Tales from the Circle

  Any Minor World by Craig Schaefer follows Roy - a sort of private detective/"hired muscle" who is approached by a bit of a suspicious client. Despite his misgivings, he takes the job and goes after a dead writer's unfinished manuscript and begins to unravel a mystery surrounding this author's books. The mystery brings him up against a legendary criminal network and introduces him to Lucy Langenkamp, an art restorer who once wrote a cancelled comic. As they struggle to survive the crazy adventure that springs up around them, Roy and Lucy slowly grapple with their own pasts as well. It's a well-written book with a very distinctive noir/pulp vibe to it.  Before I go on, I have to comment on the descriptions. I'm usually someone who doesn't enjoy/gets bored by descriptions, but I found the ones in this book to be well-written. They're interesting and paint some very vivid pictures that enabled me to imagine exactly what some of these characters and place...

I’ve been thinking a lot about justice and world-building lately. This is spurred on by a lot of different things going on at the same time. First of all, and most importantly, the events going on around the Black Lives Matter movement recently have put the idea of justice at the forefront in my thoughts. I’m also currently writing a sci-fi novel that focuses on justice (and injustice) in society and how that plays out when contact with aliens is made. And I’m also watching a sci fi tv show right now that has really interesting world-building and tried to talk about all kinds of “deep” themes, but it has an enraging lack of justice. So anyway, I’ve been thinking about justice in world-building. I’m not necessarily talking about a full-blown legal system and how it works in detail, I don’t necessarily think that fantasy worlds need to go into too much detail in that area. What I am talking about is a general idea of justice permeating the world. - What is considered just in th...