Search Results for: how the mind works

Links and Comments: Why I am Not a Conservative

Posted on Wednesday 15 August 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Every once in a while an op-ed in the New York Times, or a book review in NYT or PW (Publishers Weekly), will be on the subject of defending conservative values. I have a very basic intellectual grasp of what … Continue reading →

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Asimov: THE WINDS OF CHANGE

Posted on Wednesday 20 June 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

THE WINDS OF CHANGE AND OTHER STORIES, published in 1983, is the 11th of 14 collections of SF and fantasy stories from the ‘main sequence’ of Asimov’s collections: the set of his collections that don’t overlap, that don’t consists of … Continue reading →

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Ray Bradbury: THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES

Posted on Tuesday 5 June 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES is Bradbury’s best and best-known science fiction book, given that we allow it to be called science fiction at all (this has always been debatable). The only contender for this position, a book which certainly leads it … Continue reading →

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C.P. Snow’s The Two Cultures, The Third Culture, Big History, and 2001

Posted on Thursday 10 May 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

C.P. Snow’s “The Two Cultures” is the famous 1959 lecture and then essay about the divide between the scientific community and the literary ‘intellectual’ community, an essay much referenced in books about the acceptance of science in modern culture (with, … Continue reading →

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Kingsley Amis, NEW MAPS OF HELL

Posted on Wednesday 18 April 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Next in my series of reading nonfiction books about science fiction, proceeding in roughly chronological order, is this short book of six essays, originally presented as lectures at Princeton in 1959 and collected into book form in 1960. It’s by … Continue reading →

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Links from NYT recently, with Comments

Posted on Thursday 12 April 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Op-ed by Amy Sullivan in the New York Times, April 1 (posted March 31): Trump’s Christian Soldiers The recurring, amazing fact that the self-righteous evangelicals support someone like Trump. You could open a publishing press devoted to the theological and … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Evolution, Politics, Psychology | Comments Off on Links from NYT recently, with Comments

de Camp & de Camp, SCIENCE FICTION HANDBOOK, REVISED

Posted on Tuesday 10 April 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: “How to Write and Sell Imaginative Stories” This is more of a curiosity now, than an essential book of criticism or history, though it does reveal some attitudes of its time. I have a 1975 revision, show here, of … Continue reading →

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From the Ridiculous to the Sublime: My Own Journey to 2001

Posted on Tuesday 3 April 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Yesterday, April 2, 2018, was the 50th anniversary of the release of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, still regarded as the best (or at least one of the best) science fiction films of all time, and as among the … Continue reading →

Posted in Arthur C. Clarke, Films, Personal history, science fiction | Comments Off on From the Ridiculous to the Sublime: My Own Journey to 2001

Intro

Posted on Wednesday 28 March 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

This is the blog and homepage of Mark R. Kelly, the founder of Locus Online in 1997 (for which I won a Hugo Award in 2002 — see the icon at right) and of an index to science fiction awards … Continue reading →

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Damon Knight, IN SEARCH OF WONDER 3/e

Posted on Thursday 22 March 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Damon Knight was perhaps the earliest knowledgeable critic of science fiction. He was a science fiction author himself, beginning in 1948, and is most famous for a couple early short stories, “Not with a Bang” (1950) and “To Serve Man” … Continue reading →

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