Author Archives: Mark R. Kelly

Late Night Notes from the Final Night of This Year’s World Science Fiction Convention

Posted on 28 August 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

(This post drafted on Sunday 19 August, late night in my hotel room; cleaned up and posted today, Tuesday 28 August.) I’m in San Jose, late on a Sunday night after this year’s Hugo Awards have been presented, and after … Continue reading →

Posted in Conventions, Personal history | Leave a comment

Links and Comments: Why I am Not a Conservative

Posted on 15 August 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Every once in a while an op-ed in the New York Times, or a book review in NYT or PW (Publishers Weekly), will be on the subject of defending conservative values. I have a very basic intellectual grasp of what … Continue reading →

Posted in Changing One's Mind, Conservative Resistance, Culture | Leave a comment

Daily Matters: New Books; Flash Drive; The Piano, and the Discomfort of Art

Posted on 9 August 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Tuesday August 7th: My main contributions now, to Locus Online, are the weekly Bestsellers page (I spend an hour or so compiling rankings of SF, fantasy, and horror books listed on mainstream bestsellers lists, from New York Times, LA Times, … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal history | Leave a comment

Links and Comments: Trump and His Supporters; Versions of Leviticus; Ancient Aliens, Skepticism, and What Science Fiction Is Not

Posted on 3 August 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

I’ve been preoccupied with other matters in recent months, and need to resume regular posting of Links and Comments from things I see in the papers and magazines that I think are pertinent, in one way or another. If I … Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Social Progress | Leave a comment

David Brooks on Myths vs. Parables

Posted on 17 July 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

New York Times columnist David Brooks runs hot and cold with me; ostensibly a conservative, he’s too inclined to dismiss new ideas in favor of sanctified values, for my taste, yet he does read widely and responds to many new … Continue reading →

Posted in Narrative, Social Progress | Leave a comment

My First Web Page

Posted on 16 July 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

The subject of old websites came up on a Facebook thread yesterday, particularly pages created on various platforms that are now extinct, like sff.net or compuserve.com. Long before I created this blog, first in Blogger and then in WordPress, I … Continue reading →

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Link and Comments: About Superhero Movies

Posted on 9 July 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

From Sunday’s NYT. Mark Bowden, Why Are We Obsessed With Superhero Movies? The issue for me is why these types of stories are so popular, recently – and how these are primitive fantasies, the very opposite type of story as … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Movies | Leave a comment

Added Lines in Angels in America

Posted on 22 June 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

I posted this on Facebook, June 9th, but need to capture it here: We saw Angels in America part 1, Millennium Approaches, on Friday June 1st, and part 2, Perestroika, on Friday June 8th, at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. In … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes | Leave a comment

Asimov: THE WINDS OF CHANGE

Posted on 20 June 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

THE WINDS OF CHANGE AND OTHER STORIES, published in 1983, is the 11th of 14 collections of SF and fantasy stories from the ‘main sequence’ of Asimov’s collections: the set of his collections that don’t overlap, that don’t consists of … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Isaac Asimov | Leave a comment

Skiffy Flix: Forbidden Planet

Posted on 19 June 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

This 1956 film is still regarded as an important early science fiction films, and one of the best of the 1950s, even if it shows its age 60 years on. It influenced both Star Trek and Lost in Space, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies, Skiffy Flix | Leave a comment