Recent content by Ban

Are we now shaming pandas for choosing a life of harmony and non-violence? Born to be an apex carnivore, they collectively forewent slaughter and carnage to find balance in the bamboo. So harmonious even the herbal life suffers little under the gentle giant's reign, for bamboo is fast-growing...

Rest in peace to another legend. I saw the news as well. To bring some levity, I will never not crack up when hearing the perfectly campy performance he put on for Command & Conquer:

Coincidentally I happened to be sat outside listening to some Dolly Parton earlier today and now I read she has passed away. A downright shame, but a great thing she was here at all! Rest in peace to the legend. Time to listen to "coat of many colors" and "islands in the stream" yet again.

I wouldn't phrase it as such, but I do agree with pmmg's sentiment. In the past when it became apparent that celebrities hired ghost writers to write their books, we (fellow amateurs and few professionals alike) didn't refer to those celebrities as authors and placed rather little value on their...

In my subjective opinion bodybuilding reached its aesthetic peak on the eve of anabolic steroids' discovery. And from there on that pursuit has been afflicted with "enhancement", whereby the "bronze era" image of the past is continually superseded by forms which had no aesthetic need to be. In a...

I have tried other ways, but when it comes to stories and short stories I've succeeded at finishing, the dynamic between plot and world is like the Caduceus. One snake crawls upward and the other does so in parallel until at the end I have concocted a developed plot mirrored or backed by a...

Tall dwarves could be a useful way to showcase to readers how the dwarves differ from humans, besides their height. Perhaps the tall dwarf's head, brow, hands and feet could be abnormally large. Perhaps their chest and shoulders could be twice as wide. Overdeveloped traps, deeply sunken eyes...

Knowing the twists and turns ahead of time allows you to focus on elements that weren't central to you before. It can be enjoyable to go back and read into the prose, the pacing, the worldbuilding, the characterisation, etcetera, what wasn't visible to you on the first read. I don't often reread...

The purpose of writing is to be read, and some will always choose the cheapest option available to fulfill that purpose. If an author decides to offer their story in ebook format, which lends itself to piracy, then they should expect that eventuality. And besides, the fact that folks bother to...

"Web surfing" on the other hand is old enough to feel antiquated.

Beautiful musical rendition of the seminal work "Siddhartha".

Translation is a craft. Conveying the same feel, pace, gravity, wit and poignancy in a translated work as intended in the original work, is quite a task. Unless you're only looking for a structural review of the chapter placement, chapter length and the overarching narrative, I wouldn't bother...

🥂🥂🥂👏👏👏 Splendid 👏👏👏🥂🥂🥂

I dreamt that I finished first in a harrowing cycling race which had me rush down cliffs and through narrow alleyways. Alas, although I dashed through the finishline with a few seconds' lead on the cyclists behind me, I ended up placing tenth because I wasn't close enough to the sensor. I walked...

I've been purchasing quite a few fiction novels as of late, as I want 2026 to be a major fiction reading year for me. I've noticed my reading interests have strayed from non-fiction, since I already read a bunch for work. Recently purchased books include two novels by the Provencal author Jean...