Introducing Vaka Rangi
Eruditorum Press is thoroughly ecstatic to announce that we have been joined by Josh Marsfelder, who will be publishing the continuing adventures of his blog Vaka Rangi with us every Wednesday morning, starting in about sixty seconds. Vaka Rangi, his sprawling personal memoir and critical history of the Star Trek franchise. So far he’s made it through the whole of the Original Series and The Next Generation, as well as the first season of Deep Space Nine, along with the entirety of the anime Dirty Pair, because Vaka Rangi is that sort of blog, which is to say an awesome one, and all of that is available in our archives for your reading pleasure, so basically I hope you didn’t have any other work to do this week.
The obvious point of comparison for Vaka Rangi, and I’m sure Josh won’t mind my pointing it out, is TARDIS Eruditorum, and certainly anyone familiar with my Doctor Who work will find many similarities in Josh’s approach. But where TARDIS Eruditorum‘s default position was that Doctor Who was basically a good thing, Josh’s relationship with Star Trek much more wonderfully fraught, full of frustrated utopias and half-memories of a show that was never quite the one that was on television. It is, for my money, some of the smartest critical writing on television out there right now, puncturing many of the myths surrounding Star Trek and exploring what it could and should have been.
We are absolutely thrilled to have him here, and look forward to bringing you the latter portions of his epic journey to the stars. And stay tuned, because we’ve got another fantastic announcement to roll out in the next couple of weeks. Until then, ladies and gentlemen, Vaka Rangi.
May 25, 2016 @ 9:11 am
This has made my month.
May 25, 2016 @ 11:37 am
Can’t really judge the Star Trek content too well since that was never exactly my wheelhouse (though whenever our new contributor does his TNG Ultimate Episode Master Post, I’ll take a plunge), but discovering the joys of Dirty Pair last year, and THEN discovering the amazing and heartfelt clever words about Dirty Pair he wrote, only enhanced my experience of the show. It may be my favorite Japanese cartoon now, and those words helped a lot.
So, welcome to the club, Mr. Marsfelder. I guess you’re no longer… By Yourself.
May 25, 2016 @ 11:53 am
Oh fantastic!! I love that blog but keep forgetting the name, and was just thinking yesterday I needed to catch up! Will the archives be moving over too?
May 25, 2016 @ 12:13 pm
They’re currently at http://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/author/josh/ . I imagine we’ll get them added to the top bar and maybe see about a more usable ToC.
May 25, 2016 @ 2:34 pm
I’m sincerely excited by this news! I look forward to being challenged by a take on Star Trek that I disagree with in some important ways. It’ll probably be good for me.
May 25, 2016 @ 6:17 pm
This is brilliant! I’ve just gotten through the first series of Star Trek, and boy are there things to mine for a blog-empire such as this!
I’ve got quite the archivebinge ahead of me.
Hey, Josh, will you be reviewing the new series that’s coming out later this year?
May 25, 2016 @ 7:23 pm
Still up in the air. A lot of people want me to do it, but it’s a tough sell to me considering I’d probably have to subscribe to CBS Digital to see it and my Star Trek “fandom”, such as it is, is so fundamentally weird and idiosyncratic.
May 26, 2016 @ 4:38 pm
Rest assured selling this, regardless of toughness, is a priority for Eruditorum Press over the back half of 2016. 😉
May 25, 2016 @ 10:37 pm
And the Eruditorum Empire expands. I’ve lost count of the amount of people I’ve directed toward both Vaka Rangi and this blog. How handy to have them now share the same umbrella. Eternally grateful to Josh both for some interesting chat in the early days of the TARDIS Eruditorum comments threads and for introducing me (via Vaka Rangi) to Dirty Pair. Looking forward to some creative collaborations, on this site.
Good move chaps!
May 26, 2016 @ 12:44 am
Congrats to Josh on finding such an excellent new home, and to the Imperium Eruditorum on finding such an excellent new member!
May 26, 2016 @ 2:27 am
This is amazing, amazing news.
May 27, 2016 @ 11:11 pm
Well done Josh! I have loved your blog and writings so far and have especially enjoyed great conversations in the comments on Vaka Rangi. Look forwards to more and what comes out the new venture.
May 29, 2016 @ 1:53 pm
Nice! A perfect fit. I’ll enjoy reading Vaka Rangi in its new home.