Author: Doc
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Rendezvous With Rama
Sometimes you need to revisit the foundational books of your youth just to see how you both have aged. Listening to the audiobook of Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama felt a little like traveling back in time to the 1970s, the last time I read that classic tale. I wondered how well it would…
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The End of Cliche Street
I’ll confess to having zero respect for J.J. Abrams. It began with the final episodes of LOST and the clear admission that they never had a clue how they were going to end the thing. It was made worse when he said this in a live interview: Bear in mind, he was promoting Star Trek,…
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Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts
The two phrases that always come to mind when considering The Odyssey are “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts” and “Never look a gift horse in the mouth.” The latter would have negated the former. If those hapless Trojan gatekeepers had only peered into that horse’s mouth, they could have saved the day. But we are…
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Whimsy
Procreate sketch of Whimsy from TrueRef, a site that provides licensed photo reference for artists. Copyright 2026 E.W. Parris
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Platform Decay
If you look up interiority in a writer’s dictionary, it should feature a picture of Murderbot. Martha Wells’ eight-volume Murderbot Diaries novella series is as successful as it is because of her mastery of bringing the reader inside the organic and non-organic tissues of the titular rogue Sec Unit. Her deadpan delivery of Sec Unit’s…
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Say What, now?
I am oldish. I know, right? I don’t know how that happened either. I mean, it sneaks up on you. Slowly, age takes things away . Like drinking and staying out late. At some point, your body punishes you too much and you decline invitations to dance the night away in careless alcoholic blurs. Your…
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A Spider-Man’s Spider-Man
With the biggest opening-weekend box office in history, the latest Marvel outing ought to erase the conventional wisdom that their audience suffers from superhero fatigue. And really, what are we measuring with opening-weekend box office? The power of positive reviews? The strength of the marketing strategies? The raw dollars pumped into advertising? The charisma of…