Category Archives: Reviews

50 years dead: Grace Metalious and Peyton Place

Posted on February 25, 2014 by Brian Bixby

It was fifty years ago today that the unhappy Grace Metalious (born Marie Grace DeRepentigny, 1924 – 1964), author of that scandalous best seller, Peyton Place, succeeded in drinking herself to death. In her lifetime, Peyton Place was banned from libraries and bookstores … Continue reading →

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Review: Flowers, Galdrabok: Icelandic Book of Magic

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Brian Bixby

A few years ago, I found out from Owen Davies’ Grimoires  that there was an English translation of an Icelandic grimoire. Having developed an interest in the Icelandic sagas and the curious magic in them, I meant to hunt the translation … Continue reading →

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Accepting the Very Inspiring Blogger Award

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Brian Bixby

I recently received notifications from two bloggers that they had nominated me for the “Very Inspiring Blogger Award.” My first reaction was that inspiration must be getting scarce for me to be nominated, twice at that. However, this is not an … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Review: Mitchell, Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Brian Bixby

An acquaintance mentioned to me a talk on “Witchcraft and the Law in Medieval Scandinavia” by Prof. Stephen A. Mitchell of Harvard University that she had heard and enjoyed. So I looked up Prof. Mitchell’s 2011 book, which includes a … Continue reading →

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Review: William Hope Hodgson, The Ghost Pirates (1909)

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Brian Bixby

William Hope Hodgson (1877 – 1918) was a modestly successful English writer in his day, until he joined up in World War I and was killed on the battlefields of France. His reputation, never great, languished for several decades. In … Continue reading →

Posted in Reading fiction, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

The magic of Owen Davies

Posted on October 20, 2013 by Brian Bixby

Owen Davies is a U.K.-based scholar who has been writing scholarly and popular books on magic and witchcraft for more than a decade now. I’d only learned about him by reading his Grimoires: A History of Magic Books (2009), which I … Continue reading →

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Off to the movies: one old, one new: Hell House, Hell Baby

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Brian Bixby

I live with someone who does not enjoy horror films, so when she’s away, I often rent them. This last weekend was one such occasion, so I watched two films, 1973’s The Legend of Hell House and this year’s Hell Baby. The … Continue reading →

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For once, a video that does justice to the book: The Green Man

Posted on September 22, 2013 by Brian Bixby

You’ve heard the refrain: if only the movie had been true to the book, it would have been so much better! Of course, much of what can make a book good are things that are difficult to capture in a … Continue reading →

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Stoker devolution: from Dracula to Seven Stars to The Awakening

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Brian Bixby

Between having some idle time, and doing some Egyptian-themed reading, I decided to watch a movie I’d been meaning to see for some years, The Awakening. No, I’m not going Kate Chopin on you, nor am I talking about the 2011 … Continue reading →

Posted in Reading fiction, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Review: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sept./Oct. 2013

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Brian Bixby

I wanted to like the current issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction more than I did. The writing is polished and there are some clever ideas here. That’s the problem: the stories are more successful going for my … Continue reading →

Posted in Reading fiction, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments