Ian Martin
At 50, Ian Martin gave up construction work because of failing eyesight and took to writing. In the past 25 years he has self-published five novels and now regularly posts commentary and opinion pieces on his blog, https://ianmartininpearlybeach.blogspot.com/ and on Substack https://ianmartin.substack.com/
- Total Post (4)
Articles By This Author
Got to have the books, you know
- By Ian Martin
- . Jul 19, 2026
“Why are you hoarding all these books?” This is what the millennial asked us, and he wasn’t the first to question our attachment to hard-copy reference material.
Idlers
- By Ian Martin
- . Apr 29, 2026
It is 2035. I am 28, and in the past decade I’ve lived through a sea change that seems far from over. It has largely been driven by the development of AI. In 2026 I enrolled at UCT, intending to take a degree in Sociology, but after a week I saw that the subject was already five years behind the world I was experiencing, so I switched to a B.Com. Again, it took just a week for me to realise that we were being taught old economics. To while away the rest of the year, I switched to a BA majoring in English and Philosophy.
Paradoxical materialism
- By Ian Martin
- . Mar 1, 2026
“The stinking rich will always be with us,” I said. “It’s in the Bible.”
Overtaken by Tech
- By Ian Martin
- . Feb 8, 2026
It was voice simulation that did it. He retired in 2006 at the age of 60, and I quit the rat race in 2010, also