The main thesis of this book will be of interest to both philosophers and comic book fans, as strange as it may sound at first. In an unusual effort, thought experiments done by philosophers (ancient and recent), and the stories behind many superhero comics are evaluated, and their many similarities revealed. As both groups play […]
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Category: B. R. Literature
Book reviews, mostly covering literature.
Robots That Kill: Deadly Machines and Their Precursors in Myth, Folklore, Literature… by Judith A. M
In three parts, Judith Markowitz deals with the phenomenon of evil or rather, human-killing robots (and their creators) in the book at hand. In part 1, greed, revenge and furor are taken into consideration in cases why humans had to die by “the hands” of a robot, that was more or less only used as […]
A Green and Pagan Land. Myth, Magic and Landscape in British Film and Television by David Huckvale (...
In his latest book, former BBC radio presenter and author of several books on horror and occult films, soundtrack composers and Gothic literature David Huckvale digs deep into the origins of British media obsessed with pagan rituals and ancient cults. Before magic or pagan fantasies informed movies there, it was in part present in the […]
L.A. Private Eyes by Dahlia Schweitzer (2019)
Los Angeles and New York always have been the top locations for the fictional hard-boiled detective, both private or in law enforcement. L.A. can boast with being home of such heavyweights as Philip Marlowe, Mickey Haller, Lew Archer, Ezy Rawlins and several others. Crime, murder, abuse, corruption and horror will not show in L.A. as […]
The Detective and the Artist: Painters, Poets and Writers in Crime Fiction, 1840s – 1970s by J.K. Va
In the majority of crime fiction, there exists a relationship between the main characters. “The Detective and the Artist, then, concentrates upon the role played by poets, novelists, and painters in the detective story. These specialists in the production of works of aesthetic imagination are set in radical contrast to the defining figure of the […]
The Many Lives of The Evil Dead: Essays on the Cult Film Franchise by Ron Riekki and Jeffrey A. Sart...
Michigan director Sam Raimi in 1981 with a tiny budget and main actor Bruce Campbell shot the story of a powerful ancient book and the consequences of citing from it aloud in the Tennessee woods. The horror movie The Evil Dead was first presented at the Cannes festival in 1982 (where Stephen King praised its […]
From Ameche to Zozzled: A Glossary of Hard-Boiled Slang of the 1920s through the 1940s by Joe Tradii...
The hard-boiled fiction from the 1930s and the many films noir later, apart from several other similarities, shared a special gangster jargon and street-wise language that lent an extra air of authenticity to those works. As the many weird expressions, prohibition-time lingo, proverbs and often sexists, racist and plainly offensive words used there quickly went […]
Weird Fiction in Britain 1880 – 1939 by James Machin (2018)
Author James Machin, visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London, introduces the first study on how weird fiction was developed in England by blending Victorian supernatural literature and Gothic horror tales. Instead of a complete survey of the genre, he concentrates on some key writers and certain rather unknown authors who, contrary to […]
The Road to Wicked: The Marketing and Consumption of Oz … by K. Drummond, S. Aronstein, T. L. Ritten
If the phrase “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” sounds very familiar to you, if could be you are one of the many millions of fans and admirers of either the books by L. Frank Baum or the many products that continued the tales of Oz. For nearly 120 years, the world of […]