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Category Archives: Fiction
A Necessary Luxury
“Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries….”—Edgar Allan Poe, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” A colleague recently told me that her job is the most important thing in her life. I think I scandalized her when I said that the … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Literature
Mystery for the Holidays
“I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second morning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the compliments of the season. He was lounging upon the sofa in a purple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his reach … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Literature
Weinbaum’s Tour of the Solar System
The holidays are always a great time to pick up some light reading. In this post I want to pay tribute to the short-lived but brilliant career of science fiction writer Stanley Weinbaum (1902-35). I was first introduced to Weinbaum’s … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction
Detectives and Philosophers
I picked up a new set of the Bantam two volume edition of Sherlock Holmes to replace the tattered copies acquired during my college days. I started with “A Study in Scarlet” a novella length story, published in the 1887 … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Philosophy
Tales From the Golden Age
Recently I’ve taken time out with books from the “Golden Age” of science fiction. The first two entries are from the Winston series of the 1950s-60s, aimed at younger readers. The stories are definitely more facile, but action packed—the sort … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction
Lord Greystoke of the Jungle
Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan of the Apes (1912) is certainly one of the best page-turners I’ve encountered in awhile. Like many people I knew, or thought I knew, the Tarzan story through the old Johnny Weissmuller films that I grew … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction
Truth is Stranger than Science Fiction
Fiction may seem outlandish to us when it imagines exotic realms or daring adventures, yet few things in the universe are as mysterious as the human soul. We all enjoy works of pure escapism. That said, the most enduring stories … Continue reading
Posted in Art and Culture, Fiction
The Time Traveller’s Prophecy
H. G. Wells’ novel The Time Machine, published in 1895, is more than a piece of highly entertaining fiction. It is also an interesting and important contribution to the canon of dystopian literature. Even before Wells, there was a tendency … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, H. G. Wells, Literature
Of Martians and Men
Over the years I have a commented on many of H. G. Wells’ tales. In this post I want to profile his greatest work, The War of the Worlds (1898). I first encountered the novel around the age of twelve … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction, H. G. Wells, Literature
The Fantastic Voyages of Jules Verne
Jules Verne’s Around the Moon (1870) is the sequel to his famous tale From the Earth to the Moon (1865), though of the two I think the later book must be the more interesting because the first story deals only … Continue reading
Posted in Fiction
