Kirkus Columns: Edward Ellis And Philip K. Dick

I've been really bad lately about updating sources for my Kirkus columns in a timely manner.

As I've been writing this column, I've been playing with a couple of variables: 1) writing about a topic that's interesting to me, but also interesting to a wider audience, if anything, for some of that 'secret history' knowledge. 2) Tying it in with other things in the news, such as a movie or television show. 3) Filling in a vital gap in the history that I've been stringing together.

The latest two columns are on Edward Ellis, who helped to pioneer the 'Dime Novel', which was a pretty important forerunner to the pulp magazines and the stories that in turn, inspired things like Amazing Stories and so forth.

The next was about Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, which was recently turned into a television series by Amazon. It's a pretty good show, and I was able to review it for io9.