Documentation for the Value Insights feature of the Splunk Cloud Platform management console.

My role at Cisco was primarily that of an editor. I wrote this short Lab when DevNet rolled out the Learning Lab in-browser developer environment; this Lab was placed within learning tracks that might be administered by a proctor.

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” William Gibson, Neuromancer

Movies & TV television Why You Should Be Watching The Terror, Series 1 By Karin L Kross September 5, 2019 Comment number: 6 The Stars Look Very Different: Strange Stars by Jason Heller By Karin L Kross June 12, 2018 Comment number: 4 Books the…

On August 29, 2019, Parks Canada released a stunning video of the interior of one of Sir John Franklin’s lost ships, HMS Terror. In the first detailed exploration since the wreck was rediscovered in 2016, archaeologists sent a remote drone to explore the wreck and found a stunningly well-preserved ship—“frozen in time” as the inevitable […]

“There is an art to smiling in a way that others will believe. It is always important to include the eyes; otherwise, people will know you hate them.” N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season

Quick: when someone says “science fiction and pop music”, who do you think of? These days, depending on your tastes and avidity for what’s new out there, it would not be entirely surprising if your mind jumped to Janelle Monáe. But a lot of people are going to immediately think of David Bowie—to whom Monáe […]

Welcome back to the Culture reread! Apologies for the gap in posting; things have not quite gone according to plan, but I’m back now to finish off Consider Phlebas, with this and one more post to follow shortly. After these last posts, I’ll be taking a few weeks off to get rolling on The Player […]

Welcome back to the Culture reread! This week, Horza and his crew continue their exploration of the Command System, where surprises and violence await. As we approach the conclusion of Consider Phlebas, the action ramps up, and Horza’s promises to…

Welcome back to the Culture Reread! This week, Horza and company arrive at Schar’s World, where of course nothing is going to go as hoped, and they descend into the tunnels below the surface in search of the Mind. We also return to Fal N’Geestra, who has gone up a mountain in search of enlightenment. […]

Welcome back to the Culture reread! Apologies for having missed last week; it turns out that traveling and reread posting are not necessarily fully compatible. But we’re back on track now, approximately halfway through Consider Phlebas. This week, we finally learn exactly what Damage is. Horza catches up with Kraiklyn and rejoins the crew of […]

Welcome back to the Culture reread! Today in chapters 5 and 6 of Consider Phlebas, Kraiklyn continues to prove himself an absolutely terrible captain, another heist goes dreadfully wrong, and Horza is captured by a cult. This entire sequence is one of the most revolting things I’ve read in almost any book anywhere. Don’t read […]

Welcome to the Culture Reread! Today in chapters 3 and 4 of Consider Phlebas, Horza gets some new friends—well, one, anyway—and in our first “State of Play” break, we drop in on the Culture for a look at the war from their side. As I write, I am…

Welcome to the Culture Reread! Today is the first proper post of the series, and we’re off with the prologue and chapters 1 and 2 of Consider Phlebas. Consider Phlebas, the first Culture novel that Banks completed and published, appeared in 1987. It takes place against the background of a long and destructive war between […]

The last time I had anything of length to say about the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks, I remarked with regard to Consider Phlebas, Player of Games, Use of Weapons, and the novella The State of the Art that “one of these four works is, in my opinion, Banks’s finest; which one and why […]

I was all set to finish a piece on the characters who inhabit the world of Iain M. Banks’s Culture novels, the advanced space-humans and artificial intelligences that drive the novels with their struggles and adventures. I’ve gotten distracted from that original plan, though. For one thing, a bad case of news poisoning has endowed the […]

Books Horror Five Scary Things About Dolls By Scott Westerfeld May 8, 2017 Comment number: 10 Excerpts Spill Zone By Scott Westerfeld, Alex Puvilland Comment number: 2 First Second is Serializing Scott Westerfeld Graphic Novel Spill Zone Online By…

Screenshot: Lava Bear Films I’m no veteran of film festivals—and indeed, I only started going to Austin’s Fantastic Fest last year. But if it ends up being the only film festival at which I’m a regular, I’m fine with that. It’s a “genre” festival, a…

This Month's New Titles The Most Iconic Speculative Fiction Books of the 21st Century Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Everything in one handy email. Science fiction. Fantasy. The universe. And related subjects. Latest Columns Books Movies & TV TPG…