SF and F Roundtable

Next Up: January 2020

"It snowed and snowed, the whole world over,
Snow swept the world from end to end.
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned."
Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago

Deep winter, the time of stealthy new beginnings.

Next Up: December 2019

"....when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass,
I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight,
And build me stately palaces by candlelight.”
Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal

Here come the holidays, almost all at once.

Next Up: November 2019

“October extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy drafts that bit at exposed hands and faces.”
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

And, of course, Thanksgiving.

Next Up: October 2019

"It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude."
H. P. Lovecraft

Here comes Halloween.

Next Up: September 2019

“Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself. ...Science fiction is central to everything we've ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don't know what they're talking about.”
Ray Bradbury

Well. Now. Maybe so... But.

Next Up: August 2019

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
Natalie Babbitt

When August comes, can September be far behind.

Next Up: July 2019

"Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language."
Henry James

The strawberries are past, the blueberries are here, the peaches are to come.

Next Up: June 2019

"Writing a novel is one of those modern rites of passage, I think, that lead us from an innocent world of contentment, drunkenness, and good humor, to a state of chronic edginess and the perpetual scanning of bank statements."
J. G. Ballard

But June is lovely, nonetheless.

Next Up: May 2019

Spring rain
leaking through the roof
dripping from the wasps' nest.
Matsuo Basho

May day. May Day. See also: Mayday.

Next Up: April 2019

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” George Orwell, 1984

A nicely ominous opening sentence to cast a shadow on bright spring.