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Planetary Romance

Northrop Frye's First Essay

Northrop Frye's First Essay

Bringing it all together Let's do a brief recap. First, I described Northrop Frye's model of stories as a phase space. A phase space describes all possible states of a system through time. You can build one up by seeing how one thing changes into another

Northrop Frye on the Romance

Following my online mentor John J. Reilly, I often refer to Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism when I write about stories. It is useful to have another point of reference for talking about the modes and structure of stories than Joseph Campbell, whose Hero’s Journey is the only

The Long View 2008-06-04: Toward the Courts of the Crimson Kings

At a request from a reader, I re-published ahead of schedule this review of S. M. Stirling’s In the Courts of the Crimson Kings a little less than a year ago, but I like it enough to re-publish it now when it comes around again. Here are a couple

The Long View 2008-06-04: Toward the Courts of the Crimson Kings

This review of In the Courts of the Crimson Kings [Amazon link] is a great excuse for John J. Reilly to indulge in his hobby of metahistory, the way that cultures have a tendency to follow cyclical patterns of development over centuries. The book is fun, and John’s digressions