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The last days of Fritz
When I came to do my master’s thesis in English, two points were very clear. If I was going to spend the better part of a year researching and writing, I wanted the result to be publishable. In...
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Learning to love the Harry hype
Yesterday, I went to the Chapters store at Granville and Broadway in the early evening. When I got there, the staff were preparing for the midnight launch of the new Harry Potter book. Watching them, I...
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Witches of the Mind
“Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?” – Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 3 If I am...
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Discovering Tolkien
In the summer between grades five and six, I discovered the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. The encounter inspired a love of fantasy and science fiction that endures to this day. I was always precocious...
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On receiving “Fritz Leiber: Critical Essays” in the mail
Recovering from a leg injury and facing a delayed article and a heavy autumn rain, I was delighted to find Benjamin Szumskyj’s Fritz Leiber: Critical Essays in the mail box today. I still have to read...
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Mainstream writers and the social Internet
I’m almost getting afraid to look at a newspaper or any other traditional print media. Every time I do, some writer or other seems to be belittling an Internet phenomena such as blogging, Facebook, or...
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Not a Trekkie but a Whovian
I love science fiction and fantasy. They were the bulk of my reading in childhood, and they are still a sizable chunk of my fiction reading. When I go to a movie, it is almost always science fiction or...
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Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire (1632) series
When I’m an invalid, I want reading that is light, long, and moderately intelligent. Last week when my left knee decided to complain about its lack of cartilage, my choice was the first half dozen...
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Reading “On the Beach” for the last time
The idea that I could outgrow a book surprises me. My tastes are liberal, encompassing everything from nineteenth century classics to the latest graphic novel, and I can largely separate personal taste...
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Pre-requisites for immortality
Fantasy has vampires prolonging their life by drinking blood, while science fiction offers medical immortality or the uplifting of consciousness to machines. Readers, quite obviously, like to play with...
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