Archive
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Of Imagination and Fantasy: The Importance of Childhood and a Look at Ken Liu’s “The Paper Menagerie”
For many readers, it seems that speculative fiction (once you figure out what it means) conjures up either thoughts of the future or the ancient…
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The Spectatorial is Now Accepting Submissions for the April 2014 Issue!
Are you interested in submitting to The Spectatorial? Well, you’re in the right place. We are accepting submissions until FEBRUARY 15, 2014 for our April…
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A Little Light Reading Part 2: Faster Than Light Travel
In my previous post, I discussed the power and creativity that can stem from omitting faster than light travel from science fiction universes. Space opera…
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He Sees You When You’re Sleeping: The Krampus in Your Christmas Eve Closet
There is a difference between Saint Nicholas being good and being moral. While most people could agree that his actions sit more on the positive…
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A Sampling of Systems: Magic in Fantasy 101
Magic: it’s a primordial element of the fantasy genre. Readers and writers of fantasy know that the genre is often stigmatized for its mages, sorcery…
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Castle in the Sky: Entering Miyazaki’s World With Guillermo del Toro @ TIFF Bell Lightbox
The first time I watched Miyazaki’s Castle in the Sky I was twelve and sitting in my basement alone. I had been watching Miyazaki movies…
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Antiquity to Dystopia: Genre-Crossing Symbolism in Lang’s Metropolis
Fritz Lang’s 1927 classic, Metropolis, depicts a dystopian future in which an oppressed class of workers is forced to live underground by the wealthy elite…
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Fears internal, Tropes eternal: Themes in horror
An effective horror story should grip its reader’s attention, increase their sense of dread and then twist them in order to elicit the fear of…
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Authorial Oracles: 5 Dystopian Writers Who Speculated Accurately
Dystopian and science fiction authors have been acting as the world’s literary clairvoyants for some time now. Here are a handful of twentieth century authors…
The Spectatorial 