Japanese readers have been writing about Lafferty for decades. Alongside book reviews are translators’ recollections, convention reports, and detailed accounts of novels read in English. Some writers examine the cruelty, sorrow, and religious belief within his comedy; others describe the pleasure or frustration of reading him. Collected here are links to their writing, with English descriptions.
In a 2002 memorial discussion, Matsuzaki reported a small reader survey in which favorites were scattered across more than forty stories. The discussion also considers communication, perception, and loneliness, and asks how adequately the usual descriptions of Lafferty as a science-fiction writer or teller of tall tales account for his work. Memorial discussion, 2002.
At the 2012 Kyoto SF Festival, participants discussed how American editors and Japanese translators had shaped the Lafferty known in Japan. They questioned his reputation as a drunken comic storyteller and stressed his learning and religious convictions. The choice of stories for translation, they suggested, had helped determine how readers understood him. Kyoto SF Festival report, 2012.
Ren Hanna makes a similar complaint in his 2021 essay. He argues that the familiar description of humorous tall tales obscures the cruelty, terror, and sadness of the stories, and proposes an introductory collection that would give those qualities their due. Other writers compare Lafferty with Chesterton, Latin American fiction, Ultraman, and manga. Several trace his influence on contemporary Japanese SF. Ren Hanna, “A Phantom Story Collection”.
The 228 entries are arranged by subject and principal work, then by date. Japanese article titles appear with English translations. English titles supplied for Japanese collections are descriptive unless an English original is identified. Dates distinguish events from later reports or reprints where possible. Incomplete and unavailable sources are marked.
General criticism and influence
雀部 and 松崎 · 2002-08
ラファティ氏追悼ブックレビュー
雀部 and Matsuzaki discuss Lafferty’s difficulty and appeal, his treatment of communication and pseudo-science, and his relationship to conventional SF. Matsuzaki describes a reader survey in which “Slow Tuesday Night” led a widely scattered field of favorites. He also explains that recurring characters drew him into untranslated stories. The discussion compares Lafferty with Cordwainer Smith and questions whether the familiar tall-tale label adequately describes his work.
柳下毅一郎 (Yanashita) · 2009-03-13
アラン・ムーア、ラファティを剽窃する
Yanashita relays an Alan Moore interview in which Moore recalled unknowingly reusing a Lafferty gambling plot in an Abelard Snazz comic, then apologizing and withdrawing that episode. Yanashita admires the response and tentatively identifies the source as the Roulettenwelt episode of Space Chantey. That identification remains his conjecture.
放克犬博士 (funkenstein) · 2014-10-28
SFマガジン 2014年12月号＜R・A・ラファティ 生誕100年記念特集＞
The writer surveys the centenary issue’s three stories, interviews, correspondence, essays, untranslated novels, and thematic guide to the translated stories. The review welcomes criticism that helps readers move beyond Lafferty’s reputation as a humorous fabulist. Masahiro Yamamoto’s account of narrative receives particular praise for its comparisons to classical literature and its demonstration of how he arrives at an interpretation.
磯崎愛 (Ai Isozaki; florentine) · 2015-02-14
わたしの好きな〈未来の文学〉
In a survey of Kokusho’s series, Isozaki connects Lafferty with Wolfe and with older Christian literature. She wonders whether traditions of martyrdom help explain the bodily cruelty in Lafferty, expressly offering a personal speculation. She recalls Space Chantey and prepares to read Fourth Mansions, stressing that her affection does not make reading him emotionally light or easy.
磯崎愛 (Ai Isozaki; florentine) · 2015-02-17
我ら「ラファティ友愛団」！ またはわたしの「ラファティ・ラブ」
Isozaki links Lafferty’s scale to Dante and forms of storytelling older than the novel. Drawing on Japanese criticism and the centenary gathering, she locates him among dialogues, Renaissance mixed genres, Rabelais, Swift, and Chesterton. She contrasts Wolfe’s apparent guidance of the reader with Lafferty’s refusal to escort us, and treats his historical imagination as inseparable from the force of his stories.
zzz_zzzz · 2019-08-28
聖書でなくて；京大SF幻想研『伊藤計劃トリビュート』感想
The greatly expanded appendices trace Lafferty’s presence in Yuichi Sakanaga’s fiction. They find warmth alongside violent estrangement, and an overwhelming grandeur inadequately represented by the familiar comic cover images. Discussion of Sakanaga’s Narnia tribute connects its enclosed world with “Incased in Ancient Rind” and the diminished world of Lafferty’s 1979 speech. The article also lists several contributions to the centenary tribute volume, while acknowledging that the blogger had not obtained that volume.
卜部理玲 · 2019-09-18
『なめらかな世界と、その敵』の感想と解説（ネタバレなし）
Rirei Urabe’s review of Ren Hanna’s collection identifies “The Hole on the Corner” as an acknowledged antecedent of the title story, quoted in its epigraph. He recommends Lafferty’s parallel-world story to readers attracted to Hanna’s work.
杉本穂高 interviewing 伴名練 · 2019-11-11
『なめらかな世界と、その敵』伴名練が語る、SFの現在地「社会の激変でSFも期待されている」
Hanna explains how “The Hole on the Corner” prompted an abandoned story about parallel worlds joined by openings. After another writer published a story using a similar mechanism, Hanna replaced the openings with movement of consciousness between worlds. That revision became the central device of A Smooth World and Her Enemies.
Related links: Additional page 1 · Additional page 2
zzz_zzzz · 2020-03-10
日記；2020/03/03～03/09
The blogger qualifies the comparisons made in an earlier essay on Hanna and Lafferty. Although the examples were drawn from stories Hanna had named, similar parallels might be found in many other works by so prolific an author. The post asks whether a limited acquaintance has made the resemblances seem more decisive than they are.
zzz_zzzz · 2020-03-24
SFのロマンを剥ぐ；短編集『なめらかな世界と、その敵』感想
The blogger incorporates an earlier comparison of Hanna with Lafferty into a longer review and an argument about science fiction. The title story’s close attention to a girl’s feelings is contrasted with the detached narration of Hole on the Corner. “Funnyfingers” and “Interurban Queen” provide further comparisons involving extraordinary abilities, separation, paradise, and constraint. The blogger argues that Hanna transforms these elements, distinguishing confirmed homages from suggested parallels.
伴名練 (Ren Hanna) · 2021-11-08
祝・ラファティ・ルネサンス！ ラファティ・ラブ・エッセイ再録①：伴名練「幻の短篇集」
Hanna imagines an introductory anthology that would bring Lafferty to readers outside his established following. He argues that the familiar Japanese image of an amusing teller of tall tales understates the cruelty, terror, and sadness essential to the stories. His choices emphasize emotional accessibility, with particular attention to children, doubles, and “Funnyfingers”. He also compares Lafferty’s paradoxical logic to Chesterton’s.
坂永雄一 (Yuichi Sakanaga) · 2021-11-09
祝・ラファティ・ルネサンス！ ラファティ・ラブ・エッセイ再録②：坂永雄一「ラファティとコミックについて」
Sakanaga begins with the horror that Japanese marketing as humorous SF can obscure, then considers comics as an extension of Lafferty’s oral and popular traditions. Austro’s drawings and the comic books exchanged in “Cliffs That Laughed” support his argument. He notices the alternation between verbal performance and striking visual scenes, imagines a comics treatment of Fourth Mansions, and considers the religious and metaphysical implications of Lafferty’s work.
washibane · 2021-12-20
読書日記：2021/12/17～12/20＋α
The section on Kamogawa G Books, volume 3 praises Hideyo Motegi’s Lafferty tribute 世界の穴は世界で for adopting a manner of telling without becoming mere imitation. The combination of seemingly outrageous invention with a governing logic recalls Lafferty, producing both grand visions and emotional urgency. For the reviewer, the resemblance lies chiefly in the narration.
年間読書人 · 2021-12-20
牧眞司編 「ラファティ・ベスト・コレクション」 ： 愛嬌のある〈ホラ吹き怪獣〉 Ｒ・Ａ・ラファティについて
Reading the two-volume Best Collection for the first time, Nenkandokushojin hears loneliness beneath Lafferty's boisterous humor. The essay compares him to Seabozu, the displaced ghost monster in Ultraman who longs to return to his resting place. His grotesque but endearing characters become fellow exiles from another world. It also records how comic Japanese cover art had initially discouraged the reviewer from reading him.
zzz_zzzz · 2022-01-12
昨年秋～正月にアップした感想文の感想戦と、1月中に買いたいもの
Reading Hanna and Sakanaga prompts the blogger to reconsider how Lafferty’s established comic reputation can obscure a reader’s immediate fear. The discussion revisits Hole on the Corner and Sky, asking how cheerful narration accommodates horrifying events. A later section draws on the translated Schweitzer interview about writing until a story explodes, putting it aside, and returning to it. The blogger suggests that such intervals may help explain Lafferty’s abrupt changes of direction and extraordinary persistence of interest.
一田和樹のメモ帳 · 2022-01-26
私の好きな本
Kazuki Ichida names “Seven-Day Terror” and “Slow Tuesday Night” as his two favorite very short stories. He prizes their audacious turns and clean endings, describing the former’s final joke as an artistic standard he would love to equal. He is frustrated to find that even a published short-short writer could be unfamiliar with Lafferty.
年間読書人 · 2022-02-11
R.A.ラファティ 『とうもろこし倉の幽霊』 ： ホントに騒々しい〈ポルターガイスト〉
Nenkandokushojin argues that Lafferty deserves readers beyond the SF audience. The essay links his noisy humor, lack of pretension, and undertone of solitude to what it calls popular or vernacular Catholicism, finding affinities with Latin American literature. It distinguishes lived folk belief from ecclesiastical authority. The account of faith and folklore is the reviewer’s own interpretation of Catholicism.
キップル（佐藤 りん） · 2023-08-29
書評『なめらかな世界と、その敵』
In a review of Ren Hanna’s collection, Kipple reports the title story’s debt to “The Hole on the Corner”. An earlier conception followed Lafferty’s connecting-hole device more closely before a different Japanese story prompted a change of mechanism. The account reports this history secondhand.
阿久沢牟礼 · 2025-07-07
ぼくのかんがえたさいきょうの短編集
Within a proposed anthology of favorite stories, Akuzawa Mure calls Lafferty one of his ideals of literature because entertainment and artistic depth coexist so fully. He argues that the strange inventions should not obscure Lafferty's persistent criticism of humanity and questions about happiness. “Boomer Flats” becomes his example, described as a Lafferty version of The Blue Bird, with the sought-for marvel unexpectedly close to home.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
海外文献より
The page presents Japanese accounts of how English-language reference books describe Lafferty, including the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Encyclopedia of Fantasy. It makes their critical judgments and bibliographical claims available to Japanese readers.
The novels
Annals of Klepsis
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · 2001-04-01
クレプシス年代記
Matsuzaki gives a chapter-by-chapter account, then reads the novel as a gathering of Lafferty’s inhabited worlds. He stresses its mixture of cruelty, humor, colorful illusion, and apparently purposeless detail. He compares its uncertainty about reality with Philip K. Dick, admits that several central explanations remain obscure, and nevertheless strongly recommends a Japanese translation.
Apocalypses
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · 2002-07-23
黙示録
This unfinished guide summarizes the first five chapters of Where Have You Been, Sandaliotis? It follows Constantine Quiche through a materializing country, suspicious memories, fabricated identities, and elaborate deceptions. The introductory judgment stresses the dreamlike ease with which characters accept impossible circumstances. The Three Armageddons of Enniscorthy Sweeny appears as a heading, without a corresponding completed account.
Arrive at Easterwine
inthewall · 2006-01-18
ラファティのイースターワインで悪魔が舟歌
The writer distinguishes the dark cruelty of The Devil Is Dead from Easterwine’s more humorous difficulty. Neither becomes fully intelligible, despite plain prose and helpful Christian explanations. Space Chantey is recommended as a more accessible first novel, with its black comedy illustrated through the lotus-eaters. The post also discusses the stories in the 2002 memorial issue of SF Magazine and calls for more Japanese collections.
磯崎愛 (Ai Isozaki; florentine) · 2010-11-11
エラスムスやトマス・モアの出てくる小説についてとか
Isozaki recommends Past Master to readers of classics who do not ordinarily read science fiction. She reproduces Masahiro Yamamoto’s account of Lafferty, quoted in Nozomi Ohmori’s Easterwine afterword: fiction belonging to an older world in which dialogue, science, fantasy, pamphlet, and human observation had not separated into modern genres.
放克犬博士 (funkenstein) · 2014-11-09
『イースターワインに到着』 R・A・ラファティ
After leaving the book unread for perhaps twenty years, the writer reads it around the centenary celebration. Epikt’s autobiography still resists summary, but recurrent concerns become visible across the novels: escalating action, joined minds, and human transformation. The review argues that Lafferty’s singular imagination nevertheless overlaps with some of science fiction’s strongest habits of thought.
The Devil Is Dead
大野万紀 (Maki Ohno) · 1986-11
悪魔は死んだ（ＳＦアドベンチャー１９８６年１１月号）
Ohno argues that the novel resists both conventional plot reading and familiar approaches to literary absurdity. He sees it as a descendant of ancient imaginative storytelling whose materials can be enjoyed even when their final pattern remains elusive. The review follows the blurring of oppositions such as good and evil, truth and falsehood, and life and death. It also suggests, explicitly as a speculation, that Japanese readers may find this ambiguity congenial, like listening to an extravagant rakugo performance. The surviving Neanderthals provide a partial guide through its allegory.
bqsfgame · 2005-11-19
×悪魔は死んだを読む
The reviewer approaches the novel as a murder mystery involving Finnegan, Seaworthy, and a devil they remember killing. The reviewer finds that the eventual disclosures fail to make the plot cohere and that its multiplying incidents never settle into a satisfying whole. The reviewer still feels Lafferty’s attraction but prefers its concentration in a thirty-page story to a lengthy novel.
The Elliptical Grave
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · 2001-12-03
楕円形の墓所
The guide introduces the expedition to the Valley of the White Goat through its theory that humanity began with richer language and culture than it now possesses. It emphasizes academic slapstick, proliferating named characters, and acrobats sending messages through dreams and television. It compares the reading experience to following a comic strip, while tracing the journey into an enclosed archaeological mystery.
Fourth Mansions
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · 2001-02-16
第四の館
A detailed synopsis ends by questioning the usefulness of synopsis itself. Matsuzaki argues that the novel’s attraction lies in the details a plot summary removes: verbal play, unstable relations between sanity and madness, recurrent characters, and allusions to other Lafferty works. He describes Freddy’s integration of four forces but rejects a simple division of the story into good and evil.
BP, 究極映像研究所 · 2013-04-10
新刊メモ R・A・ラファティ、柳下毅一郎訳『第四の館』
BP reproduces the publisher’s announcement and celebrates the prospect of reading Fourth Mansions during Golden Week. After Serpent’s Egg, BP is already reading Past Master and imagines a spring devoted to three Lafferty novels. The notice links to the subsequent full review.
ウンベルケナシ · 2013-04-29
R,A.ﾗﾌｧﾃｨ『第四の館』
The blogger argues that Lafferty’s jokes can disguise an impact that remains real however playfully it is named. Fourth Mansions concerns spiritual transformation and the possibility of becoming more than human through freely accepting the world’s suffering and joy before God, culminating in spiritual marriage. Its comedy therefore cannot be dismissed as harmless nonsense.
大野万紀 · 2013-05
内輪 第273回：『第四の館』
Ohno admires the novel's literary power while confronting its difficult Catholic theology and rejection of modern political ideologies. He describes the rival supernatural groups and asks where ordinary humanity survives within their struggle. His comparison with Greg Egan makes opposed understandings of change central, and he recommends the translator's explanatory afterword as a guide.
津田文夫 · 2013-05
続・サンタロガ・バリア 第131回：『第四の館』
Tsuda attends to the plural in the English title and its connection with Teresa, then contrasts the novel's recognizably 1960s atmosphere with Serpent's Egg. He recalls the Ace Specials context and reflects on the gap between the readily enjoyable translated stories and the elusive novels. Their deeper meaning remains uncertain to him, but their attraction persists.
BP, 究極映像研究所 · 2013-05-03
感想 R・A・ラファティ、柳下毅一郎訳『第四の館』
BP emphasizes the novel's darker suspense, psychic intrusion, and movement between sanity and madness, recommending it to some Philip K. Dick readers. The absence of Lafferty's disruptive children makes it feel unusually adult. Although impressed by its invented quotations and evolutionary conclusion, BP prefers the oceanic imagery of Serpent's Egg and treats the two novels as contrasting developments of related concerns.
morningrain · 2013-06-02
R・A・ラファティ『第四の館』
The reviewer finds the novel unsettling because its conspiracies cannot be treated simply as comic devices. Unlike Pynchon, Lafferty seems to invest them with religious seriousness. The account identifies Teresa of Avila and the four animal groups through the translator’s afterword, but remains uncertain where the joking ends and belief begins. Understanding the plot has not made its theological world easier to enter.
橋本輝幸 (Teruyuki Hashimoto) · 2013-06-06
いざ乗りこもう秘密の城へ：『第四の館』『蛇の卵』
Hashimoto recommends Fourth Mansions as a suspenseful and comparatively navigable introduction to Lafferty’s novels. The competing secret societies appear to possess their own consistent logics; he compares their simultaneous perspectives to a Picasso painting and treats Freddy as a seeker of truth. A shorter discussion links Serpent’s Egg through its superhuman children, conspiracies, and detective-story elements. His emphasis falls on competing interpretations rather than a single final explanation.
Related links: Additional page 1
水鏡子 · 2013-10
みだれめも・出納日記 13年10月：『第四の館』『蛇の卵』
Comparing the two novels, Suikyoshi prefers the scale and dazzling vision of Serpent's Egg, despite its somewhat repetitive succession of character portraits. Fourth Mansions seems more restrained and conventionally dramatic, shaped by commercial SF's demands for action, romance, and a manageable length. The review considers how editorial pressure could intensify rather than merely restrict Lafferty's imagination.
放克犬博士 (funkenstein) · 2013-12-23
SFマガジン読者賞投票(第25回)してみた
In the separate annual book poll, Serpent’s Egg ranks third and Fourth Mansions fifth among translated works. The appearance of two Lafferty novels in one year is welcomed as extraordinary, though the reader finds Fourth Mansions difficult and emotionally distant. The more deadpan and cruel Lafferty represented by Seishinsha’s editions feels more congenial.
yudutarou · 2014-12-13
第四の館 (未来の文学)/R・A・ラファティ
Reading without preparation, the blogger initially sees a startling anticipation of contemporary conspiracy theories and prophetic claims. Subsequent research suggests that Lafferty may have meant the supernatural conflict more seriously than first supposed. Either way, the unstable boundary between delusion and reality makes the novel’s madness powerfully attractive.
磯崎愛 (Ai Isozaki; florentine) · 2015-02-15
ラファティ『第四の館』よんだよー！
Isozaki finds the plot relatively straightforward but the novel frightening enough to produce nightmares, with unusually strong impressions of eroticism and death. Her notes connect its painters, Teresa, Gilson, and possible medieval intellectual background with Warburg’s images, Joyce, and Aquinas. These are associations and questions, not demonstrated sources, arising from her interest in the novel’s historical consciousness and premodern thought.
てっちゃん · 2020-06-03
ラファティの小説「第四の館」。前衛的な近代美術のような本
The reviewer admires Freddy’s purity and persistence but becomes lost in the four contending groups. Christian learning is identified as a major obstacle for an unprepared Japanese reader. Comparing the novel with avant-garde art and Pynchon, the reviewer proposes experiencing its world without requiring a readily intelligible plot, while admitting a personal preference for narrative clarity.
akinesia · 2021-06-13
R・A・ラファティ『第四の館』感想
The reviewer follows the four contending groups and Freddy’s transformation while struggling to understand the religious allegory. The encounter between conspiracy and psychiatry is singled out as particularly effective. Despite uncertainty about the mansions and cycles of destruction, the reviewer remained absorbed throughout, attributing that pleasure to the novel’s force and the excitement of its conspiratorial imagination.
Past Master
水鏡子 · 2000-06 · Reprint of a 1992–1993 review
雑多繚乱・ぞくぞく：『トマス・モアの大冒険』
This reprinted review finds Lafferty's distinctive storytelling more important than a plot summary of Thomas More's summons to Astrobe. The characters move exuberantly toward foreknown deaths, while their extravagant speeches make even conventional passages momentarily restful. Suikyoshi is tempted to declare it the year's best SF, reserving judgment only because another Lafferty collection is expected.
moko a moko · 2024-01-20
トマスモアの大冒険 パストマスター（著：R・A・ラファティ）【読書紹介の提出を３回拒否すれば死刑にされてしまうんだからな「その男は提出期限の最後の日にあえて遊ぶ勇気を持つだろう」（そうだ、僕はそのような男だ）】
Moko a moko recommends Past Master as slapstick comedy with serious philosophical force. The account centers on More’s journey into a materially comfortable future that excludes religion and on the repeated danger of execution for principled refusal. The reviewer compares the flavor to Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle and remembers an impulsive purchase as possibly one of their best.
The Reefs of Earth
水鏡子 · 2002-10
みだれめも 第149回：『地球礁』
Suikyoshi distinguishes an easily explained good novel from a disorienting, possibly great one. The Reefs of Earth might be read as an ordinary rural murder story, yet the children's imaginative vision repeatedly reveals different worlds within the same small place. The review praises Lafferty's unmatched narrative power and the breadth of the 1960s SF culture that welcomed him.
大野万紀 · 2002-11
内輪 第147回：『地球礁』
Ohno finds this unusually accessible among Lafferty's novels and praises the translator's afterword, while recommending that readers listen to the storytelling instead of reducing it to a plot. He explicitly responds to Suikyoshi's earlier review, questioning whether Lafferty's historical acceptance as SF demonstrates the genre's breadth or its former need to enlarge a small readership.
oldstylenewtype · 2011-03-06
地球礁 ::R.A.ラファティ
Enthusiasm after Space Chantey meets renewed difficulty. The children’s murderous verses, uncertain origins, and casual attitude toward death resist explanation, recalling the reviewer’s experience of Brautigan’s In Watermelon Sugar. The afterword makes Irish and religious knowledge seem necessary. The book remains impossible to dislike entirely, but the reviewer clearly prefers Space Chantey’s accessibility.
放克犬博士 (funkenstein) · 2013-05-27
『地球礁』 R・A・ラファティ
Returning to this novel after Fourth Mansions, the writer reads it as a story of an estranged family whose strangeness remains compatible with familiar science-fiction structures. Crime and pursuit connect the novels, but the smaller scale makes Reefs easier to enter. The children’s departure by boat is singled out as a high point, and the crowded cast as a continuing difficulty.
牧眞司 (Shinji Maki) · 2016-04-19
さもしい世界を掃除してやろう！ きょうからぼくもプーカ人！
Maki presents The Reefs of Earth as an enjoyable adventure whose children’s ambition to remake the world invites wholehearted sympathy. He then traces its combination of children’s adventure, brutal crime fiction, possible invasion story, and minority literature. The alliance between Pucas and Native Americans matters because both occupy society’s margins and can judge its prevailing culture. He also praises the audible presence of a storyteller rather than an impersonal narrative voice.
mmpolo · 2016-06-23
ラファティ『地球礁』を読む
The alien family’s effortless violence and magical verses strike the reviewer as tall tales unconcerned with the usual work of making speculative events persuasive. Comparing Lafferty with Lem’s Ijon Tichy stories, the reviewer judges Lem’s exaggeration philosophically more substantial and Lafferty’s range more limited.
yudutarou · 2018-02-18
地球礁 (河出文庫) ／ R．A．ラファティ著、柳下毅一郎訳
The Pucas can be read as aliens, an ethnic group, or religious outsiders. Their children’s uncertain border between fantasy and reality produces both extravagant humor and an enjoyable adventure. The reviewer especially admires the transformation toward the end into something like a bloody crime novel, and is prompted to return to other neglected Lafferty material.
蒜山目賀田（エッセイなど） · 2025-03-22
この1年の100冊未満・その２
In an annual reading survey, Hiruzen Megata proposes two ways to approach The Reefs of Earth: an alien family unable to live among humans, or children perceiving reality through their own conception of the world. The note values the resulting structure as something that fiction uniquely makes possible.
Serpent's Egg
大野万紀 · 2013-04
内輪 第272回：『蛇の卵』
Ohno praises the novel as a highly enjoyable masterpiece of mythic characters and extravagant images. Animals, humans, angels, and computers share extraordinary intelligence, while death and chronology obey unfamiliar rules. He recommends attending to the characters' successive displays rather than treating the mystery plot as the main attraction, and compares the ensemble with Japanese adventure and manga traditions.
津田文夫 · 2013-04
続・サンタロガ・バリア 第130回：『蛇の卵』
Tsuda sees the novel as a culmination of Lafferty's stories about formidable children. He praises Inoue's ability to preserve the unmistakable narrative voice in careful Japanese and compares this achievement with Asakura and Ito's more acrobatic work on the stories. The simultaneous arrival of Fourth Mansions prompts him to wish for a new magazine celebration of Lafferty.
BP, 究極映像研究所 · 2013-04-01
感想 R.A.ラファティ、井上央訳『蛇の卵』
BP describes the novel's oceanic images as a vast, many-layered structure assembled from an unconscious world, then unsettled by its own narration. The post compares Lafferty with Haruki Murakami, Ferdinand Cheval, and Henry Darger, while distinguishing their relationships to an audience. A possible connection to the Druidic serpent's egg is offered as speculation, explicitly requiring further investigation.
すける (Sukeru) · 2013-04-08
『蛇の卵』Ｒ・Ａ・ラファティ
Initially apprehensive about sustaining Lafferty’s difficulty across a novel, Sukeru finds that Serpent’s Egg connects images that seemed isolated in the stories. Reading back and forth between short and long fiction helps make sense of both. The review singles out the kangaroo court, threatened transformation, and anticipated resurrection, and considers “And Read the Flesh Between the Lines” a possible key to the larger body of work.
放克犬博士 (funkenstein) · 2013-04-23
『蛇の卵』 R・A・ラファティ
The reviewer begins with the puzzle of which extraordinary child will become the serpent’s egg, then finds genre categories overwhelmed by talking creatures, machines, circus imagery, and displaced time. The ending is startlingly metafictional. Even without commanding the whole design, the writer finds the details compelling and identifies cruelty and lyricism as central to Lafferty, especially in the elephants’ fate.
Sindbad
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · 2008-05-13
シンドバッド13回目の航海
Matsuzaki describes the novel as Lafferty’s transformation of the Arabian Nights, connecting its Baghdad adventures with the inhabited-worlds stories. He follows the false Sindbad, Scheherazade, Tumblehome, the imprisoned devils, and the succession struggle. He draws attention to the hero’s repeated helplessness and to the way the opening declarations of failure eventually become intelligible.
Space Chantey
大野万紀 · 2005-11
内輪 第183回：『宇宙舟歌』
Ohno celebrates the novel as a monumental American tall tale, full of killing, eating, cheating, and comic destruction. He hears Lafferty’s voice rather than Homer’s and associates the imagery with Hideo Azuma’s manga. He calls it an undeniable masterpiece while acknowledging the difficulty of explaining its extravagant pleasures.
水鏡子 · 2005-11
みだれめも 第184回：『宇宙舟歌』
Suikyoshi argues that the Odyssey supplies a firm structure against which Lafferty can release his inventions freely. The linked episodes make this novel easier to enjoy than works that accumulate their own increasingly elaborate logic. Knowledge of the classical source enriches the transformations; the review also invokes Calvino and Dunsany and names the book the year's outstanding discovery.
津田文夫 · 2005-11
続・サンタロガ・バリア 第45回：『宇宙舟歌』
Tsuda finds the destructive imaginative force of the early stories fully present in this early novel. He acknowledges passages that remain difficult even in Yanashita’s translation and particularly likes the Laestrygonian and Atlas episodes. He also places the book among an unusually strong year’s translated SF.
BP, 究極映像研究所 · 2005-11-13
R・A・ラファティ『宇宙舟歌』柳下毅一郎訳
BP reads the novel as a cosmic Odyssey whose pleasures lie in extravagant images and escalating impossibilities. The reviewer argues that Lafferty seems to inhabit the logic of his invented worlds, whereas other writers of fantastic fiction seem to stand outside theirs. BP also compares him with Norio Nakai and criticizes the Japanese cover’s presentation of the novel to literary readers.
doshin · 2005-11-18
『宇宙舟歌』ラファティ／柳下毅一郎
The reviewer places the book among voyages and extravagant adventures, invoking The Hunting of the Snark, Moby-Dick, Verne, Rabelais, and Gulliver. Roadstrum’s refusal to accept defeat, even in hell, supplies the essential comic energy. Lafferty turns the Odyssey into a reckless mythic adventure.
morningrain · 2006-01-10
R.A.ラファティ『宇宙舟歌』読了
The reviewer praises the scale of invention as something beyond ordinary slapstick or literary parody. The repeatedly killed and resurrected giants and the man who must perceive the universe to sustain it exemplify the expansive ideas. The Odyssey provides a recognizable framework, but the pleasure lies in the extravagance with which Lafferty exceeds it.
globalhead · 2006-06-26
宇宙舟歌 ／ R・A・ラファティ
The reviewer describes a sequence of outrageous voyages populated by spacefaring versions of Homeric monsters and gods. The sailors themselves seem almost divine, cheerfully killing and dying beyond ordinary human limits. Enjoyment depends on accepting the book as a spacious, comic fable. Readers expecting suspense or physical plausibility are likely to miss its pleasures.
hayamonogurai · 2009-12-20
『宇宙舟歌』/R・A・ラファティ
The reviewer finds that the novel’s recurrent disasters create little conventional suspense but remain compulsively readable. Its disorderly adventures recall Amos Tutuola and its intelligent deflation recalls Douglas Adams, though both comparisons are offered cautiously. Homeric references, comic dialogue, repeated deaths and recoveries, and the intervening songs supply the pleasure.
oldstylenewtype · 2011-01-20
宇宙舟歌 /R.A.ラファティ
Space Chantey reverses this blogger’s earlier disappointment with Nine Hundred Grandmothers. The easygoing conversation, absence of conventional solemnity amid repeated deaths, and the ship’s memorable button make the novel immediately enjoyable. The reviewer now wants to revisit the earlier collection and read more Lafferty.
磯崎愛 (Ai Isozaki; florentine) · 2011-02-18
史上最強〈どーん！〉ボタン（ラファティ『宇宙舟歌』）、または「レイフェルおじさん」とわたし
Isozaki conducts an imaginary conversation with Uncle Raphael. The button, puns, mythological borrowings, Tulsa, and refusal of final endings prompt the exchange. She sees Lafferty restoring heroes to the spacious world of epic and refusing to let their adventures be reduced to a completed, diminished life. The conversation is fictional.
akinesia · 2021-06-12
R・A・ラファティ『宇宙舟歌』感想
The review treats Space Chantey as a comic heroic narrative whose sources extend beyond the Odyssey to Norse and Arabian mythology. Its alternation of courage, absurd reversals, cannibalism, and impossible physics makes it work as entertainment without requiring laborious interpretation. The closing suggestion is that space opera, pushed far enough, becomes epic poetry.
清水裕美子; 島田美里; 松本かおり; 佐久間素子; 延命ゆり子; 新冨麻衣子; 細野淳 · Undated
宇宙舟歌
Seven short reviews disagree about Space Chantey. Enthusiastic readers compare its pace and jokes to disreputable cinema and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; others struggle to join its exuberance or find its marvels insufficiently fresh. Misato Shimada particularly admires the defeat of the witch’s philosophy, seeing the clash of ideas as fiercer than physical combat.
The Three Armageddons of Enniscorthy Sweeny
山形浩生 (Hiroo Yamagata) · 2025-10-28
R.A.ラファティ『エニスコーシー・スウィーニーの三つのハルマゲドン』
Translating the novella changes Yamagata’s estimate of its importance. He reads its unrealized wars as evidence of Lafferty’s conviction that the twentieth century has gone wrong and that a better, diamond age has been stolen. Sweeny becomes a figure for the writer, whose representations both contain destructive possibilities and bring them closer to realization. The post directly revises his earlier, less favorable judgment.
Where Have You Been, Sandaliotis?
山形浩生 (Hiroo Yamagata) · 2025-10-10
ラファティ『どこにいってたサンダリオティス？』
Yamagata introduces his translation and describes the novel as an unusually accessible Lafferty adventure involving fraud, alternate realities, Monaco, and a peninsula assembled from illusion. He finds its theological commitments less obtrusive than those of Archipelago or Fourth Mansions, while wishing the final defeat of the swindlers had received fuller treatment. His initial dismissal of its companion novella is reconsidered in the next post.
Stories and collections
A Lafferty Reader: どろぼう熊の惑星
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-09-04
「どろぼう熊の惑星」R・A・ラファティ 感想その1(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate identifies the particularly frightening development in “This Grand Carcass Yet” as machines treating people as replaceable components. “About a Secret Crocodile” raises questions about unconscious persuasion and the manipulation of public life. “Condillac's Statue” prompts reflection on conscience and the destruction of a morally exceptional being, with a comparison to Wilde's “The Happy Prince.”
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-09-23
「どろぼう熊の惑星」R・A・ラファティ 感想その2(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate responds most strongly to “Groaning Hinges of the World,” whose reversals turn comic invention into plunder and massacre. The victims resume their own predatory conduct afterward, making the story, in Hotate's reading, a bleak account of human behavior. Other entries consider belief in floating islands, destruction disguised as happiness, and the discovery of the world's boundaries.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-10-11
「どろぼう熊の惑星」R・A・ラファティ 感想その3(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate finds “Days of Grass, Days of Straw” difficult but imaginatively rewarding, and notices Austro's reappearance across stories. “Puddle on the Floor” offers a welcome change of pace without losing its disturbing implications. The title story is admired initially, but the reviewer objects to the explanation of the thieving bears, preferring the unsettling creatures to remain less fully accounted for.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-10-29
「どろぼう熊の惑星」R・A・ラファティ 感想その4(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate closes the collection with comments on a bottled genie, a castle acquired through chess, a literal fountain of knowledge, and grotesque alien intervention. The reviewer especially enjoys the literalized metaphor in “泉が干あがったとき” and its connection with another story in the volume. Hotate judges the collection unusually strong and describes its prevailing mode as grotesque humor.
芝田文乃 · 2021-11-14
レム『インヴィンシブル』とラファティ「どろぼう熊の惑星」
Polish translator Ayano Shibata mentions a reader's comparison of Lem's The Invincible with Lafferty's “Thieving Bear Planet”. She finds the juxtaposition interesting but does not develop it. The brief post includes a photograph.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
どろぼう熊の惑星
Matsuzaki argues that Japanese readers’ image of Lafferty was partly created by the selections and translations of Hisashi Asakura and Norio Ito. He questions Nozomi Omori’s sharp distinction between the short stories and novels, suggesting that it fits the translated selection better than the whole corpus.
Among the Hairy Earthmen: 子供たちの午後
放克犬博士 (funkenstein) · 2007-01-14
『子供たちの午後』 R・A・ラファティ
The reviewer finds the Japanese collection’s gentle title misleading: these stories abound in cruelty as well as humor. Lafferty’s particular strength, in this reading, lies in making alien ways of seeing overturn the reader’s assumptions and expose humanity as strange. Individual notices identify more conventional science-fiction structures alongside unsettling stories such as “Pani Planet” and the collection’s title story.
BP, 究極映像研究所 · 2007-01-21
新刊メモ R.A.ラファティ『子供たちの午後』
In a post about books and models, BP records buying the reissue of the Japanese collection first published in 1982 and lists its contents. Having missed the earlier edition, the writer looks forward to reading it; the post contains no assessment of the stories.
BP, 究極映像研究所 · 2007-02-11
R.A.ラファティ著／井上央編訳『子供たちの午後』
BP reviews each story in the reissued Japanese collection, emphasizing Lafferty's deadpan treatment of alien customs and bizarre everyday life. BP especially admires “Configuration of the North Shore”: after declaring dreams resistant to words, Lafferty produces dream imagery through extraordinary language. “Try to Remember” and “McGruder's Marvels” also receive particular praise.
doshin · 2007-07-25
『子供たちの午後』Ｒ・Ａ・ラファティ／井上央訳
Doshin gives each story a separate rating and commentary. Mythic scale distinguishes “Adam Had Three Brothers”; “Pani Planet” exposes the ease with which disrupted assumptions produce credulity; the title story renders war absurd as alien children’s play. Other entries consider cultural misunderstanding, automatic technology, and restitution to Native Americans.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-06-11
「子供たちの午後」R・A・ラファティ 感想その1(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate gives low ratings to the first three stories, while finding the fraudulent techniques in “Adam Had Three Brothers” mildly entertaining. “Pani Planet” receives a stronger response as an account of concealed hostility and revenge by a people whom human explorers have subordinated and misunderstood.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-06-16
「子供たちの午後」R・A・ラファティ 感想その2(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate finds “Among the Hairy Earthmen” repetitive until its ending gives it greater depth. “Try to Remember” succeeds through the precariousness of personal identity, and “The Polite People of Pudibundia” through the menace concealed in courtesy. The reviewer finds “McGruder's Marvels” charming despite the larger emergency surrounding its miniature figures.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-06-20
「子供たちの午後」R・A・ラファティ 感想その3(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate reads “The Weirdest World” through the outsider's difficulty in adapting to a hostile community, while also questioning the outsider's superiority. “Configuration of the North Shore” offers disturbing, symbolic dream imagery. The overall judgment is restrained: this collection contains interesting material but lacks the exceptional successes found in other Lafferty volumes.
Funnyfingers: Best Collection 2
津田文夫 · 2022-01
続・サンタロガ・バリア 第230回：『ファニーフィンガーズ』
Tsuda welcomes the second volume, designated the cute volume, and recalls how “Narrow Valley” and “Seven-Day Terror” established his affection for Lafferty. He remembers the magazine illustrations and differing Japanese translations through which he came to know the stories. An early story newly translated by editor Shinji Maki demonstrates that Lafferty's distinctive manner preceded his SF career.
yudutarou · 2022-01-15
ファニーフィンガーズ ラファティ・ベスト・コレクション2 (ハヤカワ文庫 SF )／Ｒ・Ａ・ラファティ著、牧眞司 編、伊藤典夫、浅倉久志ほか訳
The reviewer reads “Slow Tuesday Night” as a critique of civilization and enjoys another favorite for its tall-tale comedy. Across disparate subjects, the writer finds invention, mystery, and humor working together. “Funnyfingers” stands out for its relative lack of venom and its lyrical sadness.
tsuki0214 · 2023-08-29
ファニーフィンガーズ ラファティ・ベスト・コレクション2
The second volume restores the reviewer’s pleasure after the first volume’s difficulties. Its unusual ideas seem to belong naturally to the humorous telling. “Seven-Day Terror” and Nine Hundred Grandmothers head the favorites, with “The Transcendent Tigers” and “In Our Block” also praised. The two selections leave this reader with markedly different impressions of Lafferty.
Ghosts of the Corncrib: Japanese collection
津田文夫 · 2022-02
続・サンタロガ・バリア 第231回：『とうもろこし倉の幽霊』
Tsuda argues that Inoue and Yanashita's translations complicate the Japanese Lafferty formed by Merril, Asakura, and Ito. He discusses the new collection's arrangement by composition date, cautions against simple accounts of stylistic development, and emphasizes its harder theological and political material. Inoue's detailed annotations receive particular praise for extending the reader's understanding.
haxibami, 東大新月お茶の会 · 2022-03-14
『とうもろこし倉の幽霊』 R.A.ラファティ 著（新☆ハヤカワ・SF・シリーズ）
Writing for the University of Tokyo's Shingetsu Ocha no Kai, haxibami treats these stories as extravagant jokes that disclose metaphysical truths. In stories about creation and disorder, Lafferty appears to defend the ordered world despite his unruly storytelling. The review connects this tension with Catholicism and with the difficulty of imagining freely when thought itself depends on inherited structures.
oldstylenewtype · 2022-03-25
とうもろこし倉の幽霊
The prospect of nine first Japanese translations excites a reader who had recently reread much of the Best Collections. The Emperor’s Shoestrings, Happenings in Chosky Bottoms, and “Bird-Master” emerge as favorites. The writer finds several pieces relatively accessible but acknowledges that mood and physical condition affect comprehension. Lafferty’s movement among science fiction, horror, and mystery remains part of the attraction.
maiuMY · 2022-03-30
2022年3月30日「とうもろこし倉の幽霊」Ｒ・Ａ・ラファティ
MaiuMY welcomes a volume of newly translated stories after the two Best Collection volumes. The reviewer admires Lafferty's unmistakable individuality while acknowledging that the contents do not all reach his highest level.
大森望 (Nozomi Ohmori) · 2022-04-20
ラファティ版〝伝奇集〟『とうもろこし倉の幽霊』がいいぞ！
Ohmori awards the collection four and a half stars and characterizes its nine newly translated stories through conflicts between humanity and other kinds of being. He sketches its biological speculation, an unusual psychological mystery, impossible little people, the Institute of Impure Science, and the magician story. His comparison with Borges’s Ficciones emphasizes the force and variety of the inventions. The adjoining review places a contemporary Japanese collaborative travel fiction in Lafferty’s tradition.
渡邊利道 (Toshimichi Watanabe) · 2022-08-31
ラファティ『とうもろこし倉の幽霊』…紙魚の手帖vol.04（2022年4月号）書評 渡邊利道［SF］その2
Watanabe reads the nine previously untranslated stories as accounts of startling truths about the world. Their impossibilities amuse, but also concern the restoration of a broken order, the recognition of officially denied beings, and the relation of nature to artifice. Watanabe connects this radical criticism of civilization with Lafferty’s Christian faith and suggests that it is fundamental to the stories’ character as science fiction.
The Gift of Wings: Japanese collection
魚 · 2011-04-23
「翼の贈りもの」
The blogger discusses all eleven stories, attending to faith, evil, sacrifice, and enduring moments of truth. The title story is linked with “Ginny Wrapped in the Sun”, and “The Casey Machine” is proposed as a possible organizing center for the collection. Notes on astronomy, geology, and recurring characters draw connections among the stories. The author presents these as speculative reading notes and cautions readers against expecting only the familiar early SF stories.
大野万紀 · 2011-05
内輪 第249回：『翼の贈りもの』
Ohno distinguishes Lafferty's familiar tall tales from his theological, philosophical, and ethical stories, suggesting that the latter may reach nearer the center of his work. He praises the miniature civilization in a bullet and finds the collection condensed and sometimes difficult. He also discusses the translator's comparison with Haruki Murakami and wishes for more explanation of individual stories.
津田文夫 · 2011-06
続・サンタロガ・バリア 第108回：『翼の贈りもの』
Tsuda hears a different Lafferty in Hiroshi Inoue's selection and translation from the figure familiar through Hisashi Asakura. The stories retain the tall tales but leave a deeper impression of sorrow, perhaps connected with the unspoken name of Jesus Christ. Inoue's Murakami comparison reinforces the collection's difference and unexpected emotional weight.
tsuki0214 · 2011-06-28
翼の贈りもの
The reviewer questions the collection’s promotion as a selection of masterpieces. Its difficulty unsettles a reader whose original impression came from Nine Hundred Grandmothers. The writer wonders whether the affectionate picture of Lafferty as a genial teller of tall tales was mistaken. Later reviews of the Best Collections return to this question.
oldstylenewtype · 2011-08-01
翼の贈りもの ::R.A.ラファティ
The reviewer struggles with the collection’s religious weight but singles out its title story, “The Last Astronomer”, and the inventions story for comment. The winged transformation suggests a new humanity; the collapse of astronomy raises questions about knowledge becoming superstition. The reviewer admires the stories but feels barely able to keep pace with Lafferty’s reasoning and with the afterword’s discussion of paradox.
放克犬博士 (funkenstein) · 2012-11-29
『翼の贈りもの』 R・A・ラファティ
Brief individual accounts emphasize the collection’s unexpected breadth. The title story is a painful initiation; “The Casey Machine” suggests metaphysical science fiction about judgment; “John Salt” proves difficult; and the stained-glass story receives praise for its color and historical scale. The reviewer suspects that Nine Hundred Grandmothers was accessible enough to leave Japanese readers with an incomplete picture of its author.
馬場秀和 (Hidekazu Baba) · 2014-11-07
『翼の贈りもの』（R.A.ラファティ、井上央：翻訳）
Baba discusses the collection's eleven stories individually and stresses their mixture of invention, humor, and religious belief. He sees the title story as combining evolutionary speculation with Christian sacrifice, “The Casey Machine” as anticipating internet and social-media behavior, and the stained-glass story as a conflict between scientific assumptions and faith. Throughout, he attends to the darker consequences of the comedy.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
翼の贈りもの
Matsuzaki describes Hiroshi Inoue’s independently selected 2011 Japanese collection, discussing the individual stories and the translator’s afterword comparing Lafferty with Haruki Murakami. He emphasizes the combination of tall tales, speculative vision, philosophy, religion, and historical interest, and considers what the selection and arrangement reveal about Lafferty’s understanding of a story.
The Hole on the Corner: Best Collection 1
津田文夫 · 2021-11
続・サンタロガ・バリア 第228回：『町かどの穴』
Tsuda remembers discovering Lafferty through Merril's anthologies and the 1972 SF Magazine special, finding some selections much harder than others. Maki calls this the mysterious volume, but Tsuda experiences it as the hard volume: a dense succession of uncompromising Lafferty worlds. His admiring review ends with a wish for the relief promised by the companion volume.
oldstylenewtype · 2021-11-29
町かどの穴 ラファティ・ベスト・コレクション１
The new selection prompts the blogger to revisit earlier readings. Although much remains difficult, familiar stories now give greater pleasure, especially the Institute stories, “Continued on Next Rock”, the title story, and Clem. The blogger also credits the translators with creating the distinctive conversational atmosphere. The affection expressed here has grown from the rejection recorded in earlier posts.
yudutarou · 2021-11-29
町かどの穴──ラファティ・ベスト・コレクション１（ハヤカワ文庫SF）／Ｒ・Ａ・ラファティ著、牧眞司 編、伊藤典夫、浅倉久志ほか訳
Previously acquainted only with Lafferty’s novels, the reviewer discovers a different pleasure in the concentrated invention of the stories. Their strange way of grasping the world often outruns the reader’s understanding before a story ends. The reviewer values this displacement of perspective as one of the pleasures of science fiction.
笹帽子 (Sasabōshi) · 2022-08-15
【感想】『町かどの穴 ラファティ・ベスト・コレクション１』
Sasabōshi discusses nine favorites, attending to the grotesque appearance of doubles in “Hole on the Corner,” the disarming name of the thieving bears, and the narrative construction of “Cabrito.” The post also connects the title story with its use by Japanese writer Ren Hanna in Smooth World and Its Enemies. Its interests are verbal invention, narrative rhythm, and the comedy of altered worlds.
tsuki0214 · 2023-07-21
町かどの穴 ラファティ・ベスト・コレクション１
A familiar admirer finds the collection surprisingly slow and difficult. The three Institute stories emerge as favorites, especially “Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne”, “Through Other Eyes”, and What’s the Name of That Town? Additional favorites are “Frog on the Mountain”, “Groaning Hinges of the World”, and “The Man Who Never Was”. The reviewer notices how heavily the preferences still depend on Nine Hundred Grandmothers and wonders whether the reader, as much as the fiction, has changed.
Individual stories and wider surveys
hodge02 · 2009-04-29
R・A・ラファティ『クロコダイルとアリゲーターよ、クレム』
A reader initially deterred by the science-fiction label discovers Lafferty through Mystery Magazine. The essay distinguishes literal division from a look-alike or Jekyll-and-Hyde split, then follows the theological jokes through Matthew’s repeated pairs, the apostle Thomas, consciousness, Chesterton, Augustine, and the Trinity. It appreciates the tale as a thought experiment whose religious references sharpen the comedy.
byogakudo, 猫額洞の日々 · 2014-09-16
ラファティと子母澤寛とカルヴィーノと
The diarist records reading several stories from the second part of You Can’t Go Back alongside Shimozawa and Calvino. Heat or fatigue has slowed the reading. This brief entry contains no critical discussion, but the writer returns to the collection in a 2021 post.
馬場秀和 (Hidekazu Baba) · 2014-10-28
『SFマガジン2014年12月号 Ｒ・Ａ・ラファティ生誕100年記念特集』
Baba introduces the three newly translated stories in the centenary issue: “St. Poleander’s Eve”, “The Only Tune That He Could Play,” and “Cabrito.” Brief plot descriptions distinguish theatricalized life, an apparently missing element in the world, and sinister tavern storytelling. He warns that the first story's especially concentrated Laffertian manner will sharply divide readers.
小森収 (Osamu Komori) · 2018-12-03
短編ミステリ読みかえ史【第117回】
In his history of short mysteries, Komori recalls encountering Lafferty’s 'Enfant Terrible' in the September 1971 Mystery Magazine. The impudent children and muddling detectives had delighted him, but on rereading he finds the detective plot much less successful. He values the story as an unusual specimen of Lafferty’s work while withholding praise for its construction as a mystery.
zzz_zzzz · 2020-02-17
日記；2020/02/11～02/17
Following Ren Hanna’s recommendations brings the blogger back to the sadness that first attracted them in “Incased in Ancient Rind”. “Funnyfingers” reveals Lafferty’s command of different narrative voices and the painful separation beneath its gentle opening. “Interurban Queen” suggests a more disturbing pattern: immense forces make individual choice seem powerless. Comparison with Hanna’s tribute asks how much room a later writer can restore to choice and shared grief.
zzz_zzzz · 2020-03-02
日記；2020/02/25～03/02
The Sky section dwells on the violent movement from exhilaration to helpless destruction. Drug-assisted perception briefly makes a skydive feel eternal, but the abrupt ending terrifies the writer. Personal memories of falling and failed bodily control help explain the response. The writer distinguishes that experience from any claim about Lafferty’s intention.
zzz_zzzz · 2020-03-09
「おかしい」の先、「おかしくてかなしい」の更に先；『なめらかな世界と、その敵』のみの感想
The writer compares Ren Hanna with Lafferty and questions the familiar picture of Lafferty as a cheerful teller of tall tales. Hole on the Corner provides a starting point for discussing form, while “Funnyfingers” and “Interurban Queen” reveal gifted minorities, exclusion, cruelty, and sadness. The writer contrasts Lafferty’s treatment of injured outsiders with Hanna’s willingness to give them dialogue and possible change, distinguishing confirmed influences from speculative connections.
大森望 (Nozomi Ohmori) · 2021-12-15
22本の『異常論文』にSFの真髄を見た！
Ohmori’s review column gives the first Best Collection volume five stars and remembers reading its title story in his first purchased issue of SF Magazine, forty-nine years earlier. He stresses Hisashi Asakura’s contribution to its Japanese voice, the innocent cruelty of 'Berryhill' and 'Cabrito,' and the difficult sequence of later stories. He also distinguishes reprints from stories entering a Japanese Lafferty collection for the first time.
washibane · 2021-12-26
読書日記：2021/12/21～12/24
The Lafferty section argues that the fiction’s strangeness follows its own logic rather than mere absurdity. Reading it resembles putting on someone else’s strong spectacles; returning to ordinary sight makes the experience hard to remember. The account praises the controlled narration of Clem and the peculiar grief of What’s the Name of That Town?, where even the loss cannot be retained in memory.
washibane · 2021-12-29
2021年下半期ベスト
The unranked selection includes Clem among twenty shorter works. Rereading the story feels almost like discovering it afresh: the reviewer admires its combination of comedy, fear, and narrative authority, especially the ending. The accompanying discussion also praises Yuichi Sakanaga’s Narnia-based tribute to the Catholic writers Wolfe and Lafferty.
牧眞司 (Shinji Maki) · 2022-01-19
【今週はこれを読め！ SF編】Lafferty's Labyrinths（ラファティの伝奇集）
Maki discusses all nine stories in this collection of newly translated fiction. He finds folklore mixing humor and unease, frightening children and nonhuman neighbors, metaphysical springs, and a scholarly fairy tale worthy of Borges. He argues that the hope and humor of the religiously charged 'And Walk Now Gently Through the Fire' remain available without specialized theological interpretation. He also compares 'Bird-Master' with Shigeru Mizuki, Huckleberry Finn, and Kenji Miyazawa.
大森望 (Nozomi Ohmori) · 2022-02-16
アンディ・ウィアーが放つやけっぱち大作戦に五つ星！
A brief notice within a wider review column recommends the second Best Collection alongside the first. Ohmori cautions that its designation as the 'cute' volume does not imply conventionally cute stories, despite the frequent presence of children. He records twenty selections and identifies four making their first appearance in a Japanese Lafferty collection, including the title story and 'Enfant Terrible.'
ナナバン · 2022-04-21
『山上の蛙』 R.A.ラファティ
Nanaban compares reading “Frog on the Mountain” to an imaginary adventure game available even to someone unable to play Elden Ring. He enjoys the rapid battles and excitement and does not regard the story as a grand mystery requiring solution. The post also identifies its place in the first Japanese Best Collection.
ナナバン · 2022-04-22
『今年の新人』 R.A.ラファティ
Nanaban finds Lafferty's individual turns of phrase as funny as his ideas. “New People”'s portrait of unfashionable newcomers makes him laugh aloud, an unusual experience in his reading of foreign literature. He credits a possible contribution from the translator, since he has not checked the English original.
矢向 亜紀 / 書籍発売中 · 2022-04-25
本当の変わりものは、変わりものを自称しない気がする【SF読書感想文】
Reading Lafferty for the first time, Aki Yamukai is struck by the stories’ unselfconscious originality. They do not advertise their eccentricity; they proceed as though their extraordinary events were ordinary. In “The Hole on the Corner”, competing realities keep overturning the reader's sense of normality. Yamukai especially enjoys unpredictable dialogue and comparisons, and the way familiar common sense becomes a measure of how strange the fiction is.
ナナバン · 2022-04-26
『ファニーフィンガーズ』 R.A.ラファティ
Nanaban reads “Funnyfingers” through the freshness and sadness of youth and romance. The exceptional girl's innocence makes the anticipated ending painful, yet the story leaves a surprisingly pleasant aftertaste. He finds it emotionally accessible while clearly recognizing it as science fiction.
ナナバン · 2022-07-27
『素顔のユリーマ』 R.A.ラファティ
Nanaban credits Lafferty with introducing him to the possibilities of SF, which can take the form of prophecy or become modern myth. The brief post bears the title “Eurema's Dam” but does not discuss the plot.
高井信 (Shin Takai), ショートショートの… · 2024-03-02
〈ラファティ・ベスト・コレクション〉ほか
The short-short writer and critic Shin Takai records acquiring both volumes of the Japanese Lafferty Best Collection. He identifies nineteen stories in the first and twenty in the second, without reviewing them.
岩澤康一 · 2024-07-21
ハヤカワ文庫SF総解説2000：1872～1875, 1879
Koichi Iwasawa's short note on the Japanese collection You Can’t Go Back praises its inventive turns: ingenuity born from inability, an inexhaustible purse that fails to end poverty, and history pressed into a compressed interior. He finds Lafferty's originality in these startling conceptual twists. The entry is reproduced from a July 15, 2024 social-media post.
mami, 鉱物庭園 · 2025-09-12
似て非なる石〜ラファティ「クロコダイルとアリゲーターよ、クレム」より
A mineral enthusiast follows the story’s pairs of similar but distinct things to galena and molybdenite. The minerals’ appearance and physical differences illuminate the predicament of the two Clems. Mami finds this unexpectedly specialized pair especially memorable and reads its inclusion as a measure of the characters’ desperation.
Matsugo · 2025-11-29
【書評】特に理由はないがマイSFベスト10を選んでみた
Matsugo includes the wings story in a personal SF top ten, recommending it as relatively accessible Lafferty. The review describes the young generation's wings and early deaths as the painful cost of evolutionary transition. It finds the story beautiful because it is tragic, while situating Lafferty more generally among cynical, allegorical fairy tales for adults.
ＣＤバカ, ＣＤ購入バカ日記 · 2026-01-19
読書日記 1／18／26
On a second encounter with Lafferty in book form, the reviewer finds Nine Hundred Grandmothers frustrating. Checking the stories’ dates, the writer judges the earlier pieces more intelligible. The difficulty lies in imagining what the descriptions mean, beyond simply accepting impossible events. The reviewer recognizes that others may enjoy the experience and compares the difference in responses to reactions to contemporary art.
伊吹秀明 · 2026-02-23
Ｒ・Ａ・ラファティの短篇を読む（トップ15を選ぶ）
Hideaki Ibuki combines a history of his own reading with an annotated ranking of fifteen stories. He values Lafferty's crowded casts, grotesque comedy, unruly energy, and mixture of pathos and cruelty. The top three are “The Weirdest World”, “Bird-Master”, and “Eurema's Dam”. The substantial plot summaries also point readers to Japanese collections and record favorite stories attributed to Lafferty and his translators.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers
oldstylenewtype · 2008-06-21
九百人のお祖母さん --R.A.ラファティ
Recalling an earlier reading, the writer remembers the title story’s attractive premise but little else, and does not share the collection’s advertised hilarity. The writer leaves open the possibility of responding differently on rereading. Later posts record a growing appreciation of Lafferty.
イクシーの書庫 · 2011-09-17
九百人のお祖母さん
In an enthusiastic four-star review, the writer introduces all twenty-one stories with brief premises and comic reactions. The reviewer enjoys their extravagant invention, shameless absurdity, and surreal humor, while admitting that describing the plots can spoil them. One observation connects the accelerated lives of “The Six Fingers of Time” with the possible answer offered by “One at a Time.”
ito_yasu · 2013-02-04
九百人のお祖母さん
The blogger compares Lafferty’s unmistakable identity across genres to that of musician Susumu Hirasawa. Brief accounts of several stories lead to the observation that even tales without clear motives or conventional endings somehow hold together. The reviewer recommends the collection as evidence of science fiction’s breadth while recognizing that readers seeking orderly plots may find it difficult.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2013-11-08
「九百人のお祖母さん」R・A・ラファティ 感想その1(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate enjoys the ancestors, lost homelands, disturbing children, and accelerated time in these opening stories. “Land of the Great Horses” is moving in its suggestion that displaced peoples might recover a home. “The Six Fingers of Time” is read as a progression from trivial mischief toward immense knowledge, followed by a disquieting reversal.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2013-11-13
「九百人のお祖母さん」R・A・ラファティ 感想その2(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate's favorite is “Frog on the Mountain,” praised for combining revenge, biological revelation, and a guide whose words prove consistently truthful. The Camiroi's education is amusingly terrifying, while “Slow Tuesday Night” compresses the rise and fall of human enterprises. Hotate admires the way such exceptional premises expose recognizable patterns of ordinary life.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2013-11-22
「九百人のお祖母さん」R・A・ラファティ 感想その3(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate finds the creator in “Snuffles” disturbingly petulant and would prefer a less determinate ending. “Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne” is especially admired for making unnoticed historical alteration funny and frightening. “Name of the Snake” prompts a broader thought about how people conceal guilt, while the Camiroi seem ingenious but alarming companions.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2013-12-08
「九百人のお祖母さん」R・A・ラファティ 感想その4(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate compares the distorted neighborhood of “In Our Block” with Moonside in the game Mother 2. The Kansai dialect of the Japanese “Hog-Belly Honey” is striking, sometimes difficult, and ultimately flavorful. “Seven-Day Terror” and “Hole on the Corner” draw attention to the frightening freedom concealed in the comedy and the apparent enjoyment of the storyteller.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2013-12-13
「九百人のお祖母さん」R・A・ラファティ 感想その5(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate praises the recovery of earlier details in “What’s the Name of That Town?” and reads “Through Other Eyes” as a reminder that other people's perceptions may be irreducibly strange. The collection's combination of humor and concealed terror makes Hotate an immediate convert, with “Frog on the Mountain” the favorite.
kanadai · 2014-05-10
R・A・ラファティ/浅倉久志訳 『九百人のお祖母さん』
Kanadai's first encounter with Lafferty brings particular pleasure in the vanished town, overlapping worlds, historical experiments, Camiroi customs, and repeated resurrection. The brief review praises the deft handling of apparently foolish premises and identifies the stories that won over this new reader.
荒神咲夜 · 2023-11-17
『九百人のお祖母さん』読んだ本 ご紹介！
Sakuya Kojin approaches the collection as a reader usually uncomfortable with science fiction. He discusses time, Camiroi customs, disappearing objects, and comic violence, but finds that his plot notes fail to recover the stories' pleasure. He locates that pleasure in the leap between premise and narration, an improvisatory quality that lets Lafferty get away with endings he would ordinarily find unsatisfying.
プロジェクト・サイラス・スミス管理人 (anonymous) · 2025-07-20
ラファティ『九百人のお祖母さん』感想
In a short rereading note, the writer singles out “Frog on the Mountain,” “Primary Education of the Camiroi,” and “Hog-Belly Honey” as outstanding. The last is praised particularly for its rhythm and momentum. Several additional favorites are listed, with little extended interpretation.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
九百人のお祖母さん
Matsuzaki compares Lafferty’s first collection with its Japanese editions and discusses the translators’ supplementary material, including an added author’s preface in the paperback. He notes the selection’s relatively recognizable science-fiction content and its concentration of recurring groups and worlds. These features helped introduce readers to Lafferty and shaped their expectations of his work.
Strange Doings: つぎの岩につづく
大野万紀 · 1998-02
内輪 第95回：『つぎの岩につづく』
Ohno identifies the collection with Strange Doings and returns affectionately to Lafferty's familiar storytelling. He singles out “Rainbird”, enjoys the folkloric stories, and particularly favors the space stories and extraordinary children. This brief notice records an established reader's preferences before the later wave of Japanese translations.
mritu47 · 2005-06-21
つぎの岩につづく
The blogger stops halfway because the collection does not suit the current mood, though the title story and Clem are exceptions. The writer intends to borrow it again. The brief notice concerns only the stories read so far.
morningrain · 2006-10-04
R・A・ラファティ『つぎの岩につづく』読了
The reviewer finds recognizable science-fiction premises, including time paradoxes, planetary exploration, and alien communication, whose effect is closer to folklore, myth, and tall tales. The discussion concentrates on the peculiar flavor of the communication story and of “Ginny Wrapped in the Sun”. The reviewer recommends the collection to readers who enjoy such strangeness and can accept endings that resist neat resolution.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-05-11
「つぎの岩につづく」R・A・ラファティ 感想その1(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate reads “Rainbird” as the happy recovery of another possible life, not as an ironic destruction of a career. “Camels and Dromedaries, Clem” is admired with reservations about its ending and the stark treatment of Veronica's death. The title story disappoints expectations of a puzzle with a clear solution, although its suggestion of love across time remains attractive.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-05-28
「つぎの岩につづく」R・A・ラファティ 感想その2(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate enjoys the collision of fairy-tale vocabulary with grim endings in “Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas.” Other comments praise the mixture of anti-gravity speculation and menace, the charm of imperfectly translated interplanetary messages, and the sudden cruelty of powerful children. The common interest is the speed with which an apparently playful premise turns frightening.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-06-03
「つぎの岩につづく」R・A・ラファティ 感想その3(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate responds strongly to “World Abounding,” finding its apparently happy acceptance of suffering and death unsettling because that happiness may be imposed by the planet. “Dream” is praised for overturning the distinction between the familiar and the monstrous. The discussion of “Ride a Tin Can” asks whether intelligence should determine which creatures may be treated as food; “Aloys” seems comparatively ordinary.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-06-04
「つぎの岩につづく」R・A・ラファティ 感想その4(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate enjoys the grotesque comedy and considers the theme of resistance to change. The eventual escape in “Incased in Ancient Rind” may, in this reading, suggest death and heaven. Other stories receive mixed judgments. The collection's afterword, including the translator's encounter with Lafferty, leaves Hotate with an affectionate impression of a shy but playful author.
You Can’t Go Back: Japanese collection
馬場秀和 (Hidekazu Baba) · 2009-12-24
『凍った旅』（フィリップ・Ｋ・ディック）、『昔には帰れない』（Ｒ・Ａ・ラファティ）
Baba pairs two stories about childhood memory from SF Magazine. Dick makes memory an engine of guilt and nightmare; Lafferty combines the fantastic with nostalgia and the disappointment of returning as an adult. Baba calls “You Can't Go Back” a particularly balanced example of Lafferty's strengths, while observing that a plot summary scarcely communicates what makes it work.
大野万紀 · 2012-12
内輪 第268回：『昔には帰れない』
Ohno explains the collection's division between relatively straightforward stories and more difficult ones, preferring the latter. He finds recurring themes of forgotten history, civilization's pretensions, and reverence for immensity. Discussing “Selenium Ghosts of the Eighteen Seventies”, he asks whether understanding requires theological and historical decoding or can arise through a reader's recognition and imaginative sympathy.
津田文夫 · 2012-12 / 2013-01 · Issue dated December 2012, updated January 2013
続・サンタロガ・バリア 第126回：『昔には帰れない』
Tsuda enjoys the collection's movement from shorter, familiar comic pieces into longer, more surreal stories. He treats their difficulty as part of their attraction. “Selenium Ghosts of the Eighteen Seventies” differs from the Lafferty associated with Ito's selections, yet its exchanges between characters remain unmistakable, and Tsuda regards it as particularly recognizable science fiction.
水鏡子 · 2013-02
みだれめも・出納日記 13年2月：『昔には帰れない』
Suikyoshi rates the collection alongside the first two Japanese collections but is troubled by his own uncertainty about calling it SF. He remembers once locating the genre's essence in Lafferty and wonders whether a narrower scientific outlook has infiltrated his judgment. He suggests reconsidering the question through further reading of the newly translated books.
すける (Sukeru) · 2013-02-09
『昔には帰れない』Ｒ・Ａ・ラファティ
Sukeru identifies Chestertonian paradox in “In the Garden” and asks how faith and individual identity meet in “Old Foot Forgot.” The reviewer proposes that “And Read the Flesh Between the Lines” and “Selenium Ghosts of the Eighteen Seventies,” among the collection's later stories, may disclose how Lafferty constructs fiction, particularly through the compression of history.
ちくわぶ · 2013-03-27
R・A・ラファティ「昔には帰れない」ハヤカワ文庫SF 伊藤典夫／浅倉久志訳
The reviewer supplies English titles, translators, premises, and individual reactions for the stories in this collection. The prose seems approachable, but unfamiliarity with Catholic references repeatedly limits the reviewer’s understanding. “Eurema's Dam” is recommended to hardware and software makers, while other entries discuss rural tall tales, mythic endings, and the unsettling implications of Lafferty's groups of extraordinary thinkers.
tsuki0214 · 2013-04-06
昔には帰れない
The writer finds this Japan-original collection oddly comfortable, though its individual stories do not seem overwhelming masterpieces. It is difficult to say exactly what makes them work, and attempts at explanation risk sounding false. The brief notice expresses an affection that the writer cannot fully account for.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-06-22
「昔には帰れない」R・A・ラファティ 感想その1(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate admires Albert's speech in “Eurema's Dam” but finds the ending disappointing. “Other Side of the Moon” becomes a warning about seeing everyday life from only one habitual perspective, while “Pine Castle” appeals through its concealed horror. “In the Garden” is approached chiefly through acquisitiveness and the commercial exploitation of an apparent paradise.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-07-04
「昔には帰れない」R・A・ラファティ 感想その2(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate responds to the stories’ treatment of age, poverty, and vanished childhood. “Bright Coins in Never-Ending Stream” seems poignant, while “The Cliff Climbers” is dismissed as uninteresting. The title story is read as the familiar disappointment of revisiting a beloved childhood place, with its fairy-tale moon set against the harsher judgments of adulthood.
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-07-07
「昔には帰れない」R・A・ラファティ 感想その3(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate is surprised when “Old Foot Forgot” connects an alien's discarded pseudopod with a dying physician's own existence. Naming and the exposure of human arrogance attract attention in “And Name My Name.” The reviewer also enjoys the gradual emergence of the mystery in “All Pieces of a River Shore,” while noting greed and horror in “Golden Trabant.”
ほたて (Hotate), ほたてと本のある生活 · 2014-07-12
「昔には帰れない」R・A・ラファティ 感想その4(ネタバレ注意)
Hotate dislikes the apparent discursiveness and unexplained biblical suggestions in “When All the Lands Pour Out Again,” but admires the suspense of “Junkyard Thoughts” and the interaction of drama and reality in “Selenium Ghosts.” The collection remains enjoyable, though less consistently successful than Nine Hundred Grandmothers.
byogakudo, 猫額洞の日々 · 2021-08-23
(1)R・A・ラファティ／伊藤典夫・浅倉久志 訳『昔には帰れない』、7年後に再開
Returning to an abandoned collection seven years later, the writer finds “Eurema’s Dam” and “Other Side of the Moon” newly accessible. Both suggest fiction written by outsiders for readers who share their estrangement. The second story exposes what lies behind the familiar domestic scene: changing a habitual journey reveals a world that feels less wondrous than bitterly real.
ふじき · 2025-07-19
昔には帰れない/R・A・ラファティ（早川書房）
Fujiki finds the first half of this collection relatively accessible and the second half more demanding. “Eurema's Dam” appeals for its crooked, Sheckley-like irony. Other stories remain tantalizingly beyond full understanding. The review appreciates Norio Ito's admission that even the translator cannot entirely master some pieces, treating such difficulty as part of the intellectual pleasure of SF.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
昔には帰れない
Matsuzaki explains the sixteen-story Japanese collection’s origin in earlier magazine translations and its division between comparatively simple pieces and more difficult stories. He identifies important translated works still left uncollected and follows changes in the book’s announced publication. The publication history distinguishes this Japanese selection from English-language collections.
Reference sites and shorter notices
柳下毅一郎 (Yanashita) · 2014-10-24
ラファティ生誕100年記念
Yanashita introduces the December 2014 SF Magazine centenary feature and recalls its beginnings. After he approached Shinji Maki, a substantial contents list quickly followed. He contributed a translation of “St. Poleander’s Eve” and an essay, describing the issue as a gathering of Japanese Lafferty scholarship.
doshin · 2014-11-04
『Ｓ-Ｆマガジン』2014年12月号No.705【Ｒ・Ａ・ラファティ生誕１００年記念特集】
The blogger reproduces the contents of the centenary issue, listing its story translations, interview, letters, essays, reviews, and surveys. His own response is brief: despite the elaborate celebration, he cannot appreciate Lafferty.
牧眞司 · 2019-08-03
牧眞司〈ナンクロメイト〉書評一覧
Shinji Maki’s index records print reviews of the wings collection in August 2011, You Can’t Go Back in March 2013, and Fourth Mansions in August 2013. It identifies the magazine issues without reproducing the reviews.
芝田文乃 · 2021-10-08
『町かどの穴 ラファティ・ベスト・コレクション1』
Ayano Shibata photographs the newly arrived first Best Collection and credits cover designer Jun Kawana. She remarks that its metallic mauve cover is as difficult to reproduce accurately as Lafferty’s fiction is to explain.
芝田文乃 · 2021-12-14
R・A・ラファティ、牧眞司編『ファニー・フィンガーズ ラファティ・ベスト・コレクション2』
Ayano Shibata records buying the second Best Collection in a bookstore and photographs it beside the first. She supplies editor, translator, and cover-designer credits, without discussing the stories.
年間読書人 · 2024-04-06
リンク集「海外SF+α」関連レビュー
Nenkandokushojin’s index lists the Lafferty essays alongside reviews of foreign SF, film, and manga. It contains no further discussion of Lafferty.
naotos · 2026-08-22
R.A.ラファティの作品を再読開始。再読してあらためて凄い作家だと思った。ChatGPTとの対話を、Geminiにぶっつける鼎談紛いの対話。
Naotos records renewed enthusiasm for Lafferty through an extended exchange with ChatGPT and Gemini. His prompts emphasize the unsettling evolutionary premise of “Ginny Wrapped in the Sun”, the innocence of “Funnyfingers”, and connections with Borges. The generated responses supply most of the interpretation and contain errors about story titles and details.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
アーパッド・アルティノフの歴史の裏口
Matsuzaki introduces Lafferty’s invented historian and distinguishes his fictional work from the 1988 collection that borrowed its title. He assembles references concerning Socrates, the rise of Islam, fossil fuels, Australia, and other historical puzzles, outlining connections for further study.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
ウィリー・マッギリーの誰でもできる魔術講座
Matsuzaki arranges Willy McGilly’s exploits as recipes, listing the materials and procedures for changing history, making a disappearer, and narrowing a valley. The playful arrangement brings comparable acts from different stories together and emphasizes the improvised means by which Willy works his magic.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
キャラクター事典
A dictionary of recurring characters identifies figures by their English and Japanese names, traces their appearances across novels and stories, and links to the relevant series guides. It includes characters whose recurrence may be less apparent in Japanese collections assembled from several English books.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
未訳短編内容紹介
An alphabetical index leads to 130 Japanese accounts of individual stories, many outside the familiar commercial collections. Entries range from brief plot descriptions to interpretation and cross-references. All 130 direct section links appear in the accompanying register. The index’s historical designation “untranslated” does not establish the stories’ present publication status.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
生物事典
A small bestiary lists Lafferty’s peculiar creatures by their English names, with references to the stories in which they appear. It brings together invented fauna, monsters, and creatures destined for imaginary meals.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
美食三昧
A catalogue of meals, drinks, and ingredients in Lafferty’s fiction, including the gigantic breakfast on Lamos in Space Chantey and other improbable delicacies.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
キーワード事典
An alphabetical reference to unusual ideas and vocabulary in Lafferty, with links to particular stories. Charles Fort, alternate histories, hollow worlds, and recurring inventions appear alongside explanations of obscure expressions.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
とりあえず、ラファティ
Founded in 2000, this Japanese research site combines bibliographies, guides to recurring characters and fictional worlds, introductions to untranslated fiction, polls, and comic dialogues. Its coverage extends well beyond the commercially translated books.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
不純粋科学研究所シリーズ
Maps the Institute’s members, origins, experiments, inventions, and appearances across stories and Arrive at Easterwine. The character notes argue that women such as Valery often understand Lafferty’s world more readily than the men do. The catalogue of Epikt’s bodies and devices shows how figures and inventions recur in altered forms across the fiction.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
居住世界シリーズ
A guide to recurring planets and their inhabitants notes disagreements between stories about the number and arrangement of worlds. It connects “World Abounding” with Annals of Klepsis and covers the asteroid islands of The Forty-Seventh Island, preserving contradictions in the scattered descriptions.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
三人の大科学者シリーズ
Matsuzaki introduces Willy McGilly, Velikof Vonk, and Arpad Arkabaranan, then explains the comet, catfish, and commoner arrangement in “Boomer Flats”. He traces their appearances in “Narrow Valley” and “Seven-Day Terror” and notes the substitute scientists in Barnaby’s Clock.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
アウストロと何でも知ってる男たちシリーズ
Matsuzaki introduces Austro, Roy Mega, the narrator, and the learned men gathered chiefly in Through Elegant Eyes. The entries describe the men’s occupations and ambitions, Austro’s increasing command of language and invention, and the group’s connections with other stories.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
苦虫ジョンのシリーズ
Matsuzaki identifies Sour John with John Sourwine, recalls his travels and extraordinary appetites, and connects his old-age storytelling with his appearances in “One at a Time”, “The Ugly Sea”, Past Master, The Devil Is Dead, and “Holy Woman”.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
レックビル・シリーズ
A brief guide connects Wreckville’s inhabitants with the descendants of one of Adam’s brothers and identifies Willy McGilly as the group’s most prominent representative. It points to “Adam Had Three Brothers”, Aloys, and Hands of the Man, emphasizing verbal ingenuity and trickery as the thread linking the neighborhood’s appearances.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
九百人のお祖母さん
A comic double act explains Ceran’s search for the beginning of things and the grandmothers’ refusal to answer, mixing the story with jokes about family life.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
宇宙舟歌（1）
Introduces the voyage and recurring planetary worlds, then moves into Maybe Jones and the City and the elusive promise of a perfect world.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
せまい谷
Retells the struggle over the magically narrowed valley through a comic dialogue, placing the Three Eminent Scientists and improvised magic in the foreground.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
新説三昧（あるいは異端の学者たち）
Distinguishes inventing scientists from speculative theorists, beginning with Daniel Phelan. It argues that extracting the ideas loses the narrative circumstances and voices that make them work.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
オーレリア（1）
Introduces Aurelia and the energetic young women in Lafferty, connects her with Camiroi education and “Funnyfingers”, and digresses into Japanese collection titles.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
宇宙舟歌（2）
A comic account of the giants of Lamos, their enormous breakfasts, and their endlessly renewed fighting. Contemporary Japanese jokes accompany the retelling.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
特別の日
Connects “Days of Grass, Days of Straw” with Flaming Ducks and Giant Bread through extraordinary days and seasons absent from ordinary calendars.
らっぱ亭 (Rappa-tei; Kenji Matsuzaki) · Undated
宇宙舟歌（3）
Discusses Sireneca and subsequent adventures, paying particular attention to cartoon-like discontinuity when apparent death fails to remain permanent.
雨宮孝 (Takashi Amemiya) · Undated
Ｒ・Ａ・ラファティ
This bibliography matches Japanese titles with English originals and identifies translators, publishers, editions, magazine appearances, and variant titles. It distinguishes collections selected for Japanese publication and identifies the English originals of the stories from which those collections take their titles.
Further links and sources not fully available
These links identify additional criticism, publication records, or relevant notices. Where only a contents listing or an excerpt was available, the note states that limit.
浅倉久志 · 2006-06-01 · Publication or programme listing
The publisher’s description of a collection of the translator’s essays. The essays themselves are not reproduced.
2011 · Publication or programme listing
The official programme lists the May 3 “Thirty Years of Lafferty” panel with Yanashita and Shinji Maki. It contains no transcript.
2013 · Publication or programme listing
The official programme lists the June 29 “Anyway, Lafferty” meeting with Maki, Yanashita, Tetsuya Hayashi, Teruyuki Hashimoto, Masato Naruniwa, and 魚. It contains no account of the discussion.
2013-04-25 · Publication or programme listing
The publisher’s synopsis and bibliographical record for Fourth Mansions, dated April 25, 2013.
大森望 · 2013-06 · Bibliographical reference
The contents of the June 2013 Hon no Zasshi list a review of Serpent’s Egg. The full review was not located online.
2020-03-08 · Excerpt read
An excerpt from Hanna’s story opens with an epigraph from “The Hole on the Corner.”
ヨッシーワールド · 2021-01-19 · unavailable
A review of The Devil Is Dead found through search. Its full text was unavailable.
2021-10-13 · Publication or programme listing
The magazine’s contents list the Hanna and Sakanaga essays later reprinted online and included above.
岩澤康一 · 2021-10-24 · Partly available
Listed under the Nine Hundred Grandmothers hashtag. The available page introduces the series, but the embedded post containing the relevant discussion is missing.
大森望 · 2021-12-08 · Bibliographical reference
The contents list an SF best-ten article devoted to the first Best Collection volume. The review itself was unavailable.
2022-09-29 · Partly available
A historical guide to the Sogen SF paperback series mentions “Slow Tuesday Night” in an annual selection. Only the relevant passage was examined.
Index or brief notice read
The note index for posts tagged ラファティ. Relevant posts visible during the search are included above.
Index or brief notice read
The note index for posts tagged R・A・ラファティ. Relevant posts visible during the search are included above.
Unavailable
A search listing identifies a reading of “In Deepest Glass,” apparently from January 2014. This link is to the blog’s home page; the precise post address could not be recovered.
Not available for annotation
The historical address of Matsuzaki’s Fourth Mansions guide. Its current Japanese Laffertian Page mirror is annotated above.
Not available for annotation
A Space Chantey review dated February 6, 2006, preserved as an outgoing link in BP’s blog. The old OCN page was not available.
Not available for annotation
A search listing identifies a review of Strange Doings dated April 10, 2018. This is the blog’s home page; the exact post address remains unresolved.
Indexed excerpt only
An indexed excerpt mentions an informal conversation about Lafferty at a convention book stall. The full report was not examined.
Not available for annotation
The blog contains an indexed review of Nine Hundred Grandmothers, but the exact post address could not be recovered.
Partly available
An indexed excerpt compares Lafferty’s humor with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The link leads to the blog’s home page; the exact post address could not be recovered.
Unavailable
A search listing identifies a review of The Devil Is Dead dated January 19, 2021. The site was inaccessible; this is its home page.
Unavailable
The home page of a blog with an indexed Serpent’s Egg review dated April 28, 2013. The review’s direct link is also retained below, but its text was unavailable.
Partly available
Denpo Torishima’s list of publications records an entry on Nine Hundred Grandmothers in a Hayakawa paperback guide. It does not reproduce the essay.
Not available for annotation
An indexed review of “The Only Tune That He Could Play,” dated October 24, 2014. The link leads to the blog’s home page; the exact post address could not be recovered.
Historical link
An old Past Master review listed in the Japanese Laffertian Page directory.
Not fully examined
A search listing identifies a May 2014 post about ten books recommended on joining the Kyoto University SF group. It mentions Lafferty; the exact article address could not be recovered.
Indexed excerpt only
An indexed excerpt from this 2017 festival report briefly compares Nozaki Mado with Lafferty and Sladek. The full report was not examined.
Not fully examined
A search listing identifies a May 30, 2023 post mentioning plans for Sindbad’s Thirteenth Voyage. The exact article address remains unresolved; a proposed translation does not establish publication.
Historical link
Tadashi Wakashima’s review of The Reefs of Earth, linked in the Japanese Laffertian Page directory. No current address was found.
Not fully examined
A search listing identifies a Space Chantey review dated May 18, 2009. This is the blog’s home page; the exact article address could not be recovered.
Not available for annotation
A historical Space Chantey review from この頃の乱読, linked in BP’s review. The original text was not available for annotation.
Historical link
The Japanese Laffertian Page directory identifies reviews of Past Master and The Devil Is Dead at this old address.
Not available for annotation
An indexed bookstore post about Lafferty’s short fiction. The link leads to the blog’s home page; the exact post address could not be recovered.
Not available for annotation
A historical fan page, “About a Secret Lafferty,” linked in BP’s reviews. Its text was not available for annotation.
Partly available
The available excerpt discusses “Slow Tuesday Night” among Judith Merril’s annual selections. It contains little analysis of Lafferty.
Not available for annotation
An indexed brief review of the Japanese collection The Gift of Wings. The link leads to the blog’s home page; the exact post address could not be recovered.
Unavailable
An indexed Serpent’s Egg review dated April 28, 2013. The direct page could not be retrieved, so no account of its argument is supplied.