Planetary Romance and old-school Sci/Fi is enjoying something of a renaissance in the indie publishing world. There is talk of such things as the Pulp Revolution. I support these things. Pulp is a wonderfully engrossing form of entertainment, relying on two things: If you get the characters and the structure right, you can make up… Read More Broadswords and Blasters Gives us “Futures That Never Were”
I mentioned a few weeks back that the infamous Eye of Argon has had some expansion added to it recently. There was Grignyr the Ecordian, a edited re-telling of the original, and there was The Eye of Argon and the Further Adventures of Grignr the Barbarian. Post-holidays, I acquired both. The guy who wrote this… Read More Cry of Argon: Reports from the Grignr Mythos
Criticism, for all we elevate it, amounts to the imposing of a narrative on a work. It is a non-fiction encounter with a text, gussied up to a universal statement about its meaning. This is fine when it is acknowledged. Often, however, critical reads become a kind of low-effort meme, repeated without actual consideration. They… Read More On the Death and Return of Gandalf
The most recent Shallow & Pedantic Podcast was a two-parter on The Eye of Argon, famously the Worst Fantasy Story of All Time. We read the story, and we talked about it. In the first part, we laughed long and loudly at the madness of the story, its logorrheac prose combined with its dearth of… Read More Poking the Eye of Argon
The clickbait got me. I like to think that I’m above all this noise, but every now and again something so artlessly pathetic crosses my awareness that, like a hungry jackal, I delight in the prospect of tearing it to shreds. And since no one does “artlessly pathetic” quite like Matthew Perry, here we are.… Read More Matthew Perry is Clearly Doing Great
This is an idea I’ve had for some time: doing a book tour reading from the comfort of my office and sharing it with YouTube. Here is a dip in the toe from the idea: six minutes from the first Drunk Vampire Hunter story, “Edge of the Graveyard” It’s six minutes because my current web… Read More Introducing Virtual Book Tours: Drunk Vampire Hunter Reading
Here’s a Podcast: We had this recorded last month, and of the 2 hours+ we recorded, this is the stuff that was actually about the ostensible topic, Neil Gaiman. I think we went over the edge on this one. The rest of the merry nonsense is going up on a “Bonus Episode” for Patrons, which… Read More Neil Gaiman Goes Over The Edge, Caligula Goes into Rewrites, and The Journal Still Has No Name: An End of July Update
I promised, when I did Chapter 1, that Chapter 2 would be coming soon. “Soon” is a vaguely defined word, so I will invoke the principle of the Zen Master and say that if a blog post emerges before it is ready does ill to reader and writer. And if you believe that, I have… Read More Notes on Kafka’s The Trial, Chapter 2
This will be the last time I write about this hack until he delivers another book. And even then, I might not bother. The ending of Game of Thrones was so bad I’m pretty well done with the whole universe. There’s no shortage of fantasy literature out there, if you’re into that sort of thing,… Read More George R.R. Martin Doesn’t Get Why Everyone’s Mad, and Other Statements Written by Marketing Reps
The New Project, I’ve alluded to on my most recent podcast has caused me to restart a book I picked up years ago, got about halfway through, and gave up in dejection. Kafka is the kind of guy best read on a clackety old SEPTA train on an overcast day after you’ve smoked a Parliament… Read More Notes on Kafka’s The Trial, Chapter 1
Content Blues 