Category: Books
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Random Thoughts on Horror
Recently I was casting about for something to write next, and it struck me that I've never written a horror story. Some of my work has elements of horror — I wrote a Hellboy story about a vampire — but usually my goal is something other than scaring the reader. (The Hellboy story was a…
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Moby Blogging: The Plot Arrives
In Chapter 36 of Moby Dick, the slow start ends abruptly when Ahab finally makes up his mind to go ahead and let everyone know how awesomely crazy he really is. He calls the crew together on the deck to hear one of the greatest insane rants in literature. Ahab begins by nailing a Spanish…
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Ozblogging: Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, Part 4
Elemental Trouble From the Valley of Voe our heroes climb another long staircase up to the land of the Gargoyles. Along the way they have a couple of odd encounters. The first is when they pass a rift in the wall which looks out over another cavern, and a very strange place it is. The…
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Ozblogging: Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, Part 3
Un-Player-Character-Like Behavior The Black Pit isn't actually a pit, it's more of a tunnel. The Mangaboos wall our heroes into it with glass boulders, so Dorothy, Zeb, Jim, Eureka and the Wizard follow the tunnel to see where it leads. They go up for a long way and finally emerge in a "delightful valley" with…
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More Moby Blogging
My son and I have gotten up to about Chapter 35 of Moby Dick; he's still interested, although Melville's language sometimes mystifies him completely. I had forgotten how much of a slice-of-life realistic novel Moby Dick is. We remember Captain Ahab's mad quest and the high-school English essay allegories, but we forget how much of…
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Ozblogging: Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, Part 2
Humbugs and Humanoid Plants The Sorcerer of the Mangaboos is named Gwig, and unlike the rest of those people he's not eerily handsome. In fact, he's all covered with thorns. Gwig, it seems, is a bit of a humbug, because after the first Rain of Stones he promised there would be no more. He gets…
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Ozblogging: Dorothy And The Wizard In Oz, Part 1
In the Introduction to Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, L. Frank Baum good-naturedly complains that "The children won't let me stop telling tales of the Land of Oz. I know lots of other stories, and I hope to tell them, some time or another; but just now my loving tyrants won't allow me." Every…
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Copyrights and Schadenfreude
Apologies for the long hiatus. Among other issues, we took a family vacation and my internet access was limited. Anyway, I'm back. Yesterday I happened to read a posting on the usually interesting io9 blog (the science fiction branch of the Gawker Media empire) — this one, about the tension between expansiveness and self-referentiality in…
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Moby Blogging
Lately I've been reading Moby Dick to my nearly-eight-years-old son as a bedtime story. This statement will probably produce one of three reactions: 1. How awful to force that on him!2. Isn't he a little young for that?3. Well, I'm sure it'll put him to sleep in a hurry! Let me tackle them in order.…
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Ozblogging: Ozma of Oz, Part 5
Episode Five: Triumph of the Hen Billina marches into the Nome King's palace like an action-movie hero in the final act. She spots all ten purple (Evish) items and begins reversing the enchantments. When she's done with that she starts finding green objects which are people from Oz. With her inside information to help, Billina…
The Cambias Digression 