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The Long View 2008-09-20: Parastatals

This is another spectacular essay from John J. Reilly. Here, he uses the term of art “parastatal enterprise” to describe the parts of the economy that are widely seen, by opponents and proponents alike, as market enterprises, but which are in fact extensions of the state and its policies. There

The Long View 2008-09-07: Some Notes on the American Political Major-Party Conventions of 2008

John J. Reilly gives us some solid grounding here in the foundations of cyclical theories of history, and also provides his assessment of why neither American party has been able to create a durable governing order akin to the New Deal. This essay is highly recommended. Some Notes on the

Duel Visions by Misha Burnett and Louise Sorensen Book Review

Misha Burnett and Louise Sorensen team up to create a collection of strange and horrifying short stories, Duel Visions. [Amazon link] The two authors alternate contributions to this slim volume of the weird and macabre. As a short story collection, I’ll do each story individually, then give my impressions

The Long View 2008-09-01: Louisiana With Snow

John J. Reilly here paints an extremely [some might say overly] sympathetic portrait of Sarah Palin. Since the McCain-Palin ticket lost, such portrayals are likely to lose out compared to parodies like the 2012 movie, Iron Sky. [Amazon link] This is a good example of how you might do the

The Long View 2008-08-24: A Week before Labor Day

I find this satirical blog post by John J. Reilly pretty apt for the mood of our times. If you want a little context of what he was getting at, try this longer story “After the Eighth Day” for how the universal apocalyptic module in the human mind can transform

King of the World's Edge by H. Warner Munn Book Review

King of the World’s Edge by H. Warner Munn [Amazon link] is truly a pulp era story, first serialized in Weird Tales in September of 1939. A bold tale with massive scope, this is an alternative history of both the Americas and the last remnants of Romano-Britain that works

Ender's Game as a Short Story

Ender’s Game [Amazon link] is one of the most well-known military science fiction books of the twentieth century. As renowned as it is, I think the short story version of it that Card wrote first is even better. As I feel like the short story is an important but