Erik Davis has a great essay on Clark Ashton Smith which delves into the Hashish Eater. Going into the poem, he muses on the hallucinatory nature of the language and how Smith lost himself in it. At one point he appears to be approaching the TS Eliot use of imagery to conjure up a world [...]
In a world that has changed in the last seven years from one which sallowly loved democracy, complacent in the knowledge that we could vote into a world in which democracy and its underlying principles have been betrayed in a new Cold War, Little Brother is a timely update to Orwell’s 1984. Written with Cory’s [...]
Stephen Levy over at Wired has this great piece on the new Neal Stephenson novel, Anathem, which disusses the Long Now foundation, 10000 year clock and time.
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A couple of weeks ago, I read Borrobil but couldn’t see anything on the author with the Wikipedia page being deleted. I also tried the continuum encyclopedia and the Oxford companion but no beans. I should have known that the essential Encyclopedia of Fantasy would contain a short article.
Richard Dalbey’s article gives his dates [...]
I’ve just come across the New Yorker article about the film of P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins which I’ve just started to read. Its short so I’ll have finished it tonight.
Whilst I’m aware of the Disney reputation for whitewashing and the ideal nuclear family (working father, hosebound mother and dutiful children), I hadn’t realised the complete [...]
It’s Beatrix Potter’s birthday today.
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I’m reading a book called Borrobil by William Croft Dickinson which is really odd but quite exciting.
Published in 1944, two children dance around a Ring on Beltane and Borrobil, a magical being appears. He reminds them of the old ways, i.e. what Beltane means, and then takes them on a tour through the mythology of [...]
The Independent’s books page has news of Random House finding an early copy of one of AA Milne’s detective stories written before Winnie the Pooh. The House has secret passages and is set in Hundred Acre wood. Winnie will never be the same again I fear. The reprint arrives in late autumn.
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A couple of weeks ago, Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell sat down and chatted about the Edge Chronicles and the excellent Barnaby Grimes series.
Paul : I started it (Lord of the Rings) too late. I’m not a real fantasy afficionado really which is probably why the Edge is odd.
Chris: We’ve talked about this a [...]
Scott Westerfeld’s next book is an alternate history set around Word War One and as part of research he got to to go on an airship. Not just an airship but a Zeppelin. Sigh.
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