A Condor's Quill

  On the surface of things, Don Quixote appears to be planted firmly in the realm of literary realism rather than that of speculative fiction. It is a work grounded in dusty roads, inns mistaken for castles, windmills perceived as giants and the ephemera and gritty social reality of everyday life in early 17 th -century Spain. Dig a little deeper, however, and one discovers something far stranger and even more remarkable: a prolonged meditation on the instability of reality itself. Through the protagonist’s unswerving belief in a world that does not quite exist, the novel explores a question that would become central to the genre of speculative fiction centuries later: What happens when reality becomes negotiable, a matter of opinion? In attempting to understand how Don Quixote anticipates speculative fiction, it’s probably best to hazard a definition of that genre. Speculative fiction – in all of its myriad forms – encompasses narratives that depart from what has come to be ca...

  Endangered by James C. Clar © 2026 “We’ve received reports from three separate countries,” Fish & Wildlife Special Agent McNair said. “Indonesia, Mexico and right here in the good old US of A. Funny thing. You’re named in each of them.” I said nothing. A floor fan somewhere off to my right oscillated slowly. It accomplished little more than to circulate the smell of burnt coffee and old cigarette smoke in the hot confines of the tiny interview room. He opened the file on the battered desk between us. “Let’s start with the Sumatran tiger .” “That was, maybe, my best.” “You admit shooting it?” “Yes, of course. Why deny it? I caught it as it glided silently through the jungle. It flashed orange, yellow and black against all that green.” I paused for a moment, savoring the memory. “I was downwind, of course. It never got so much as a whiff.” “You’re describing a deliberate kill,” McNair responded with an astonished tone. “No. I’m simply describing a shot.” He l...

  I picked up a copy of Don DeLillo’s fascinating novel, Libra , at the Friends of The Library of Hawaii gigantic used book sale. (How I missed this when it came out in 1988 is a mystery). Twice through the text, now, a number of things have piqued my interest. … The Elements of Tragedy  (I use the terms "tragic" and "tragedy" here in less than the classical sense. There's nothing noble about Oswald. Still, I think the words are apt.) At the top of my list is the degree to which DeLillo portrays Lee Harvey Oswald as a quintessentially tragic figure. This may very well be the novel’s greatest achievement … as well as its most disturbing. DeLillo does not excuse Oswald. Nor does he sentimentalize him or turn him into a misunderstood anti-hero. He presents him as a painfully ordinary human being; a human being who is needy, confused, alienated, resentful and one who is desperate to matter. Oswald wants to be somebody. Hence his need for recognition. He wants ...

I just finished Stanislaw Lem’s novel, The Invincible (1964) and thought it might be interesting to compare it briefly to his better-known Solaris (1961). This is not a book review. Nor is it an academic essay. What follows are simply some (hopefully) coherent thoughts on the nature of – and the relationship between – the two works … On one level, the two books have much in common. Both begin with human beings encountering an alien intelligence that they are ultimately unable to fathom. In both texts, Lem is interested in the limitations of the human mind; particularly in the perils of anthropomorphism. Humans have a tendency to interpret the unknown in terms that are familiar. That tendency is, however, often an impediment to genuine understanding. In Solaris , the alien in question is actually the titular planet’s living ocean; an intelligence so radically different than anything human beings have ever encountered that a century of scientific study and exploration has produced litt...

  I mentioned a few posts ago how exciting it was to have one's work published in a particular venue for the first time. Well, it's even more exciting when your work is selected for the inaugural issue of an entirely new publication. My story, A World of Wonder , appears this month in the first-ever issue of Top Shelf Literary Magazine . I must say, the magazine itself looks great. As for my contribution ... it's a Don Quixote inspired tale that plays with the idea that the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance may have been right after all. His neighbors, maybe, are the ones deluded about the nature of the world around them. Check it out and enjoy the other stories as well. There are some very, very good ones. 

Jorge Luis Borges famously stated that it was far better to pretend that long books already existed than it was to actually write them. In his classic 1961 novel, Solaris , Sci-Fi author Stanislaw Lem seems to have taken Borges’ advice. In the book, the psychologist Kris Kelvin spends a great deal of time in the station library consulting texts and notes in an effort to understand – and perhaps even communicate with – the titular ocean planet. Tracking those materials is, to me, one of the most entertaining elements about the novel.  (The world-building in the novel is not accomplished by narrating physical exploration of Solaris but rather by citing -- fictional -- texts which detail the findings of such exploration. An interesting, even post-modern, idea.) I thought it might be amusing, therefore, to start a bibliography of materials consulted and/or referenced by Kelvin in his research. I’m sure that I haven’t managed to list all of them so … anyone reading this is welcome to ...