A Hogwarts Professor No-Prize to the first Rowling Reader who can identify Five Errors or Seven Critical Omissions in this “Whole Life in One Video” presentation!
But the Cat Came Back: Buttercup, Crookshanks, and Other Feline Survivors of Speculative Fiction
March 8, 2025 by Leave a Comment
As we look forward to the release of Sunrise on the Reaping, this is a great time to reflect on a fascinating, under-
rated character of the original trilogy, as well as to ponder the role of cats, not just in The Hunger Games trilogy and its prequels, but throughout speculative fiction, from Hogwarts to outer space. We’ll also consider why it’s the lovable idiot, the orange cat, who so often saves the day and why, as we get close to our next visit to Panem, feline plot threads may be out there, just waiting for a clever paw to grasp them.
Gingers Whose Heads Have Something Inside Them
Those of us who have orange cats in our households know well that they are not generally the most intelligent members of the feline family. My own dear Father Brown is an affectionate creature (at least with us. He’s terrified of strangers), but, when it comes to good critical thinking skills, the other two cats, Miss Fisher and Sam Spade, are far superior. Just googling videos of orange cates will yield a host of photographic evidence that gingers of all shades, particularly males, are justifiably legendary for their bad decision making. Most cat lovers will attest that, if we want to cast a cat mastermind, the best choice would be a calico. The genetic oddity that makes calicos is limited to females (if you really do have a male calico, alert the media, and move away from the neighborhood next to the nuclear waste dump). Females of all cat species tend to be intelligent. Lionesses, for example, are the ones who do the hunting in prides (as Scar whines in The Lion King when supper is late). Male cats tend to be the brawn, and the females are the brain. Orange toms are also often quite handsome, and know it, hence the Rum-Tum-Tugger’s excessive self-confidence in Cats. Yet, in looking at the cats who appear in speculative fiction, we see a host of male ginger cats, who are both surprisingly intelligent and remarkably durable. Let’s visit a few of them. [Read more…]
Twenty Five Years as a Potter Pundit
March 1, 2025 by Leave a Comment
In March 2000, I was compelled to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, a beat up Scholastic paperback, that a friend of my wife had slipped to my oldest daughter. I had to read it in order to explain to her why we didn’t read trash like that.
Fast forward twenty five years and I have morphed from Suspicious Skeptic to Potter Pundit — and I’m getting ready to re-open registration for my ‘Wizard Reading Formula’ online course at Potter Pundits.com.
The recording above I think was made to promote the Potter Pundits segment that Travis Prinzi, James Thomas, and I did for a year or two at the Leaky Cauldron’s PotterCast (we won a prize one year for Best Feature programming, believe it or not). I turned the best episodes into an anthology, Harry Potter Smart Talk, a book for which Melissa Anelli herself wrote the introduction.
Regardless, 2025 looks to be an auspicious year for projects coming to fruition, our own version of a Quarter Quell. More anon!
‘Phoenix or the Flame’ Publication Day!
February 24, 2025 by Leave a Comment
From the Amazon.com sales page for the book:
Before writing the fifth Harry Potter book, J.K. Rowling created a seven-page handwritten outline of her original vision for the plot, offering an unprecedented glimpse into her writing process. In these early notes, there are noticeable differences in the characters, terminology, and plot, culminating with a different ending, in which Sirius’s fate is not brought about by Bellatrix.
Three of the essays in this collection focus on the ramifications of specific changes, such as the outline’s original much darker tone, the lack of Bellatrix Lestrange, or the different designation for the Order of the Phoenix. Another takes a more holistic view, looking at the changes in the book’s characters. Two essays use the outline to highlight the development that must have happened both before and after it was written. The final essay looks at how outline could be interpreted had one never seen the published book.
Together the essays explore the manuscript in detail, offering a new perspective on Rowling’s creative process and deepening our understanding of the published book. This collection also includes detailed guidance to help fans interpret the outline themselves.
Essays by Louise M. Freeman, Alice Arganese, Irvin Khaytman, Asher Scheiner, Beatrice Groves, John Granger and Patricio Tarantino. Edited by A. Ibid.
It has debuted at #1 among New Releases at Amazon’s Scholarly and Academic Writing category — and at the incredible bargain price of $9.99; get your copy at the Publication Day price while it lasts!
Check out the Author’s Symposium released yesterday by TRL for much more on the book and its various chapters:
Hero with Prosthetic Limb, Marine Friend
February 12, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Okay, the Cormoran Strike connection is a stretch. It is a heart-warming story, though, no?
Read more about Ben Baltz in this 2014 Runner’s World profile or a 2015 piece on Today, in which article his difficulty in affording the cost of racing prosthetics is discussed. There’s a Strike link, sort of.
And, no, I wasn’t able to find any more recent mention of the young man, now in his mid to late 20s, than this undated picture on the International Paralympic Committee website.
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