Bradley J. Birzer

Stealing Other People’s Homework: “Russell Kirk and the Haunting of Piety Hill”

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Russell Kirk

I’ve been reading SD Tucker’s two part series on Russell Kirk in Fortean Times“. It’s part of his “Strange Statesman” series.

The installments mostly look into the strange occult beliefs of various politicians and political philosophers. Kirk, however, was more than a political philosopher. (Jerry Pournelle considered Kirk his political mentor though Pournelle definitely did not share Kirk’s anti-technology views.)

He was a noted a writer of weird fiction, fiction that demonstrated the synthesis of his political and occult beliefs. He was a friend of Ray Bradbury.

Kirk biographer Bradley J. Birzer looks at the professional and thematic relationships between Kirk and Stephen King and how Kirk’s paranormal experiences showed up in his fiction.

Stealing Other People’s Homework: “Viva Margaret Atwood!”

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viva-margaret-atwood

I’m cogitating on my review of Jamie Bisher’s excellent and long (it took me over a month to read it!) The Intelligence War in Lain America, 1914-1922.

The eyes are blurred, it’s the last night of vacation, and I thought I’d post this.

Certainly, given the wailing and gnashing of teeth following the U.S. presidential elections in the science fiction world (e.g. “Radio Free America” as the title of the latest Coode Street Podcast), it’s from a source unlikely to have been seen by many who might be interested.

Bradley J. Birzer’s “Viva Margaret Atwood!” looks at Atwood’s sf work in the context of C. S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley and, surprisingly, Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon.

Birzer is a biographer of Russell Kirk, himself an other of ghost stories and a political mentor to Jerry Pournelle.