So yesterday the Star Wars Twitter account tweeted something kind of dumb: https://twitter.com/Daddy_Warpig/status/1095419486151225344 First off, let me just acknowledge that there is a larger context here, though it doesn’t make this much better. “Star Wars Kids” has been putting out these animated shorts on YouTube, featuring different Star Wars characters […]
Yesterday Twitter buddy Kes of RMWC Reviews commented on a Matt Walsh opinion about young people and moving: "There is no reason not to move" Friends, family, the sunset fading behind the trees on a warm summer's eve as you sit on the porch, a place that has value because […]
I was recently gifted The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard. I’ve had my eye on this one for a while, perhaps since Alex of Barbarian Book Club wrote about it. I’m not sure if the copy he’s got features that sweet illustration of a guy fighting a sea monster, but […]
The illustrious Poul Anderson is another one of those scifi/fantasy grandmasters who you’ve probably never heard of if you were born after 1980. Although he was writing until his death in 2001, he seems to have fallen into obscurity in the later decades of his career, which is a damn […]
As much as I talk about older scifi and fantasy, I like some contemporary fiction. I’m a fan of the Witcher stories. I like Harry Potter (is that contemporary anymore?). Hell, I was even on the Game of Thrones bandwagon back before HBO picked it up. But looking at a lot […]
I’ve been thinking lately about magic. In fiction, its treatment varies widely, but I feel like there are a few generalizations I can make. First, I don’t agree with Gita (or Orson Scott Card) that magic must have a price or else be rendered uninteresting. Of course magic should have limitations. […]
Fairies used to be bad, you know. As I said, elves used to be part of this basket, too. All that fey nonsense. I guess it’s been happening for a while, though. Modernity seems to subjectivize and gray out everything. Most fairies today are meant for kids, and they’re cute […]
As I progress through James Branch Cabell’s Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice, I’m encountering many interesting references to legend, myth, and antiquity. Many seem to be fancified, embellished, or otherwise altered to serve the story, which of course is just fine. One reference that I came across, not immediately knowing whether […]
There was a bit of a discussion yesterday on Twitter, about elves. Specifically, Alex of Cirsova was musing about the D&D alignment systems and how traditionally, under a three-point system (Good-Neutral-Evil), Evil and Chaotic would be pretty much the same thing. "Evil" acts would tend to be chaotic because they […]
It’s been observed that Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter was an early inspiration for the modern superhero. I believe he was actually a direct inspiration for the genesis of Superman. But what if we go further back? The Greek heroes like Hercules and Perseus and Achilles are no-brainers, but what […]
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