Recently, the magical world was caught by storm with the release of “Harry Potter and The Cursed Child” – a brand new book in the fabled Harry Potter universe! Hooray! Fans of the books have waited for almost ten years for a new entry in their beloved franchise, and it seems like they finally got it! Oh, what magical adventures await Harry, Ron and Hermione this time? But wait a minute… Something about that Amazon page seems kind of off… This isn’t a book, it’s a play script! And worst of all, it’s not even written by “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling, but rather by some dude named Jack Thorne, based only on an original idea by Rowling! Hell, this isn’t even a direct continuation of the books – it takes place years later and focuses on their kids! Wait a minute… This isn’t a proper book at all! It’s… It’s… It’s fanfiction, isn’t it?

Fanfiction, or original writing set in a fictional universe created by someone else, has existed for practically as long as time itself. “The Epic of Gilgamesh” – one of the very first stories ever recorded in the history of humanity – is essentially fanfiction, as the different tablets were written by different people, and thus the story of Gilgamesh was likely shaped by numerous authors. The same goes for various mythologies, which developed over hundreds of years and had thousands of different authors, each of which developed over what their predecessors built. But those things are kind of different from our modern understanding of “fanfiction”, aren’t they? If Person A created a Greek hero (say, Heracles), and then Person B decided to create a story about his death, then that story is part of Heracles’ legend despite the fact that it wasn’t created by the original author.

Meanwhile, when it comes to modern fanfiction, the overwhelming majority of it is not “canon” and doesn’t in any way affect the fictional universe we chose to explore. If Person A creates a hero today (say, Harry Potter), and then Person B writes a story about Harry Potter’s death, Harry Potter will still technically be alive because his original author has deemed it so. The same principle even holds true for comic books, which are the closest we’ve got to our own mythology – despite the fact that dozens of people write the same characters and build their world, if someone who is not specifically authorized to do so writes a story about them, that story will not affect them in any way, shape or form.

That brings us to a matter that many people in the ancient world didn’t really need to deal with – copyright. Thousands of years ago, there was no copyright – creating a story meant releasing it into the world. If Homer wanted to create a character for one of his epics (like the sorceress Medea), he had absolutely no claim over that character. Things have changed a lot since then, and now it’s really up to the copyright owner to decide what is canon for their universe and what is not. In fact, over the years, several fanfictions have been elevated to canon status, and in addition certain authors have been hired to create brand new entries in certain franchises that they didn’t originate (a good example is JJ Abrams with both “Star Wars” and “Star Trek”). Hell, purely technically speaking, the latest season of “Game of Thrones” is fanfiction, as the books haven’t caught up yet.

So, I guess the right question we should be asking is whether something should still be considered fanfiction if it’s canon, even if it wasn’t created by a work’s original author. How important is authorship, anyway? Are works of art really just a vision of their creators and nothing else, or are they ever evolving, living things much like the myths of the past? I guess an argument can be made for either. With that said, I’m afraid I can’t really answer the question whether “Harry Potter and The Cursed Child” is fanfiction or not. Sure, it wasn’t written by Rowling, but it’s still an established part of the universe, so… I guess you’re the only one who can draw your own conclusions! What do you guys think? Please let me know by clicking that big old Contact button at the top!

Hey, all! I’m going to take a brief break from reviewing books to talk about a little topic that I’ve been thinking about lately. As some of you might know, E3 – the biggest expo in gaming – happened once again just now, for the 21^st year in a row. For those of you who don’t know, the biggest announcements in gaming are typically made at expos, such as Tokyo Game Show, PAX or, of course, E3, which features press conferences from pretty much every major player in gaming. We’re talking Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft, even a specialized PC gaming show! Now, I’m not the biggest gamer in the world, but I always enjoy watching these press conferences live (even if my connection, while upgraded since my first post on this blog, still leaves a lot to be desired). There’s just something awfully intriguing about watching all of these promises, all of these potential games and new technologies which are coming in the near future from the biggest names in gaming. Suffice to say, the hype is real!

But the truth is, I’m a bigger iGaming player than I am a gaming player. I’ve played more slots than videogames in the last year… And keep in mind, I’m not even the biggest gambler you’ll ever meet! So that got me thinking – why don’t we have an event like E3, but for iGaming? Now, don’t get me wrong, iGaming has TONS of conventions and shows, like, a whole bunch, all over the world. A simple Google search can tell you that much. But pretty much all of them are aimed at businesses. When you watch E3, you watch it to see all of the new and exciting games that are coming out soon. When you go to, say, the London Affiliate Conference, you go to make connections and push your business. It’s not the same thing at all.

What I would LOVE to see is a press conference where top developers from NetEnt, Microgaming, Playtech and more step on stage, show off their new slots, brag about their new licensing deals and tell us why we, the players, should be trying out their new slots. I want to be invested in the showbiz, I want to get hyped for all the new games coming out, and I want to learn about, say, a “Wonder Woman” slot coming out from a big press conference rather than from a news site, or by randomly stumbling upon it. And it’s not like the audience for online casino is small, there’s tons of people who care about it and follow the news, and I’m sure they’d be highly interested in watching such an event! Even if it wasn’t a press conference, but just a pre-recorded video (the way Nintendo is doing at E3), it’d still be phenomenal! Make it happen, iGaming! I’m counting on ya!

I’ve spoken before about my absolutely gigantic library of fantasy and science fiction books, courtesy of my grandfather. I haven’t even read half of them (I’m getting there, don’t rush me!) and yet I still feel this need to read even more books! Okay, okay, I admit it – I may be very addicted to reading. I feel kind of empty without a book or a tablet in my hands, and I’m sure that many of you can relate. Sadly, my budget tends to be sort of limited. I need to pay for rent, food, clothes, transportation, and then there’s bills and taxes… If I could, I’d spend all my money on books, but unfortunately, reality is a bit different. Then again, I don’t really need to! There’s plenty of places online where I can get books for free! The most obvious one is, of course, my local library. You’re bound to have at least one in your vicinity, right? So go there, check it out and see what you can find! And if you’d prefer not to leave your house, fear not – you can always use an app, such as Overdrive, to lend books digitally, as long as your library is participating!

If you own a Kindle, or a tablet which supports the Kindle app, you’re in a whole ton of luck! Amazon in particular has plenty of classic books, such as “A Tale of Two Cities”, “Tom Sawyer” or “Pride and Prejudice”, for free on the Amazon store. All you need to do is register an account and “purchase” them for free, and then they’ll be added to your library on your device! In addition, there’s several online services, the best of which is definitely Freebooksy, that give you a slew of free books every single day! You can browse the free books of the day on the site or you can sign up for a newsletter, where you get to specify your favourite genres and receive only books from them straight into your mailbox! It’s amazing, trust me! I’ve only been using Freebooksy for a little over a month now, and have already gathered so many books that even my grandfather would be jealous!

If you’re a fan of audiobooks instead, there’s always Audible! Audible will give you a 30 day free trial during which you can pick any audiobook you want for free! If you don’t like it, or if you finish it and want more, you can always return it and get a new one within those 30 days. If you sign up for a membership, that way you can get practically unlimited audiobooks for as long as your membership lasts, and since you also get 1 free book every month if you really like a book and would like to keep it you can do that! Using those sites, I’m sure that soon enough you’ll have more books than you can possibly read!

Many regard information overload as being one of the major issues of today’s digital age. With our computers, phones and tablets, all of which are now permanently connected to the Internet thanks to 3G and wi-fi, we are literally flooded with information every single moment. I’m not just talking about information in terms of books, articles and research, but also stuff like social media feeds, instant messages, e-mails, any and all pieces of writing which contain information. It’s easy to say “well, if you don’t like it just unplug”, but many of us are using Internet and communications for our jobs, or to keep up with friends, so dealing with information overload may become an issue… Or so a lot of people are trying to make us believe. People such as tech entrepreneur Rohan Silva, whose name shares a surprising similarity to that of Bond villain Raoul Silva. I’m just saying!

In a feature published by “The Guardian”, Silva explains that he has created his own library in London that he has named Libreria, which sounds a lot like the country of the Marvel villain Doctor Doom, Latveria. I’m just saying! Now, Libreria is pretty much exactly the same as any other library, except for one small detail – phones and tablets are completely banned within its walls. To paraphrase the interview, Silva states precisely concerns about information overload when explaining his “no smart-technology” rule. According to him, human beings need a space to relax without being constantly bombarded by information, and that space might as well be a quiet library. I have a few problems with that statement, however. First of all, a library is, by definition, a place full of information! While right now I’m carrying a library with me all the time thanks to my tablet, only twenty years ago that’s where people went when they needed information! If you were really worried about information overload, why not make something that doesn’t contain a lot of information, like a quiet, nice café or something?

My second problem with this is that I don’t really believe that information overload is a problem for most people. I know for a fact that those with autism have it. One of my best friends has Asperger’s, and she sometimes feels overloaded and has to go somewhere quieter, or else she’ll go into full-out meltdown mode. That’s understandable. But come on – have you, the person reading this, ever felt overloaded with information? And if so, why didn’t you just, I don’t know, turn off your phone and go out? Yeah, sure, I mentioned earlier that many of us use those for work, but if you feel so overloaded, why not limit the amount of information you get? Turn off your notifications! Limit yourself to 20 minutes of Facebook a day! Try to fight the compulsion to constantly check your e-mail or instant messages (I know that one’s hard, especially when expecting someone important to write, but hang in there). If you can’t do that, then you really only have yourself to blame.

I want you to visualize a roulette table in your mind. No, seriously, go ahead and do it. Close your eyes if you have to, take a moment. It doesn’t have to be super detailed, but I’d like you to imagine it as closely as you can. You good? Okay, take a look at the top of the table and let me know what are the three colours you see. Did you spot them? For the more creatively challenged of you (hey, no worries, none of us are perfect), they’re red, black and green. Have you ever wondered why those colours in particular? After all, aren’t opposite colours on the spectrum, such as black and white or red and blue be more logical? Why did the people who invented roulette pick those particular colours, and if they didn’t, who did, and for what reason?

Are you ready for the kicker? Nobody knows.

Not a single piece of evidence has survived the 200+ years in which the game has existed in order to let us know why green, black and red were picked over literally any other colour! Hell, we don’t even know if they did, since nobody bothered to write down what the colours on the roulette table were back when it was first played, and the oldest surviving roulette table that we have in our possession is less than a hundred years old, so that’s not really a great indicator. You don’t believe me? Look it up, you won’t be able to find a concrete answer about any of this! Lots of theories exist, the most probable one having to do with the fact that black and red just look good (but then again, so do many other colours), which is why they were selected.

Thus far, we don’t have a concrete answer, and honestly, maybe it doesn’t really matter why things are the way they are… But I, for one, am extremely curious! I mean, sure, it’s not one of the greatest questions of the universe, such as why we’re here and what’s the meaning of life (to play videogames and 42, by the way), but it’s still something interesting to think about. If you’ve got any ideas, be sure to e-mail me!