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The author of Skulls in the Stars is a professor of physics, specializing in optical science, at UNC Charlotte. The blog covers topics in physics and optics, the history of science, classic pulp fantasy and horror fiction, and the surprising intersections between these areas. -
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Category Archives: Weird fiction
The Radiant Shell, by Paul Ernst
Another invisibility story! The number and variety of stories continues to amaze me. You know what we haven’t really seen yet? A good invisible spy story! “Raiders Invisible” came close, but its invisible spies were the bad guys; we need … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Mystery/thriller
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The Attack From Space, by Captain S.P. Meek
Yet another blog post about invisibility in fiction! Just as a reminder, this is to celebrate the completion of my book draft on the history of invisibility physics, coming next year (I hope). Let me recap and build upon a … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Science fiction
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The Invisible Robinhood, by Eando Binder
Okay, this story seemed at first to be a pretty silly and stupid invisibility tale, but it leads down a fascinating historical rabbit hole. So follow along… The setting: the city, late at night. A young couple in love are … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Mystery/thriller
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Terrors Unseen, by Harl Vincent
Yet another invisibility story! So many invisibility stories. So, in the list of stories we’ve looked at so far, we’ve seen invisible people, invisible monsters, invisible buildings, invisible cars, invisible dogs, and invisible spacecraft. But you now what we haven’t … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Science fiction
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The Invisible Master, by Edmond Hamilton
I keep finding new invisibility stories! Will I ever come to an end? Stay tuned! It is pretty clear at this point that stories about invisibility were a huge business in the early to mid 20th century, and every author … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Mystery/thriller
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The Little Man Who Wasn’t All There, by Robert Bloch
More invisibility! More invisibility fiction for the gods of invisibility fiction! Or something. Again, blogging about all the invisibility stories I’ve been coming across while finishing my book on invisibility physics. It seems that pretty much every important author of … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Weird fiction
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War with the Gizmos, by Murray Leinster
Yet another post about invisibility in fiction! So many stories I couldn’t mention in my upcoming book on the physics of invisibility, so you get to hear about the stories here. Time to talk about a real classic of science … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Science fiction
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The Cave of Horror, by Captain S.P. Meek
Yet another post about invisibility in fiction! Will I ever run out of these? I feel like I need to write another book just about invisibility fiction. So in my last post, I wrote about “Invisible Death”, which appeared in … Continue reading
Posted in Adventure fiction, Horror, Invisibility
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Invisible Death, by Anthony Pelcher
Back into some posts about invisibility in fiction, based on those stories that I didn’t talk about in my (hopefully) upcoming book about the history and physics of invisibility! If you’ve been reading this blog recently, you might think that … Continue reading
Posted in Invisibility, Mystery/thriller
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Private Eye, by “Lewis Padgett”
I thought I’d take a one day break from invisibility stories to talk about one of my favorite science fiction stories of all time: “Private Eye,” by Lewis Padgett, published in the January 1949 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It … Continue reading
Posted in Mystery/thriller, Science fiction
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Skulls in the Stars 