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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Saw an appreciative post about Judy-Lynn del Rey on fb ... then someone wrote, "You know, somebody really ought to write a biography." Which is music to my ears, ofc. Incidentally, google now lists my Judy-Lynn article as "highly cited." We're in the big time now, baby. ;)

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Frank Herbert's CHILDREN OF DUNE, which reached the Publishers Weekly list -- for one week -- a full two years earlier. Drats!

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Well, here's a popular piece of misinformation! I've read multiple sources that said that Anne McCaffrey's THE WHITE DRAGON was the first science fiction novel to reach a bestseller list in hardcover. I just realized that it was the *second*. The first? ...

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Yeah, that's what I should have said. (I was trying t o exclude theory stuff.) Somehow elsewhere mentioned Harold Bloom's book on Shakespeare, and stuff like that seems like it would be in the running as well.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

are more widely read and cited, but for straight works of lit crit? I can't think of anybody with Shippey's popularity and reach.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

So here's an interesting question. Is Tom Shippey's THE ROAD TO MIDDLE-EARTH the most read and/or cited work of literary criticism in the 20th century? I kinda wanna say it is. You could argue that certain books of theory (for instance, Jameson's THE POLITICAL UNCONSCIOUS)...

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I can't claim credit for this one, but there's now a new diagnosis for university professors who blame themselves for not properly teaching their students to avoid AI: "Slopholm Syndrome."

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Ah, sweet! This is the one I decided to teach in my Fantasy Fiction class to introduce the kiddos to S&S. Ended up spurring quite a good discussion.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

That's the correct response! You get special blood-and-thunder points for today.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

lawless kisses with all the abandon of passionate thirst" (The People of the Black Circle). In other words, Robert E. Howard is the greatest prose stylist in the history of English literature. FIGHT ME. @newedgeswordmag.bsky.social #SWORDANDSORCERY

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

So, uh ...... from a Conan the Barbarian story: "His wild blood had been stirred to its uttermost by all that had passed. He ... crushed her lips with his. She made no resistance; the Devi was drowned in the elemental woman. She closed her eyes and drank in his fierce, hot,...

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

first-person narrator. The writing is good, but .... ... then I got a single paragraph that combines English, German, and Latin with random references to Buddhist concepts followed the narrator's ruminations on what mode of story he's actually telling:

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I'm pretty familiar with Norman Spinrad's non-fiction articles on SFF publishing, but I'd never read one of his novels. So I took a gander at THE VOID CAPTAIN'S TALE. Right off the bat, I was on the fence. His narrator is this highly loquacious, highly self-conscious ...

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

There's a lot of vague or missing citations for information I wanted to double-check. But beyond a bare-bones account of Butler's life, there's just not any overarching thesis or interpretation of Butler's work. Very disappointing.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

but Morris doesn't offer a single word of analysis of explanation. Nothing more than "this made Octavia sad." Plus there's too many scenes where the biographer's attributing interior mental states to Butler that seems unlikely to have any support in primary sources.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

beyond what she's read in Butler's interview. But even worse, she just doesn't do the basic things a biographer should be doing. For instance, after Butler had some early publication successes, she spent the early 1970s unable to get anything published ...

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Anyone ever read Susanna Morris's biography of Octavia Butler, POSTIVE OBESSION (2025)? I got it after seeing that it received a Hugo nomination. I don't want to call it "bad" .... but it's frustrating. For one thing, the biographer doesn't seem to know anything about SF...

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Yeah, what's the question? No guarantees, but I might.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Btw, I really liked how you liked @mjrsangster.bsky.social 's concept of iteration -- I did too, which I mentioned specifically in my review of his book. A few people didn't, but this proves they were clearly wrong!

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Just read Sean's essay on this book, and it's pretty phenomenal. It's rare for an trained academic critic to be able to give a nuanced, sympathetic reading to major genre fantasy texts, but he really hits this one out of the park.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

It's quite a lot to get through, honestly, unless you're into it. Personally, though, I loved the Sanderson books, and I think he did a better job ending the series than Jordan himself could have, given how he'd been bogging down.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I don't know why your posts don't show up more often on my feed (this is the first I'm seeing your read thru), but I'll be making this new series of yours a priority. Took me 26 years to finish WoT; hopefully, yours goes quicker.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Here it is -- the first new major post about fantasy on my Substack. Come for the mysterious Adam Corby ... and stay for exactly how two of the greatest fantasy editors of the 1980s, Lester del Rey and David Hartwell, treated this one (now obscure) series. stratofanatic.substack.com/p/the-myster...

stratofanatic.substack.com

The Mysterious Case of Adam Corby

Or, Two Great 1980s Fantasy Editors at Work

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Started the 6th chapter of my Del Rey book, which is just called "Enemies." Is the title melodramatic and non-academic? Maaaaaaybe. But so far, it's making things way more fun to write. Plus, the del Reys also kinda did have a lot of enemies.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

It's a fascinating test case of two different editorial philosophies, and I'll write up a longer post about it later. The second book, THE DIVINE QUEEN, is actually pretty good, too .... but its cover is literally the most hideous (and misleading!) thing I've ever seen in my entire lifetime.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Anyone ever hear of a fantasy author from the 1980s named Adam Corby? I stumbled onto him after some archival research uncovered that his initial manuscript was rejected by Lester del Rey (Del Rey Books) before David Hartwell (Timescape Books) eventually accepted & published it.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

months they stayed on with the company ... but, in the meanwhile, Ian had no qualms about sharing his displeasure. On multiple occasions, it seems, he stood outside Busch’s office, muttering, 'Barbarians at the gate!' loudly enough for Ballantine’s new president to hear. "

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Just mentioned to someone yesterday about how many GREAT STORIES are involved in the creation of Del Rey Books .... and so, here's a small one I just wrote for chapter 4: "Watching [Ron Busch] ransack their beloved company must have pained Ian and Betty greatly. For eight more

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

ha, now I want to run the title of my academic WiP past you ... biting my nails all the while, of course.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Every time I e-read David G. Hartwell's “The Making of the American Fantasy Genre”, I feel an insane compulsion to nominate it for the Worst Essay on Fantasy Ever Written award. It just ticks me off every time I read it.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Dumb personal accomplishment: after eighteen months and about 100 playing hours, I've now officially completed Baldur's Gate 3. Damn it's a long game .... but I literally did it for *research* purposes!

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

one person; it was the institutional factors that enabled someone with his lack of qualifications to rise so high in the system in the first place. I do wonder how much grounds Arday's family has for suing Cambridge University for fostering and validating his self-delusions.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

Very, very saddened to heart about the death of Jason Arday. But not surprised. Many of the more thoughtful online commentators seemed to recognize that his serial fabulation was a function of severe mental health issues. The real scandal of the whole situation was never just...

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I got my *third* successful hit .... this time, 22 pages of editorial correspondence sitting in the author's attic, that no one has read in 46 years. W00t.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Most SFF authors have obviously never had their literary works put into an archive. So what I've done is .... you guessed: cold-emailed anyone who published a book with Del Rey in the 1970s and 1980s. And this morning ...

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

In my endless trek to track down editorial correspondence from Judy-Lynn and Lester del Rey, I've naturally scrawled through dozens of special collections across the country. And I've had some pretty decent luck, too. But you know what's REALLY wild?

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Well, I've followed all the other cool kids ("baaaa!") and have now created a substack. I'm starting off with adding several hard-hitting posts on SFF from my blog ... this one's a classic, so if you haven't seen it yet, have at it! DEFENDING DEL REY BOOKS: open.substack.com/pub/stratofa...

open.substack.com

Defending Del Rey Books

The Misunderstood Hero

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

The D&D Monster Manual. The trade book Gnomes. The Book of Merlyn (Berkley). The Silmarillion and Humphrey Carpenter's biography on Tolkien. It's one of the most remarkably serendipitous confluence of fantasy items imaginable.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

In my book chapter on the launch of Del Rey Books, I came up with the following chapter title, and let us just say I'm quite impressed with myself: "In the Year of our Dark Lord, 1977." It's actually pretty crazy ALL the rantasy-related things that came out in 1977. Star Wars ...

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Although I'd sooner gouge-out my eyes, Oedipus-like, before going to a conference on Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, their acronym LACK is genuinely hilarious and deserves kudos.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I saw my various feeds blowing up with this, but couldn't find much hard information. Even this article couldn't suggest anything more than fiscal troubles, but at least it clarifies that things *are* pretty vague atm.

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Le sigh. So, yeah, here's a direct quote from like half of all science fiction writers during the 1980s: "Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against fantasy . Some of my best friends are fantasy novels. My college roommate was a fantasy novel. So I'm not biased at all. Nevertheless ...."

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Dennis Wise @denniswise.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

just finished Nolan's THE ODYSSEY, and I loved it unabashedly. Maybe the single best adaptation of a classical/medieval story I've ever seen. The level of detail and writing were superb.

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Reposted by Dennis Wise

Paul Deane @rhunedhel.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

And of course, to cap it all off I'm selling paperbacks of @denniswise.bsky.social's "Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology" Literally more original alliterative poems by more poets than any books since Gutenberg invented the printing press. #NYCPoetryFestival

Dennis Wilson Wise, Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology

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