2017 Hugo Awards Recommendations: What should I read/watch?
2017 is here, and that means it’s time to ask for recommendations for the Hugo Awards. Sadly, I have not been able to read nearly as much from 2016 as I would have liked, so I expect this to be one hell of a reading session for me! So, suggest some things! I’m looking for fiction and non-fiction in every category, pro and amateur artists, films, television shows, and anything else that fits! Use the form below to send your suggestions!
Food Log for 1/2/17
So it begins. The other day, I set a couple of goals for 2017 that included eating healthier and changing my workout schedule. So keep myself honest, I’m going to try to run a regular food log on my blog. So, here goes… Weight: Current: 208.8 lbs Goal: 190 lbs Breakfast: 3 eggs with spinach 1/2 cup of rolled oats, 1/4 cup maple granola (low sugar), and 1/4 cup frozen berries Earl Creme tea w/ 2 tsp demerara sugar Lunch: 1 Jazz apple (nomnomnom) Salad (1 cup romaine, 1 cup spinach, and 1 plum tomato) w/ Newman’s Own Honey Mustard Dressing Earl Gray tea w/ 2 tsp demerara sugar English Breakfast tea (black) Dinner: 1.5 cup of Almond Breeze original (unsweetened) w/ 2 scoops of Integrated Supplements chocolate protein powder 1 large banana 2 hardboiled eggs 0.5 a very large Salmon fillet Salad (1 cup romaine, 1 cup spinach, and 1 plum tomato) w/ Newman’s Own Honey Mustard Dressing Today’s Workout: Body Combat (55 minutes) So far, so good! I think…
2016: A Year in Review and Some Resolutions
In just a few short hours, 2016 will be over for anyone living in the Eastern Standard Time zone. For others, such as you lovely people basically anywhere east of me, 2016 is already over. For some of you, that’s a very good thing indeed, because 2016 has been a pretty terrible year. From political hellfire to celebrity deaths to personal disasters, so many of us have felt stifled by 2016. It wasn’t all bad, though. Some of you published books or stories, fell in love or got married or had a child, discovered something super cool, read a lot of great books, made new friends, ate great food, got a new and better job, finished college, and on and on and on. I’m right there with you. A whole lot of bad sprinkled with some wonderful things. Here’s a look at the things that happened to me in 2016: The Bad
Dear Carrie Fisher: Thank You For Everything
Dear Carrie Fisher, This isn’t an easy letter / post to write. When I learned that you had left us for whatever is after this life, I broke down into tears and sobs. Losing you felt so personal, even though we had never met. In a way, losing you is personal. I first saw Star Wars when I was a little kid. My parents gave me a set of the original trilogy on VHS, which I watched over and over and over. When I had to stay home from school because of severe asthma attacks, I watched Star Wars. When I needed a friend or an escape from the world, I watched Star Wars. So, in a very real way, you were big part of my life. You were one of my heroes. I learned so many things from you. When you stood up to Darth Vader, led the Rebel Alliance against the Empire, and stood your ground on Endor, I learned about the power of sacrifice and the value of standing up for what you believe in. Your strength and resilience in adverse conditions reminded me that heroes can be more than fists and guns. They are leaders with strong values — a commitment to justice, honor, friendship, and even love. When you met the Ewoks, you didn’t just stand up for the seemingly powerless, you lifted them up. You loved them. You valued them as people. And you loved your friends and respected their decisions. You were in so many ways a role model on film — one of the first feminist heroes of my childhood. I will always be a fan of Star Wars, and Leia will be one of my heroes until the day I leave this world.
The Science Fiction Canon: Function, Limits, and Problems
@renay How do we create an inclusive sf canon that also recognizes the impact publishers had on which works we influential? — Grand Moff Duke🐍🚀 (@shaunduke) December 21, 2016 I have spent a lot of my time in graduate school thinking about how to talk about literary canons and ways to disrupt them. The literature classes I teach always include works that have otherwise been excluded from the Western Canon in a deliberate attempt to draw into question how canons are formed and the limited scope they present to us as readers. It’s a tightrope game. On the one hand, survey courses have to teach students about crucial works of literature in an effort to provide some kind useful and repeatable literary knowledge base. On the other hand, simply repeating the canon is sort of like reading the headlines in a newspaper without ever looking at the article itself; sure, you’ll have a firm understanding of a literary tradition, but you’re missing out on a wide range of compelling material that could make for an even deeper reading of a field. In the realm of science fiction, that can be a bit tricky. Because science fiction is already a small bubble of a much larger literary world, text selections are often arbitrary or based on vague notions of what appears to be the “common core” of the field (we’ll come back to this in a bit). Worse, science fiction “people” too often assume they know what the canon “is” and push that perspective on others as if it has weight — which it does due to the power of cultural suggestion. I’ve heard too many stories of someone in the science fiction community telling someone else that they have to read X and Y if they want to be considered “educated” about the field; ironically, you’ll hear the same ten names repeated in these claims, suggesting such individuals have a less comprehensive knowledge of the field than they assume. There are two false assumptions in these claims: That they speak using the authority of an existing literary canon. That the purpose of a canon is to provide a reading list one must consume to be considered “knowledgeable” about a field. I’ll return to the first of these later. The second assumption is remarkably easy to debunk. Let’s use Western Canon as an example.
The “True Fan” Argument of Stupidness (or, Could We Stop This Nonsense Now?)
As a giant Star Wars fan, it is inevitable that I’ll come into contact with people claiming to know what a “true fan” looks like. In the last year, that argument has become more prominent than ever. In the wake of The Force Awakens, hundreds of people flocked to the Star Wars franchise to declare themselves fans. And old school Star Wars fandom wasn’t happy. Those new folks didn’t understand Star Wars. They didn’t really love it; they were just in it for the exciting new ride. They were just half-assed fake fans. None of this is particularly new to the fan world. People have been calling other people out for being fake fans longer than I’ve been alive. But as an argument, the “true fan” reasoning is, at best, bullshit. There are a couple reasons for this: