Columns

Thanos: Marvel's Greatest Movie Villain

June 27th, 2018

There was a time, not so long ago, when Thanos the Mad Titan was one of Marvel’s more obscure villains, known only to faithful readers. He wasn’t even the most powerful, being soundly defeated by the Avengers when he had the Cosmic Cube, and even the first time he gathered the Infinity Gems. When he finally created the Infinity Gauntlet, it took a multi-issue crossover saga involving nearly every hero in the universe to defeat him. This made Thanos a force to be reckoned with, and earned him the begrudging respect one pays to an existential threat.

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7 Books on Dinosaurs You Need to Read Before Seeing 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom'

June 25th, 2018

Are you ready for a fact that might blow your mind? George Washington died in 1799, and the scientific proof of dinosaurs didn’t emerge until 1841. That means that Washington passed away (tragically) never knowing that dinosaurs even existed.

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The Sinful Virtues of Marginalia and Highlighting in Books

June 19th, 2018

Five years ago, I was with my wife and daughter passing through Knoxville, Tennessee, when I stopped at a McKay's used bookstore (an essential oasis for bibliophiles). Unbeknownst to me, I was at the beginning of my education in Saul Bellow—a literary staple—when I picked up a copy of Herzog (1964), rated by Time as one of the 100 best novels in the English language. One can hardly disagree with page after page of poetry as Mr. Bellow unveils Moses E. Herzog's midlife crisis via mental letters he never ends up sending.

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31 Ways To Remove Phones From Your Fiction

June 18th, 2018

There’s this saying about how there’s more than one way to skin a cat. It’s a pretty weird saying. Why is there enough cat-skinning going on that people get huffy about the multiple ways of doing it? Who is this person who's like, “Hey, just because that’s one of the five PRIMARY ways to remove a cat’s skin doesn’t mean it’s the ONLY way”?

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Summer and Beyond: Upcoming Books That Should Be On Your Radar

June 14th, 2018

I've read some truly outstanding books this year, but when I look at what's on the horizon, it's easy to think the best of what 2018 has to offer is yet to come. This is by no means a complete list, but these titles should definitely be on your radar. There is a lot of greatness here, so let's get to it.

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8 Recently Published Books That Are Feminist AF

June 13th, 2018

Header image by Markus Spiske The Trump era! It's been a fun time for ladyfolk, marked by abortion restrictions and gag rules, gun violence at the hands of incels, and one horrific revelation of sexual abuse/harassment after another.

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Bearskin: A Fast Read 20 Years in the Making

June 12th, 2018

When I was twenty-eight years old, I quit a perfectly good job as an associate at a law firm to "become a writer.” Kind of early for a mid-life crisis, but a writer is what I’d always wanted to be, and life was passing by so quickly. I was nearly thirty years old, for god’s sake. I drove around out west for a couple of months, then returned to Virginia, took a part-time legal job, and started applying to graduate writing programs.

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6 Female Sci-fi Writers You Should Read

June 11th, 2018

On June 22nd, 1947, Octavia Butler (a pioneer of modern science fiction written by women) was born. 129 years before that, Mary Shelley published the novel Frankenstein, which some — such as author Brian Aldiss — argue was sci-fi’s first novel, and helped define the boundary-shattering genre. Butler and Shelley are just two of the many female writers who have helped shape sci-fi into the diverse fan-favorite it is today.

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The 8 Keys To A Good Heist Story

June 8th, 2018

This week Ocean’s 8 brings us the first all-female heist film! ...if we ignore 1996’s Set It Off, which is a pretty good heist movie. It’s maybe less a romp than some others, but if we’re talking firsts, let’s put all the cards on the table. Regardless, with the opening of Ocean’s 8, I got to thinking about what makes for a good heist story. What are the needed elements? Which 8 things should you make sure to have? And how can you use those elements to write something original?

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9 Things I Learned From Reading 45 Books At Once

June 4th, 2018

I have no idea what a normal reader is, or even if such a thing exists. My guess is a normal reader is someone who grabs a book and reads it until the last page has been turned. Then, that person grabs another one and repeats the process. I've never done that. Even in my ealry teens, I always had at least three books going—usually a novel, a poetry book, and a short story collection, but many times it was three novels at once.

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