“Say, this is not quite the speech I intended to give. Nobody is throwing fruit or vegetables or eggs at me. But in the Indo-China War things are not muddy. There is no possibility of American gain or advantage. There are just not any lootable assets for us in Indo-China. We do not need their rice crop, we do not need their fish crop. Times were good when we intervened in accord with our treaty promise, and it was our involvement that turned times bad for us. The enemy does n

SF has never been very forward-looking. It is likely the least innovative of literatures. It has certainly never been daring, though several of its practitioners wear the ‘I am Daring’ badge hypocritically. It is a field compounded largely of patsies who can be led by nose-rings anywhere at all. — "The Case of the Moss Eaten Magician" I want to think a little about Lafferty's support for Joseph McCarthy and his refusal ever to believe that McCarthy had been wrong about commun

A short post about something that does not seem to be recognized by most Lafferty fans, and that seems to me important: the place of the historical fiction in the Lafferty canon. Most people who love Lafferty love Okla Hannali, which was published by Doubleday in 1972, reprinted by Pocket Books in 1973, and later issued by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1991 as part of its American Indian Series. Lafferty was amused by this Oklahoma Press cover, writing, But the picture

For the end of the world was long ago, And all we dwell to-day Like children of some second birth, Like a strange people left on earth After a judgment day. For the end of the world was long ago, When the ends of the world waxed free, When Rome was sunk in a waste of slaves, And the sun drowned in the sea. — G. K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse, Book I But we have divine sanction and assurance that the Church will endure to the end of the world, it is said. No, we

The Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol 13 (1894) “Dammit, fat man, I will ask questions and I won't hide. Now tell me what the four sorts of creatures are. I'm not stupid. That's only the permanent impression I leave.”“Oh, the four sorts of creatures that surround the Castle are the Pythons, the Toads, the Badgers and the Unfledged Falcons.”“Oh what botching! Unbotch it, Bagley. Where do you get your drivel?”“I have it anciently from my own ancient person and position. And beyond t

In the case of the Effigy History of Music and its author, there is a correspondence and mutual clarification between creation and creator that is not to be found in the Effigy History of Mountains, for instance. With almost any musical instrument, Karl Effigy can play out the clarifications of the statements in his History of Music. But Karl Effigy can not, to the same extent, clarify the obscurities of his History of Oceans or his History of Continental Upthrusts. And yet h

El Morro in 1868 We will not record what he carved, as he has already done so, and besides, as we said, it was too stilted and stylish. But yet like all the other marks it was capable of variant and fuller translation. Lafferty’s short story “The Cliff Climbers” seems to have been inspired by El Morro National Monument in western New Mexico. It is a massive sandstone bluff, rising some two hundred feet from the high desert floor like a spire. Because of a reliable waterhole

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way asthe others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must becontent to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the othersare men’s myths: i.e. the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds ofpoets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himselfthrough what we call "real things." — C. S.

“You will hear it for yourselves, and it will surely fill you with wonder.” — Marco Polo, The Travels “All the voyages, whether to the moon or to worlds ten million times more distant, take about the same time to complete," the sea captain said. "When you use anti-geodetic force for propulsion, all places are equally close, all places are really only “six leagues from Lop. Come. It is a great enjoyment if you have not traveled to far places before!" What an unusual story “Six

On my mind today is “How They Gave It Back,” partly because of our violent times, and partly because it's a response to the American crisis that began in the 1960s. Today, the Washington Post ran an article titled “America Enters a New Age of Political Violence.” Today, one will find similar pieces in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. In The Atlantic is Graeme Wood's "Political Violence Could Devour Us All," where he writes, In the past day, some have murmured

What makes “Interurban Queen” so remarkable, though, is the incredible tonal balance with which Lafferty handles the two sides of this question: I cannot tell, even with inside knowledge of Lafferty's personal politics, where his sympathies lie — probably a historic first in s-f of this type. — Sheryl Smith, "Lafferty’s Short Stories: Some Mystagogic Goshwow" A few times in his work, Lafferty mentions the Toonerville Trolley from a wonderful comic strip that I wasn’t familiar

The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise, And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room, And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom, And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee, But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea. — G.K. Chesterton, “Lepanto” Best of all, the Sack of Rome! There was a dozen different games blended into that one. “Among the Hairy Earthmen” is

I’ve been working on Okla Hannali and thinking about Lafferty's first draft in ‘63. It’s usually said, based on what Lafferty himself disclosed in interviews, that the novel draws heavily from his own experiences and from the stories of Indians he knew personally. That is undoubtedly a major part of it. But I also wonder when he became aware of the connection between the Choctaw and the Irish. Did he know this in his youth? If you have read Okla Hannali, you probably know tha

Skulls from Hallstatt "The skulls made an impressive show in their niches on the rude wall." “It is only that definitions have lost their precision on Astrobe; and one duty of the Salic Emperor is to clarify and enforce them. – Charles the Six Hundred and Twelfth, Past Master Today I’ve been thinking about what Lafferty is doing with Goslar and the Salic Emperors. On planet Astrobe, Goslar is a defiant outpost in the Feral Lands outside the gilded mediocrity of Cosmopolis. It