The Cloth of Truth

My father was a Yiddish literary star, writing short stories, essays, and novels. He lectured in Canada, the U.S., Argentina, Venezuela, the former Soviet Union, and more. He was a Scholar-in-Residence at Oxford University. Nobel laureate Eli Wiesel said he was “the novelist of the Warsaw Ghetto,” whose book “Ship of the Hunted” was “…cut […]

A shaman, a cop, a snake, & a bear walk into a short story…

Too busy to commit to an epic novel? Newly released short stories I just released three short stand-alone stories from the epic novel Quantum Cannibals. The stories are free on Kindle Unlimited, $0.99 from Amazon.com. If you haven’t yet jumped into the full novel, dip your toes in the waters through these selections.

Dreams of the Moon

I am pleased to present a guest post by fellow speculative fiction author Lorina Stephens. Lorina has worked as editor, freelance journalist for national and regional print media, been a festival organizer, publicist, lectures on many historical topics from textiles to domestic technologies, teaches, and continues to work as a writer and artist. Her short […]

Sexy Cuties: Art or Abomination?

This is the first in a series of posts introducing characters from the novel Quantum Cannibals Alex is a secondary character in Quantum Cannibals. He’s a renowned poet whose wife tells a friend “Alex likes young men and boys.” The character was inspired by the pederasty of beat poet and cultural icon Allen Ginsberg. He […]

Trying To Be a Good Character

The novel Quantum Cannibals has a large cast of characters, some evil, some saintly. Most are complex, neither black nor white. A person can be a good character, but simply confused when facing an impossible situation. All of the characters in the book are intended to reflect back on our non-fictional world, to say something […]

The Plague of Our Complacency

The coronavirus pandemic could be something out of a horror movie, perhaps from sci-fi, a thriller… mystery… existential fiction. What the world is experiencing with the coronavirus has been well covered in literature and film, dealing with questions of the origin of the plague, and how people, society, the world responds. The book may focus […]

Should Writers be Afraid to Offend?

Much of stereotypical science fiction has courageous heroes traveling into deep space to fend off some kind of alien threat. In stereotypical fantasy literature, the hero fearlessly battles dragons, demons, or wicked sorcerers. Given all these brave figures that speculative fiction authors create, should speculative fiction writers be afraid to offend? More specifically, should they […]

“Yuck, Leonard Cohen Kissed Me”

She told me Leonard Cohen gave her an unwanted kiss. I didn’t know what to do. Should I suggest she go to the officials? Take her to a therapist? Well, Leonard was an official, a counselor, so there was no point going that route. Using all the wisdom my seven-year-old mind could summon up, I […]

“No” Meant “Try Harder”

A beautiful demon rapes a human, who enjoys it. The demon then accuses the human of raping her. When I composed this scene for my novel Quantum Cannibals (publication date Nov. 2018), I thought it fictional. In the contemporary non-fictional world (such as it is), the #MeToo movement has brought the demons out from their […]

Theater of Fear

They did not foresee… the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant Aldous Huxley We all like good Theater. Something terrible happens to an innocent victim (or victims), the good guys scurry around trying […]

We, the Accused

Holding the Victim to Blame Whenever there is a terror attack against Israel, the world media finds some way to make Israel the accused, whether for provocation or retaliation, for people dying or failing to die, for killing the terrorists, or failing to kill them. This is not a new phenomenon. Two thousand years ago, […]

National Suicide: The Death of a Nation

Lemmings are known for their mass suicide: jumping off cliffs, to die in the sea. Americans are not known for mass or individual suicide. An Israeli man who was stabbed in the neck has been criticized by Yariv Oppenheimer, head of the Peace Now organization for fighting back and killing his attacker. Given that […]

Indigenous Jews, Indigenous People

I’ve spent a lot of time living and working with Indigenous people. I spent a winter in the boreal forest with Indians, five hundred kilometers from the nearest road or telephone. My wife and I spent a winter in an Eskimo village. I’ve eaten raw walrus, raw beluga whale (while it was still alive), beaver, […]

“So this is how liberty dies…”

…with thunderous applause” I’m a sci-fi enthusiast. I love The Time Machine, the many volumes of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, Asimov’s Robot and Foundation series, and more. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen Star Trek (TV and film), and Star Wars. When my kids were young, I ran Star Trek […]

Rabbi Elimelech ’s Prayer of Fire

Monday, October 5, 2015 (Shemini Atzeret, 5776) is the twelfth anniversary of the death of my father, the renowned author and lecturer, Yehuda Elberg. His novels and short stories were published in Yiddish, Hebrew, English, French, German and Spanish. He was Scholar In Residence at Oxford University, and took part in summer programs in the […]