Horatio Morpurgo’s “The Paradoxal Compass” (and a Small Press Dedicated to Nonfiction Books)

by David Oates The  soon-to-be famous ship is part-way around the world. It will eventually become only the second vessel in recorded history to achieve the complete circumnavigation – after Magellan. But the ship is poised over disaster. Somewhere in the seas off present-day Indonesia, the captain has ordered full sail and then retired to…

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Global Catastrophe Epic: We Will Keep Going

by David Oates The day I began writing this essay, Portland Oregon braced for yet another round of uncharacteristic heat. Over several months of preparation, as I had been reading and pondering Kim Stanley Robinson’s big, detailed, hyper-realistic science-fiction book The Ministry for the Future, our normally cool northwest town had found itself repeatedly facing…

Three Poets from Small Presses: All the things of the world on fire

by David Oates Small poetry presses are the gold dust of the publishing world, glittering yet easy to miss. And of enduring cumulative value. Of course the Big Five publishers will pick up suitably salable, already-famous, sure-thing poets. Penguin Random House publishes Terrance Hayes, and that’s a damn good thing, a Black poet of subtlety…