Every once in a while an author comes along that recalls the viewpoint of a child. Not any child in particular, only what it was like to always be the youngest person in the room, with the most amount of instruction, whose opinions carry the least weight in a family. Because, along with being loved and read to and coddled and warm, that’s what it feels like sometimes when you’re a kid. Anyway, Neil Gaiman k...
We’re deep in the throes of winter now with the mercury hugging the bottom of the temperature gauge and snow depth being measured in feet. Everyone I know is huddled up, snuggled down, wrapped in layers and beseeching God for a little Global Warming to thaw out the frozen ground. During these long, frozen nights a house almost becomes a living thing, cradling and caring for the creatures within. Our slippered feet scuf...
Yes, it’s hearts and flowers day, the annual celebration of the “people in pairs” that make up a big segment of our civilization. Hey, I’m all for marriage. A good marriage becomes the third part of a romantic relationship and it nurtures the people in it as well as those around it. It brings out the best in the partners. But people are limited and, despite our prayers and best wishes, not...
When you’re an English Major, you have to deal with Jane Austen. She’s one of the writers whose work you have to know before you graduate, like the medical students have to pass A&P. This can be a problem because readers love or they hate her books with a passion. There’s no middle ground. Granted, Mark Twain said an ideal library contains none of her stories but his heroes create their own ...
Science fiction is just fiction with science. That was the argument the guys in my generation made in class when they compared the work of Hardy, Thackery or some other school-board sanctioned novelist to a story they preferred. Despite the teacher’s efforts to introduce us to the literary gems of previous centuries, these fellows found subtly in the characters of Ray Bradberry and ambiguity in the plots of Isaac Asimo...