One of the mysteries that J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have set up for the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is the identity of the unnamed character who comets to Middle-earth near the encampment of the nomadic Harfoots. Known simply as “The Stranger” (Daniel Weyman) in marketing materials … [Read more…]
A few months ago I started a side project which I have called The Laserflail. Think of it as a satirical news publication that covers the various speculative multiverses that we are aware of, and some which we are only just now discovering. Head on over and give it a read. You will surely like it. … [Read more…]
I went to see Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi on Thursday night. It’s taken me longer to sort through my thoughts than expected, but I figured I’d put down a few non-spoilery reactions for those who haven’t seen it yet, as I did for Episode VII when it came out a couple years … [Read more…]
International Cat Day was a few days ago. Being a fan of Robert Heinlein – who frequently included cats in his stories – I started a discussion on Facebook about which of his stories do not have cats in them. While a number of people provided feedback on stories in which they remembered (or didn’t remember) with … [Read more…]
From about 15 – 10 years ago, I was very active in the Project Gutenberg community. I’ve long been a fan of both books and open culture, and I wanted to help spread some of the joy I felt from those areas of my life by contributing to the cause. A lot of the work I … [Read more…]
As it turns out, 2016 was an exceptionally bookish year for me. According to my Goodreads stats, I read more books in 2016 than any year since I’ve started keeping track (though, not more pages – 2013 has 2016 beat by about 350 pages). But my year in books page only tells part of the book story. Sure, you … [Read more…]
This post is part of a series on the Virginia Edition of Robert A. Heinlein’s works. This review of For Us, the Living serves as the exception that proves the rule of Heinlein. That is to say, it is terrible. Not only are all of the ideas about economics and social structure in the book outmoded and unworkable, but as a story, … [Read more…]
This post is part of a series on the Virginia Edition of Robert A. Heinlein’s works. I have been excited to get to this book, not only because I have read (or rather, listened to) it before and enjoyed it, but also because it signals a run of much shorter books than the first two … [Read more…]
This post is part of a series on the Virginia Edition of Robert A. Heinlein’s works. It’s been almost a year since I reviewed the first volume of the Virgina Edition, I Will Fear No Evil. I didn’t intend for there to be such a long hiatus, but things got in the way. Also, there is the … [Read more…]
Recently, a gentleman from Japan reached out to me regarding the pronunciation of “De Casseres.” He was writing an essay about Albert Stieglitz’ early 20th century photographic arts magazine, Camera Work, to which Benjamin De Casseres had contributed a number of articles from 1911 – 1913, and he needed to know the pronunciation in order to properly translate De Casseres’ … [Read more…]