You Just Can’t Find a Good 15 Cent Comic Book Any More
By Robert Arrington
When I was a kid, an older cousin gave me a bunch of “Classics Illustrated” comic books. This series, long since out of print (at least in comic book form) was designed to introduce young readers to classic literature by putting them in a short and entertaining format. My cousin (no fool she) had used them to do book reports.
An Author Interview with Moira Greyland Peat by Tamara Wilhite
The daughter of Marion Zimmer Bradley discusses “The Last Closet: The Dark Side of Avalon”
By Tamara Wilhite
“The Last Closet” was written by Moira Greyland. She’s the daughter of Marion Zimmer Bradley, author of “The Mists of Avalon” and Walter Breen. It is Marion Bradley’s book from which the book title is drawn. “The Last Closet: The Dark Side of Avalon” is equal parts autobiography and true-crime thriller with a tragic sprinkling of the history of science fiction fandom mixed in.
Moira’s book includes large sections of horrifying personal stories, but she has gone to great length to document what happened. For example, her father’s repeated arrests on pedophilia charges (he died in prison) and her mother’s testimony during such trials are public record. She’s backed up everything she can from external sources.
Pulling Your Cosmic Trigger: Why July 23 Is Robert Anton Wilson Day
An Overview of the Unique Sci-Fi Novelist and Occult Explorer Who Made Contact With *Something* Today in 1973
By David M. Swindle
If I had to pick a single author who has influenced me more than any other it would be the counterculture godfather Robert Anton Wilson whose books, speeches, and ideas have influenced generations of oddball individualists since the 1970s.
Theatre Review: The Mueller Report-Based ‘The Investigation: A Search for Truth’
The Church Report
By Robert Cooperman
Well, it didn’t take long! Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report was made public on April 18, 2019 and by June 24, 2019 we had a “play” about it! Eighteen notable actors—including John Lithgow, Annette Bening, and Kevin Kline—took the stage at the Riverside Church in Manhattan, and offered an hour-long reading of the Mueller report, entitled The Investigation: A Search for Truth, a title that forces one to sing “Dah-dah-daaahhh” after saying it.
Obviously, it would take way more than an hour to read the 400+ pages of the Mueller report. However, playwright Robert Schankken efficiently cut out most of the report—including the large portion that found no collusion committed by President Donald Trump or anyone on his campaign staff—focusing instead on the obstruction of justice section, which Mueller apparently was unsure about. Schankken himself is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, whose most recent piece before The Investigation(Dah-dah-daaahhh!) was Building the Wall, a May 2017 play about “life in the Donald Trump era.” I’ve yet to figure out how a President can define an “era” just five months into his administration.
Sci-Fi Book Review: ‘The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories’
By Tamara Wilhite
“The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories” by Walter Jon Williams encapsulate his expectations for a post-scarcity, post-Singularity world. These are worlds where you can upload your mind to a permanent virtual reality or raise children in them to be downloaded later. Nearly every one consists of worlds where nano-beds can scan your body, your mind and maybe even your soul to be downloaded into the body of your choice. Whether a gorilla body on Earth or adapted body on an alien colony world is up to you. Each story asks a different question while seeking to answer it.
Why ‘Stranger Things’ Is So Wonderful
By David M. Swindle
The third season of Netflix’s 80s nostalgia fest delivers again with an emotionally-gripping entertainment that harkens back to a less cynical age.
Sci-Fi Book Review: ‘Friday’ by Robert Heinlein
By Tamara Wilhite
“Friday” is one of Heinlein’s last science fiction novels. It isn’t as well known as “Starship Troopers” or “Stranger in a Strange Land” though it shares more with the latter than the former. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this Robert Heinlein novel? And where did Heinlein hit the bulls-eye predicting the future in this novel?
The Undergraduate is Not a Political Novel
By Robert Arrington
The Undergraduate, a novel by Virginia attorney E. Scott Lloyd, published by Liberty Island Press and available for electronic download on Amazon, is something of a mixed bag. This coming-of-age story, told in the first person, is about a young man who is a college student at the turn of the century. He is from a small tourist town on the Jersey Shore, but attends a fictitious private school, Montpelier University, located in the mountains, probably the Adirondacks, and apparently affiliated in some way with the Roman Catholic Church. The school attracts a number of students from the narrator’s home town, including his closest friends and a young woman in whom he has an intense interest, but for most of the book, only a platonic relationship.
LI Author Reading and Interview: Howard Butcher on 1400 KRLN AM Radio in Canon City, CO
Check out Jonah: A Novel of Men and the Sea
By Liberty Island Links & Excerpts
The author reads from his novel Jonah.
Could You Make a Disease Kill All of the X?
By Tamara Wilhite
Could you make a disease kill all members of one group or another? In theory, yes.
Could you create a disease that kills all members of one sex? That premise has already been presented in several horror novels. In Frank Herbert’s novel “The White Plague”, it is a virus engineered to kill women and works only in those with two X chromosomes. In the book “Epitaph Road”, it is a genetically engineered virus that kills only men. The virus can only infect cells with Y chromosomes.
