every two weeks. wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

The Great Tolkien Reread: Introduction

"The Doors of Durin" by J.R.R. Tolkien This tale grew in the telling, until it became a history of the Great War of the Ring and included ma...

wrongquestions.blogspot.com

Abigail Nussbaum @abigailnussbaum.bsky.social · 10d

For some other interesting, recent discussions of Tolkien and his influence, see @strangehorizons.bsky.social's Critical Friends podcast on the relationship between fantasy and history, featuring @thehubble101.bsky.social and Cameron Miguel. strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

Critical Friends Episode 18: On Fantasy and History

Dan Hartland is joined by Cameron Miguel and Nick Hubble to discuss fantasy and its relationship to history and history-writing.

strangehorizons.com

Abigail Nussbaum @abigailnussbaum.bsky.social · 10d

On the third day of Hanukkah, I am kicking off a new project on my blog: a series of short critical essays as I read - for the who-knows-how-many-th time - The Lord of the Rings. Today's essay is an introduction, and new posts will go up every two weeks. wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

The Great Tolkien Reread: Introduction

"The Doors of Durin" by J.R.R. Tolkien This tale grew in the telling, until it became a history of the Great War of the Ring and included ma...

wrongquestions.blogspot.com

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 12d

Morning, Womble! I'm currently reading The Fraud by Zadie Smith + multiple non-fiction.

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 16d

I think this battle is already long lost.

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 16d

Scientific Romance. And maybe all SFF(H) is really about new feeling rules.

Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 16d

Jenny once again proving why she is one of the great Romance critics. If the Heated Rivalry Discourse from non-romance readers is driving you up the wall like it is me, this is the antidote. readingtheend.com/2025/12/10/a...

Anatomy of a Sex Scene: Heated Rivalry Edition - Reading the End

Heated Rivalry, AKA the gay hockey show, has been getting a lot of buzz for its explicit(-ish) sex scenes, and a lot of that buzz has been coming from viewers and critics whose experience with the rom...

readingtheend.com

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 18d

Only 50-41 so far but always worth a flick through if you don't closely study music journalism and releases throughout the year (which I haven't since the early 90s). I'm now enjoying the Smerz album.

The 50 best albums of 2025

From prog cabaret and joyful jangle-pop to a rapper who rhymed ‘bonkers’ with ‘chompers’, here are the year’s finest LPs as decided by 30 Guardian music writers

www.theguardian.com

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 19d

Thanks, I found that whole article fascinating. Mannin was a big name at that time especially with a working-class female readership. A number of her books were reissued as penguin paperbacks in the second half of the 1930s.

Alasdair Pettinger @bulldozia.com · 19d

Ethel Mannin opened the counter-exhibition organised by the Independent Labour Party to run alongside the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow in 1938. More on the counter-exhibition here: www.bulldozia.com/2020/06/23/t...

Screenshot from article in The Scotsman, 15 Aug 1938, headlined 'I.L.P. Stage Exhibition.' 'The Independent Labour Party have sponsored a "Workers' Empire Exhibition" in the Kingston Hall, Glasgow, and on Saturday the opening ceremy was performed by Miss Ethel Mannin. By means of illustrated panels, posters and photographs, the promoters seek to show "the real conditions in the Colonies." / Mr James Carmichael presided. / Miss Mannin said there was nothing spectacular in their exhibition, and time and trouble had to be taken to study the facts and figures presented. The exhibition was a gesture from the workers to show the other side in the face of the capitalist Exhibition displayed at Bellahouston Park. / The proceeds of the exhibition, which would run for a fortnight, would be used to defray costs, and to help the Trade Union movement in the West Indies and India.'

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 21d

One of my blog posts is in the list of sources for this. There has been a huge uptick in interest in Mannin in recent years. Of #ScottishSFF interest, she was the model for the heroine of Three Go Back (1932) by Lewis Grassic Gibbon (James Leslie Mitchell).

Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 21d

#OtD 5 Dec 1984 popular British author Ethel Mannin died aged 84. Many of her works covered radical and revolutionary themes stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1050...

Speculative Insight journal @speculativeinsight.bsky.social · 21d

New! free! essay by Donna Glee Williams, asking pointed questions about Joseph Campbell's conception of the Hero's Journey...

Read it now! Tell your friends!

www.speculativeinsight.com/essays/hero-journey

Purple background, white text, which says There are aspects of the Hero's Journey - in real like, in myth, and in fiction - that just aren't mapped out by Campbell's schema. Martin Luther King Jr didn't live to see Barack Obama - but John Lewis did... "Must a Hero Journey?" -- Donna Glee Williams

Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 21d

#OtD 5 Dec 1984 popular British author Ethel Mannin died aged 84. Many of her works covered radical and revolutionary themes stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1050...

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 22d

You have to assume that this is where some of them want to go.

Rightwingers are trying to destroy women’s right to vote | Moira Donegan

Calls for disenfranchisement rest on a single assumption: that women’s citizenship is partial and conditional

www.theguardian.com

Nick Hubble @thehubble101.bsky.social · 22d

Looks cool from the outside too but I'd need a good reason to go back.

Modernism in Metro-Land @modinmetro.bsky.social · 22d

The new Uxbridge underground station was opened OTD in 1938, replacing the 1904 Met Railway station on the outskirts of the town. Designed by Charles Holden, with Bucknell & Ellis, the station has a curved facade, concrete train shed and stained glass www.modernism-in-metroland.co.uk/uxbridge.html

A colour photograph of the ticket hall of Uxbridge station with its stained glass work

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