Tag Archives: Reading

Traveling in imagination to Viking Iceland

Posted on March 10, 2014 by Brian Bixby

I’ve recently been reading books on medieval Iceland. It’s a fascinating period in a curious land. The island was settled by Vikings fleeing from the rule of the first major Norwegian king, Harald Finehair (c. 850 – c. 932), or … Continue reading →

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Review: Leigh Eric Schmidt, Heaven’s Bride

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Brian Bixby

Seeing that today, March 3, is the anniversary of the passing of the Comstock Act in 1873, I thought it appropriate to review a book about one of the victims of the Comstock Act, Ida C. Craddock (1857-1902). First, a … Continue reading →

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Closing out the year on the Sillyverse blog

Posted on December 31, 2013 by Brian Bixby

2013 was a good year for the Sillyverse blog. I wrote, you all replied. So this end of year will sum up what I did, what you did, and what’s to come. What did I do? In 2013, I finished … Continue reading →

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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 →

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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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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 →

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Chapter 28 of Martha’s Children, and dreams

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Brian Bixby

Detective Kammen warned Nora O’Donnell that something bad might happen to him or to her brother. So when Kammen appears to be missing, Nora goes searching for help. And in chapter 28 of Martha’s Children, she find it . . . … Continue reading →

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The comparative anatomy of glamorous vampires: two novels

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Brian Bixby

Since the serial I’m writing, Martha’s Children, is a vampire story, I figured I should get caught up on some of the contemporary literary depictions of vampires. As luck would have it, I stumbled into two novels of vampires of the … Continue reading →

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When the Devil went to law in America

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Brian Bixby

Today, July 22, is the birthday of Stephen Vincent Benét (1898 – 1943). He rose to literary fame for his lengthy 1928 historical poem, John Brown’s Body, and remained a notable literary figure until his sudden death from a heart attack … Continue reading →

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