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Elizabeth Sandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

16 Comments

  1. mr_mond
    April 23, 2016 @ 10:28 am

    Personally, I find it a bit hard to look for structural tricks based on weekly chunks of the whole thing, so I’m waiting for the whole chapter to be made available to Patreon backers (if that’s something that still happens). I’m certainly very interested to see how precisely the hinge works – based on the analysis of the structure of “Fearful Symmetry”, I thought the text would go from Moore to Morrison to Moore again, and I did not anticipate an extended piece on Blake at all.

    Question about LWiA, inspired by the appearance of Blake (and possibly already answered by your post): are you planning callbacks to other previous wars in Albion?

    Question about Neoreaction, since I started reading your blog after all your previous Kickstarters: will Patreon backers of the appropriate tiers receive electronic/paper copies of the book as well, or should they back the Kickstarter for that?

    Reply

    • Elizabeth Sandifer
      April 23, 2016 @ 5:00 pm

      Was I doing the chapters to Patreon backers? No reason not to, I suppose.

      There will be callbacks to at least some previous wars. Most obviously, eventually Crowley will get his due.

      The Neoreaction Kickstarter is going to be all Kickstarter-exclusive editions, but the end result of the Kickstarter will be a traditional-style Eruditorum Press book (that won’t be out until 2017). Patreon backers will get that, but not any of the Kickstarter-exclusive editions.

      Reply

      • mr_mond
        April 25, 2016 @ 6:40 am

        Thanks for your replies!

        I may, of course, be wrong, but I’m fairly sure I’ve read one of the first chapters of Book 2 in an e-reader format made avilable on Patreon.

        Reply

  2. Evan Forman
    April 23, 2016 @ 1:23 pm

    I think I can see a fair amount of what’s going on in Fearful Symmetry (i’m 50/50 on whether or not you’ve done something immaculately cheeky with the images at the end of the most recent post) but i’ll have to wait until the whole thing is posted before anyone could track the specific parallels. I’ve also not read the second half of Book One yet, so i’m missing some context.

    LWiA: So if Moore is Urizen and Morrison Los, do the other combatants get Blakean parallels?

    Neoreaction: Do you think it’s plausible Nick Land might actually be joking? I’m not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt – and you’ve mentioned the non-difference between pretending to be a racist and just being a racist – but i’m interested in a case for the defense, if there is one.

    Reply

    • Elizabeth Sandifer
      April 23, 2016 @ 5:10 pm

      LWiA: I wouldn’t count on those parallels remaining stable.

      Neoreaction: I wouldn’t say joking, but I think he’s very careful about the precise terms on which he does and does not endorse neoreaction, and that the ambiguities this precision creates are deliberate.

      Reply

  3. Eric Rosenfield
    April 23, 2016 @ 1:38 pm

    I’m just sitting here waiting for the next volume of TARDIS Eruditirum. Any word when that might appear?

    Reply

  4. Anton B
    April 23, 2016 @ 5:11 pm

    I’m also waiting for the Fearful Symmetry section to wrap before even attempting to look at and fuly enjoy the structural shennanigans.
    Meanwhile there’s http://bbc.in/1VItaSI

    Let the speculation begin.

    Reply

  5. Yossarianduck
    April 23, 2016 @ 5:26 pm

    So, Pearl Mackie as Bill…

    Reply

    • Richard Pugree
      April 23, 2016 @ 5:46 pm

      Well… I for one liked it.

      Reply

    • ScarvesandCelery
      April 23, 2016 @ 9:23 pm

      She looks fun. Phil suggested there’s a bit of Courtney Woods in the brief clip of her on his tumblr, which I can see, but I’d be amazed if Moffat wasn’t writing her with Shona in mind after seeing all the calls for her to come back. Her questioning the logic of the Daleks reminded me of the way Shona tried to question the logic Santa in “Last Christmas”.

      And it’s about time we had a main companion who isn’t white again, so that’s nice. A newcomer too, but that’s a good thing, seeing as she’s appearing alongside a hugely experienced actor who was well known before appearing on Doctor Who. And I trust the casting crew – Andy Pryor’s been doing this for years, and hasn’t cast a bad lead yet.

      And I suspect her experience on “Curious Incident” will be useful, too. It’s one heck of an experimental production, so good experience for an actor facing the challenges Doctor Who presents.

      Reply

    • BenJ
      April 23, 2016 @ 11:34 pm

      She’s the third Af-Brit companion, counting Mickey, and the second “main” companion so described. This is cool. Hopefully more diversity lies in the future.

      What’s really interesting is that she seems to be the least known actor to play a companion in the revived series. Her imdb profile has a bit movie part and one episode of Doctors. So she’ll be coming in with a clean slate.

      Reply

  6. Daibhid C
    April 24, 2016 @ 9:59 am

    I’m almost obsessive enough to track the structural gimmicks. Which is to say, I thought “I can see he’s doing something with symmetry here; Hmm, it’s not simple enough for me to just see how it works straight off; okay, my head’s spinning now, leave it.”

    Reply

  7. TalesofSkaro
    April 24, 2016 @ 4:43 pm

    When will you react to the news of the new companion? Also, could you react to the clip?

    Reply

    • Alex
      April 25, 2016 @ 3:23 am

      Probably when he creates a new Patreon threshold.

      Reply

  8. Daru
    May 3, 2016 @ 8:43 am

    “But those posts get low comments, which is totally understandable – they don’t lend themselves to comments. So I don’t really have a sense of how that aspect of it is landing at all. Or any questions people want to throw out about that project.”

    I am still reading an loving the LWIA posts, but am commenting less than I did before. I think that has happened for me since the site change which does look great, but I think I comment less often on the site overall now as there is not a way to ‘follow’ comment threads or to track replies – which I find useful as I am pretty busy work-wise and quickly can forget which threads I have commented in.

    Reply

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