Nick Wiltsher
@nickwiltsher.bsky.social
I'm a lecturer in philosophy at the University of St Andrews (from September 2025). They mainly pay me to do aesthetics. I also work on imagination. I'm here for work things and light procrastination.
Keep getting emails from an unrecognised address asking me to click a link as part of the university's cyber-security training programme. Of course we all know you shouldn't click links in such emails, so I just delete the emails.
October 30, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Keep getting emails from an unrecognised address asking me to click a link as part of the university's cyber-security training programme. Of course we all know you shouldn't click links in such emails, so I just delete the emails.
Wasn't the primary motivation for moving to Scotland, but this damp climate is doing wonders for my hair.
October 29, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Wasn't the primary motivation for moving to Scotland, but this damp climate is doing wonders for my hair.
I hoyed some coins in the pot to help make this book happen. Maybe you'd like to do the same? After all, supporting actual artists and writers making actual art is a good thing.
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/we-eat-the...
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/we-eat-the...
We Eat the Earth
A photobook by Crystal Bennes about the global fertiliser industry and how our collective appetite reshapes the earth
www.crowdfunder.co.uk
October 24, 2025 at 4:10 PM
I hoyed some coins in the pot to help make this book happen. Maybe you'd like to do the same? After all, supporting actual artists and writers making actual art is a good thing.
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/we-eat-the...
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/we-eat-the...
CWA Gold Dagger winner CWA Gold Dagger winner #32: Barbara Vine, “A Fatal Inversion” (1987). No idea what's up with that title. Otherwise quite good.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/10/21/barbara-vine-a-fatal-inversion-1987
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/10/21/barbara-vine-a-fatal-inversion-1987
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Barbara Vine, “A Fatal Inversion” (1987)
Barbara Vine was Ruth Rendell’s pseudonym, under which she published 14 books to go with the 60 odd under the Rendell name. She was never quite clear on why she needed one, and there was probably a mi...
www.nickwiltsher.com
October 21, 2025 at 9:21 PM
CWA Gold Dagger winner CWA Gold Dagger winner #32: Barbara Vine, “A Fatal Inversion” (1987). No idea what's up with that title. Otherwise quite good.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/10/21/barbara-vine-a-fatal-inversion-1987
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/10/21/barbara-vine-a-fatal-inversion-1987
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Reposted by Nick Wiltsher
Oh and ALSO I'm offering a short story critique of up to 5k to help Apex reach their goal! Not only that, but I'll give you advice on where to send it once you're done (and answer your industry questions along the way)!
Spread the word!
Spread the word!
We have 10 days left in the @apexmag.bsky.social 2026 Kickstarter and we've crossed 60% funding! Help us get to 100%! www.kickstarter.com/projects/ape...
Apex Magazine 2026
An award-winning digital literary magazine of science fiction, dark fantasy, and horror.
www.kickstarter.com
October 20, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Oh and ALSO I'm offering a short story critique of up to 5k to help Apex reach their goal! Not only that, but I'll give you advice on where to send it once you're done (and answer your industry questions along the way)!
Spread the word!
Spread the word!
"Is it a long way to the golf course?"
"Well, it depends on what you mean by a long way."
THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR ASKING DIRECTIONS OUTSIDE THE PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT PAL.
"Well, it depends on what you mean by a long way."
THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR ASKING DIRECTIONS OUTSIDE THE PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT PAL.
October 1, 2025 at 10:22 AM
"Is it a long way to the golf course?"
"Well, it depends on what you mean by a long way."
THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR ASKING DIRECTIONS OUTSIDE THE PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT PAL.
"Well, it depends on what you mean by a long way."
THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR ASKING DIRECTIONS OUTSIDE THE PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT PAL.
CWA Gold Dagger winner #31: Ruth Rendell, “Live Flesh” (1986). All the hallmarks of good Rendell, but too much psychological "explanation", and thus bad Rendell.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/9/30/ruth-rendell-live-flesh-1986
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/9/30/ruth-rendell-live-flesh-1986
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Ruth Rendell, “Live Flesh” (1986)
This has all the hallmarks of a good Rendell novel. We have a protagonist with a disturbed mind, approached in close third person, allowing us to get inside the wonky thoughts. Victor Jenner has just ...
www.nickwiltsher.com
September 30, 2025 at 9:06 PM
CWA Gold Dagger winner #31: Ruth Rendell, “Live Flesh” (1986). All the hallmarks of good Rendell, but too much psychological "explanation", and thus bad Rendell.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/9/30/ruth-rendell-live-flesh-1986
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/9/30/ruth-rendell-live-flesh-1986
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If you've sent email to my Uppsala address in the last couple of months, I won't have got it and you should resend it to my St Andrews one if you want a reply. The auto-response from Uppsala unhelpfully says "out of office" where it should say "this address doesn't work any more" or something.
September 8, 2025 at 2:15 PM
If you've sent email to my Uppsala address in the last couple of months, I won't have got it and you should resend it to my St Andrews one if you want a reply. The auto-response from Uppsala unhelpfully says "out of office" where it should say "this address doesn't work any more" or something.
Moving office: a time to contemplate your books, thin a few out, rationalise and downsize. Or just hoy them all in boxes and make your future self deal with it. Man my past self was a knob.
September 2, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Moving office: a time to contemplate your books, thin a few out, rationalise and downsize. Or just hoy them all in boxes and make your future self deal with it. Man my past self was a knob.
First day in new job. How do you make a cup of tea around here?
September 1, 2025 at 2:38 PM
First day in new job. How do you make a cup of tea around here?
Dispatch does good, thoughtful journalism—actual stories written by actual people going to actual places. Couple of articles a week by email. They're offering a 57% discount on a subscription via the links in this article. That's about £3.20 a month. Worth it.
dispatch-media.com/margaux-blan...
dispatch-media.com/margaux-blan...
Margaux Blanchard, the journalist who didn't exist
Dispatch rumbles AI fraud • The power of reporting • Introducing the Blanchard offer
dispatch-media.com
August 28, 2025 at 10:29 PM
Dispatch does good, thoughtful journalism—actual stories written by actual people going to actual places. Couple of articles a week by email. They're offering a 57% discount on a subscription via the links in this article. That's about £3.20 a month. Worth it.
dispatch-media.com/margaux-blan...
dispatch-media.com/margaux-blan...
CWA Gold Dagger winner #30: Paula Gosling, “Monkey Puzzle” (1985). Dense academic business, enjoyable provided you can overlook the homophobia.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/8/26/paula-gosling-monkey-puzzle-1985
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/8/26/paula-gosling-monkey-puzzle-1985
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Paula Gosling, “Monkey Puzzle” (1985)
This is dense, complicated, and really quite enjoyable, provided you can overlook a significant degree of homophobia. It’s an academic setting. The deceased, Adamson, is a faculty member in the Englis...
www.nickwiltsher.com
August 26, 2025 at 9:23 PM
CWA Gold Dagger winner #30: Paula Gosling, “Monkey Puzzle” (1985). Dense academic business, enjoyable provided you can overlook the homophobia.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/8/26/paula-gosling-monkey-puzzle-1985
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/8/26/paula-gosling-monkey-puzzle-1985
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Reposted by Nick Wiltsher
Let's be generous, here, and assume that by the solar system Altman wants to put the sphere outside the orbit of Neptune, and we'll just exclude the kuiper belt entirely.
That would be a sphere with a diameter of 6 billion miles.
Let's assume that it has the thickness of an eggshell: .3mm thick.
That would be a sphere with a diameter of 6 billion miles.
Let's assume that it has the thickness of an eggshell: .3mm thick.
The people dominating our political landscape, culture, and economy are just so stupid and full of shit it's almost impossible to describe
August 19, 2025 at 1:00 AM
Let's be generous, here, and assume that by the solar system Altman wants to put the sphere outside the orbit of Neptune, and we'll just exclude the kuiper belt entirely.
That would be a sphere with a diameter of 6 billion miles.
Let's assume that it has the thickness of an eggshell: .3mm thick.
That would be a sphere with a diameter of 6 billion miles.
Let's assume that it has the thickness of an eggshell: .3mm thick.
"What's this philosophy thing about then?", the removal man casually asks during a break from carrying boxes of books. He ends up leaving with a copy of the Nicomachean Ethics to read on his way home. Corrupting the youth and the middle-aged alike.
August 17, 2025 at 8:10 AM
"What's this philosophy thing about then?", the removal man casually asks during a break from carrying boxes of books. He ends up leaving with a copy of the Nicomachean Ethics to read on his way home. Corrupting the youth and the middle-aged alike.
407364-colorful-autumn-leaves.
August 17, 2025 at 8:05 AM
407364-colorful-autumn-leaves.
CWA Gold Dagger winner #30: B.M. Gill, “The Twelfth Juror” (1984). More of a plod than it ought to be.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/8/11/bm-gill-the-twelfth-juror-1984
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/8/11/bm-gill-the-twelfth-juror-1984
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B.M. Gill, “The Twelfth Juror” (1984)
A TV personality, Edward Carne, is on trial for murder. Richard Quinn is one of the jurors. Through improbable coincidence, he is also secretly harbouring Carne’s missing alcoholic daughter, who may b...
www.nickwiltsher.com
August 11, 2025 at 9:45 PM
CWA Gold Dagger winner #30: B.M. Gill, “The Twelfth Juror” (1984). More of a plod than it ought to be.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/8/11/bm-gill-the-twelfth-juror-1984
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/8/11/bm-gill-the-twelfth-juror-1984
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I have a pristine copy of issue 24 of @thefence.bsky.social to give away (I bought a copy, and then took out a subscription, and now I have two, so there we go). Would prefer to just hand it over to someone in/near either Durham or Dundee, but can post if needs be. Who wants it? Someone should.
August 6, 2025 at 9:46 AM
I have a pristine copy of issue 24 of @thefence.bsky.social to give away (I bought a copy, and then took out a subscription, and now I have two, so there we go). Would prefer to just hand it over to someone in/near either Durham or Dundee, but can post if needs be. Who wants it? Someone should.
Friend is after work accessible to non-academics on the notion of a "real man", as in "a real man does[n't] ..." (and not as in social ontology). What've we got, folks?
#philsky
#philsky
August 2, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Friend is after work accessible to non-academics on the notion of a "real man", as in "a real man does[n't] ..." (and not as in social ontology). What've we got, folks?
#philsky
#philsky
It's the year 2097. Humans have averted climate catastrophe, achieved world peace, and eliminated poverty. However they have still not yet worked out a standardised configuration of the on/off hot/cold controls on hotel showers. Or how to stop the bastard things rinsing the whole bathroom.
July 29, 2025 at 1:12 PM
It's the year 2097. Humans have averted climate catastrophe, achieved world peace, and eliminated poverty. However they have still not yet worked out a standardised configuration of the on/off hot/cold controls on hotel showers. Or how to stop the bastard things rinsing the whole bathroom.
CWA Gold Dagger winner #29: John Hutton, “Accidental Crimes” (1983). A portrait of an entirely contemptible... colleague?
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/7/26/john-hutton-accidental-crimes-1983
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/7/26/john-hutton-accidental-crimes-1983
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John Hutton, “Accidental Crimes” (1983)
In a typical outing for the Viz character Victorian Dad , the eponymous character spends three-quarters of the strip imposing ridiculous old-fashioned strictures on his modern family, then becomes ov...
www.nickwiltsher.com
July 25, 2025 at 10:14 PM
CWA Gold Dagger winner #29: John Hutton, “Accidental Crimes” (1983). A portrait of an entirely contemptible... colleague?
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/7/26/john-hutton-accidental-crimes-1983
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/7/26/john-hutton-accidental-crimes-1983
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CWA Gold Dagger winner #28: Peter Lovesey, “The False Inspector Dew” (1982). Farcical, in the good way.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/...
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/...
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Peter Lovesey, “The False Inspector Dew” (1982)
For the first 100 pages or so, I thought I was going to really dislike this. In those 100 pages we’re introduced to an apparently excessive number of characters, all dislikable, while being subjected ...
www.nickwiltsher.com
July 15, 2025 at 2:52 PM
CWA Gold Dagger winner #28: Peter Lovesey, “The False Inspector Dew” (1982). Farcical, in the good way.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/...
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/...
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Turns out the process of finding a place to rent in the UK has been thoroughly enshittified since I last tried to do it, ummm, 13 years ago.
July 5, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Turns out the process of finding a place to rent in the UK has been thoroughly enshittified since I last tried to do it, ummm, 13 years ago.
CWA Gold Dagger winner #27: Martin Cruz Smith, “Gorky Park” (1981). Good but too much, like a massive helping of rich food.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/6/29/martin-cruz-smith-gorky-park-1981
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/6/29/martin-cruz-smith-gorky-park-1981
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Martin Cruz Smith, “Gorky Park” (1981)
You know sometimes, you’re reading a book and you’re thinking, this ought to be good but somehow isn’t? That was my experience all through Gorky Park . The book is set mostly in Moscow, where police...
www.nickwiltsher.com
June 29, 2025 at 8:37 PM
CWA Gold Dagger winner #27: Martin Cruz Smith, “Gorky Park” (1981). Good but too much, like a massive helping of rich food.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/6/29/martin-cruz-smith-gorky-park-1981
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/6/29/martin-cruz-smith-gorky-park-1981
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CWA Gold Dagger winner #26: H. R. F. Keating, “The Murder of the Maharaja” (1980). Eh, fine, I guess.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/...
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/...
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H. R. F. Keating, “The Murder of the Maharaja” (1980)
Where the Francis novel felt somehow contemporary to its time, this is a study in deliberate archaism. The setting is 1930s British India. The plot is a golden-era affair: one murder, a limited list o...
www.nickwiltsher.com
June 7, 2025 at 9:06 PM
CWA Gold Dagger winner #26: H. R. F. Keating, “The Murder of the Maharaja” (1980). Eh, fine, I guess.
www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/...
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www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/...
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