Follow The Oikofuge: Reading, filter it, and define how you want to receive the news (via Email, RSS, Telegram, WhatsApp etc.) https://follow.it/the-oikofuge-reading Mon, 27 Mar 2023 18:11:27 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXlO-KQFGfbrJAaB2UxGNFpJ “The world of thoughts, ideas,” Aunt Hilda began again slowly, as though groping for the right words, “is a very real one. There are many other worlds, you know, besides the one we see. Indeed, perhaps we all live in slightly different worlds—I don’t understand these things. But I think I have made a pathway, … Continue reading Joan North: The Whirling Shapes →]]> Wed, 08 Mar 2023 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXlO-KQFGfbrJAaB2UxGNFpJ https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkvCpcoZoTBIXtuT6pSmY81 Say that you are in the Idaho portion of Yellowstone, and you decide to spice up your vacation by going on a crime spree. You make some moonshine, you poach some wildlife, you strangle some people and steal their picnic baskets. Brian C. Kalt “The Perfect Crime” Georgetown Law Journal (2005) The content of Kalt’s … Continue reading Brian C. Kalt: The Perfect Crime →]]> Wed, 08 Feb 2023 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkvCpcoZoTBIXtuT6pSmY81 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXmiCRKV6_vgLUFW8UNEQjUn What can readers expect?If they’re already familiar with the other Fractured Europe books, it’s more of the same kind of stuff. Pocket universes, insanely-complicated intelligence ops, hotel breakfasts, huge conspiracies, Texel sheep, trains. That sort of thing. Dave Hutchinson, talking about Cold Water (2022) I’ve reviewed Dave Hutchinson’s previous novels from the Fractured Europe Sequence … Continue reading Dave Hutchinson: Cold Water →]]> Wed, 11 Jan 2023 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXmiCRKV6_vgLUFW8UNEQjUn https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnOZpD_WQJKY1RpWVnEcNkS In the following pages I shall try to trace the unpremeditated steps by which a few army officers, with no initial thirst for exploration, and no desire to do anything unusual except to see the country they were in came gradually to break away from this conventional city outlook towards things outside; and how, beginning … Continue reading Ralph Bagnold: Two Memoirs →]]> Wed, 14 Dec 2022 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnOZpD_WQJKY1RpWVnEcNkS https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXk93EnrGDM_R5ONpYks2fGs Although the hole made by the meteorite was too small to be readily seen, the hiss of escaping air was unmistakable. They were in dire peril, the worst that can befall a man in space. Philip Latham, Missing Men Of Saturn (1953) A while ago I wrote about two series of science-fiction-juvenile novels, written by … Continue reading Philip Latham: The Juvenile SF Novels →]]> Wed, 19 Oct 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXk93EnrGDM_R5ONpYks2fGs https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkF6tjoYe1KgrG7Iy_4u0x9 I stood in the rain at the foot of the Inaccessible Pinnacle’s east edge, that ‘easy edge’, looking up at it, trembling a little. True, I was overawed by its history, its odd and discomfiting form, its dizzying position — but I think I was basically just very scared. In the part of your brain … Continue reading Simon Ingram: The Black Ridge →]]> Wed, 21 Sep 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkF6tjoYe1KgrG7Iy_4u0x9 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkWYC_H4qx1EkZPHFZJLI3I Last time, I introduced the concept of “Hillwalkers’ Gaelic”, which I abbreviated “HG” to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic (“SG”). I did so in the context of a comic poem entitled “The Climber’s Guide to the Pronunciation of the Gaelic Tongue“, which appeared in the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal of 1897, probably written by the … Continue reading Hillwalkers’ Gaelic: Part 2 →]]> Wed, 31 Aug 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkWYC_H4qx1EkZPHFZJLI3I https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnLSauX503dN--bbeigX9oC It was long past lunch-time when I finished the story. My throat was dry with talking and Jean’s eyes had grown big and round. ‘It’s like something from the Spanish Main,’ she said. ‘Or a Hammond Innes thriller. Is the gold still there?’ Desmond Bagley, The Golden Keel (1963) I first encountered Desmond Bagley’s work … Continue reading Desmond Bagley: Four Novels →]]> Wed, 24 Aug 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnLSauX503dN--bbeigX9oC https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnkLTmYVcVVX6vLeqE6yv18 The pronunciation of Gaelic hill names is fraught with difficulty for the non-Gael. One problem is the striking way in which some consonants are not pronounced at all. This is the Gaelic phenomenon of lenition, in which the addition of an “h” to a consonant changes and softens its pronunciation. Some lenited consonants, particularly “dh” … Continue reading Hillwalkers’ Gaelic: Part 1 →]]> Wed, 03 Aug 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXnkLTmYVcVVX6vLeqE6yv18 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXksZXccyQtn3Fe5jCclomp- The view had a massive visual scale. It felt cinematic: an epic horizon like the opening credits of a David Lean film. A path scrolled out ahead of me, eventually fading into the middle distance. Across the plateau I could see other tors emerging from the mist: dark, maritime shapes, spectral galleons held up on … Continue reading Patrick Baker: The Cairngorms—A Secret History →]]> Wed, 27 Jul 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXksZXccyQtn3Fe5jCclomp- https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkcT5qb5T7mMlhGNgNo2_0q “Suppose now you were to build a more or less conventional airplane to fly in space. What I mean is, suppose you built a space ship in the shape of an airplane. The actual shape wouldn’t mean a thing as far as flying goes outside of the earth’s atmosphere. There’s no friction and therefore no … Continue reading John Ball: Flying-Boats In Space! →]]> Wed, 29 Jun 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkcT5qb5T7mMlhGNgNo2_0q https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXl_WPw4_ABQYdaXKMm36c-X For its entire breadth the Meadow supported only hard vacuum on its pseudosurface. Fixed ashiness that no breeze would ever stir, twisted by ancient gravitational gradients. Space below the space where things of nature or things of man could exist naturally, unattended. Subspace that could be moved across, but not resided in except as on … Continue reading Robert Wilfred Franson: The Shadow Of The Ship →]]> Wed, 01 Jun 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXl_WPw4_ABQYdaXKMm36c-X https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXksfVCeExHMhp8v71dCn6bG The Cairngorms lay beneath what was now a local bonnet of cloud. Everything else was in sunshine and dazzling with colours, cobalts and browns and bright greens, all the peaks around glowing with the pristine pigments of an illuminated manuscript, as far as distant Lochnagar and Beinn a’ Ghlo. Then even the interior gloom began to … Continue reading Sydney Scroggie: The Cairngorms Scene & Unseen →]]> Wed, 04 May 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXksfVCeExHMhp8v71dCn6bG https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXm0SN5bIK4J8_9M7fKGWt0o Robert A.J. Matthews published this seminal bit of applied physics in 1995. The journal reference is European Journal of Physics 16(4): 172-6, and you can access the full paper at ResearchGate, here. For his efforts, he was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 1996. Matthews was the first (but by no means the last) to use mathematical physics to explore the popular claim that "dropped toast always lands butter-side down". The usual "explanation" invoked for this perceived rule is Murphy's Law---"If anything can go wrong, it will"---but Matthews sought to show that there were sound physical principles underlying the phenomenon.]]> Wed, 06 Apr 2022 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXm0SN5bIK4J8_9M7fKGWt0o https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXlqmF_Ef6WDkQpx5_w21kha He stood up and walked to the still form of his assailant. A female. Her abdominal muscles were still twitching, but no breath moved through her open mouth. He felt no pulse. Between her breasts he saw his brown-stained heel print. The sternum was depressed and made gritty sounds when he palpated it. Fractured. And … Continue reading T.J. Bass: The Short Stories →]]> Wed, 02 Mar 2022 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXlqmF_Ef6WDkQpx5_w21kha https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkL0esl7sQbwAm0QkxGtqLL […] I toiled up the last slope and came out above Glen Einich. Then I gulped the frosty air—I could not contain myself, I jumped up and down, I laughed and shouted. There was the whole plateau, glittering white, within reach of my fingers, an immaculate vision, sun-struck, lifting against a sky of dazzling blue. … Continue reading Nan Shepherd: The Living Mountain →]]> Wed, 02 Feb 2022 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkL0esl7sQbwAm0QkxGtqLL https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXluKF3T4SsuwASngkwrdsok From beneath the bushy V of satanic eyebrows, Rachs’ jet eyes seemed to shower sparks at him. As usual, that immobile face was incandescent, and Toring fancied he could almost hear the creaking of a carbon-arc in the brain of his superior. The Hungarian’s incredible energies frightened, rather than soothed patrons, and for years he … Continue reading More About “Anti-Agathic” →]]> Wed, 12 Jan 2022 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXluKF3T4SsuwASngkwrdsok https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXl7MO8vbSc2qgC0qH-r7xlT The [library] stacks contained only scant information on such things as sun, moon and stars—as if atrophy by disuse had allowed these items to be dropped. Hive flora included bountiful species of vermin—sharing the warmth and nutrition of Big Earth Society—lice, roaches, meaty rats (cross-indexed under game food), and insects. Nothing else. Nothing was reported … Continue reading T.J. Bass: The “Hive” Novels →]]> Wed, 15 Dec 2021 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXl7MO8vbSc2qgC0qH-r7xlT https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkBs5C2Is9pfarkJyTkC_2b Like a sprawling, misshapen Christmas tree the lights of Sector Twelve General Hospital blazed against the misty backdrop of the stars. From its view-ports shone lights that were yellow and red-orange and soft, liquid green, and others which were a searing actinic blue. There was darkness in places also. Behind these areas of opaque metal … Continue reading James White: The Outlying “Sector General” Short Stories →]]> Wed, 10 Nov 2021 14:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkBs5C2Is9pfarkJyTkC_2b https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkf1_0mK1c_At3hDS9njgCr I usually respond well to editorial criticism, and I invariably take notice of a constructive review. Generally speaking, however, those people who like my stories show great sensitivity and intelligence—those who don’t, don’t. James White, quoted by Graham Andrews James White was a Northern Irish science fiction author, who deserves to be better known than … Continue reading James White: Four Novels →]]> Wed, 13 Oct 2021 13:00:00 +0200 https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/YbkKlZd2TXkf1_0mK1c_At3hDS9njgCr