Medium IMAGE fantasy FrostGiant Pixabay 2925250 Kellepics 1500

shawna mccarthy created a space of her own

TWENTY ODD YEARS AGO, I was turned on to Glimpses, a novel by Lewis Shiner. I’d never heard of the au­thor but as I don’t keep up with much of any­thing any­more (it’s the old age thing), that wasn’t sur­prising. Be­cause of the source of the rec­om­men­da­tion, I read the book and thought it might be an Amer­i­can­ized form of “mag­ical re­alism.” [Read more] “shawna mccarthy created a space of her own”

Knights Jousting Seattle 1500

on writing about knights and jousting with darragh metzger

THE TRAILER for the 2001 movie A Knight’s Tale did not im­press us, but four­teen years later a friend brought the DVD over so we were obliged to sit through it. The star, Heath Ledger, had im­pressed us in his tour de force as the Joker in The Dark Knight (2008). [Read more] “on writing about knights and jousting with darragh metzger”

PoulAnderson BrainWave Kirkland 1500

on poul anderson’s brain wave

I FOUND MY AGING COPY of Poul An­der­son’s Brain Wave when I dis­cov­ered Joachim Boaz’s site Sci­ence Fic­tion and Other Sus­pect Ru­mi­na­tions. I read Joachim’s take on Poul An­der­son’s novel—he con­sid­ered it “vaguely good”—and the com­ments sub­mitted by his readers and I dis­agreed with cer­tain ob­ser­va­tions of theirs. So, I want to ad­dress a few of those is­sues here on my site. [Read more] “on poul anderson’s brain wave”

ChristopherStashoff books 1500 crop

yet more on science fiction and fantasy (is this modern science fiction part 6?)

I JUST HAD A ‘WHAT A CO­IN­CI­DENCE’ MO­MENT! They are not all that dis­sim­ilar from déjà vu mo­ments, ex­cept the some­times slightly scary feeling that ac­com­pa­nies the latter is rarely part of the former. When co­in­ci­dence oc­curs to me, I am usu­ally de­lighted, rarely fright­ened into be­lieving some form of pre-determinism, as déjà vu can do. [Read more] “yet more on science fiction and fantasy (is this modern science fiction part 6?)”

BarbaraRemington LordOfTheRings mural 1500 crop

modern science fiction and the gimme part 5 – on modern fantasy and the gimme

IF I SAID that all ‘modern’ fan­tasy can be traced to one au­thor and one story, J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord Of The Rings, few would argue. While afi­cionados and his­to­rians can make ar­gu­ments for the in­flu­ence of Lord Dun­sany, James Branch Ca­bell, and others, al­most all the well-known fan­tasy ti­tles of the past four decades can be traced to the tales of the Bilbo and Frodo Bag­gins and the One Ring. [Read more] “modern science fiction and the gimme part 5 – on modern fantasy and the gimme”

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