Welcome to Astrolabe!
![Welcome to Astrolabe!](/content/images/size/w960/2024/01/astrolabe-banner-YouTube-2.png)
Astrolabe is my irregular newsletter covering all the stuff I love—from science fiction and fantasy to retro gaming and personal news about my work.
“What’ll I get?”
Astrolabe is the place to get the latest updates about my work, and also a bunch of regular columns covering SFF:
- Out & About is where I highlight my work around the web—some recent and some old favourites.
- LTTP stands for “Late to the Party” and is a regular column where I let Twitter decide on a retro game, then I play it for an hour and give my impressions. Do your worst, Twitter!
- Recommended Reads gathers together my favourite books and explains why you need to read them. Now!
- Quest Markers is a collection of the coolest stuff I’ve read around the web lately.
You’ll also get a bunch of other goodies, like story and book excerpts, interviews, essays, reviews, etc.
What about a paid subscription?
With freelance games journalism becoming more and more untenable, I’m looking at diverting my time and energy toward providing more value for paid Astrolabe supporters, as a way to keep doing what I’m doing. Running a newsletter requires a lot of fees for hosting, and also for acquiring all the products and things I regularly write about. Astrolabe is fully self-funded, so every paid subscription helps keep the lights on. So, if you appreciate my work here or elsewhere, consider a paid subscription.
In addition, you'll also get early access to stuff like Astrolabe Digest (where I break recent news into nice, bite-sized chunks) and any major Astrolabe features.
Okay, you got me, how do I subscribe?
It’s easy!
Meet the creator
![Aidan Moher — Creator of Astrolabe and author of Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fanasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West Aidan Moher — Creator of Astrolabe and author of Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fanasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff45d3c30-a9a3-4b93-ae13-e81d2de2e3e1_400x600.jpeg)
Aidan Moher (he/him) is a Hugo award-winning writer and editor who has written about almost every niche facet of geek culture you can think of from Terry Brooks to Dungeons & Dragons. And whether he’s penning wildly read essays on Lunar: Silver Star Story, the undeniable lasting power of Chrono Trigger (the best RPG ever made), or the forgotten history of Magic: the Gathering, he manages to infuse deep, personal, endearing hooks into every story he tells. He’s written for outlets like WIRED, Kotaku, Washington Post, New York Magazine, IGN, and more.
He’s the author of Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGS in the West.
What they’re saying
Ooo... @adribbleofink is starting a new newsletter? Yes, please. I just subscribed to Astrolabe https://t.co/CzKLtDfilo
— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) August 6, 2020
This is absolutely, positively, jam-packed with awesomeness folks... check it out! https://t.co/xvtwVYqKzK
— Ryan Van Loan (@RyanVanLoan) August 7, 2020
Man I TOLD you guys there was gonna be so much cool nerd stuff in here.
— Ty Schalter (@tyschalter) August 7, 2020
Subscribe for free! https://t.co/mka8maHog9
A+ first issue! So much content for a newsletter. Great job, Aidan! https://t.co/sLruNeEybR
— Elad Haber (@MusicInMyCar) August 7, 2020