Friday, August 7, 2015

Science Fiction's Sense of Mission

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It has long been unfashionable to think of fiction as having a purpose. Still, what is "fashionable" has absolutely no value for a...
Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Reviewing George Friedman's Predictions

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Reading George Friedman's comments on Greece made me take another look at his arguments in The Next Decade and The Next 100 Years . A...
Sunday, July 19, 2015

Fourth Reich, Again?

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A few years ago I remarked the way that the "E" word--empire--kept coming up in discussions of Germany's dealings with its nei...
Tuesday, July 14, 2015

In Defense of Star Trek: The Next Generation: Characters

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In the world of Star Trek bashing , certain criticisms have long since become cliche, and they include criticisms of the characterizations. ...

H.G. Wells' The War in the Air

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It can be said that the theme of the apocalyptic has been part of Wells' work since the beginning of his career-- The Time Machine , and...

Reading H.G. Wells' Tono-Bungay

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It is unsurprising that the early science fiction of H.G. Wells continues to be celebrated much more than any of his later work. The image o...

Jean-Luc Picard, Renaissance Man

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In the Star Trek universe, starship captains tend to be Renaissance Men. Jean-Luc Picard is an obvious example. Not only does his job requ...
Monday, July 13, 2015

The End of Mad Men

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Mad Men came to an end this year, and once again I found myself again thinking about how the show came to enjoy its high standing. I ended ...

Review: Vixen 03, by Clive Cussler

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New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1978, pp. 364. The real point of transition in Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt series from the small-scale nove...

H.G. Wells' "Digression on Novels"

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H.G. Wells was quite frank about the fact that when writing he was more interested in the broader "scene" than in the figures with...

The Hikikomori and the Lost Decade That Never Ended

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Many years ago Welcome to the N.H.K. introduced me to the term "hikikomori." Much as I enjoyed the show, looking back later I n...

Thomas Piketty and Pop Culture

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Most reviewers (at any rate, those who do not instantly react with hostility to the mere idea of the project) seem to agree that Thomas Pike...
Saturday, July 11, 2015

Remembering the Battle of Britain

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Along with the fall of the Third Republic and the founding of Vichy, July 10 marks the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Br...

Review: The Collapse of the Third Republic, by William L. Shirer

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New York: Simon & Schuster, 1969, pp. 1082. Discussing William Shirer's The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry Into the Fa...
Thursday, July 9, 2015

Germany in Japanese Culture: Bernd Martin's Take

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Watching anime, it can often seem that Germany and German culture are a rather significant presence--much more than an American might expect...