So we’ve covered convenient magic and uber leetness as speculative fiction sucker punches; the right hook and left hook, respectively. Now we’re going to bring it on home. A strong corollary to the uber heroine is the female character written by a man who is clueless about women. So many good […]
Joseph Campbell had a theory about heroes. In his classic seminal work, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Campbell discusses the journey of the archetypal hero found in world mythologies. The hero, according to Campbell follows the same path or, ‘heroic journey’ : A hero ventures forth from the world […]
For The Tinker’s Pack 2013 calendar, the not-for-profit organization founded by Patrick Rothfuss, has teamed up with some of the best authors in the fantasy genre: Peter S. Beagle, Ray Bradbury, Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, Jacqueline Carey, Neil Gaiman, Charlaine Harris, Robin Hobb, N.K. Jemisin, George R. R. Martin, Terry […]
On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.