Stratofanatic's Emporium

 Randomly browsing through C. S. Lewis's letter, and, in a letter to Warnie dated 22 Nov. 1931, he writes: To read  histories of literature, one would suppose that the great authors of the past were a sort of chorus of melodious idiots who said, in beautifully cadenced language that black was white and that two and two made five. When one turns to the books themselves--well I, at any rate, find nothing obsolete. The silly things that great men say, were as silly then as they are now: the wise ones are as wise now as they were then .... Although the emphasis on "great men" might now count as among the "silly things," this sentiment, by and large, is still how I tend to read novels, and which I see little enough in contemporary literary criticism ...

So, after holding my article hostage -- hostage , I tell you -- for four years, the editor of The Baum Bugle , Sarah Crotzer, has finally published it into her most recent issue: “Delving into Nome Man’s Land: Two Traditions in Baum and Tolkien.” Baum Bugle , Autumn 2021, pp. 13–22. Interesting story behind this one. Sarah suggested the original idea to me back when we were in grad school together, maaaaybe right after she became Bugle editor, I don't remember. Anyway, I sat on the idea for a while. Then, in December 2017, tuckered out from my long article on gender violence in Stephen R. Donaldson, and wanting to write something short and spiffy for the CV, I turned to L. Frank Baum. Since I knew this break had been coming up, I'd been reading a whole bunch of Oz books in preparation. So, once the fall semester ended, I plunged into a 5-week writing spree where I wrote two short articles back-to-back -- the first an essay on magic words in fantasy (but especially Baum, of cour

So, I recently had (for another context) to articulate my basic philosophy of being a book reviews editor, so thought I'd shared that here.  Basically, my view of what a good book review entails appears in Fafnir's book review guidelines . Long story short, this is what I expect: The reviewer should assess the book’s strengths and weaknesses. . . .  If a book has more strengths than weaknesses, or vice versa, please let that be reflected in your structure. We consider it a standard convention of the review genre, however, that even highly laudatory reviews contain some critique, even if a minor one; likewise, even highly negative reviews should contain some elements of praise. In terms of unwritten policies, I return all submissions -- with comments -- to the reviewers within 24 hours. Besides expediting the total publication process, this is a form of practicing compassion for contingent labor and the busy workloads of all our reviewers. About 80% of our reviews require