Of Human Bondage Ep. 1: Dr. No & Patreon Update

Hi all! I want to start this post with a quick update regarding the Patreon. The outpouring of support from friends and readers has been truly astounding. I cannot describe the thrill of waking up yesterday and realizing I would soon be able to live off my writing. The support of my community, the chance to fully dedicate myself to my craft, and not having to resort to a re-traumatizing job in order to survive makes for a tremendous feeling of support and gratitude. I cannot thank you all enough. You are amazing and have literally, materially changed my life.

Yet we musn’t declare victory too early. $300 is the goal at which I’ll feel safe living off Patreon, and at time of writing we’re just $17 short of that. Lots of folks have stepped in to get me to the $300 mark with promises to undertake various projects. Here are some things that will happen if I hit $300 on Patreon:

• El will review Revolution of the Daleks. This is the only way she will do so.
• Jack will write about the Big Finish audio Brotherhood of the Daleks, featuring the Doctor’s ties to Karl Marx. Yes, really.
• My dear friend Will Shaw, author of the Black Archives book on The Rings of Akhaten and New Atheism, will write an undoubtedly delightful missive on the terminally execrable Sam Harris.
• James Wylder will write queer monster stuff! With spiders!
• Several other people have made offers I can’t recall off the top of my head, so let’s go with “& more!”

I literally cannot overstate how much getting to this tier would mean to me or how delightful any one of these little projects would be. So please back, or you can’t back, share the link. This is already putting me on a path to stability. 

In other exciting news, you can now listen to Of Human Bondage, the podcast where Kit Power, Sam Maleski, and myself discuss the James Bond movies of Eon Produtions. It’s an unusual Bond project, in that none of us are terribly sympathetic or reverential about our source material (what do you think we are, firing squad fodder?). Yet we retain a strange fascination with James Bond, having intelligent and riotously funny conversations about the pathologies and psychosexual weirdness of upper-class British white men that these films and Ian Fleming’s novels serve as a lens towards. It’s one of the most fun and cathartic projects I’ve ever engaged in, and feedback so far has been positive. Check it out. It’s a good time.

And thank you, everyone.