We’re nine days into 2025, and it’s already full of exhausting levels of controversy before we’ve even had a turnover in power in my home country of the United States. We’ve seen resignations of world leaders, wars continuing and getting worse and worse (you know where), the owner of Twitter continuing his tirade of lunacy and demonstrating why the billionaire class is not to be revered, California ablaze with a horrendous and large wildfire, right wing thinktanks developing plans to out and attack Wikipedia editors as any fascist-friendly organization would do, Meta rolling out and rolling back GenAI profiles on its platforms, and, just yesterday, the same Meta announcing sweeping changes to its moderation policies that, in a charitable reading, encourage hate-based harassment and abuse of vulnerable populations, promotion and support for disinformation, and other problems, all of which are so profound that people are talking about a mass exodus from the platform to…somewhere. It’s that last thing that brings me back to the blog today. Since the takeover at Twitter, social networks have been in a state of chaos. Platforms have risen and fallen — or only risen so much — and nothing I would call stability has formed. Years ago, I (and many others far more popular than me) remarked that we’ve ceded the territory of self-owned or small-scale third party spaces for massive third party platforms where we have minimal to no control or say and which can be stripped away in a tech-scale heartbeat. By putting all our ducks into a bin of unstable chaos, we’re also expending our time and energy on something that won’t last, requiring us to expend more time and energy finding alternatives, rebuilding communities, and then repeating the process again. In the present environment, that’s impossible to ignore.1 This is all rather reductive, but this post is not the place to talk about all the ways that social networks have impacted control over our own spaces and narratives. Another time, perhaps. I similarly don’t have space to talk about the fact that some of the platforms we currently have, however functional they may be, have placed many of us in a moral quagmire, as in the case of Meta’s recent moderation changes. Another time… ↩
Like this:
Like Loading...
2014 Hugo Nominee Ballot: Best Related Work
Reading Time
(Update: I ‘m going to have to change my selections; it was pointed out to me by Mari Ness that this category is only for non-fiction, which means I can’t have any collections here. Right now, I am extremely frustrated about the absence of a category for anthologies and collections.)
This remains one of the ridiculous categories on the Hugo Ballot, since it is essentially a repository for all the things that don’t fit anywhere else (which is what folks have been saying as long as I can remember discussing the Hugos as something more than just “that award thing”).
So my selections are going to be full of fiction collections which don’t fit elsewhere because there isn’t a “best collection or anthology” category.Here are my selections:
Speculative Fiction 2012 edited by Jared Shurin and Justin Landon
Despite the fact that I am one of the editors of next year’s edition, I have to say that Shurin’s and Landon’s landmark collection of criticism and commentary from the sf/f blogosphere is easily one of the most important non-fiction books released last year. This is the first time I can think of in which the web-based side of the sf/f community was recognized for its contributions on its own, and so I see this book as a necessary push toward a more digital perspective of sf/f criticism. Other folks have nominated it, so I assume they agree.
Feminist Frequency: Tropes vs. Women by Anita Sarkeesian
While I don’t always agree with Sarkeesian’s analysis, I find her overall work incredibly important to our field, even if she is mostly focused on video games (which are often sf/f, too). And despite the fact that a lot of really angry people keep crying about how wrong she is, her videos have sparked so much discussion about representation in video games that it’s hard to ignore the influence.
Conservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha LeeIf there’s one collection of reprinted short stories you absolutely must have from 2013, it’s this one. Lee’s stories are vivid, original, weird, and beautiful. Some of the stories so engulfed me in their tiny worlds that I found myself yearning for more — novel-length more. After reading Conservation of Shadows, Lee became one of my favorite current short story writers.We interviewed Lee on The Skiffy and Fanty Show last year.
The second I heard about this book, I became crazy excited about it. It reminded me of my days in college, when I learned about Sun Ra and other extraordinary African American writers who were doing cool stuff before I was born (or before I had learned to read); shortly after, we learned a bit about the current flock, which acted as a gateway into my interesting postcolonialism. This is a book about that world of sf/f, and so it has a special place in my heart. If you haven’t checked it out, you really shoot.
We See a Different Frontier: a Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Anthology edited by Fabio Fernandes and Djibril al-AyadAs a postcolonial scholar, I am always on the lookout for fiction collections and academic books on that very subject. Perhaps arriving unintentionally on the heels of So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy (2004) edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan, We See a Different Frontier offers a stunning collection of stories that explore the postcolonial condition through the eyes of the colonized. The academic side of me salivates when I think about this book; the fan side of me would eat the pages if it meant it could get more story out of them.The Agony Column by Rick Kleffel
I nominated it last year because Kleffel’s interviews are some of the best in the business and because he doesn’t fit into the Best Fancast category. And so that’s why I’m nominating The Agony Column this year. The interviews are always informative and fascinating, and Kleffel brings together sf/f with the literary world in a way that sometimes makes me forget that I’m mostly only interested in sf/f. If you’re not a listener, you should be.
Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond edited by Bill Campbell and Edward Austin HallMuch like the other Afrofuturism book on this list, Campbell and Hall’s brilliant collection of afrofuturist stories immediately made me jump with excitement. This is exactly the kind of collection I want to see gracing the bookshelves and bestseller lists. International, varied, and beautiful all around. Oh, and the stories are pretty darn good, too!SF History Column by Andrew Liptak (at Kirkus Reviews)
You know you love some sf history, right? So do I. Andrew’s columns are informative, well-written, and worth reading. This essay on Washington Irving is solid. Or how about this one on Weird Tales? Or this one on Lord Dunsany? Oh, hell, just go read his column.
So that’s what I’m nominating in this category. What about you?
Share this:
Like this:
Related
Shaun Duke
Follow Me
Newsletter
Support Me
Recent Posts
A Reading List of Dystopian Fiction and Relevant Texts (Apropos of Nothing in Particular)
Why would someone make a list of important and interesting works of dystopian fiction? Or a suggested reading list of works that are relevant to those dystopian works? There is absolutely no reason other than raw interest. There’s nothing going on to compel this. There is nothing in particular one making such a list would hope you’d learn. The lists below are not an exhaustive list. There are bound to be texts I have forgotten or texts you think folks should read that are not listed. Feel free to make your own list and tell me about it OR leave a comment. I’ll add things I’ve missed! Anywhoodles. Here goes:
Share this:
Like this:
Duke’s Best EDM Tracks of 2024
And so it came to pass that I finished up my annual Best of EDM [Insert Year Here] lists. I used to do these on Spotify before switching to Tidal, and I continued doing them on Tidal because I listen to an absurd amount of EDM and like keeping track of the tunes I love the most. Below, you will find a Tidal playlist that should be public. You can listen to the first 50 tracks right here, but the full playlist is available on Tidal proper (which has a free version just like Spotify does). For whatever reason, the embedded playlist breaks the page, and so I’ve opted to link to it here and at the bottom of this post. Embeds are weird. Or you can pull songs into your preferred listening app. It’s up to you. Some caveats before we begin:
Share this:
Like this:
2025: The Year of Something
We’re nine days into 2025, and it’s already full of exhausting levels of controversy before we’ve even had a turnover in power in my home country of the United States. We’ve seen resignations of world leaders, wars continuing and getting worse and worse (you know where), the owner of Twitter continuing his tirade of lunacy and demonstrating why the billionaire class is not to be revered, California ablaze with a horrendous and large wildfire, right wing thinktanks developing plans to out and attack Wikipedia editors as any fascist-friendly organization would do, Meta rolling out and rolling back GenAI profiles on its platforms, and, just yesterday, the same Meta announcing sweeping changes to its moderation policies that, in a charitable reading, encourage hate-based harassment and abuse of vulnerable populations, promotion and support for disinformation, and other problems, all of which are so profound that people are talking about a mass exodus from the platform to…somewhere. It’s that last thing that brings me back to the blog today. Since the takeover at Twitter, social networks have been in a state of chaos. Platforms have risen and fallen — or only risen so much — and nothing I would call stability has formed. Years ago, I (and many others far more popular than me) remarked that we’ve ceded the territory of self-owned or small-scale third party spaces for massive third party platforms where we have minimal to no control or say and which can be stripped away in a tech-scale heartbeat. By putting all our ducks into a bin of unstable chaos, we’re also expending our time and energy on something that won’t last, requiring us to expend more time and energy finding alternatives, rebuilding communities, and then repeating the process again. In the present environment, that’s impossible to ignore.1 This is all rather reductive, but this post is not the place to talk about all the ways that social networks have impacted control over our own spaces and narratives. Another time, perhaps. I similarly don’t have space to talk about the fact that some of the platforms we currently have, however functional they may be, have placed many of us in a moral quagmire, as in the case of Meta’s recent moderation changes. Another time… ↩
Share this:
Like this:
Categories