Towards an SF Canon: Curiosities
Due to circumstances beyond my control which involve several people raising interesting ideas in reply to my tweets about my essay “Why the SF Canon Doesn’t Exist,” I’m now neck deep in a massive research project on the formation of literary canons and their placement in SF scholarship (and wider discourse). In reality, I’ve been […]
Why the SF Canon Doesn’t Exist
As is periodically the case in the SFF community, we’re once more in the midst of a conversation about “the classics.” If you’re reading this now, it doesn’t actually matter that I wrote this in 2022; this conversation happens so often that the context above could apply in any given year going back decades, albeit […]
The Unbearable Weight of Fantasy, Tolkien, and Race (or, Eh, Black Elves Are Fine)
The Internet is abuzz about the one fantasy author to rule them all, J.R.R. Tolkien. Over Superbowl weekend, Amazon released the first trailer for their new Tolkien adaptation, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. As with any highly-anticipated media property, the trailer (and the still shots released earlier this year) have sparked […]
On Legitimacy, Academia, and the Hugos (or, Someone Needs to Take a Class)
If you’ve been following the Hugo Awards fiasco, you might have come across Philip Sandifer’s fascinating analysis of Theodore Beale / Vox Day, his followers, and the Hugos. Sandifer has since become a minor target within the Sad / Rabid Puppies discussion, but not so much for what he actually said as for who he […]
On the Raging Child of Science Fiction Neo-Snobbery
On a foundational level, the most visible element of SF awards discussions concern subjective assertions about literary quality. I have participated in some of these discussions over the years, podcasting about nominees I disliked for whatever reason and otherwise raging against what I perceived as the absence of taste within certain award-giving communities (mostly the […]
No, Repetition Does Not Mean Science Fiction is Stagnating…Per Se
(This is going to be a bit ranty. Be prepared.) There’s been a bit of talk lately about Project Hieroglyph, an Arizona State University anthology (and website) which attempts to address the argument in Neal Stephenson’s “Innovation Starvation.” I recommend reading that essay yourself; it makes some compelling points about science fiction and the failure […]