Category Archives: Literature

Reviews and commentaries on how what you read affects your writing

The lesson of the limes

Posted on October 17, 2013 by knlistman

“I’m so degraded, I owe at least a dozen limes.” Amy confesses. She is basically in a pickle, or perhaps more correctly out of pickles, pickled limes that is. She is deep into the fad of bringing limes to school … Continue reading →

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Allusions and airs

Posted on October 16, 2013 by knlistman

Imagine you are discussing a current government situation with a friend. You mention an insight you learned about behind-the-scenes working of government while in our capitol. Perhaps you briefly mention that when George Bush explained this the first time, you … Continue reading →

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Figures of seeing

Posted on October 15, 2013 by knlistman

Reading ancient literature is difficult not just because of archaic words, but also ambiguous figures of speech that attempted to help the reader see the image and not just hear the words. Translate an early English text, such as Beowulf … Continue reading →

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How to rant like a literature professor

Posted on October 8, 2013 by knlistman

“That was the year I came to class at the start of the new semester and found only one student to sign up for Drama from Aeschylus to O’Neill.” Do you know who Aeschylus or O’Neill were?  I assume you … Continue reading →

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Superhuman weakness

Posted on October 5, 2013 by knlistman

At one time there was a “story” circulating about a famous producer of modern supernatural fiction movies, and an unknown screen writer. The famous producer says “I have a new idea for a movie.” “What’s the plot?” asks the writer. … Continue reading →

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Avoiding flat earths

Posted on October 4, 2013 by knlistman

A few years ago, over the holidays, I stayed at a hotel on a scenic bend in the Riverwalk in San Antonio. It had been build in little over 200 days. How? Concrete cast room units, already decorated, were stacked … Continue reading →

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Unhuman geography

Posted on October 3, 2013 by knlistman

Science Fiction and Fantasy do not describe the type of plot as much as the setting – a world in which imagination changes some of the rules. It is a world in which coming of age, adventure, mystery, romance, war … Continue reading →

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Sci-fi delineated

Posted on October 2, 2013 by knlistman

I, Robot is a collection of short stories that trace the development of robots until they take over running the world while humans remain blissfully ignorant of this fact.  In Perelandra, an earth man is sent to Venus  on a … Continue reading →

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The problem with no problems

Posted on October 1, 2013 by knlistman

Dystopian novels  are much easier to write than those set in a utopia. Typically the main character manages to lift the veil hiding the ugly truth behind the society. For example in H.G. Well’s novella, The Time Machine, an English scientists … Continue reading →

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Highly desirable?

Posted on September 28, 2013 by knlistman

There is a flood of dystopian novels compared to those that feature utopias because a society without problems has a tendency to be boring.  However, if you start reading The Republic by Plato, and you may discover that his ideal … Continue reading →

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