Forager 23: J.R.R. Tolkien vs. Robert E. Howard. (Linked by Justin Slotman)

I’ve just finished reading John Holbrook Vance’s novel Bad Ronald (1973), and it’s keeping me awake. I wonder how much of its creepiness is due to its being set in California rather than on the planet Cadwal, and how much to its being told from the murderer’s viewpoint.

Later I learn that Bad Ronald was made into a stinker of a tv movie. Oh well!

Later still — and another movie in French.

Daniel Kurtzman: Learning to love Big Brother / George W. Bush channels George Orwell

Is the phrase “some are more equal than others” older than Animal Farm?

Wyman Brantley (who apparently noticed me on an INTP list) reports:

[Robert E] Howard said that the Conan stories came to him after a period of writer’s block, and that the stories went from brain to paper almost as if he were taking dictation.

I’ve had similar experiences, but my muse is more terse, dictating a total of nine words on the two occasions that I remember.

Shocking examples of anti-authoritarianism, enumerated by Natalie Solent. (Link from Modulator by way of Mindles)

Amazon World is a blog made up of quotes from readers’ reviews.

Oh, yes, every day people wake up to find themselves turned into a cockroach and have to deal with living as one. I’m just real sure!

Cited (twice) by Doc Frank, whose Blogs of War recently moved.