The Magical Cylinder (of Doom) — Plus a Free Book!
The first one to guess correctly what is inside this cylinder will win a book from me. Something with science fiction and fantasy in it. No joke. Take a wild guess…
Ari Marmell and Me: Look, My Name is in The Goblin Corps!
What? You don’t believe me? Well see for yourself: Morthûl, the dreaded Charnel King, has failed. Centuries of plotting from the heart of the Iron Keep, deep within the dark lands of Kirol Syrreth-all for naught. Foiled at the last by the bumbling efforts of a laughable band of so-called heroes, brainless and over-muscled cretins without sense enough to recognize a hopeless cause when they take it on. Machinations developed over generations, schemes intended to deliver the world into the Dark Lord’s hands, now devastated beyond salvation. But the so-called forces of Light have paid for their meddling with the life of Princess Amalia, only child of the royal family of Shauntille. Now, as winter solidifies its icy grip on the passes of the Brimstone Mountains, disturbing news has reached the court of Morthûl. King Dororam, enraged by the murder of his only child — and accompanied by that same group of delusional upstart “heroes” — is assembling all the Allied Kingdoms, fielding an army unlike any seen before. The armies of Kirol Syrreth muster to meet the attack that is sure to come as soon as the snows have melted from the mountain paths, but their numbers are sorely depleted. Still, after uncounted centuries of survival, the Dark Lord isn’t about to go down without a fight, particularly in battle against a mortal! No, the Charnel King still has a few tricks up his putrid and tattered sleeves, and the only thing that can defeat him now may just be the inhuman soldiers on whom he’s pinned his last hopes. Welcome to the Goblin Corps. May the best man lose This is just like when Simon Pegg wrote that movie based on my life as relayed through a zombie metaphor. Or very similar to how this guy stole my name to make an acting career for himself on 90210. (No, Mr. Moosekian, you cannot have my Twitter name.) Then again, maybe this is all coincidence and I’m simply an egotistical idiot with a blog babbling about how great I am via other people’s clearly far superior work… The cool news is that you can learn all about Ari Marmell at his website, which is cleverly entitled Mouseferatu. But perhaps it is just another coincidence that I happened to show a few minutes of Nosferatu (and D. W. Griffith’s Intolerance, incidentally) in my Survey of American Literature course today… Yeah, coincidence. That’s it. In any case, you can get The Goblin Corps right now! It’s available. Everywhere. P.S.: Pyr is awesome.
Impslapped: Coming to HBO Soon!
I lied. This probably isn’t coming to HBO. But we can dream, right? Peter Dinklage is bloody brilliant in Game of Thrones, so brilliant, in fact, that you could probably do a spin-off show for his character and still produce amazing content. Can you imagine the witty banter? I can. I can indeed… But perhaps what we really need to do is turn this into some kind of SF/F community version of “you got served.” Only it would be cool, because SF/F is much more fascinating than bad actors who happen to be good dancers. And we could use it in amusing situations. Let’s think of some shall we? For example, if someone tells you that fantasy is a silly genre that you shouldn’t waste your time writing, you could immediately point out that J. K. Rowling has sold over 400 million copies of her books worldwide. Impslapped! Or you might get in an argument about whether the Enterprise D is more powerful than anything in the Star Wars universe. You might show them this: IMPSLAPPED! Those are just the ones I can think of on short notice. When would you use this new buzzword? Let me know in the comments, because I feel like having some fun! (Thanks to The Wertzone for the discovery.)
Top Five Female Authors of Science Fiction and Fantasy
A while back, Larry over at OF Blog of the Fallen posted this list of fives. I’ve decided to turn each into its own post on my blog, with one modification: all of them will be specific to science fiction and fantasy. Hopefully nobody will have a problem with this change. First up, as the title suggests: Top Five Female Authors of Science Fiction and Fantasy Kage Baker I was saddened when Baker passed away last year. She was not only a gracious author who indulged this silly fan by answering questions for an interview, but she was also a writer of amazing works of fiction across multiple genres. The House of the Stag is still one of my favorite novels of all time and is sure to stay in my top ten for the foreseeable future. I loved the book so much that I am hesitant to read The Anvil of the World because I know it will be the last time I get to read something fresh and new from the world that sucked me in and never let go. One day I’ll read it, but when I’m done, I won’t be happy with myself. Then again, maybe I will be… (Reviews: The House of the Stag and The Empress of Mars) Elizabeth Bear One of the things that I love about Elizabeth Bear is her willingness to challenge the conventions of the genre. Her stories deal with issues of sexuality and gender in unique and intriguing ways, particularly Dust and Carnival, two of my favorite works by her (I like Dust best). I love traditional stories as much as the next guy, but I also love to see different kinds of characters put on the center stage, whether they’re gay, transgender, or somehow “non-normative” (for lack of a better term). I also appreciate that Bear does not write stereotypical takes on such characters. Not every novel with gay people in it is erotica, folks! Seriously! (Reviews: Dust and Carnival) Octavia Butler I read Butler’s “Speech Sounds” and Parable of the Sowers in an African American science fiction class at UC Santa Cruz (where I got my B.A.). We might have also read another of her short stories, but I can’t remember. In any case, that class changed everything for me. It showed me that I could pursue my interest in Science Fiction Studies without fearing that I might get shunned by the academic community and it exposed me to Octavia Butler, who still influences me as a writer and academic today. If you haven’t read Butler’s work, you must do so immediately. She is one of the greatest science fiction writers to walk the face of the Earth! Nalo Hopkinson Hopkinson is, like Butler, one of the most important writers of the 21st century, and certainly one of the most important female writers of SF/F. Her Caribbean-infused novels (such as Brown Girl in the Ring and Midnight Robber) are prime examples of the breadth of the speculative fiction genre. Not only can SF/F be about grand adventures in space or fantasy lands, but it can also about intense forays into culture, colonialism and its lingering effects, and the postmodern human condition. It’s little surprise that she is one of the two authors I focused on for my M.A. thesis (the other was Tobias S. Buckell, but he’s a boy, so he’s not a part of this list)(P.S.: the degree should arrive on my doorstep sooner or later). All I hope is that she keeps writing and influencing the genre, showing the world that SF/F does not have to deal with traditional western curiosities, but can stretch outward to talk about the world at large. Susan Beth Pfeffer Pfeffer may be somewhat new to the genre world, but her YA post-apocalypse novels are some of the best YA fiction out there. They’re emotional character journeys told in epistolary format where children have to cope with situations that force them to grow up fast, because the childlike world they once took for granted no longer exists. I’ve loved every single one, and word is that there might be a fourth in the series, which should tie up some loose ends and explain what happens to the two families (maybe). As an indicator of how much I love Pfeffer’s work, I’ve reviewed all three of her science fiction novels (Life As We Knew It, The Dead and the Gone, and This World We Live In) and interviewed her three times (here, here, and here — notice how I get better at that whole interviewing thing each time). There you have it. They’re mostly new names, I’m afraid. This has to do with the fact that I am not well read in female authors pre-1990 and most of the authors from the New Wave and the Golden Age period are simply not my favorites (Le Guin is good, but I’ve only really enjoyed one of her books — The Dispossessed). Feel free to check out my marked up SF/F Mistressworks list to see how poorly read I am; I am embarrassed… Runners up: Lauren Beukes (review: Zoo City; interview here), Karen Miller (reviews: The Innocent Mage and The Awakened Mage; interview here) and Jo Walton (reviews: Farthing and Ha’Penny). I love the work of all three of these authors, but I have to pick five. It’s hard to make these three Runners Up, but it has to be done. Who are your favorite female authors of science fiction and fantasy? Let me know in the comments! I’m always hungry for more writers to read!
The SF Mistressworks Meme
I got this from Ian Sales, who has also done a 21st Century Mistressworks Meme (I’ll have to do that one later). The following list is taken from here. You know how it works: bold those you’ve read, italicise those you own but have not read. Feel free to post your own marked up list on your blog or Facebook page. Leave a link in the comments! Here’s mine (after the fold): 1 Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (1818) 2 Herland, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915) 3 Orlando, Virginia Woolf (1928) 4 Lest Ye Die, Cicely Hamilton (1928) 5 Swastika Night, Katherine Burdekin (1937) 6 Wrong Side of the Moon, Francis Leslie Ashton (1951) 7 The Sword of Rhiannon, Leigh Brackett (1953) 8 Pilgrimage: The Book of the People, Zenna Henderson (1961) 9 Memoirs of a Spacewoman, Naomi Mitchison (1962) 10 Witch World, Andre Norton (1963) 11 Sunburst, Phyllis Gotlieb (1964) 12 Jirel of Joiry, CL Moore (1969) 13 Heroes and Villains, Angela Carter (1969) 14 Ten Thousand Light Years From Home, James Tiptree Jr (1973) 15 The Dispossessed, Ursula K Le Guin (1974) 16 Walk to the End of the World, Suzy McKee Charnas (1974) 17 The Female Man, Joanna Russ (1975) 18 Missing Man, Katherine MacLean (1975) 19 Arslan, MJ Engh (1976) 20 Floating Worlds, Cecelia Holland (1976) 21 Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Kate Wilhelm (1976) 22 Islands, Marta Randall (1976) 23 Dreamsnake, Vonda N McIntyre (1978) 24 False Dawn, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1978) 25 Shikasta [Canopus in Argos: Archives], Doris Lessing (1979) 26 Kindred, Octavia Butler (1979) 27 Benefits, Zoe Fairbairns (1979) 28 The Snow Queen, Joan D Vinge (1980) 29 The Silent City, Élisabeth Vonarburg (1981) 30 The Silver Metal Lover, Tanith Lee (1981) 31 The Many-Coloured Land [Saga of the Exiles], Julian May (1981) 32 Darkchild [Daughters of the Sunstone], Sydney J van Scyoc (1982) 33 The Crystal Singer, Anne McCaffrey (1982) 34 Native Tongue, Suzette Haden Elgin (1984) 35 The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (1985) 36 Jerusalem Fire, RM Meluch (1985) 37 Children of Anthi, Jay D Blakeney (1985) 38 The Dream Years, Lisa Goldstein (1985) 39 Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind, Sarah Lefanu & Jen Green (1985) 40 Queen of the States, Josephine Saxton (1986) 41 The Wave and the Flame [Lear’s Daughters], Marjorie Bradley Kellogg (1986) 42 The Journal of Nicholas the American, Leigh Kennedy (1986) 43 A Door into Ocean, Joan Slonczewski (1986) 44 Angel at Apogee, SN Lewitt (1987) 45 In Conquest Born, CS Friedman (1987) 46 Pennterra, Judith Moffett (1987) 47 Kairos, Gwyneth Jones (1988) 48 Cyteen , CJ Cherryh (1988) 49 Unquenchable Fire, Rachel Pollack (1988) 50 The City, Not Long After, Pat Murphy (1988) 51 The Steerswoman [Steerswoman series], Rosemary Kirstein (1989) 52 The Third Eagle, RA MacAvoy (1989) 53 *Grass, Sheri S Tepper (1989) 54 Heritage of Flight, Susan Shwartz (1989) 55 Falcon, Emma Bull (1989) 56 The Archivist, Gill Alderman (1989) 57 Winterlong [Winterlong trilogy], Elizabeth Hand (1990) 58 A Gift Upon the Shore, MK Wren (1990) 59 Red Spider, White Web, Misha (1990) 60 Polar City Blues, Katharine Kerr (1990) 61 Body of Glass (AKA He, She and It), Marge Piercy (1991) 62 Sarah Canary, Karen Joy Fowler (1991) 63 Beggars in Spain [Sleepless trilogy], Nancy Kress (1991) 64 A Woman of the Iron People, Eleanor Arnason (1991) 65 Hermetech, Storm Constantine (1991) 66 China Mountain Zhang, Maureen F McHugh (1992) 67 Fools, Pat Cadigan (1992) 68 Correspondence, Sue Thomas (1992) 69 Lost Futures, Lisa Tuttle (1992) 70 Doomsday Book, Connie Willis (1992) 71 Ammonite, Nicola Griffith (1993) 72 The Holder of the World, Bharati Mukherjee (1993) 73 Queen City Jazz, Kathleen Ann Goonan (1994) 74 Happy Policeman, Patricia Anthony (1994) 75 Shadow Man, Melissa Scott (1995) 76 Legacies, Alison Sinclair (1995) 77 Primary Inversion [Skolian Saga], Catherine Asaro (1995) 78 Alien Influences, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (1995) 79 The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell (1996) 80 Memory [Vorkosigan series], Lois McMaster Bujold (1996) 81 Remnant Population, Elizabeth Moon (1996) 82 Looking for the Mahdi, N Lee Wood (1996) 83 An Exchange of Hostages [Jurisdiction series], Susan R Matthews (1997) 84 Fool’s War, Sarah Zettel (1997) 85 Black Wine, Candas Jane Dorsey (1997) 86 Halfway Human, Carolyn Ives Gilman (1998) 87 Vast, Linda Nagata (1998) 88 Hand of Prophecy, Severna Park (1998) 89 Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson (1998) 90 Dreaming in Smoke, Tricia Sullivan (1999) 91 Ash: A Secret History, Mary Gentle (2000) Needless to say, I have failed miserably. In my defense, I own books by a lot of the authors on this list, but not the ones listed. Leigh Brackett, Mary Gentle, Virginia Woolf, Andre Norton, C. L. Moore, Tanith Lee, Lois McMaster Bujold, Elizabeth Moon, Elizabeth Hand, and a number of others. That might make my failure on the list a little easier to swallow. In any case, how did you do?
Top 7 Repeated Science Fiction Phrases or Words That Have Become Annoying
Remember when it used to be relevant to say “repeated like a broken record” or something like that? Yeah, neither do I. But people sure sound like one these days, what with Twitter making it easier and easier to repost every “nifty” thing you’ve ever seen alongside blogs and picture sites used for the same purpose. Some of those “nifty” things have become plain annoying, shoved into the rest of us like smelly hand-me-down socks made by a dead aunt or Santa. Maybe I’m being a little harsh, but I’ve seen the following seven phrases/words peddled around more times than I care to count, and I’m just about sick of them: 7. “May the fourth be with you.” It’s only funny if a child says it. But children aren’t the ones saying it on Twitter. And it’s not cute. It’s not even clever. It’s the kind of thing you laugh at when your kid says it, just like the time they told you that silly knock-knock joke about oranges and apples that you’ve heard a thousand times before. I get it, though. The fourth of May is Star Wars Day, but let’s at least pretend that real clever people run the SF/F world. Hell, you could even say your child said it so you can get away with posting it twelve times on your Twitter account… 6. “All this has happened before. All this will happen again.” It’s an old saying picked up by Ron Moore for his re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica. And for a while, it was a creepy way of saying fate was about to screw everyone over in the show. But then people started using it to refer to their day-to-day lives, and mundane things like getting cheap American coffee from a parasitic coffee company…until, finally, people just started saying it for no reason at all, sucking all the life out of a phrase and killing its immense mythology. Good job, newbs. 5. “Reality is for those who can’t handle Science-Fiction.” No, it’s not. Reality is for people who write or read science fiction, because without a sense of reality or an understanding of how the now functions, one can’t actually write science fiction. Sure, you can come up with some kind of bastardized SF/F hybrid, but you’ll never approach the greatness of true geniuses in the field (if we’re going with the pretentious version of things). Still, it’s a nice try at saying something approaching smart. 4. “Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.” You know what politicians should read? The frakking U.S. Constitution (or other relevant document if they’re not American politicians). You know what else they should read? Facts. I don’t think science fiction is high on the list of things politicians should be familiar with. Don’t get me wrong; I love SF and think everyone should read it, but our politicians don’t suck because they don’t read my favorite genre. They suck because they’re idiots. 3. “When I die, I’m leaving my body to science fiction.” I thought this was a cute phrase for the first few days. But then everyone and their ancient relatives (the crusty ones with bad manners) started posting it on their Twitter accounts, usually with an exclamation point to drive home their pathetic attempt at a geeky badge of honor. Listen up, folks. You don’t get your geek badge by being annoying. That’s not how it works. First, you have to sell your soul to a Batherian bloodmonk. Second, you have to kill your first dragon while in a spaceship made of solid diamonds. And third, you have to name the primary cast members of at least three different SF/F movie or TV properties. I don’t make the rules. That’s just the way it is… 2. “Science fiction is dead/dying.” You know why science fiction is “dying?” Because every other week some asshole says it’s dying and people start to think it is. It’s called propaganda, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think people who say SF is dying are part of a group of literary elites trying to kill SF from the inside. I wouldn’t put it past them. They’re a vicious bunch… 1. Anything with “punk” attached to it. The “punk” in Cyberpunk used to mean something. It really did. Now people shove it onto every term they want in order to sound hip. The problem? You end up pissing on all those who legitimately engaged with the “punk” dynamic. I don’t care much for pissing on literary geniuses like William Gibson or Bruce Sterling or Jeff Noon or Richard Calder, or even folks who pioneered the Steampunk genre way back before it was Steampunk. But the whole “punk” thing has gotten out of hand. How about we attach “ism” to subgenres instead? Steamism, Dieselism, Undergarmentism… See? That sounds better… That’s my list. What annoying science fiction phrases or words have annoyed you recently or in the past?