Blog Archives
sThe greatest argument for reading much and reading widely is the chance to see sides of things that were invisible to the authors – if only by virtue of having a completely different perspective.[1] An excellent example of this is this article by Vishwas R. Gaitonde on viewing Narnia through a Hindu lens. Gaitonde takes us on […]
It turns out that Rocket’s Red Glare is NOT an exclusively American themed collection. A few of the stories fit that theme, but now that the number has dipped below .500, I’m forced to conclude that the unabashedly pro-US position in some of the stories is the icing and not the cake. Which is fine […]
Wargame Wednesday: The Library of Gaming Maps
Wednesday , 21, June 2017 Art, Games, Uncategorized Leave a commentOn Google + I discovered The Library of Gaming Maps community and recommend you check it out. Currently, there almost 4k members with an active contributor base of artists who “……post and share maps they’re making, for the entertainment or aid of other gamers who may not have the chops or time to make their own!”. Browse […]
The psychedelic era of rock music had a distinctive look for album covers. That artistic style spilled over into mass paperback book covers. One could argue that Charles Moll was the most psychedelic artist for sword and sorcery fiction paperbacks. There is nothing out there on Charles Moll. He painted covers for paperback books in […]
The Swine of Aeaea by Clifford Ball was the featured cover story of the March 1939 issue of Weird Tales. A scanned pdf of this issue can be found here at Luminist.org. The Swine of Aeaea was probably the best story I’ve read for Short Reviews since Leigh Brackett’s the Moon that Vanished. Like Brackett’s story, The […]
Classic Traveller: Freetrader Economics
Thursday , 15, June 2017 Games, Tabletop Games, Traveller, Uncategorized 30 CommentsIn two posts I’ve outlined my Classic Traveller setting: first by rolling up an entirely random subsector and secondly by musing on the nature of one of the polities with a focus on its capital and its location within the polity it leads. The capital of the Empire of Reason is the Ladfaus system which […]
Some stories are just so good, you want people to be able to read them without any preconceived notions of what they are about or why they are noteworthy. Here are several of that sort: “The True History of the Hare and the Tortoise” by Lord Dunsany “Memory” by H. P. Lovecraft “Nightmare In Yellow” […]
Rocket’s Red Glare – Double Stuff Short Reviews
Wednesday , 14, June 2017 Short Fiction, Uncategorized 5 CommentsFreeman’s Stand, by Sarah A. Hoyt, brings the theme of Rocket’s Red Glare back to the forefront with a vengeance. Molly is a teenaged girl who is literally a rebellious teenager. She has joined a loose organization dedicated to overthrowing a vaguely defined despotic regime with the goal of implementing an equally vaguely defined New […]
Roy Krenkel (1918-1983) is an artist primarily associated with Edgar Rice Burroughs paperbacks. He attended Burne Hogarth’s classes at the School of Visual Arts. He did work with Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta for EC Comics in the early 1950s. Krenkel also drew interior art in the waning days of the pulp magazine for Marvel […]
It’s not every day you find a geek culture blog with unique insights into a given genre. While any blogger should be commended for having a go at it in the first place, some blogs stand head and shoulders above the rest. One of those blogs is Deus Ex Magical Girl, a blog on the […]
The Metal Chamber by Duane W. Rimel appeared in the March 1939 issue of Weird Tales. A scanned pdf of this issue can be found here at Luminist.org. The Metal Chamber is small and claustrophobic piece written largely in the form of a suicide note from a biologist who dabbled in telepathy and found himself […]
This is not the Fritz Leiber you’re looking for.[1] Apparently, Fritz Leiber Jr. – born December 24, 1910[2] – is an unknown science fiction author among modern readers, at least according to this io9 article from several years ago. Seriously? Noted contemporary Poul Anderson was quoted as having said that in the late 30s and […]