Blog Archives
sDon’t let the cover fool you, Choose Your Own Apocalypse won’t leave you flipping back and forth based on choices you make. Presented by The Space Balrogs, a collective of science-fiction authors who pool their writing talents and marketing savvy, this book feels more like a sampler platter than a meal, and that’s not a […]
Uncanny: How Marvel’s Spicies Saved Science Fiction
Saturday , 24, November 2018 Uncategorized Leave a commentPulps and comics are kissing cousins. Not only have comics plundered the pulps for heroes, stories, and franchises, in many cases, comics and pulps were owned by the same publishers. For instance, Street & Smith’s Chelsea House imprint ran comics of most of their pulp books. But Marvel holds special ties to science fiction. Not only […]
Allow me to take a break from my usual column this week. Rather than sharing with you a small slice of the vast rich cake of independently produced genre fiction, I’d like to elbow my way into your celebration in order to express my gratitude and give thanks to some richly deserving parties. I’ll have […]
Bond groaned. ‘Spare me the Lafcadio Hearn, Blofeld!’ — Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice After reading “Of a Mirror and a Bell”, found in Hearn’s Kwaidan (Ghost Stories), Bond might be protesting too much. Hearn’s collection of Japanese legends, written months before his death, has been highly influential, influencing many Weird Tales authors, including Manly Wade Wellman, and Japanese culture as […]
Short Reviews – The Rebels, by Gordon R. Dickson
Friday , 16, November 2018 Uncategorized Leave a commentThe Rebels by Gordon R. Dickson appeared in the Winter 1954 issue of Fantastic Story Magazine. It can be read here at archive.org. This is the first story I’ve read by Gordon R. Dickson, and I’m a bit disappointed that it didn’t have space bears with swords and lasers, because that is literally all I […]
Short Reviews – The Double Minds, by John W. Campbell
Friday , 9, November 2018 Uncategorized Leave a commentThe Double Minds by John W. Campbell was originally published in the August 1937 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories and was the featured novelette in the Winter 1954 issue of Fantastic Story Magazine. It can be read here at Archive.org. So, John W. Campbell wrote a high-octane madcap action raygun adventure, and, well… Bless his […]
Short Reviews – Welcome, Stranger, by Monroe Schere
Friday , 2, November 2018 Uncategorized Leave a commentWelcome, Stranger by Monroe Schere appeared in the Winter 1954 issue of Fantastic Story Magazine. It can be read here at Archive.org. Welcome, Stranger is the short, droll chaser Fantastic Story offers for Kuttner’s The Dark World. And it is, well, weird! Told in first person by a member of an alien bird-dragon race, Welcome, […]
The Return of Dargoll & Other Pulp Stories
Wednesday , 31, October 2018 Short Fiction, Uncategorized 3 CommentsSometimes you get that one person who nurtures interest in a writer in danger of being forgotten. Glenn Lord did it with Robert E. Howard, Howard A. Jones with Harold Lamb, and now Kurt Brugel with Garnder F. Fox. I have affection for Gardner Fox. He wrote for the pulps, comics, and paperbacks. He wrote […]
David Weber’s Honor Harrington series started from the simple conceit of Horatio Hornblower in Space and grew into one of science fiction’s few pillar series, critically and commercially successful in a time where most science fiction readers are turning towards the classics instead of the contemporary. Over nineteen books, the crucible of constant war tempered […]
The Dark World, by Henry Kuttner was originally published in the Summer 1946 issue of Startling Stories. The reprint reviewed was published in Winter 1954 issue of Fantastic Story Magazine, which can be found here on Archive.org. “My Plane Crashed Over the Jungles of Sumatra, and Now I’m the Dread Lord Ganelon, but My Ex-Girlfriend is a […]
The alternative world genre of isekai overflows with the adventures of teens questing through fantasy worlds that blend video game and Western fantasy tropes. While most of these tales escape the server farms and silicon gates of actual MMO games for divinely-crafted fantasy worlds, a few return to the central premise of modern isekai: What […]
Short Reviews – [Just a Tease] The Dark World, by Henry Kuttner
Friday , 19, October 2018 Uncategorized 5 CommentsThe Dark World, by Henry Kuttner was originally published in the Summer 1946 issue of Startling Stories. Right now, I’m reading the reprint in Winter 1954 issue of Fantastic Story Magazine, which can be found here on Archive.org. I’m not going to be able to do a full review of this story this week, as […]