Other Worlds

Author: Donna Royston

  • “We would be living in a different world” (WWII alternate history)

    When you read the historical accounts of HItler’s stunning military triumphs of 1939-1940, when you watch the old newsreel clips and look at the maps showing Nazi Germany’s rapid conquests, it is easy for your attention to be riveted solely on this aspect of the war. The shock, even from today’s perspective, is such that…

  • Alternate History: World War II

    A grim 80th anniversary approaches: on January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. The photo above shows a celebratory torchlight parade in Berlin on the evening of Jan. 30. President Hindenburg, who appointed Hitler chancellor, looks out the window. It was the beginning of an unimaginable inferno. With the Enabling Act in March…

  • Thoughts on The Hobbit (the movie)

    Carpal tunnel syndrome has kept me off the computer except for what I had to do for work, so I am late in continuing with my “Hobbit”-related posts. Since the movie has been out for over a month now, I will dispense with issuing alerts against spoilers and will assume that you’ve either seen the…

  • The Hobbit’s ancient beginning

    As I was setting forth into rereading Chapter 1 of The Hobbit, I started getting a sense of … remindedness. What was this chapter reminding me of? The first sentence, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit,” is very direct and brisk in getting to the story, and right after that you…

  • The Hobbit (the movie) U.S. release day approaches…

    Everyone who cares, and a lot of people who don’t, are aware that the Peter Jackson movie of ‘The Hobbit’ is about to be released in the US. It’s a week away, and I’ll probably be in the theater to see it on Friday unless something unexpected prevents me. I have misgivings, though. This is what…

  • Honeysuckle Cottage (P. G. Wodehouse, 1925)

    What? P. G. Wodehouse… ghost story? Are we maybe in an alternate universe? Should we allow… [lowered voice] comedy? Think of it as something light and refreshing after the challenging perplexities of Henry James. Purists will not allow “Honeysuckle Cottage” into the genre, but … OK, I will. We begin with Mr. Mulliner, a regular…

  • The Turn of the Screw (Henry James, 1898)

    Everybody’s heard of it. The title is intriguing and mysterious and memorable. But, oh… Henry James… I read “The Turn of the Screw” in college and was surprised and disappointed by the dullness of it. Then, after I read James’ The American, I swore never to touch anything by him again. Fast forward some decades:…

  • Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book (M. R. James, 1895)

    A Cambridge academic, Dennistoun, comes to a little French town to study and photograph the old cathedral — its stalls, organ, choir screen, and other treasures. The sacristan, who opens the church and stays with him during the hours that it takes to record and observe everything, is a nervous — very nervous — man:…

  • The Judge’s House (Bram Stoker, 1890)

    University student Malcolm Malcolmson’s examinations are coming up and he needs a quiet place to study. No distractions. A place, he decides, where he knows nobody, so he won’t be tempted to spend any time with friends. He doesn’t even want his friends to know where he is. A little extreme? Just wait. He buys…

  • What is a ghost story?

    Looking for a definition, I found in the Oxford Companion to English Literature that a ghost story is a narrative that has as its central theme “the power of the dead to return and confront the living.” This definition captures the heart of this kind of story, but it leaves out such supernatural creatures as…