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WELCOME ONE AND ALL

This is my website and it's a rather modest one. Mostly, I wanted to post information and links involving my avocational interests. Vocationally, I am a Senior Lecturer at Arizona State University in the English Department where I teach a wide variety of literature and writing courses. I also teach an on-line science fiction course (the link is provided below).

These days I write mostly science fiction and have published stories in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Amazing Stories, and various little magazines. I am also a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America - the SFWA and the Society for Scientific Exploration. I have also written poetry and have published approximately 100 poems in journals such as The Georgia Review, The Seattle Review, and The Chariton Review.

In the 1990s I wrote exclusively classical music criticism, and published over 900 reviews is journals such as Andante.com, Pulse! Magazine, Classical Pulse Magazine, The American Record Guide, and ClassicsToday.com.

For some sample reviews from Andante.com click here.

For some sample music reviews from amazon.com, click here for reviews from 1999. Or here for reviews from 2000. Or here for reviews from 2001.

(Click on Gerhard, Schnittke, or Tippett, to see what they look like when posted on amazon.com.)

Sample music reviews from
The American Record Guide can be found by clicking here.

For some sample reviews from ClassicsToday.com, click here.

My favorite kind of classical music is mostly in the 20th (and 21st) century. I prefer orchestral music to solo or vocal, though I have written reviews of in all solo genres as well.

Some of my favorite composers are Dmitri Shostakovich, William Alwyn, Paul Hindemith, Serge Prokofieff, Valintin Silvestrov, Witold Lutoslawski, Arnold Bax, Arvo Part, Carl Nielsen, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Samuel Barber, Roy Harris, Robert Simpson, Charles Villiers Stanford, Morton Feldman, Toru Takamitsu, Takashi Yoshimatsu, Henri Dutellieux, and Einojuhani Rautavaara and most kinds of Minimalism music. I tend to prefer Terry Riley over Steve Reich, John Adams over Philip Glass (although I do like Glass' Low Symphony). I also like unclassifiables such as Daniel Asia, and Michael Torke. I am also a fan of movie composers, particularly Jerome Moross, Bernard Hermann, John Barry, and Elmer Bernstein. As for pop music, my tastes range widely. Here are a few I like: Caravan, The Police, Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Bjork, Dead Can Dance and Neil Young. I also like Synergy (Larry Fast), Tangerine Dream and quite a lot of Ambient music being written today. I listen almost exclusively to the Chill channel at www.radioio.com which is one of the best internet radio sites on the web.

In the meantime, I've also provided some links to my books that remain in print or are otherwise available in print-on-demand format.

I am a long-time resident of the Great Sonora Desert (i.e. Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, Arizona) and will probably die here. Besides the music listed above, my other interests include cats, pulp magazines, rain, Thoreau, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Browning, John O'Hara, Sinclair Lewis, Doc Savage, and my wife, Cecily, our kitty, Sheba, (and three very special Bunnies May, Kay and Bee, but that's another story).

If you wish to communicate to me, feel free to do so. I'm at: paulcook@cox.net or at paul.cook@asu.edu.

Here is the link to my science fiction course at Arizona State University.

ENGLISH 369: SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES

in which anyone can enroll. That means you! It can be reached here or by clicking on the title above. Feel free to visit.

To see some of the courses I've taught at ASU, click here.

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Scans of Doc Savage
Covers