Something About the Hot Zone

Bad Knight.

Something About the British Museum

Celebrating centuries of stuff

Something About National #Chess Day

Check and mate!

August #JOHNBELLAIRSMONTH We Must!

Writer, blogger, vlogger, and one-time Bellairsia interview subject Richard Denney has declared August 2014 as John Bellairs Month. To celebrate he's getting the word out a month early and inviting a host of others to write, blog, vlog, and tweet (and so on) about 1989's The Chessmen of Doom.

Young Adult Books That Changed Our Lives

This week the CNN Living Staff published an article entitled Young Adult Books That Changed Our Lives.  Said staff "posed the question to members of the CNN Digital newsroom to find out which books have stuck with them since adolescence. To even things out, we sought input from the millennials in the newsroom, too." The published list includes some Judy Blume, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and Louise Fitzhugh's nearing fifty Harriet the Spy - plus The Face in the Frost, The House With a Clock in Its Walls, and - of all things - The Chessmen of Doom:

Alert: Johnny Dixon & SF Gateway

In what probably will be our last post for 2011, we make note of yet another round of Bellairs e-books. Yes, we mentioned the American editions published by eReads earlier this summer and now we’re pleased to pass word along about the UK counterparts.

Alert: Johnny Dixon & eReads

We often wonder what John’s reaction would have been to the Internet (to Wikipedia, to YouTube, to iSchtuff, and even the CompleatBellairs) and the rise of mobile electronic devices.

For someone who wrote a celebration of olfaction by describing a book as smelling like Old Spice talcum powder (and adding that “books that smelled that way were usually fun to read” [The House with a Clock in its Walls; 19]), it might be unfathomable for a book to exist without smells, without textures, without the chance of paper cuts, and without...well...paper.

Goreyana: The Chessmen of Doom

Notes from Goreyana about The Chessmen of Doom:

• For this title, Edward Gorey created a piece of artwork that is my favorite frontis illustration from the entire Bellairs series. When Mr. Gorey decided to sell his Bellairs art holdings, I was thrilled to find it amongst the pieces being offered, and this became the first "Bellairs" piece or art which I purchased. I love everything about this illustration. It is detailed, creepy, humorous, and even a little religious! It has all the bells and whistles for a Bellairs or Gorey collector.

The Chessmen of Death

We’re not comic book experts but this bit caught our eye. One of the stories in the Wonder Woman comic from September/October 1952 (#55) was entitled "The Chessmen of Doom". It appears to have been rewritten as The Chessmen of Death! for issue #208 (Oct. 1973). The only bit of story we've ever found is that the Chequerians play chess with entire planets as pieces.