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The One Law Part 1
Vincent Lam had won the war against sleep a long time ago. Now he lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, counting off the hours and the minutes before Mad Max Wong summoned him. He got bored at exactly seven minutes past midnight. Time to do something more productive, he decided. He rolled off…
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H P Lovecraft and Robert E Howard: A Contrast in Horror
When one thinks of horror in the pulp age, the figure of H P Lovecraft inevitably comes to mind. A doyen in the then-emerging field of weird fiction, he conceived of many modern horror tropes, and through his prodigious works brought to life the genre of cosmic horror. But another pulp giant also contributed immensely…
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Appendix N: Robert E Howard, Masculinity and Morality
Robert E Howard stands astride the world of American literature as a forgotten titan. With hundreds of stories and poems to his name, he built a bibliography that dwarfs any ten modern writers by the age of thirty. He wrote in a vast array of genres, from Westerns to spicy romances, light-hearted humourous tales to…
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Should Homosexuality be Decriminalised in Singapore?
The repeal of Section 377 in India has sparked a debate in Singapore over Section 377A of the Penal Code, which outlaws sex between men, even if it were mutually consensual. Leading the charge to repeal is Johnson Ong, who filed a constitutional challenge against Section 377A. Ong’s belief that abolishing S377A will put an end…
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Lessons from Short Manga
Japanese manga is (in)famous for long-running series. Popular titles like One Piece, Hajime No Ippo and Naruto span hundreds of chapters and dozens of volumes. Even lesser-known titles may be graced with lifespans running to the low hundreds. This phenomenon is perfectly understandable: in the cut-throat profit-driven world of Japanese manga, the easiest way to make more money is to…
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The Green Bliss Part 11
11. The Green God The Temple of Aruk was unlike any temple James Wood had ever seen. A mossy mound four stories high, from a distance it looked like a hillock, one of countless others in the forest. But it was no natural feature: it was a face. First he saw the mouth. A gaping…