Thick fear spoiled above the oily rooftops. A sterile and orderly world gave way to a teeming swamp. Wildness took root in the heart of thingsPerhaps, there was no after Crisis, but only deceptive periods of rest, where apocalypse dozed and waited until we believed in something called normal again. Excerpt from “After Crisis” Enjoy … Continue reading After Crisis – short story for the holidays
Literature
Come to the Nerd Nite!
Hello all! I'm excited to share that I've been announced as a speaker at Nerd Nite Toronto on November 28th. Here is a link to the event page, the 2019 Nerdtacular! I will be giving a talk about the Cyborg, a figure that has dominated the focus of my writing –both my academic and creative efforts … Continue reading Come to the Nerd Nite!
Hey, remember the (Yellow) Nineties?
I’m excited to be joining Ryerson University’s Centre for Digital Humanities as a Research Assistant on the Yellow Nineties Project! This project, run by Professor Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, is creating a resource for scholars (and everyone else) to gain access to the early arts and literary magazines of the 1890s, first and foremost of which … Continue reading Hey, remember the (Yellow) Nineties?
Summer 2019 – a retrospective
I've been thinking about time travel a lot lately. Not really because there's any point I'd like to go back or forwards too especially. Recently I experienced jet lag from travel and came to the conclusion that the fourth dimension must have a sense of humour. Time plays tricks on us. We play tricks on … Continue reading Summer 2019 – a retrospective
What We See in the Smoke
The world we know is coming to an end. How will we connect in the strange and frightening one that's coming to take its place? What We See in the Smoke twists the genres of realism and science fiction to tell the future history of Toronto, a story that stretches from this millennium to the next. … Continue reading What We See in the Smoke
Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the death of Dialogue Tags
Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel The Road is an intensely bleak vision of the apocalypse. The narrative follows two characters only ever referred to as"Man" and "boy" as they limp across a grey and hellish landscape full of cannibals, rotting houses, and precious canned food in aquest to reach the ocean. McCarthy raises very uncomfortable questions … Continue reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and the death of Dialogue Tags
The Simplica Girl Diaries in review
“Limitations so frustrating” (Saunders 126) writes the narrator of George Saunders’ The Semplica Girl Diaries. But the self-imposed limitations and restrictions Saunders impose on his writing make for a more interesting story, building its narrative out of disturbing incompleteness. Set in an unspecified but near future, Saunders communicates everything about his narrative through the sparse, … Continue reading The Simplica Girl Diaries in review
Letters to a Young Poet in review
The ten letters of Rainer Maria Rilke in correspondence with Franz Xavier Kappus that makeup Letters to a Young Poet offer little in the way of technical advice for writing. Rilke does not instruct on form; he does not comment on the use of language, or plot, or dialogue, or verse. However, what takes … Continue reading Letters to a Young Poet in review
Ventures! Ventures! Everywhere! On Terse Journal and the Family Care office
Wow! Am I ever going to run out of announcements? I'm excited and honored to announce that I am joining Terse Journal as the new Prose Editor! Terse is a wonderful space, and I am proud to call it home. I am looking forward to reading and publishing new stories following Terse's new theme: Worlding Please … Continue reading Ventures! Ventures! Everywhere! On Terse Journal and the Family Care office
The Wrath of Khan
Image from imdb.com
“How do you feel, Jim?”
Did you ever read a book or watch a movie as a kid and think, “Hot diggity, that was great!”, only to leave it for a long time, get some grey in your hair (seven hairs exactly), and then come back to that movie you loved as a kid only to finally realise how brilliant it was?
Okay, maybe that was a bit specific. But that is my experience with what is undeniably the best of the Star Trek movies: The Wrath of Khan (1982).
When I was little, I could only appreciate how fun the movie was. I wasn’t equipped to appreciate how Nicholas Meyer paints his space opera of revenge with themes from classic literature. I can now.
After Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)failed to gain the box office numbers that Paramount wanted, The Wrath of…
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Ben Berman Ghan 