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…
Tag: books
Don’t Tell Him about Hulu (or the free trial options)
The narrator of “Dreams of Zombies” cannot afford a Hulu subscription, so it would be best NOT to tell him about the upcoming series for Y: The Last Man. At…
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 Don’t misinterpret — I did not find a unpublished, alternate version of this George Saunders story, where both Robin…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.”…
Should have seen Drumpf coming
Infinite Jest has many layers of awesomeness, tough in places but always worth the price of admission, which requires true commitment given its 1,000+ pages and 300+ endnotes. Among its…
At least he can easily pass his tiny hands…
There are many great passages from Infinite Jest that presage this year’s presidential campaigns – and no better description that could apply to Donald Trump than this insult buried near…