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A canon need not be a static thing.  Even the canonical example of a canon – that of the Roman Catholic church – changes over time.  Additional knowledge, wisdom, and study, can all add detail, depth, and breadth to a canon.  You know what I’m talkin’ bout, Willis. But...

Assume for the moment that the following is true:   Hillary’s quote demonstrates the feminist belief that being left alone, without a man in your life, is a fate worse than death.   But what is the natural result of increased feminism? Increasing numbers of unmarried spinsters. Therefore, women have...

A few weeks back I had the misfortune of writing an honest review for a book that I really wanted to like.  The author is a great guy, and his book hit a lot of the right notes, but just didn’t work.  I was concerned that my rationalizing the...

The Rabid Puppies are the best thing to happen to the Hugo Awards in decades. Five years ago, nobody in the mainstream media was talking about the Hugos.  It was considered a niche of a niche market.  Maaaybe you’d see a couple of column inches discussing the results, but...

It’s nomination time for the 2017 Panetary Awards.  (Hat tip to Cirsova for alerting me.)  There are only two categories: Shorter story (under 40,000 words/160 paperback pages)My nomination: Images of the Goddess, by Schuyler Hernstrom, published in Cirsova Magazine #2 Gift of the Ob-Men was a nice little regression to...

We’re still beating up on Laurie Gough and her contention that bypassing the gatekeepers who live east of the Hudson River hurts written words. No caption necessary. When I pointed out that we’re all gatekeepers now, Jeff Duntemann (author of the excellent Ten Gentle Opportunities) responded by pointing out:...

Look at this thing from HuffPo: It would be easy to go after the low-hanging fruit here.  This woman you’ve never heard of has written three memoirs.  Three.  Because her life is just that interesting.  She is a “journalist”. Because writing a blog on HuffPo counts.  The obvious self-contradiction...

Even my wargames are pulp.This rocket ship was built for15mm sci-fi miniature battles. If you direct your eyes to the left, over there on the sidebar, you can spot a tag in the cloud called, “wargame related“. It’s no secret that I’m an avid wargamer from way back. I played D&D...

Skip the film, play the game. The title to this post hit me like a brick while reading John C. Wright’s The Swan Knight’s Son. Given that elfs serve as the primary antagonists in a world where they represent the primary threat to Christendom, it’s a throwaway line meant...

This is my kind of throwback.  Brian K. Lowe is one of those authors that Cirsova introduced to me.  His story, Hoskin’s War, in the second issue featured a grossly under-utilized setting for fantasy – the American frontier in the days of the American War of Independence.  It took a...