Christopher Barzak muses on collecting books on his blog. I say collecting but I winder if a slightly more correct term accreting. Books have, like I suspect most people, accreted around me from buying and reviewing. I have piles of books falling nearly falling over, save for the wardrobe sealed in on two sides.
He [...]
Sam Jordison over on the Guardian blogs has a piece on why critics look down of science fiction. As he points out, sf (and to some extent now fantasy) novels can be experimental thought experiments as well as critiquing contemporary society.
I can’t see anything new to the article but it does seem to fit into [...]
I was rewatching Season 2 of Buffy last night and it occured to me that the Surprise / Innocence episodes are perhap the true dark heart of the series. Much is made of the search for the truth of the First Slayer but that only explains one aspect.
The major underlying theme of Buffy is losing [...]
Reading both the Box of Delights and the Hobbit, I was struck by the way that both authors use an anachronistic Medieval period to intersect and comment on the Modern.
Both authors had served in the Great War and both lived in Oxford: Tolkien on Northmoor Road and Masefield in Boar’s Hill. Furthermore, both had [...]
Just when I thought it might be safe, J K Rowling in an interview with Time magazine has not entirely ruled out book eight in the Harry Potter world but it will be at least ten years before she thinks about it properly. In the meantime, there is an adult novel and a “political fairy [...]