The Myth of Rugged Individualism
The idea of the “rugged individual” is all over the place in science fiction–especially in the United States. Who is this loner hero, and why are there so many stories…
An Old New World
When Princess Leia enters Jabba the Hutt’s lair in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, she greets him with “Yá’át’ééh, yá’át’ééh,” a Navajo greeting, and her iconic double-bun hairstyle imitates…
Subversive, queer and terrifyingly relevant: six reasons why Moby-Dick is the novel for our times
But it is Moby-Dick’s premonitory brilliance that continues to make it relevant. Melville predicts mass extinction and climate breakdown, and foresees a drowned planet from which the whale would “spout…
Ted Chiang Uses Science to Illuminate the Human Condition
I think science and religion could more peacefully coexist if we could agree that they are trying to answer different questions; science is investigating the question, “how does the universe…
George Orwell Reveals the Role & Responsibility of the Writer “In an Age of State Control”
Well, then what? Do we have to conclude that it is the duty of every writer to “keep out of politics”? Certainly not! In any case, as I have said…
A Meditation on Forests, Life, and Art: Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Fir Tree”
“The Fir Tree” was originally published in New Fairy Tales, Second Collection (1844) next to another winter tale, The Snow Queen. It was swiftly overshadowed by that other story and…
Why Are Men So bad at writing sex?
Male authors dominate the Bad Sex in Fiction awards, and it’s no coincidence
The End Of The World with Josh Clark
This episode of The End of the World podcast had me thinking a lot about a book I just finished, Knocking on Heaven’s Door by Sharman Apt Russell, the boundless…
Abduction As Romance
Abduction as Romance is a media trope where a man kidnaps or imprisons a woman and she eventually falls in love with him. Abduction as Romance is one of a…
Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 Misinterpreted
Bradbury says Fahrenheit 451, is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.