Category Archives: Books

On At The Existentialist Café

Posted on 06/19/2018 by kunzelman

I. I’ve been reading At The Existentialist Café a chapter at a time for a couple months now. It’s a weird way to read a book but, you know, things get in the way when you’re writing a dissertation. I barreled through … Continue reading →

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Francis Bacon’s Gambling

Posted on 01/15/2018 by kunzelman

“He adored both cards and roulette, often playing at several table simultaneously, displaying the committed masochism of Dostoevsky, who claimed that the real thrill of involvement only began when he had pawned his wife’s jewels and was staking the proceeds. … Continue reading →

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Alfred Bester on What a Science Fiction Author Does

Posted on 05/22/2017 by kunzelman

The mature science fiction author doesn’t merely tell a story about Brick Malloy vs The Giant Yeastmen from Gethsemane. He makes a statement through a story. What is the statement? Himself, his own dimension and depth. His statement is seeing … Continue reading →

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On Doctor Sleep (2013)

Posted on 05/05/2016 by kunzelman

These are some real freewheeling thoughts about Doctor Sleep. Doctor Sleep is one of those weird books that probably shouldn’t exist. It’s a sequel to The Shining, the source novel of the loved Kubrick film, and it came out nearly forty years after … Continue reading →

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John Gray on The Man in the High Castle

Posted on 03/30/2016 by kunzelman

John Gray is a writer who I have an immense amount of respect for, and he’s taken the occasion of the new Amazon Prime series centered on Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle to talk about Dick, reality, and … Continue reading →

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On Jessa Crispin’s “The Dead Ladies Project”

Posted on 02/11/2016 by kunzelman

The Dead Ladies Project is a collection of essays centered around Jessa Crispin’s travels in the shadows of the writers she’s fascinated with. The subtitle, “Exiles, Expats, & Ex-Countries,” almost doesn’t manage to touch what’s actually going on in the volume, … Continue reading →

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TCiW Gift Guide 2015 – Books

Posted on 12/16/2015 by kunzelman

It’s the time of year when you’re panicking because you haven’t gotten a gift for that special someone in your life, and I’m here to tell you about five different books that you can buy for someone to make them … Continue reading →

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On “Android Whores Don’t Cry”

Posted on 08/03/2015 by kunzelman

“Android Whores Don’t Cry” is a short story by Natalia Theodoridou published in Clarkesworld. You can read it here. One of the things about William Gibson‘s work that I have always loved is that the cyberpunk dystopia came with a … Continue reading →

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On Interview With The Vampire

Posted on 03/10/2015 by kunzelman

I finished reading Interview With The Vampire the other night and I just wanted to take a second to reflect on it. I grew up loving weird interactions with Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. I never read Interview or the following few books, but I loved … Continue reading →

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Ursula K. Le Guin on the use of the “surface elements” of fantasy

Posted on 03/03/2015 by kunzelman

‘Surface elements,’ by which I take it he means ogres, dragons, Arthurian knights, mysterious boatmen, etc., which occur in certain works of great literary merit such as Beowulf, the Morte d’Arthur, and The Lord of the Rings, are also much … Continue reading →

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