Category Archives: books

Science Fiction and Mr. Brown

Posted on June 6, 2025 by JE

Much of the short paragraph below by Fredric Brown is outdated and/or not meant to be taken seriously. But I like his conclusion about sf, which I would broaden to include fantasy (as sf often did in those now-distant days: … Continue reading →

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Dial D for Diogenes

Posted on June 2, 2025 by JE

Reading Diogenes Laertius through for the 1st time. Before I’d only read specific bios, like his account of Diogenes the Cynic. DL seems to be agnostic regarding philosophic schools, interested in philosophy more from a historical and literary point of … Continue reading →

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Alphonso I, Conqueror of Erewhon

Posted on May 21, 2025 by JE

One of the features or bugs of reading five or six books at a time is that sometimes you finish them all in the course of a day and then wander around feeling strangely bereft. One of the books I … Continue reading →

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18th Century Mashup: White’s MISTRESS MASHAM’S REPOSE

Posted on May 7, 2025 by JE

I came to T.H. White’s brilliant fantasy Mistress Masham’s Repose (Putnam, 1946): immediately after reading two much inferior (but not worthless) books. One was by White himself, The Age of Scandal (Putnam, 1950), a social history of the later 18th … Continue reading →

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The Future of the Past: F&SF, January 1963

Posted on April 22, 2025 by JE

In my ceaseless quest to avoid useful work, I recently opened up an old magazine from my double-stacked shelves of old sf/f zines, this one being the January 1963 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. “This is … Continue reading →

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King Leer

Posted on April 18, 2025 by JE

Reading some Middle English this afternoon, I came across the word lere, meaning “face”. ”That’s got to be where leer comes from,” I said, with the unwavering confidence of a folk etymologist, and then my confidence wavered a bit and … Continue reading →

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Swords Against Silence

Posted on April 5, 2025 by JE

It’s been sometimes sad, sometimes joyous, but always a pleasure to hang out with people at Windy City Pulp and Paper and celebrate the life and work of Howard Andrew Jones. Too many stories were shared for me to scribble … Continue reading →

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Swords Against Style

Posted on March 31, 2025 by JE

For various reasons I’ve had a couple different essays under my eyes this afternoon: “Epic Pooh” (Moorcock’s Titanic body-slam against Tolkien and other “high” fantasists) and Tolkien’s “On Fairy-Stories”. All critical writing about fantasy needs to be taken with a … Continue reading →

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Two-and-a-Half Murders in Black and White

Posted on March 30, 2025 by JE

I watched a couple of pretty good new-to-me movies that could loosely be described as noir: Panique (1946) and The Window (1949). Both of them are based on fiction I haven’t read, but now kind of want to. Reviews follow, … Continue reading →

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Surfing the Time Waves

Posted on March 29, 2025 by JE

I’m reading the minor declamations of pseudo-Quintilian in Shackleton-Bailey’s great Loeb edition. The idea is to briefly escape the current political nightmare by immersing myself in the weird little stories of these controversiae. It’s not going that well. For example: … Continue reading →

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