Free Republic

Brazilian artist Henrique Alvim Corrêa’s career was cut short when he died at only 34 years old. But the illustrator left behind a small science-fiction legacy thanks to his 1906 artworks detailing the Martian invasion of London in H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds. Wells’ tale preyed upon turn-of-the-century fears about the apocalypse and other Victorian superstitions (and social prejudices) about the unknown. Corrêa’s fantastical, murky style is fitting of Wells’ dark themes. The Martian fighting machines resemble frightening legions of massive spiders. There were only 500 copies of the Belgian edition of Wells’ story with Corrêa’s...

MY BUCKET LIST Then I went way back into my memory and brought back stuff I hadn't thought about in years.. That was fun, my older memories are fresher than the new stuff, like did I just take the pill I have to take at..what was the time I was..?? Now, I have plenty of new stories that I recall, that I can share with my kids and grandkids, because it's like bedtime stories, because they still go to sleep shortly after I start them, the little darlings.. Getting back to my BUCKET LIST, I do remember having a special...

The good news for my generation is that we finally make up a controlling portion of the working population. The bad news is, that there probably aren't enough blankies and nap rooms to accomodate all of us as we graduate into the real world. At least, as some of us graduate into the real world. Others of us have too many things to do to take time out of our day to cuddle stuffed animals and gripe to each other about the cultural appropriation and microagressions typically associated with the Patriarchy. Thankfully, college students have no such demands on their...

The record busting growth of Antarctic ice is threatening the viability of Australia’s Mawson Antarctic research station. According to The Australian; Satellite observations show a new daily record being set for ­Antarctic sea ice every day for the past two weeks. Annual records have also been broken every year for the past three years. Rob Wooding, general manager of the Australian Antarctic Division’s Operations Branch, said expanding sea ice was now causing serious problems. Last year, fuel supplies were flown to Australia’s Mawson base by helicopter because the harbour had failed to clear. Dr Wooding said the situation was “unsustainable”.

Little Rock journalist Suzi Parker, author of “Sex in the South: Unbuckling the Bible Belt" and a former contributor to Salon, The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News and other outlets, recently self-published her first novel, "Echo Ellis: Adventures of a Girl Reporter," about "a Southern reporter living in Bill Clinton's Arkansas who often finds herself in dangerous yet thrilling situations." As Parker put it in a recent interview, "Echo is my alter ego. She has many adventures that I may or may not have had in my life." Check out the noir book trailer above, in which she describes...

By the middle of 1940, with Europe prostrate at the Nazis’ feet, Russia allied with Germany, and the United States still out of the war, Britain’s leaders were focused more on survival than on victory. Neville Chamberlain had reached the point where he was contemplating a peace for Great Britain secured at the expense of the sovereignty of her allies. But after the loss of Belgium and the invasion of France, members of Parliament were demanding a new government. Lord Halifax was the leading choice to lead the new cabinet, but a number of MPs were dissatisfied with his proximity...

Among the things they left behind are beautiful ruins, a gorgeously woven basket and a nearly impossible to get to granary on a cliff. David Roberts is a well-known mountaineer who made the first ascents of some of Alaska’s most challenging peaks. For his new book, The Lost World Of The Old Ones: Discoveries in The Ancient Southwest, he set off with a backpack to explore some of the remotest corners of the American Southwest. Rappelling down cliffs to reach ancient granaries, or stumbling across artifacts that have not been touched for 1,000 years, he follows the trail of long...

The Emmy-winning team behind Syfy's Taken is reuniting for another science fiction classic. Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television is adapting Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World as a scripted series for the NBCUniversal-owned cable network, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. Brave New World — ranked fifth among the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th Century by Modern Library — is set in a world without poverty, war or disease. Humans are given mind-altering drugs, free sex and rampant consumerism are the order of the day, and people no longer reproduce but are genetically engineered in "hatcheries." Those who won’t conform...

<p>Talk about a glowing review: one five-star review given to a light-up USB cable for sale on Amazon had a headline claiming that this product “has lit up my life.”</p> <p>That review was not only glowing, it was steaming, Amazon says.</p>

Joshua Ozersky, a food blogger who translated appetite and ambition into columns, books and an international food festival called Meatopia, died on Monday in Chicago, where he was to attend the annual James Beard Awards. He was 47. He was found in his hotel room, the Cook County medical examiner said. An autopsy on Tuesday did not determine the cause of death, the medical examiner’s office said, and more tests were planned.

Question: A friend of mine has been reading the Left Behind books that have all of this stuff about the “Rapture” in them. Is there really going to be a “Rapture” like these books talk about?   Answer: No.The “Rapture” refers to a passage in First Thessalonians 4, where Christians are “caught up” in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” Many Christians believe, and the Left Behind books promote, that this being “caught up” to meet the Lord will occur before the Great Tribulation sometime in the near future. Christians will simply vanish, meet Jesus somewhere in the...

“Todd Myers is an eco-mythbuster. He exposes trends among modern environmentalists that are based more on ‘feel-good’ sentimentality than on scientific reality. If you truly care about the environment, then you should read this book.” Alex B. Berezow, Ph.D., Editor of RealClearScience.com Wherever we turn, politicians, businesses and activists are promoting the latest fashionable “green” policy or product. Green buildings, biofuels, electric cars, compact fluorescent lightbulbs and a variety of other technologies are touted as the next key step in protecting the environment and promoting a sustainable future. Increasingly, however, scientific and economic information regarding environmental problems takes a back...

We’re finishing the Victorian novel class I have been taking at a college in St. Paul with Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I want to offer a few notes on the novel in the hope that some readers may share their thoughts and others may take up the novel if they haven’t read it before. It is an essential novel. Our great young teacher has structured the course with four novels that evoke the plight of women in Victorian fiction. With Tess we reach the summit (or a summit) of this plight. Tess is an extraordinarily lovable woman who...

The United Nations (UN) will be “reviewing” the book selection at its official bookstore at the Palais des Nations, UN Watch noted Thursday, after protest was raised over several books unequivocally attacking Israel and Jews. Notable titles on display included such seminal works as How I Stopped Being a Jew, Israel’s War Against the Palestinians, and The Punishment of Gaza.UNWatch’s Hillel Neuer wrote to the UN over the issue, noting that no other books in the store targeted any other country for ridicule. …

Hillary Clinton might be hoping no one buys “Nixon’s Secrets” — Roger Stone’s new book marking the 40th anniversary of the Watergate scandal. SNIP “Hillary’s lies and unethical behavior goes back farther — and goes much deeper — than anyone realizes,” Zeifman told Fox News in 2008. When asked why he fired Clinton, Zeifman responded, “Because she is a liar.”

In truth, National Socialism was an ancient fertility cult brought up to date under the scientific guise of eugenics where people were to make sacrifices and/or be sacrificed for the fecundity of nature. Fertility, sacrifice, and power were all virtually worshiped by the National Socialists in one form or another, no matter how scientific or secular many of its adherents would try to couch their ideology. The great desire of National Socialism was to become fertile and powerful through sacrificial eugenic measures ...

Anthony Trollope may not, generally, be a staple part of people’s understanding of Victorian literature. He hasn’t fared quite as well as Dickens or Eliot. But seeing as he’s recently turned 200, and you may glimpse him on your stamps over breakfast soon enough, it seems like a good time to encourage you to read him. Trollope wrote and published tirelessly. At his most popular in the 1860s, he dominated the literary scene as far as the prosperous middle-classes were concerned. Readers thought and wrote about his characters almost as though they were real people, and his was the picture...

April is National Poetry Month. This year also marks the centennial of poet Rupert Brooke’s death on April 23, 1915. He was twenty-seven years old and became a symbol of Lost Youth in the Great War. In his short life, he wrote some of the most famous poems of his generation.

M. H. Abrams, who transformed the study of Romanticism with the critical histories “The Mirror and the Lamp” and “Natural Supernaturalism,” and who edited the first seven editions of “The Norton Anthology of English Literature,” a virtual Bible in literature survey courses, died on Tuesday in Ithaca, N.Y. He was 102. Cornell University, where he taught for nearly 40 years, announced his death. On its publication in 1953, “The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition” was greeted as an instant classic. With fluid ease, Professor Abrams distilled the arguments of philosophers and critics from ancient Greece...