Warren Ellis: 'We're living in the last days of the Roman empire'

Those of you who already read Ellis’ work will find no surprises in his first column for Wired UK, but this piece is worth reading regardless. There’s a lot of meat in this column, but it would be easy to discount it as simply strange. That would be a mistake, because while Ellis shows us how the world is changing, demonstrating his clear fascination with the bizarre, he begins to make a case for why the slower approach to news gathering and reporting as typified in the print publishing industry is essential in a way that blog networks are not.

For the record, I agree with Ellis on this point, but I wish he had taken some additional time to fully illustrate the differences between the two publishing styles as opposed to assuming implicit understanding of the reader. Although, perhaps that is not his purpose. Like most of Ellis’ commentary, there is mental current to this piece, and getting the reader carried away in that flow of thought usually seems to be more important that knocking off bullet points like some academic. It’s good reading material, and full of Warren Ellis’ wicked (some might say twisted) sense of humor.