world-building - Catabatic

That humans quest for cosmic dawn

Jan 24, 2026 5 min read

From 'Cosmic dawn: the search for the primordial hydrogen signal', Physics World, November 18, 2025: The EDGES instrument is a dipole antenna, which resembles a ping-pong table with a gap in…

The mad world

Jan 17, 2020 3 min read

Culture aesthetics architecture art brut HR Giger industralism infrastructural tragedy JC Hallman Jean Dubuffet Kate Wagner picturesque theory psychology varelse world-building

Kate Wagner writes in The Baffler: What makes industrial landscapes unique is that they fascinate regardless of whether they’re operating. The hellish Moloch of a petrochemical refinery is as captiva…

The calculus of creative discipline

Oct 27, 2019 5 min read

Culture Op-eds classical mechanics creative discipline critical points Dan Shechtman differential calculus EPR paradox fantasy fiction Imre Lakatos JK Rowling Karl Popper literary criticism M John Harrison Malazan Book of the Fallen mathematical analysis nerdism Niels Bohr Paul Feyerabend Philosophy of Science quasicrystals replication crisis smooth functions Steven Erikson Thomas Kuhn Viriconium world-building

Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over world-building. World-building is dull. World-building literalises the urge to invent. World-building gives an unnece…