Cathy Atmore has always dreamed of being on the Cresswell High cheerleading squad. But she’s never been popular enough or pretty enough. She hates being on the outside, looking in. Now the members of the cheerleading squad are being killed one by one . . . Has Cathy’s jealousy driven her over the edge? That’sContinue reading “Pep Rally”
Author Archives: jamesdmacdonald
That’s Comedy!
Right then. Not every entertainment in Shakespeare’s England was, how shall we say this? high-brow. To that end, let me present to you Singing Simpkin, a jig (that is to say, a short comedy — all singing, all dancing) that might have been presented between acts in a theater, or in a tavern yard. OrContinue reading “That’s Comedy!”
Plagues Gone Past
Where are the plagues of yesteryear? So there I was, reading Fifty Years in the Magic Circle by Signor Blitz (the memoirs of a mid-19th-century magician) when I saw this bit (pp. 58-59): Irish Wit. During the season, a band of Russian horn-players appeared at the Theatre Royal. Their style of music was originalContinue reading “Plagues Gone Past”
A Complete Silk Act
One of the perennial topics in these parts goes something like this: “I’ve signed up for a talent show. What should I do?” Let me make a suggestion, under the rubric “everything old is new again.” In Jean Hugard’s Silken Sorcery (1937), the last chapter describes the Stillwell Silk Act. Here’s what Hugard says: CHAPTER XII THEContinue reading “A Complete Silk Act”
In the Mageworlds
So there we were in the Republic of Panama, living in downtown Panama City rather than on base. We were big science fiction fans, and there was only one importer of English language books in the country (Servicio Lewis) and they only got new books once a month, and their SF list was …Continue reading “In the Mageworlds”
JAMES D. MACDONALD 