Not a lot seems to happen in the American Heartland, even in the U.S.A. of an alternate world. The exception is the world of Star Trek, where Captain James T. Kirk (remember the T stands for Tiberius) is stated in canon to have been born in “a small town in Iowa.” When the series was …
For all my fooling around with steampunk slang, clothing, and book titles, I doubt I’ll ever write one. Why? I don’t like the Victorian Age that much Oh, I’ve tried to like it. I had an older sibling who was infatuated with Victorian decor, china, and 1980s Victorian revival fashions. I liked them from an …
Author Madeleine L’Engle wrote a heckuvalotta novels. In addition to the Wrinkle in Time (or the Kairos series as she called it) books pictured above, she also wrote a second generation series about the same family, plus the Chronos series about the Austin family, the Katherine Forrester series, and the Camilla Dickinson series. One thing …
Steampunk, a term coined in the mid-1980s, is a catch-all term for artistic design and subject matter that harks back to the Victorian Age, when steam-powered machinery and clockwork mechanisms began to drive the Industrial Revolution. The term was invented by SF writer K.W. Jeter in a tongue-in-cheek reference to Cyberpunk. But the term and …
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream! Fifty years ago, when you walked into a grocery store, you did not see the many flavors of ice cream available these days. No, fifty years ago, there was only chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, or all three of them packaged together, in a cardboard box …
What is the difference between a fruit and vegetable, anyway? Traditionally, fruits taste sweet, and vegetables savory, that is, not sweet. But this doesn’t account for the tomato (sweet) being in the vegetable section of the supermarket, or the melon family being divided in two, with some members (cantalope, watermelon) being fruits, and others vegetables, …
To come up with some exotic fruit for a fantasy kingdom it is not necessary to look beyond this world. The strange-looking fruit above, known as a Buddha’s Hand, is a cultivar (a genetic variant encouraged by fruit growers) of the citron tree, and in the same general family as oranges and limes. It looks …
Lost kingdoms and hidden cities are a staple of pulp adventure fiction — and SFF! — as are their rulers, which, most of the time, are gorgeous, powerful, scantily clad women. Often they serve as foils for the male adventurers and, occasionally, romantic interests. The magazine cover above illustrates Phorenice, the ruler of Atlantis. With …
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