Stratofanatic's Emporium

This post celebrates and honors Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time , which I've just completed after 27 years. Part I had focused on my reading timeline; Part II here focuses more on reflection. ------------------------------------------------------------  Reading a massive series over 27 years produces strange consequences. I began the books as a 13-year-old kid for whom all fantasy was new; I finished as a 39-year-old married college professor trained in literary criticism.  One important thing of note: a lifetime of the life of the mind has done nothing to impair my ability to enjoy or appreciate fantasy. Quite the opposite, actually. Anyway, you know the old criticism; we've all heard complaints about how over-analysis (or even any analysis) kills the pure love of reading. For my part, though, the same things that thrilled me about Wheel of Time , not to mention fantasy in general, as an adolescent still thrill me as a world-weary cynical old adult -- the scope o...

This post celebrates and honors Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time , which I've just completed after 27 years. Part I here focuses simply on my reading timeline; Part II is one post up. ------------------------------------------------------------ Back in 1992, my mother brought home from The Bookrack (our local used bookstore that closed a few years back) three fantasy novels by someone named Robert Jordan: The Wheel of Time, The Great Hunt, and The Dragon Reborn . They blew us both away. Clearly, though, the series wasn't finished. That's when we saw that the fourth book, The Shadow Rising , had just appeared in hardcover. Under normal circumstances, we'd -- well, mom -- would never pay hardcover prices, but we couldn't resist. "Surely," we said, "this will be the last book in the series, so maybe just this once." We used that same logic when book 5, The Fires of Heaven , came out, and the same logic for books 6 and 7. I'm not su...

While admiring Brandon Sanderson's handling of Robert Jordan's material in the Wheel of Time series, which I'm finally reading, I grew curious about whom among modern fantasists tend to get the most academic attention. My hunch was that fantasy writers of the 1980s and 1990s -- or basically the guys who got me hooked on fantasy literature as a kid -- would come off poorly. (I was right). Overall, I've long suspected that the common narrative of doorstopper Tolkien-clone epic fantasy has led to academics treating some wonderful writers incredibly unfairly. So, as a way of testing my hypothesis, I searched through the MLA International Bibliography . I did a basic search on an author's name, then looked at "peer-reviewed articles," "book chapters," and "books." For most of the less popular writers, I excluded things like encyclopedia entries, which tended to inflate hits. This method, of course, isn't scientifically rigorous . . ....

So, last year, our Writing Program won a top award from the CCCC -- and that was awesome, of course. Since then, I have myself gotten my Certificate in Online Teaching, mostly so I could teach summer courses -- but then got conscripted for our Online Writing Program. I certainly don't mind that. I'm a "Stick me where ever you want" kind of guy, after all. Still, the following news is certainly awesome: apparently, after only four years of existence, Arizona Online now ranks in the top 10% of programs nation-wide. (See the full story here .) The article references mostly our online graduate technology programs but, obviously, first-year composition is a major part of any undergraduate online experience. So, major kudos to us.

The wife and I just finished both seasons of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel -- a fantastic, fast-paced show, and another creation of Amy Sherman-Palladino, whom I knew only by reputation as the creator of Gilmore Girls (which neither of us has ever seen). Anyway, the show reminded me of something I already know -- that is, my one storytelling kryptonite. I mean, I've always had the ability to watch or read almost anything. Murder, torture, sexual violence, bloodshed, sad endings, none of that bothers me. As long as something is well-crafted and well-written, nothing actually forces me to leave the room or book. "Oh, Reek is actually Theon Greyjoy? La de da, moving along . . . " As you may have guessed, though, Mrs. Maisel has my one exception in abundance: characters publicly embarrassing themselves. This is true. If someone does something utterly cringe-worthy and dorky in public, I just can't watch it -- when the nerd kid in About a Boy sings "Killing me Softl...

Part of my job description is service -- specifically, service activities are 20% of what an U of A lecturer should be doing with their time. Well, I've just finished putting together my 2018 APR (Annual Performance Review), including the service component. I ended up with a score of 38. To put that number into context, the score range is 1 through 5 -- a five being "exceptional." So I think I got service covered here. Incidentally, since there's no official research component to my job, my research technically counts as "service" -- hence the score. At any rate, I'm including my list here for the morbidly curious. Service points earned: ___ 38 ____________ Publications (3) Article : “ Paul Edwin Zimmer’s Alliterative Style : A Metrical Legacy of J. R. R. Tolkien and Poul Anderson.” Mythlore , vol. 37, no. 1, 2018, pp. 183-201, 2018. (3) Article : “Identity, Time, and Faerie in Pig Tale and The Inn at Corbies’ Caww : An Unexpected Converge...

After getting a job interview for post-WWII British Literature (!), I went on a splurge of non-SF&F books related to that time period. Although my diss is in Tolkien, who exactly fits that time period,  American literature has always tended to be more visible for me  -- except for the British modernists, all of whom wrote their main works prior to WWII. Somehow, whenever I encounter modern British authors, I've never really think of them as modern British authors. This holds even more true for the speculative fiction writers; does Pratchett's or Rowling's Englishness really make any difference to anyone? So I thought this was a great opportunity to round out my reading. The recent list of books: Hanif Kurieshi, The Black Album Hanif Kurieshi, Intimacy Zadie Smith, White Teeth Kazuo Ishiguru, The Buried Giant Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies Sarah Waters, Fingersmith Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger Ian McEwing, Amsterdam Zoe Heller, Notes on a Sc...

Kind words and validation are always nice -- even if we fall slightly short of our goals. About five or six weeks ago, an assistant editor position (speculative fiction section) opened up at the Los Angeles Review of Books . The position was volunteer, of course, but still -- the LARB! It wouldn't have required anything I wasn't doing already for Fafnir and, requiring only 3-6 hours per month, the time investment was basically nil. Given how awesome having the LARB on my c.v. would look, I had no reason not to apply. Anyway, I indicated my interest to the sf editor, who sent me a sample that I then copyedited and returned. Heard nothing for several weeks, so assumed (correctly) that they had chosen to go with another applicant. Nonetheless, the editor just answered my brief follow-up query, and he said that he liked much sample well enough that he forwarded my name -- with a "glowing recommendation" -- to LARB 's managing editor, who often needs volunteers, it...