Gotta find sources for the Homo Superior
Classic sci-fi novel Odd John reads like a proto-X-Men story because that’s what it is. Reputable sources credit author Olaf Stapledon with coining Homo superior, which is of course Magneto’s…
Category: Reading
What is being read at the moment.
Bang, Bang, Lucifer’s Hammer comes down on my head
Writers, content creators, etc., all fetishcize the post-apocalyptic world since it is an opening for them to demonstrate their deep familiarity with the darkness at the heart of humanity. And…
Clones, He Said!
“It’s frowned upon to say so, but if we’re being honest, come on—please. There are currently billions of humans. Even allowing for some repetition, are there billions of reasons for…
Le incel d’origine?
From Flaubert’s Sentimental Education, page 77 of the Penguin Classics edition, translated by Robert Baldick. “He envied pianists their talent and soldiers their scars. He longed for a dangerous illness,…
Two Versions of “Tenth of December”
I have read two different versions of the “Tenth of December.” Don’t misinterpret — I did not find a unpublished, alternate version of this George Saunders story, where both Robin…
Grim Afterlife
Yeesh, a very grim imagining of what we could encounter in the great unknown, from Iain Reid’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things: “What if it doesn’t get better? What if…
Picking “Grapes of Wrath” out of “The Getaway”
I did not realize the soil in Jim Thompson’s “The Getaway” was so rich that it sprouted “The Grapes of Wrath”: Doc knew people; and … he knew this kind…
Graham Greene, Power and the Glory
“Hate was just a failure of imagination.” (The Power and the Glory, Penguin ed. pg. 131) – only slightly more inspiring than the words of Dr. Ben Carson: “It will…
What’s this about political butts?
John Wyndham was correct that we are fucked as a species: the seas will rise, and plants will hunt us for food and sport. But I’ve read this sentence from…
Don Quixote – 341 years into the future
Cervantes had Trump figured out over 300 years before that dofus was born: “[T]he man who never intends to pay isn’t worried about any problems when he strikes his bargain.”…