Return to Lovecraft Country
Sep19

Return to Lovecraft Country

Return to Lovecraft Country 15 Frightening Forays into the Lovecraftian Landscape   An Occasional Look at Lovecraftian Anthologies: 7   Hmmm… ‘Return to Lovecraft Country?’  I’m not quite sure that I’ve ever left it for long.  Well, perhaps for as much as a year at a stretch.  But forty-five years ago a boy of twelve walked through an angle that made no sense in the physics of this world and emerged onto a landscape where everything...

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Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot
Sep19

Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot

Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot   “To you, a robot is a robot.  Gears and metal, electricity and positrons. —- Mind and iron!  Human-made!  If necessary, human-destroyed!  But you haven’t worked with them, so you don’t know them.  They’re a cleaner, better breed than we are.” Susan Calvin   On the back cover of the edition I’m holding in my little claws –HarperVoyager 2013, since you ask – the blurb simply gives Asimov’s famous...

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Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers
Sep09

Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers

Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers   So. That was Starship Troopers; and that is what all the fuss has been about.  Now I can see why controversy has followed this science-fiction novel for so long. Is it fascist?  Yes, I guess it is to a degree; but it argues its case quite well. Is it a celebration of the army and all things militaristic?  Oh, most definitely.  But even for someone like myself, who simply hates orders of...

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Beyond the Black River : The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard, Volume 7
Sep09

Beyond the Black River : The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard, Volume 7

Beyond the Black River The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard, Volume 7 Edited by Paul Herman Part One   These ongoing pieces are overviews rather than reviews and therefore contain spoilers galore   When you have a hero who is described as having a  voice ‘as harsh as the rasp of steel’;  who has a yell that is ‘less like the cry of a man than the grunt of a charging lion’; and – listen now, this is the big one – who can take a blow...

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Gardens of Fear The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard, Volume 6 pt. II
Aug05

Gardens of Fear The Weird Works of Robert E. Howard, Volume 6 pt. II

Gardens of Fear The Weird Works of Robert E.  Howard, Volume 6 Edited by Paul Herman Part Two   These ongoing pieces are overviews rather than reviews and therefore contain spoilers galore   Weird Tales for August of 1934 was home to the tenth published episode in the life of Conan of Cimmeria, Howard’s most commercially successful series to date.  And since I’m that anal-retentive kind of obsessive who likes nice, neat little lists,...

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Alan Moore’s Voice of the Fire
Jul30

Alan Moore’s Voice of the Fire

Anticipating Jerusalem: Alan Moore’s Voice of the Fire   Alan Moore is a phenomenon. Although I don’t read him as religiously as I once did, the man himself – and his astonishing talent with words! – has fascinated me since I first ‘discovered’ him at the helm of the re-imagining of Swamp Thing in the 80s. I also admire him for the manner in which he has maneuvered himself into a position where he can afford to live just as he pleases...

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