Bang, Bang, Lucifer’s Hammer comes down on my head
Writers, content creators, etc., all fetishcize the post-apocalyptic world since it is an opening for them to demonstrate their deep familiarity with the darkness at the heart of humanity. And…
Don’t Tell Him about Hulu (or the free trial options)
The narrator of “Dreams of Zombies” cannot afford a Hulu subscription, so it would be best NOT to tell him about the upcoming series for Y: The Last Man. At…
Clones, He Said!
“It’s frowned upon to say so, but if we’re being honest, come on—please. There are currently billions of humans. Even allowing for some repetition, are there billions of reasons for…
Dispatches – Everyone Gets a Statue
“Woodrow Wilson was a racist.” “We sell baseball cards here, sir.” “You get it. Cards are a testament to history. Like statues. The antifa mobs are out to erase our…
Pity the Trump voters
I almost feel pity for the Trump supporters and “real people” who use hashtags like #democratshateamerica. At this point, they REALLY miss Obama. Life was so much easier when they…
Le incel d’origine?
From Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, page 77 of the Penguin Classics edition, translated by Robert Baldick. “He envied pianists their talent and soldiers their scars. He longed for a dangerous illness,…
Two Versions of “Tenth of December”
I have read two different versions of the “Tenth of December.” Don’t misinterpret — I did not find a unpublished, alternate version of this George Saunders story, where both Robin…
Grim Afterlife
Yeesh, a very grim imagining of what we could encounter in the great unknown, from Iain Reid’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things: “What if it doesn’t get better? What if…
Picking “Grapes of Wrath” out of “The Getaway”
I did not realize the soil in Jim Thompson’s “The Getaway” was so rich that it sprouted “The Grapes of Wrath”: Doc knew people; and … he knew this kind…
The Star Wars Name Blender
Jyn, Cassian, Baze Malbus, Bistan, Chirrut – just a few of the Rogue One characters, a blitz of names that reads like the fevered output of a Star Wars Galaxies random…