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The Perfect Halloween Treat for Ghosts and Goblins and Gumshoes
Got G.U.M.? What’s up with the NeverEnding Zombie Apocalypse in Hollywood? Why is China perpetrating celluloid genocide upon the Japanese (1 Billion + since 2013)? And why should one ever want to venture into The Vale of Shadows? Anybody who has the Sixth Sense will be able to figure out some possibilities to these vexing nether regions of the psychosphere. But for the rest of us, we’ll need Goggles of Umbral Moonshine. You can’t buy these Goggles at any store. They must be found or constructed. Which is why I highly recommend Nguyen’s insightful critique of the ethics and aesthetics of war stories, Nothing Ever Dies. Though focusing on the…
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What’s so Golden About the Golden Age of SF, Anyway?
Some Broad Sweeping Judgments on Golden Age Science Fiction Made a Sci-Fictioneer, 3rd Class Aboard the Great MFA Space Ark, S.S. Run Run Shaw (currently docked at Space Station Hong Kong, itself tidally locked in orbit above Planet China). Cultural Stability Minister’s Warning: Reading this pun-riddled text may be hazardous to your mental well-being. Not all SF is created equal as demonstrated by The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, a Hugo awarded SF author from the Golden Age of Science Fiction. His novel came to me highly recommended. Having never heard of him and wondering how that could be and being ordered to read him ASAP, I gave Bester,…
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Returning to Sardinia
This October I will return to Sardinia. According to legend, the island was founded by Sardus, a son of Heracles. But who is Grazia Deledda? That is what I’d rather know more about as I read her 1913 novel, Reeds in the Wind. Just beginning her novel, I am struck by its beauty–not that endorphin generating kind when one happens upon random aesthetically pleasing objects–but rather the kind that is a craft sublime, the prose seemingly aligned for our times, the kind Keats reminded us of his “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Grazia Deledda speaks to us a one hundred and one years later: “Yes, man’s working…
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Will reading the book Wired for Story really make you a better storyteller?
In my 36th year as a would-be and penniless writer, I found myself exiled to a dark rough and tumble city in the Far West, guns blazing as a steely-eyed wordslinger for hire. But then one day I stumbled upon Lisa Cron’s Wired for Story. The book’s first pages caught my attention. But alas, the price wasn’t right for a poor, humble teacher on a Chinese salary. I had bills to pay, a mistress to please, and habits to feed. Plus there was the local research base full of giant pandas; the damn things generated reams of Chinglish prose I would have to revise for a pittance.  Already my inbox…