iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Extremely hyped for Slime in the Ice Machine, a psychedelic deduction game from the makers of the excellent Holovista, inc. @nadyalev.bsky.social and @thisisstar.bsky.social! There's also a free demo on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/4404940/...

kickstarter.com

Coming soon: Slime in the Ice Machine: It's Your Inheritance, Kid

Kick open the doors to the greatest bars in the cosmos (and the worst) to unravel surreal mysteries in this PC/Mac/Xbox game.

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

To "inauthentic", I would add "performative" and "naive" – which is, of course, contradictory. But zooming out, I think the growth of "larping" as epiphet says something about an expanded understanding of performance in everyday life.

nytimes.com

How LARPing, a Gaming Term, Became a Word for Posers (Gift Article)

Live-action role playing was associated with games like Dungeons & Dragons. Now, it’s a way to call someone out for being inauthentic.

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I mention this issues in THE AGE OF IMMERSION, that the growth in immersive experiences is due to the loneliness crisis (which itself is presumed to be the product of screens/internet)... But it's more complex than that. For one thing, immersive-ish things were popular long before screens.

derekthompson.org

You Are No Longer Invited to Dinner

We’re witnessing the death of hosting in America. The share of adults who say they regularly have friends over has declined 70 percent since 1975

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I can't get enough of the cover for my book, THE AGE OF IMMERSION, out June 2027! Designed by Rob Farmer, it's a shimmering, pixellated play on Monet's Water Lilies, one of the OG true "immersive" artworks. And yes, long subtitles are *in*. astrapublishinghouse.com/product/the-...

Book cover of The Age of Immersion: Make Believe Worlds From Medieval Cathedrals to the Las Vegas Sphere by Adrian Hon. The words are blue and shimmering, with a pixellated background of Monet's Water Lilies.

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

@x13n.com and I will be demoing our solarpunk orienteering larp STRANDFALL at this free event in Glasgow next week, on Thurs 8th Oct! Come along, say hi, and get the first look at photos and data from our first run of Strandfall...

eventbrite.co.uk

Split Screen Meetup 'in the making'

Join us for an inspiring evening bringing together the tech, creative and performing arts communities to share and connect.

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Quick thread on Venice: this was my second Biennale, having first visited in 2024 after realising a) it's open to the public, b) lasts for six months, and c) only costs €40 for 3 days entry. Plus there's a *ton* of completely free satellite events across the city. Here's the Montenegro pavilion!

A room with a grid of miniature offices under the glass floor, with figurines inside

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Pics from the Dolomites (Cortina)! Unbelievable scenery and so many cool chairlifts and cable cars – it's like a hiking theme park...

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

This is a proper “great span” read where you realise just how different people’s lives were not very long ago, from @phil.gyford.com’s grandad

gyford.com

Goodbye Victoria

The memories of Criss Barrington Gyford, growing up in Ipswich, Suffolk at the start of the 20th century.

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Rather bemused by Desktop Explorer. Aesthetics are on point but the puzzles leave me cold. Sure, “computer is haunted” is an excuse for everything, but if that means you keep having to tell players what to do all the time, it’s not a great device…

store.steampowered.com

Desktop Explorer on Steam

Rummage through the abandoned profiles of an old PC to unravel an inherited mystery. What secrets hide in this eerie adventure of cryptic games and outdated software? Who was using this computer? And ...

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

This format sounds cool: traditional races aren’t especially social since they don’t have built-in rest periods, but here, if you finish 6.7k within an hour, you get to rest and chat until the next hour, when you do it again

nytimes.com

In Backyard Ultramarathons, the Race Goes On Until Everyone Gives Up (Gift Article)

Runners complete the same lap every hour for as long as they can — sometimes for days. The brutal format has become surprisingly popular.

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I took my new Osmo Pocket 4P to the Venice Biennale as a dry run before visiting Puy du Fou next month – here's some test footage I captured: First up, Andreas Angelidakis' Escape Room (yes, that's what it was called) in the Greece Pavilion. Pretty silly!

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A problem with writing non-fiction books is that it's hard to include the very latest developments, like this picture-perfect illustration of how overtourism is reshaping large chunks of the world into sanitised, predictable immersive experiences...

nytimes.com

This Tiny Village Is Picture Perfect, Apart From All the Tourists

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Elle Hunt argues against the commercialisation of sociality and praises a moment before a play where all solo ticketholders were invited to mingle. Just imagine what she’d think of Nordic Larp! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I have no interest in seeing Gove playing a PM but I'm fascinated by the angle Mangan takes here: forget about the fate of the world, what really matters is how well politicians perform on camera. On the one hand, why should they be good actors? On the other, isn't that exactly what the job is?

theguardian.com

The Wargame review – Michael Gove is awful at pretending to be PM in this mind-warping reality show

The premise is an imminent attack on Britain by Russia in a world in which Michael Gove is prime minister and Nicola Sturgeon his deputy. It’s enjoyably terrifying – and the politicians’ stiffness is ...

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

My flight to Venice is delayed by thunderstorms, so Ryanair "helpfully" pinged me this video – generated by AI. Unsurprisingly, all it does is read out an earlier text notification. Something something post-literate society...

youtube.com

Thunderstorms in Italy - 17/09/2026

YouTube video by Ryanair Newskies

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Check out @maxhaiven.bsky.social's new book! "A provocative examination of the ways our economy has been rigged by financialization and the importance of games to our dangerous political moment ... it poses the urgent question: What is the antifascist game?" Out now in *open access*!

mitpress.mit.edu

The Player and the Played

In an age when capitalism feels like an unwinnable game, extreme reactionary ideas and politics are on the rise. The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones, Squid Gam...

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Every day or so, I get a Goodreads notification that someone else liked my 2-star review of Priya Parker's The Art of Gathering. It's now the 3rd most popular review and almost at 2nd. I occasionally feel bad about it – I don't really want to be known for slamming books – but it *is* rancid!

goodreads.com

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters

A transformative exploration of the power, purpose, and…

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

At the Playable Heritage conference in Edinburgh today, on plans to collect video game culture in the UK… 🧵

National Museums
Scotland
Playable Heritage
Creating a Collaborative Framework for Collecting Video Game Culture
Wed 16 Sep, National Museum of Scotland
National Museums
Scotland
National Library of Scotland
Leabharlann
Naiseanta na h-Alba
NVM
National
Videogame
Museum
ukie

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

This is such a powerful counter to Jonathan Haidt's moral panic over smartphones – not a pollyanna defence of technology, but a recognition that it *can* give kids a measure of freedom that they've been systemically robbed of.

theverge.com

What if social media isn’t hurting kids?

Psychology researcher Peter Gray accuses his ex-colleague of stoking a moral panic.

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Sometimes I sigh at my book manuscript and think I'm not a very good writer, then I'm cheered up by stuff like this. "this book argues that [hyperpolitics] constitutes a gravitational pole in the force field of 21 century politics" words dreamed up by the utterly deranged

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Decided to see if I could get HL: Alyx streaming from my Steam Machine to Quest 3 - no dice, the game just crashes on startup. Apparently it works for some people, but quite tricky. What the Bat, on the other hand, worked totally fine…

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

If you’re based in Scotland, you absolutely want to check this out!

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Reposted by Adrian Hon

Andy Baio @andy.baio.net · 14/09/2026

Color of Money 2027 reboot where Tom Cruise, now as old as Paul Newman was in the original film, reprises his role. Forced to quit pool after a car accident in the 2000s, he rekindles his young love for videogames, taking a cocky young upstart under his wing: world-class Dota 2 player Jenna Ortega

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Blasting through William Gibson’s early work and coincidentally collided with a watch of The Hustler/The Color of Money in his 1985 short story “Dogfight” with Michael Swanwick, which maps pool hall hustlers onto arcade games

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I don't write about Burning Man in my upcoming immersive book, but this piece fits into a very classic story of anarchic folk festivals transforming into spectacular, commodified, exclusive experiences – the same path so many ren faires went down in the late 20th century.

sfstandard.com

I co-founded Burning Man. The festival has lost its soul.

What began as an anarchistic collaboration of equals has become a commercialized escape hatch for the wealthy.

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I have never been to Venice Immersive and I am not the immersive police, but there is a problem with how it conflates immersion with specific technologies: “immersive videos, virtual and mixed reality, virtual worlds, XR and immersive installations” This isn’t an exclusive list, but still…

labiennale.org

Biennale Cinema 2026 | Venice Immersive

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

A Sleep No More superfan makes an interesting comparison with jubensha here. In the latter, especially in "emotional script" jubensha, customers can pay for guaranteed personalised attention, whereas in SNM, people are essentially gambling or competing for it.

sixthtone.com

One Last Night With Shanghai’s ‘Sleep No More’ Superfans

After nearly a decade in Shanghai, the immersive theater production “Sleep No More” has closed, ending a run that drew some fans back hundreds of times for its shifting storylines, favorite performers...

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

As a non-fiction author, the supply side of the equation is just as important as the demand: people who once might have written books are now starting newsletters. It's not that there's necessarily more money in newsletters, but they're much easier to get into, with faster, more rewarding feedback.

dearheadofmine.substack.com

The Nonfiction Book Market is Collapsing

This is not one of those periodic “End of Reading” Atlantic click bait essays.

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Just got a group ticket for TRANSMISSION, an online cosmic-horror larp played over Zoom... and Teletext! Made and run by @chloemashiter.bsky.social (Bridge Command, Spy of the Year), one of the most interesting artists working across interactive theatre/ARGs/jubensha/larp. Don't wait around!

everythingimmersive.com

Transmission

A nationwide blackout: no lights, no phone line, no one else in miles. But the TV just turned on by itself, and 'why' is a far more important question than 'how'...

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Illuminating slice of life from 97 Poets of Revachol, a Disco Elysium-themed larp

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Nice roundup of immersive-y things at Gamescom by an expert designer! “you need to clearly communicate to people what is possible, what you want them to do, what is the scope of their expected and desired action as participants”

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Shout-out to @adriaan.games's Rift Riff for being the platonic ideal of a tower defense game! No grinding here – just six hours of hand-crafted puzzle-like levels, with plenty of pew-pew action to sate my baser instincts.

riftriff.com

Rift Riff

Jump a rift, fight off monsters, plunder their world. Rift Riff is a strategic mix of juicy tower loadouts, varied monster behaviors, and forgiving mechanics.

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Just finished Angélica Gorodischer's tremendous fantasy Kalpa Imperial. Easily the equal of Le Guin's work (Le Guin translated this book!) or Calvino's Invisible Cities or Stanislaw Lem, as incisive and imaginative and funny and caring as stories can be, and so touching I cried at the end.

Cover of Angélica Gorodischer's Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

It IS happening and I will be sleeping in a fake Roman forum! (Also decided the time was finally right to get a DJI Osmo Pocket 4P for that smoooooth video capture)

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Just finished HHhH, a fascinating/funny/dramatic/shocking metafictional take on the real-life assassination of a Nazi leader. Despite this being Laurent Binet's first and most famous novel, it's the one I left till last. Nothing better than (good) experimental fiction!

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Goddamn this piece rules so hard it's almost beyond words. I love the description of smokejumpers' culture and anarchist organisation. “No one is telling you what to do or when to hike. It’s like going from the military to a farm commune. The amount of structure is the opposite.”

newyorker.com

The Art of Leaping Out of Planes to Fight Wildfires

Since the nineteen-forties, smokejumpers have been parachuting into remote parts of the U.S. to contain dangerous blazes.

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Between The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver, I'm tickled by how Scorsese walks a tightrope in making his endings feel simultaneously a fantasy and a plausible reality (apparently he was influenced by Michael Powell on this). Yet r/blankies finds it shocking anyone could think they're fantasies?

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I remember when he started there and my editor at the Telegraph asked me what I thought of him; obvs I was not a fan. (In my defence the Telegraph were less insane back then and they let me write whatever I wanted, which I guess was their strength and weakness)

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Every author is being inundated with scams offering interviews, deals, and book club events – for a fee, naturally. They usually pose as real literary agents and organisations, and I know more than a few authors who had their hopes lifted, then dashed. Personalised, AI-driven cruelty at scale.

Fi Glover <figlover.timesradio@gmail.com>
10:53 (1 hour ago)
to me

Dear Adrian,

I’m Fi Glover, a broadcaster and presenter with Times Radio in the UK.

What particularly caught my attention about A New History of the Future in 100 Objects is the wonderfully simple conceit behind it: rather than asking us to predict the future, you imagine someone in 2082 looking back at our century and deciding which objects, technologies and ideas ultimately mattered.

The question I found especially compelling is: if someone in 2082 looked back at our lives today, which objects would they say changed everything?

I’d like to invite you to take part in a 30–40 minute remote Featured Author Interview exploring the imagined history of the twenty-first century, and what looking at our present from the perspective of the future reveals about technology, society and the choices we are making now.

A quick note on the format and cost, so there is complete clarity from the outset: this is a paid feature-production opportunity for the author. The participation fee is £125, payable by the participating author. This is a production fee, not an appearance fee, and it covers the preparation, recording, production and author materials included in the feature package below. There is no additional charge beyond the £125 for the listed package, and there is absolutely no obligation to participate.

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Trying to decide on my next video essay. My latest on Russia recruiting teen spies via gamification didn't do that well, though the blog post was *very* popular on r/geopolitics and r/espionage. Right now I'm mulling over the rise of gamification, or an introduction to Nordic Larp.

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

It seems to me that Rebecca Perry's very good MAY WE FEED THE KING is as duplicitous as its scheming courtiers. While Perry suggests her modern-day curator doesn't want to "create a definitive story" of a historical king through immersive set design, that is ultimately exactly what she does.

Book cover of May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry, with illustrations of fruit

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Re-upping for the euro crowd! Featuring the book about "immersive" con artists that inspired the first-ever chatbot, my take on News Tower, and an escape room directly inspired by Golden Idol and Obra Dinn...

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

It's been too long since my last roundup of things I like (and a few things I don't) so here's my summer of Edinburgh Fringe shows, books, comics, movies, video games, and escape rooms! Demi Adejuyigbe! Evita Too! The Wager! Sins of Sinister! Le Bal! Bong Joon Ho! Ernst Lubitsch! Marathon! Arco!!

mssv.net

My Summer 2026 Media Diet

Edinburgh Fringe shows, books, comics, movies, video games, and escape rooms galore!

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Adrian Hon @adrianhon.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Lads… I think Puy du Fou is happening this year

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