The first time I saw Stan Lee was at Chicago ComicCon in 1976. I was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the first major Comicon in the Windy City (slated for August of that year) was enough to ge
There is a whiff of something strange going on when the Beinecke Library at Yale University hosts an interview with the translator and activist Donald Nicholson-Smith. Is it just an anomaly? Nope.
أحمد خالد توفيق (Ahmed Khaled Towfik) The prolific author, Ahmed Khaled Towfik, passed away from a heart attack on April 2nd, 2018. Although I had encountered his books occasionally in passing, I
Pondering the depths of guilt and despair, the criminal is led to the scene of a crime. His handlers are not brutal, they too are subdued; as if ashamed themselves, and feeling the general shame of
In recent weeks, I’ve been on a biography reading jag, first tearing through The Hidden Library of Tanith Lee, then James Tiptree, Jr., the Double Life of Alice Sheldon, and This is Me, Jack Vance! The Hidden Library of Tanith Lee by Mavis Haut begins with a heavy academic tone, delving into the mythopoeic layers of meaning in Lee’s writing. Although this is perhaps a necessary piece of work, since Lee’s writing is so dense with mythology, metaphor, and explorations of the subconscious, it doesn’t exactly flow off the pages. Fortunately, for all those pages which made me feel like I was treading in molasses, there were an equal number of more conversational sections, in which Lee’s many books in many genres are summarized. There is also a long and valuable interview with the author which I have not seen elsewhere. Not a book for everyone, but a must read for all of you Tanith Lee addicts out there, and I know you are legion! It has taken me years to get up the nerve to read Julie Phillips book on James Tiptree, Jr., one of the unique voices in sf literature. Perhaps other readers of sf in the 1970s had the same introduction to Tiptree that I did: reading through 800 pages of Again Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison, only to be shocked with 50 amp jolt of electricity in the concluding story, Milk of Paradise, which opens: “She was flowing hot and naked as she straddled his belly in the cuddle-cube and fed him her hard little tits. And he convulsed up under her and then was headlong on the waster, vomiting.“ This was clearly a writer who could grab anyone by the scruff of the neck and rattle them around like a rag doll.
The Estate Auction of Harold P. Zitzow attracted many interested buyers at Arisia this weekend. Fans of every stripe paused to comb through the stacks and boxes full of items, including runs of Astou
In June, I read the strange news of F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre’s apparent suicide, and followed a link on Making Light to a presumed autobiographical sketch. It told a story of incredible suffering, poverty, and eventual escape from an orphanage in Australia and from abusive relatives. Although there has been a torrent of speculation about the strange odyssey of “Froggy” MacIntyre, as he was known to his friends, the straight depiction of those childhood details struck me as utterly true and made me curious about his other writings.
Reading a fascinating conversation between Fred Pohl and Alfred Bester, that took place in Newcastle upon Tyne, 26 June 1978, (published in Rob Jackson’s Inca 5), and was amused by their comments on
The parting message written by Master Sheng Yen to all of us: **Grown old while busy with trivial matters, Shedding tears and laughter over emptiness… But in the beginning there was no I, So birth and death can both be tossed aside.**
Studs Terkel, the great American historian, radio host, and defender of civil liberties, has died. His radio spot lasted 45 years, the entire second half of the 20th Century. His books gave voice to t