Quincy, Luther's Dog: Great Character Actor

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In my most recent A-Z List, I've been exploring characters that change.  One of the funniest non-human examples is Luther's dog Quin...

How to Be Cool: Golf and Black Coffee

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Many books and movies employ a kind of epithet for coolness. Just as Athena is "gray-eyed" in Homer's epics, various books and...

They are Lying to Us and That's Okay

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In nearly every Mythbusters ' episode, Jamie and Adam will instruct viewers, "Do NOT try this at home." They make this demand ...

Blackmail: The Overused Trope

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I've become a fan of Perry Mason , the television series from 1957-1966.  I am less fond of the movies, 1985-1993+, though I will watch ...

All the Ms: Mankel to Mantel

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Henning Mankel: Turns out Wallandar is based on books! Faceless Killers is the first Kurt Wallander book. And I had to wonder, outside of ...

A-Z Characters & Transformation: The Little Princess

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On my list of Characters Who Transform, I am now tackling princes and princesses.  As mentioned at the beginning of this list, some transfor...

A-Z Characters & Transformation: Is the Transforming Royal Fact or Fiction?

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In my latest A-Z list--Characters who Transform--I've reached Prince and Princesses.  A remarkable number of fictional prince and prince...

Nephi: Tree of Life

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1 Nephi 8-11 includes Lehi's version of the Tree of Life followed by Nephi’s personal vision of same. For nineteenth century readers, t...

People Don't Change: Invention Doesn't Equal Replication

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Murdoch Mysteries brings home a point made in Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time . Although humans tend to compartmentalize history to ma...

All the Ms: Manderino to Manyika

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John Manderino: Reason for Leaving: Job Stories  is actually quite fun. It reminded me of a scene in NCIS where Abby and Tim compare all th...
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The Writing Problem of Omniscient Detectives

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Too many writers of detective fiction want their detectives to be super super smart, which they translate as omniscient . That is, they misu...

A-Z Characters & Transformation: The Surprise Reveal or What the Audience Truly Wants

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In one of his discussions on horror, Stephen King points out that the human brain can imagine greater horrors within a text than a film can ...

Problems of Utopias: Nobody Wants to Do the Yucky Jobs

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One of the major problems with utopias is that they are invented by people who don't understand grunt work or specialization.  Grunt Wo...

The Best Archie Goodwins

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  I've seen a number of Nero Wolfes. I consider Timothy Hutton and Joe Penny (as Jake in Jake & the Fatman ) the best Archies.  The ...

A-Z Characters & Transformation: Nero Wolfe, The Untransforming Detective

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My latest A-Z List is characters who transform. I also address characters who don't transform: what constitutes transformation; what doe...

All the Ms: Depressing Literature in the Ms

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I play a half-joking/half-serious game with myself when I am driving. After two events of the same kind, I declare that it is a Pedestrians ...

1 Nephi: Scripture Reading from Reformation to Enlightenment

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Bible literalism is a relatively late development in the production, collection, and canonization of scriptures. It popped up throughout t...

Bad Guys Are the Most Balanced People Out There

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I have a theory that movie/television villains are the most balanced people out there.  I'm sure this theory could be quickly disproved....