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Writers, like other artists, do not create in a vacuum. Rather, creation often comes by accretion, building on ideas of others to strike out in new or different directions. Ian McDonald’s Brasyl is a marvelous example of such synthesis. Each chapter contains three storylines set in past, present and future Brazils. Not only does McDonald […] I’m still trying to figure out if the news in the days preceding the release of Into That Silent Sea: Trailblazers of the Space Era, 1961-1965 symbolizes irony or progress. As the subtitle indicates, the book examines the first efforts by the U.S. and the Soviet Union to put humans into space. One of the […] We have strange attitudes toward mental illness. Psychological disorders aren’t so bad if they give us characters who entertain us on television (the obsessive compulsive title character in Monk), in movies (the multiple phobias and disorders in What About Bob?) or even in classic literary works (the depression of Winnie the Pooh‘s Eeyore and apparent […] Satire is a dangerous vehicle. There is a fine line between farce and simply being absurd, between making a point and clobbering the reader over the head with it. At times, those lines, particularly the latter, blur for Matthew Moses in his Anti-Christ: A Satirical End of Days. Yet there are probably many in its […] We Americans tend to pride ourselves on having — or at least perceiving ourselves to have — an independent or maverick streak. Regardless of whether it actually exists, it also seems to contribute to America seeming to have a perhaps disproportionate share of kooks. And whether you consider them part of a counterculture, a subculture […] |
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