Category Archives: sff

What Are the Óðs?

Posted on February 19, 2025 by JE

I was thinking the other day about Hengist and Horsa, the two Saxon chieftains/gangsters who show up to assist and then overpower the usurper Vortigern in the run-up to King Arthur’s origin story. Horsa (Horsus in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Latin) … Continue reading →

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Call Him Poul (if you can pronounce it)

Posted on February 18, 2025 by JE

A judicious review by Paul Weimer of a great NESFA volume linked below. I liked this book a lot, but for me the most distinctive feature of this series is the one that I like least: the stories are a … Continue reading →

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Worlds on Worlds Are Rolling Ever…

Posted on February 18, 2025 by JE

I realized this weekend that one of the pleasures of inventing a Martian language was coining new names for all the planets. (Including ones that don’t really exist, like Vulcan, Antichthon, and the Lost Planet that was once supposed to … Continue reading →

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I’m Going to Mars

Posted on February 13, 2025 by JE

I was posting on a corporate social media site this AM and I blithely wrote something like, “My New Year’s resolution this year is to blog more and post on corporate social media less.” This was kind of a lie, … Continue reading →

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Mail Call

Posted on January 27, 2025 by JE

Looking forward to (re)reading the vintage paperbacks. The history book is more for figuring out how teaching will work in the future, now that everything old is new again. I already have a copy of Van Vogt’s The Book of … Continue reading →

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Don’t Myth Out

Posted on January 25, 2025 by JE

I’ve been looking forward to John Wiswell‘s Wearing the Lion since I heard about it, and even more so now that I’ve seen more work by the illustrator, Tyler Miles Lockett. Bold, colorful, imaginative stuff.

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Canticle or CANicle?

Posted on January 11, 2025 by JE

As a kid, I was very creeped out by this Bantam cover of Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz when I found it on my parents’ bookshelf. I was already reading sf, but somehow that didn’t seem to apply to this … Continue reading →

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New Editions of Old Stories

Posted on September 21, 2024 by JE

Reading about cops and robbers today.

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There Are Limits

Posted on July 9, 2024 by JE

I’ve been watching through The Outer Limits (1963-1965), a show I have fond memories of from when I was a kid. Uff da. They’re mostly terrible so far. The best episode of the first five was 1.4 “The Man with … Continue reading →

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Carney Knowledge: MADBALL by Fredric Brown

Posted on June 15, 2024 by JE

Fredric Brown was one of the best writers of sf at shorter lengths–especially very short lengths. His story “Knock” was so short he had to write a longer story to embed it in. His “Puppet Show” brilliantly mocked the Campbellian … Continue reading →

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