I have a confession to make: Steampunk has been my gateway drug to a wider world of literature. It has gotten me interested in the classics, starting with sci-fi pioneers like Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. Recently as I was browsing in Bookmans (an Arizona retail chain specializing in used books) I came across […]
The great Philip José Farmer was the master of grand concepts – story ideas based with unique original settings, such as Riverworld, which features a strange physical afterlife into which all the humans who ever lived are reincarnated. One of his lesser-known works is a blending of historical and far future concepts: his 1971 novel […]
The Western genre, so popular in my youth, has fallen out of favor in recent years. It survives mainly in “shoot ’em up” video games like Red Dead Redemption. Yet it has a lasting influence on other genres, especially science fiction. Though despised by sci-fi purists, so-called space westerns have attracted legions of fans. When […]
