Haul of Books 2010: Stuff For Me v.2
Time for another edition of the Haul of Books. Since I’m playing catchup for 2010, a lot of these are either old news for me, or just things I forgot to talk about in the last few weeks that I very well should have. This batch is a mixture of stuff I bought, stuff I snagged at the conference I recently attended, and stuff that I’m either subscribed to or that came in the mail for whatever reason. Here goes:Here’s some brief descriptions of the images in the picture, moving from left to right, top to bottom. 1. SFRA Review, Winter 2010, #291 (subscribed) The SFRA Review is available to all members of the Science Fiction Research Association. This particular issue contains a pretty interesting, though sadly brief, article on the New Weird movement (it’ll be useful to me, since I’m writing a paper on that very topic). Other elements include professional book and movie reviews for all kinds of things, such as Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan and the movies 9, Zombieland, and loads of others. Obviously it’s a little dated now, but it’s still a very interesting little magazine. 2. The Journal of American Culture, March 2010, Vol. 33:1 (subscribed) This is the first issue I have received from them. It contains several academic articles on everything from county fairs to the emergence of outdoor grilling in postwar America, and other things (this was a special themed issue on parties and celebrations in American culture, so the articles clearly lean towards that). There are also a number of book reviews, two essays on media education and American politics, and a lot of interesting stuff to look forward to. Apparently Abe Lincoln is making a come back this year; there are a few books dedicated specifically to honest Abe in this issue. 3. Bull Spec, Issue One (bought online) I’m going to send you to their website for a description. The table of contents looks interesting, and hopefully I’ll get a chance to read this soon. 4. The Journal of Popular Culture, February 2010, Vol. 43, #1 (subscribed) Another first for me. The articles here are a little more up my alley than those in the American Culture journal above. The articles range from British opera to the film Salem’s Lot to Japanese dolls on Western toy shelves. I’ll definitely read the Salem’s Lot essay soon. Book reviews are, as usual for academic publications such as this, in copious supply, and there are some interesting titles on film noir, Alan Moore, and Japanese horror cinema. Looking forward to this one for sure! 5. Science Fiction Studies, March 2010, Vol. 37, Part One, #110 (subscribed) I’ve seen SFS before, but this is the first time I’ve ever been subscribed. I don’t think I’ll ever go without it again. As an emerging science fiction scholar, it seems stupid that I have gone so long without this fascinating academic journal filling my mail box. This particular issue has a section devoted to science fiction and history (apparently as a result of the 2009 SFS Symposium), book reviews for a number of non-fiction books on various aspects of science fiction (pretty much all of them critical works, with the exception of The Routledge Companion to SF, which I suspect is less critical than everything else on the list). The essays seem heavily focused on cyberpunk and issues of selfhood in tech-oriented hacker culture and cyberspace. I’ve always wanted to spend time looking into cyberpunk, but the problem with that particular genre is that it has either already been mined for ideas, or it has, as a distinct genre, more or less died out in American literary circles (we still read it and elements appear elsewhere, but there are few American cyberpunk writers doing anything of note in that genre). Cyberpunk is still big in the Eastern European bloc, though. Another goodie for my academic brain! 6. FemSpec, 2002, Vol. 3, Issue 2 (bought at the PCA/ACA conference) I’m new to FemSpec. I’ve known about it for a while, but I didn’t know what kind of journal it was until the PCA/ACA conference. This issue contains fiction from Tananarive Due (who I absolutely love; read “Like Daughter”), and articles on everything from Planet of the Apes, the Empresss of China, utopian impulses in Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, and even an article by Darko Suvin, who is, if you don’t know, one of the foremost science fiction scholars still breathing. I may subscribe to this journal. It seems like one that I need to have filling my academic coffers… 7. The 40th Annual PCA/ACA Conference Program Book (received at the conference) Not much to say about this one. You can’t buy it anywhere. It contains all of the programming for the entire conference, along with contact information for pretty much everyone that was there (it’s a long list) and other nifty information (there are some advertisements in there too, and contact information for professional purposes). There you go. Did you get anything interesting this week? Let me know in the comments!
International SF/F: Does it get an out from the “cliche” argument?
I’ve been meaning to talk about this subject for a while, and it is result of an experience I had a few weeks ago when the fine folks over at Tor sent me Alexey Pehov’s Shadow Prowler. I am, by all accounts, somewhat more critical of fantasy for its lack of originality than I am of other genres. It’s not an unusual position to take, since so many arguments launched against various fantasy titles typically include terms like “derivative” or “Tolkien-esque” and so on. The genre is saturated with familiar tropes. But, as I’ve argued many times before, a good writer can take a fairly cliche idea and make it good. Additionally, Sometimes the way a book presents itself (i.e. via the cover and the cover synopsis) can alleviate a lot of the knee-jerk reactions readers may have when they discover a new fantasy title. It is this reaction that I want to talk about here.When I received Shadow Prowler in the mail, I was immediately pleased by the cover (see above), which led me straight to the text on the cover jacket. That is where the problems started. The description of Pehov’s story is, to put it mildly, about as cliche as it gets. Read for yourself: After centuries of calm, the Nameless One is stirring. An army is gathering; thousands of giants, ogres, and other creatures are joining forces from all across the Desolate Lands, united, for the first time in history, under one, black banner. By the spring, or perhaps sooner, the Nameless One and his forces will be at the walls of the great city of Avendoom. Unless Shadow Harold, master thief, can find some way to stop them.Epic fantasy at its best, Shadow Prowler is the first in a trilogy that follows Shadow Harold on his quest for a magic Horn that will restore peace to the Kingdom of Siala. Harold will be accompanied on his quest by an Elfin princess, Miralissa, her elfin escort, and ten Wild Hearts, the most experienced and dangerous fighters in their world…and by the king’s court jester (who may be more than he seems…or less). Great. Another novel about some Nameless One with elfin princesses and a city so cleverly called Avendoom (ha ha ha, get it, Avendoom…and the city is threatened by the Nameless One). But then I read this and my reaction changed: Reminiscent of Moorcock’s Elric series, Shadow Prowler is the first work to be published in English by the bestselling Russian fantasy author Alexey Pehov. The book was translated by Andrew Bromfield, best known for his work on the highly successful Night Watch series. Something about the explanation of the texts’ origins caused me to pause. A Russian fantasy epic originally published in Russian? A link to another fantastic series by another Russian SF/F great? Suddenly I was interesting and a little inner dialogue shot off in my head: Me: Oh, well, he’s a Russian author writing fantasy. That’s interesting.My Head: So?Me: So, I want to read it.My Head: But a minute ago you rolled your eyes and sighed because it sounded too cliche.Me: Yeah, but that was before I knew he was Russian.My Head: So, if you’re Russian, you can get away with it?Me: Apparently.My Head: You realize how stupid that sounds, right?Me: Quiet, you. You’re just my head talking. While the dialogue didn’t proceed exactly as described above, it does provide a basis for the complete turnaround I had when I discovered the novel’s origins: translated from Russian. I even gawked at my own idiocy. Why was I suddenly okay with a novel that sounds horribly cliched? Why did the fact that it is an international book change my mind? Stranger yet is the fact that I am/was fully aware of the long tradition of genre fiction in Russian history, dating back centuries. But, there I was, suddenly excited about a novel that only moments before I was about to toss onto my “likely will never read because it’s too cliche” pile. Maybe it’s a good thing, though. Maybe more reactions like this should happen so that novels like Shadow Prowler don’t get lost in the sea of English-based fantasy titles loaded with just as many cliches. Something about that makes me feel strange, though. To end this, I have a few questions:–Does international SF/F get an out from the “cliche” argument simply because it is international? (apply this to any international SF/F, not just Russian)–Is it a good thing that one can go from being annoyed to being excited about a book due entirely to the discovery of its international origins? I feel uneasy saying yes to the first question, simply because of the stages many developing or developed nations go through in terms of genre fiction (you can, largely speaking, trace the same general literary developments in science fiction in just about every nation, with some exceptions). And, I feel uneasy saying no to the last question, because excitement for any text is a good thing; if my interest in this text leads me to read it and, perhaps, love it, it might engender a willingness to open my mind to more fiction in this particular vein and more fiction from international venues (which I’m already fairly open to, though I don’t go out of my way to find the stuff, with exception to Caribbean SF–more on that some other time). What do you think? Am I insane? Has this ever happened to you?
Shared Worlds Teams Up With Science Fiction and Fantasy Greats!
Matt Staggs recently sent me this via email: Sci Fi and Fantasy’s Best Writers Join Forces with Shared Worlds Writing Camp for Bestiary of Strange Beasts! Here there be monsters! And beasts! And fantastical creatures. The faculty of Shared Worlds creative writing camp has called on some of speculative fiction’s most compelling storytellers to chase down and gather up all manner of wondrous beasts, and you can examine them all here. Featuring contributions from: Elizabeth Bear, Michael Bishop, Tobias Buckell, Jesse Bullington, Gail Carringer, Cory Doctorow, Steven R. Erikson & Ian C. Esslemont, Ed Greenwood, Daryl Gregory, Lev Grossman, Elizabeth Hand, Will Hindmarch, Kathe Koja, Nancy Kress, Jay Lake, Jeff LaSala, James Morrow, Nnedi Okorafor, James O’Neal, Robert V. S. Redick, Ekaterina Sedia, Paul G. Tremblay, Marly Youmans and Zoran Zivkovic. Shared Worlds is a summer think tank at Wofford College for teenagers who have an interest in fantasy and science fiction literature. For two weeks, students create imaginary worlds and write fiction under the guidance of writers and professors. As part of the program, this year’s students will illustrate the fantastic beasts in our bestiary, so be sure to return at the end of the summer to see what they’ve done! Instructors for 2010 will include Spiderwick Chronicles creator Holly Black, critically acclaimed YA and adult authors Kathe Koja and Marly Youmans, Nebula Award winner Michael Bishop, writer and gaming expert Will Hindmarch, and World Fantasy Award winner Jeff VanderMeer. Artist Scott Eagle will also conduct a workshop during the camp. Register online today! Jeff VanderMeer talks a little more about it here. Talk about an impressive list of people! The teens who get to go to this thing are lucky bastards indeed. Where’s Shared Worlds For Old People when you need it? This will definitely be one of the biggest events of the year.