Fortune’s Pawn Rachel Bach Orbit Books Release Date: November 5, 2013 ISBN: 978-0-316-22111-5 In fiction, as in life, there is a fine line between the ridiculous and the sublime. This is especially true in the fantasy and science fiction realm, because a scifi/fantasy author must build something at least somewhat […]
So if the right hook in Speculative Fiction Sucker Punches is convenient magic (as discussed in my earlier essay), what would the left hook be? Something that, on its own might merely daze, but combined with that right hook, could very well bring about a KO – which for the […]
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.