Hal Duncan's Blog, page 6

Review for Rhapsody

Hal Duncan, in Rhapsody: Notes on Strange Fictions, turns a
critical eye to the genre of SF—considering not just the turf wars and
definitional spats, but also the deeper functions and facilities of the
“strange fiction” mode in literature. Employing sardonic and often
cutting analysis delivered within convincing theoretical frames, Duncan
deposes various received-wisdom ideas about the

Sodom

Sing of the angels of Moloch
vomiting word infernal
snake-jaws dislocated
wrenched as backs arched in purgation
spasms of napalm fire-hose
hurled forth to incinerate fair citizens of my
Sodom the abomination in steel eyes
of a clockwork Tetragrammaton
gazing down from hypoxian Himalayan perch
in onyx vaulted heaven a-spatter
with starlight of seraphim

Caledonia Dreamin' Review

The anthology, edited by Hal Duncan and Chris Kelso and published by Eibonvale Press in December 2013, is a well-crafted collection of seventeen stories that all have been written on the basis of a single Scottish word. The Scottish language and culture is the dominant frame of this book, but it has a broad range of themes and plots and travel across all the speculative genres. The characters in

Song of the Stancer

I strike a stance to this or that,a stance of recognition struckin every disposition towild object of desire or dread,in guts of all disgust or wrath,in scrunch of balls and shivered spine,in thrall of eyes or open heart,first posture of the stancer's art.In every stance I strike a stancethat this I recognise as this,as any target of my yenis fancied object in my ken.*I strike a stance to this

First Review of Scruffians!

Scruffians! by Hal Duncan, releasing in early April from Lethe Press, is a wickedly entertaining collection of short fiction fantastical and queer in nature—full of “scruffians and scamps and sodomites,” with some pirates and fairies besides. These stories range from comedic romps to lyrical and meditative explorations on the nature of meaning-making, while Duncan’s engaging and clever voice

On Narrative Dynamics

In my critiques for Writers Workshop, when it comes to dealing with general plot structure, I tend to find Todorov's theory of narrative equilibrium a good touchstone. I try not to sideswipe a client with his name and lay down a whole whack of literary theory on them, but I do find it useful as an inroad to dealing with problems of a botched narrative trigger and fuzzy, or even absent, core

A Wee Tour

I'll be off on  a wee Spring Tour with The Dead Man's Waltz this month, with a few gigs to celebrate the launch of their "Last Train from Paris" single. Which is amazing, btw, one of my favourite tracks of theirs. It's a beautiful track, rich with the sense of real-world narrative, the profound import of history on individual lives, that gives the lyrics of "Emmeline" a power to match the music (

On Epistemology

On the Nature of Truth

Premise: The truth value of an epistemic position ("is (not)") is three-dimensional:
    1.1. Sequentiality: An epistemic position may be applicable/inapplicable for the point in time to which it is applied.
    1.2. Certainty: An epistemic position may be secure/insecure within the range of those positions that are applicable.
    1.3. Effectuality: An epistemic position

On Essence and Existence

Where Spinoza, in laying the groundwork of his Ethica, talks of "that of which the essence involves existence, or that of which the nature is only conceivable as existent," he is dealing in notions of essence and existence uncontroversial in his day, as a preliminary to the ontological bootstrapping these conceits facilitate. (Where we argue existence as necessarily part of the essence of

On the Ontological Argument

Spurred to reading Spinoza's Ethica after Delany's use of it in Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, I've found myself thinking over the last few days of the ontological argument. Hence the previous entry, a short story as a sortie into it, a little skirmish with the irksome bootstrapping. I've tackled it before, returned to it a few times, I think, but as Bertrand Russell said, "the