#Spooktober 15: The Dark Power

October 15, 2022

At the end of September, we have taken a look at the monster as a basic plot device: the existence of great evil is revealed to us (and to the hero), and the hero sets off to vanquish it.

Following that trope, we take a look at circular vs. linear patterns and at the different kinds of “Dark Figures”, since we’re in the middle of the Spooky Season, and let’s see what happens when we step out of the metaphor and we don’t have a literal Big Bad Wolf, a literal Witch or a literal Troll to spell it out for us.

architecture, engineering and construction

The Digital Ghosts

In Letters to Milena, Franz Kafka tries to name a specific distortion he believes is introduced by mediated communication, such as letters, then (already, in 1922) telecoms. Kafka writes this after a long, anguished correspondence in which he repeatedly doubts what writing letters is doing to him and

July 15, 2026 9:00 am

books and literature

The Bicentennial Man (and other stories)

If not for the single story where they cure depression by blasting jazz against brainwaves (not how depression works, I’m afraid), one of the best collections I’ve read so far. It has the sequel of “Marooned off Vesta”, one of Asimov’s the best stories of

July 12, 2026 9:00 am

books and literature

Rebecca Ferrier’s The Salt Bind

Rebecca Ferrier’s The Salt Bind is a historical fantasy novel, set on the storm-lashed Cornish coast and steeped in folklore, sea magic, and women’s lives on the edge of the sea. It follows Kensa — daughter of a smuggler and with a regularly-complicated relationship with

July 11, 2026 9:00 am