Collection
Essays
The Hawkmen cometh
Hawkman, the comic book superhero, was apparently created in 1940 by Gardner Fox of Appendix N fame. This post wasn’t originally intended to include him beyond a cursory…
Trees get all the glory (lamentations for cacti)
This is probably going to sound kind of unhinged, but has anyone else noticed that trees get all the vegetational glory in SFF tales? Mirkwood and Lothlorien and…
SFF Weapons: Some Interesting Implements
Scifi and Fantasy are absolutely littered with famous weapons – from Excalibur to the lightsaber to Indiana Jones’ signature bullwhip. The further back you go, the more and…
Dilvish, the Damned: Zelazny does #NotTolkien Fantasy
You might argue that Roger Zelazny’s brand of fantasy is plenty infected by modernism, as some would put it. You might also argue that he was doing some…
The Fantasy of Edgar Allen Poe
It seems to be a recurring theme with me – that for years I was unaware of such-and-such an author or was mistaken about the nature of his…
Introduction to the Insane Scifi of Cordwainer Smith
Last month I wrote about the largely forgotten grandmaster of weird SFF, Clark Ashton Smith. Recently I’ve revisited the “best of” collection of another undeservedly obscured scifi great…
Jurgen the Clever
Owing to the intensity of starting a new job in a rushed situation, my reading of Witch World has been placed on hold. I have, however, been able to…
Doing Mobile SFF for Free!
On the most recent episode of Geek Gab, our hosts talked a little about reading and buying digital vs paper books. Of course it’s not a new discussion…
Jack Vance, Andre Norton, and Plot Hooking
Last week, back at the Bushi homeland, Gita wrote a piece about plotting, and Jordan of Anachronistic Robot posted an essay about short story structure. This got me…
The Witcher and the Tower of Mice
It’s been a while since I played The Witcher 3 for PC, and I imagine it’ll be some time before I’m able to go back to it. Was…