Star Trek Discovery finally meets “Species 10-C”

Posted on March 12, 2022 by Cora

It’s the penultimate episode of season 4 of Star Trek Discovery. Reviews of previous seasons and episodes may be found here.

Warning: Spoilers under the cut! Continue reading →

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Some Comments on the 2021 Nebula Finalists

Posted on March 9, 2022 by Cora

The finalists for the 2021 Nebula Awards were announced today, again very close to the Hugo nomination deadline, though not quite as close as last year.

So let’s take a look at the individual categories:

Best Novel

None of the 2021 Nebula finalists for Best Novel are entirely unexpected, but they’re also not entirely expected. But then it seems to me as as 2021 had fewer obvious standout SFF novels – the ones everybody talks about – as 2019 and 2020, both of which were extremely strong years for longform SFF.

The Unbroken by C.L. Clark is a novel that’s also on my personal Hugo longlist (I haven’t finalised my nominations yet) and I’m glad to see it recognised here.

I pleasantly surprised to see A Master of Djinn by P. Djèlí Clark nominated for the 2021 Nebula Award, since I have been enjoying Clark’s alternate Cairo stories a whole lot. This one is also on my personal Hugo longlist.

Machinehood by S.B. Divya got a lot of buzz, when it came out early last year. I haven’t read it yet, though I’m looking forward to doing so.

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine is a sequel to the 2020 Hugo winner A Memory Called Empire and probably the most obvious finalist in this category. It’s also a great book.

Finally, Plague Birds by Jason Sanford is another very pleasant surprise on this ballot, since it got less attention than the other novels, probably due to being published by a small press, Apex Books. I’m also really happy for Jason, who’s one of the hardest working people in SFF. Plague Birds is a great novel as well, which hits a lot of my personal buttons.

Diversity count: 3 women, 2 men, 3 writers of colour

Best Novella

This category is a mix of the expected and the unexpected.

Tor.com makes another strong showing with four of seven nominees. Neither Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard (which is also on my Hugo ballot in this category) and A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers are a big surprises, since both are fine stories by popular and well regarded authors.

The other two Tor.com novellas, Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters by Aimee Ogden and Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn are more of a surprise, since I did not see a lot of buzz for either of them. I haven’t read either, though they both sound interesting. Sun Daughters, Sea Daughters is an SF-nal retelling of The Little Mermaid, continuing both the trend for fairytale retellings and also for fairytale retellings to move further away from the originals than the first wave did. Flowers for the Sea, meanwhile, continues the trend of horror fiction winning nominations in the Hugos and Nebulas, which have traditionally been not all that open to horror.

The small press Neon Hemlock represented in this category with two novellas, And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed and The Necessity of Stars by E. Catherine Tobler, which makes me happy, because Neon Hemlock does good work and was the target of a vicious harassment campaign last year. I haven’t read either novella, though both seem to be dystopian (as is Flowers for the Sea), so we have another trend here.

I’m afraid that “The Giants of the Violet Sea” by Eugenia Triantafyllou passed me by, when it was published in Uncanny last September, probably because I was busy with other things at the time. However, Eugenia Triantafyllou is certainly a name to watch out for as well as one of my TOC mates in the upcoming Volume 7 of The Long List Anthology.

There’s also a note that Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells received enough nominations to make the ballot, but that Martha Wells graciously decline, declaring that Murderbot has already gotten so much love and acclaim that she’d rather open the floor to other voice. And that’s why Martha Wells is one of the best people in the industry.

ETA: Martha Wells explains that she asked SFWA president Jeffe Kennedy what would happen, if she declined the Nebula nomination and it turned out that there was a three way tie for sixth place, so three authors got to move up. As I said before, Martha Wells is a class act.

Diversity count: 7 women, 3 authors of colour, 3 international authors*

Best Novelette

I have to admit that this category was a big surprise to me, because I haven’t read any of the stories and none of them are on my personal Hugo ballot. That said, I’m looking forward to checking them out.

Nigerian author and editor Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki is one of the most interesting emerging voices in our genre, as is John Wiswell. They’re both wonderful people as well. P.H. Lee is a name I’ve increasingly noticed in the SFF magazines I read, though this particular story passed me by. Caroline M. Yoachim is another great short fiction writer who has popped up on the Hugo and Nebula ballot several times in recent years. Lauren Ring, finally, is another new writer and artist as well as another of my TOC mates in Volume 7 of The Long List Anthology.

This category also has a nice range of places where the stories in question were published. Uncanny is represented by two stories, GigaNotoSaurus and Galaxy’s Edge, two magazines that don’t get a lot of awards love, are presented by one story each, while the venerable Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction holds up the flag for the traditional print mags.

Diversity count: 2 men, 2 women, 1 non-binary, at least 2 writers of colour, at least 1 international writer

Best Short Story

Once again, there are a lot of excellent writers nominated in this category, even if there is little overlap with my personal Hugo ballot.

“Mr. Death” by Alix E. Harrow is the one story here that’s also on my Hugo ballot and a great story (and a real tearjerker) it is, too.

“Let All the Children Boogie” by Sam J. Miller is a lovely retro story about two small town kids bonding over radio in a not so alternate 1980s, where the Cold War is about to turn hot. As someone who’s about the same age as these kids and who also messed with the radio to listen to snatches of police radio or the weird beeps you got when you pushed the tuner all the way to the edge of the frequency range, this one really spoke to me. It came out very early in the year, so I had forgotten it was a 2021 story, but this might change my Hugo ballot.

“Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” by Sarah Pinsker is a fascinating story in the form of a Wikipedia article plus discussion page about a (fictional) folk ballad.

“Proof by Induction” by José Pablo Iriarte completely passed me by, I’m afraid, though I look forward to reading it.

“For Lack of a Bed” by John Wiswell also passed me by, but as I said above, John Wiswell is one of the most interesting new voices in our genre as well as one of the nicest people. I look forward to reading this story.

“Laughter Among the Trees” by Suzan Palumbo is another story that passed me by, though I normally check out The Dark. This is another horror story nominated and more proof that the Nebulas are more open to horror than they used to be.

Once again, we have a nice range of places where the stories originally appeared. We have two stories from Uncanny, one from Tor.com, one from Apex, one from Diabolical Plots and one from The Dark.

Diversity count: 2 men, 3 women, 1 non-binary, 2 writers of colour, 1 international writer

Andre Norton Award for YA and Middle Grade SFF

There are comparatively few surprises and a lot of very good books in this category.

Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders was one of the most buzzy YA SFF novels of last year (and also a really good book), so I’m not at all surprised to see it here.

Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko is the sequel to last year’s Nebula and Lodestar finalist Raybearer and another fine choice.

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao was another buzzy and much discussed YA SFF debut. I haven’t read it yet, though it’s on my list.

I haven’t read A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger yet, though I enjoyed last year’s Nebula and Lodestar finalist Elatsoe a whole lot.

Leah Cypress has been active in the SFF field for more than twenty years now, though I haven’t read her nominated novel Thornwood, which is yet another fairytale retelling.

Eden Royce is best known for her gothic and horror short fiction. Root Magic is both her first novel and her first foray into fiction for younger readers. I haven’t read it, but it sounds like something that should be right up my alley.

Diversity count: 5 women, 1 non-binary, 4 authors of colour, 1 international author

Ray Bradbury Award for Best Dramatic Presentation

There are a few surprises in this category, the most notable being the absence of Dune, which I fully expected to see here.

I’m not at all surprised to see both Loki and WandaVision here, since both shows were hugely popular as well as a lot better and weirder than most of us expected. Of the Disney+ Marvel shows, these two were clearly the highlights of 2021.

Marvel is also represented by Shang-Chi and the Legends of the Ten Rings. Again, this isn’t much of a surprise since Shang-Chi was a thoroughly enjoyable movie, largely independent from the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe and it also nicely showed how the Marvel movies and TV shows absorb different influences to tell a broad range of different stories. The same goes for Loki and WandaVision, by the way. The reason Marvel is so successful, in spite of the many naysayers, is because they produce a lot of fun and well-made movies and TV shows.

I’m very happy to see The Green Knight here, since it was a beautiful movie and one that IMO got way too little attention. I guess the viewers were expecting Ridley Scott or Game of Thrones type knightly action and got something quite different.

I’m also very happy to see the South Korean film Space Sweepers here, a) because it’s a thoroughly enjoyable movie and b) because non-English language films often have a hard time getting recognised by the Hugos and Nebulas. That said, I’m surprised not to see Squid Game, also from South Korea, here, since that was a worldwide hit.

What We Do in the Shadows is one of those shows I’ve been meaning to check out for ages, only that there is more good SFF TV than I have time to watch. It’s definitely an offbeat show, so I’m happy to see it recognised.

Encanto is a hugely popular animated film with an earworm soundtrack, so I am not at all surprised to see it  nominated. Though I have to admit that the sing-songy Disney/Pixar animated movies aren’t my thing at all, but then I’m not the target audience and haven’t been for decades. The Black Cauldron was the last animated Disney movie I saw at the theatre. I remember enjoying it a lot – probably because I was at the right age for it – though oddly enough it’s one of the least well remembered Disney movies.

Arturo Serrano has a really great essay about Encanto from the POV of someone who’s from Colombia, i.e. the country where Encanto is set, at nerds of a feather BTW.

No diversity count, too many people are needed to make movies and TV shows.

Best Game Writing

I can only repeat what I said about this category last year and the year before, namely that I’m not a gamer, don’t recognise any of the titles and can’t really say anything about them.

That said, Thirsty Sword Lesbians is an awesome title.

No diversity count, too many people are needed to make games.

All in all, this is another excellent Nebula ballot. Those who are worried that not enough men are being nominated for the big genre awards will be happy to see that there are several men, including white men, on the ballot this year. Though I’m sure they will find something wrong with the men in question.

Tor.com is still fairly dominant in the novella category, though not as dominant as they used to be. Besides, the current novella renaissance wouldn’t exist without Tor.com. Uncanny still does well, but is no longer as dominant as they used to be either. Meanwhile, the print mags are declining further in importance and have nabbed only one nomination this year. Small Presses like Apex and Neon Hemlock are doing well this year and we’re also seeing a couple of magazines like GigaNotoSaurus, The Dark, Galaxy’s Edge and Diabolical Plots, which we rarely see on the Hugo and Nebula ballot. It is also notable that Clarkesworld, Lightspeed and Beneath Ceaseless Skies have not gotten a single nomination this year.

There are no indie writers on the Nebula ballot for the third year in a row. Is it because indies don’t have a marketing budget of a big publishers and are thus invisible to many nominators (but then we have a lot of small presses here) or because indies don’t write the sort of thing Nebula voters are looking for or did the indies all take their ball and went home after the 20Booksto50K uproar of 2019?

With regard to trends, we see a couple of longstanding trends continuing such as stories about and from the POV of robots and AIs, fairytale retellings, Lovecraftian horror and horror in general. We have several dystopian tales on the ballot this year, which is probably a response to the generally sorry state of the world. Science fantasy, i.e. stories which mix elements of science fiction and fantasy, also continues to make a good showing. Finally, we also have several dark-tinged fantasy stories which are closer to sword and sorcery moodwise than to epic fantasy.  I see very little of what might be called “squeecore” on the ballot, though I’m sure this will not stop the people trying to make “squeecore” a thing from claiming it dominates the ballot.

All in all, it’s a very strong Nebula ballot.

*International authors means authors living and writing outside the US.

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Non-Fiction Spotlight: Lovecraft in the 21st Century Dead, But Still Dreaming, edited by Antonio Alcala Gonzalez and Carl H. Sederholm

Posted on March 8, 2022 by Cora

The 2022 Hugo nomination deadline is approaching and the Non-Fiction Spotlights are coming fast and furious now. If you’re just joining us, the Non-Fiction Spotlights are a project, where I interview the authors/editors of SFF-related non-fiction books that came out in 2021 and are eligible for the 2022 Hugo Awards. For more about the Non-Fiction Spotlight project, go here. To check out the spotlights I already posted, go here.

For more recommendations for SFF-related non-fiction, also check out this Facebook group set up by the always excellent Farah Mendlesohn, who is a champion (and author) of SFF-related non-fiction.

The subject of today’s Non-Fiction Spotlight is a collection of scholarly essays about H.P. Lovecraft entitled Lovecraft in the 21st Century: Dead, But Still Dreaming, edited by Antonio Alcala Gonzalez and Carl H. Sederholm.

So I’m pleased to welcome Tony Alcala Gonzalez and Carl H. Sederholm to my blog today:

Lovecraft in the 21st Century: Dead, But Still Dreaming

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Carl: I am originally from Long Beach, California, but I’ve lived in Utah since 1996. I am currently a professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities at Brigham Young University, where I have taught for 21 years. I am also the co-editor of The Age of Lovecraft, another collection of essays that focuses on Lovecraft and his impact.

Tony: I’ve lived my whole life in Mexico City where I’m currently a literature professor at Tecnologico de Monterrey (campus Santa Fe). All my dissertation projects, from college to PhD, focused on Lovecraft and different aspects of his work, so you can say I’m Lovecraft-obsessed. At present, I’m specializing my research on a branch called Nautical Horror.

What prompted you to edit this book?

Carl: Tony reached out to me and invited me to be part of it. He wrote a generous review of The Age of Lovecraft and thought that expanding the ideas brought forward in that book would help spark more discussion about Lovecraft in the current moment. I agreed.

I must also note that editing this book was a pleasant experience overall. The authors gave us terrific work and were very easy to work with during the editing and revising phase. Tony and I were also very impressed with the ways the topics tended to cluster into clear categories from the outset.

Tony: I came up with the idea of this book after having witnessed for years the growing presence of Lovecraft in literature and media conferences as well as in the syllabi of graduate and undergraduate literature courses around the world.

Receiving such insightful proposals from our contributors was an amazing experience that confirmed the tentacles of Lovecraft’s legacy extend longer than the mere literary and film areas. Their contributions state that this author is here to stay for long.

Why should SFF fans in general and Hugo voters in particular read this book?

Carl: I first became interested in Lovecraft because of references to him in popular culture. As I began to read more and more of his stories, I became fascinated by the ways his work continues to show up in everything from heavy metal music to board games to internet memes to television shows. What I didn’t know was that there were dozens of others having similar experiences. This book provides a glimpse at what others have discovered in their own journey through Lovecraft. I think anyone with an interest in Lovecraft, including SFF fans and Hugo voters, can discover just how far Lovecraft’s influence goes through a book like this. Even those who already have a firm grasp of Lovecraft should be able to find new insights and research opportunities here.

Tony: Lovecraft’s Mythos have an ingredient of SFF, especially his production commonly known as Cosmic Horror where he speculates on the role of humanity when pictured against life and knowledge from beyond the confines of our planet. In such line, this book can become a helpful reference for readers interested in finding connections between SFF and the Antrhopocene, and the way Lovecraft even anticipated contemporary concerns about our relationship with the universe.

Do you have any cool facts or tidbits that you unearthed during your research, but that did not make it into the final book?

Carl: Although this isn’t necessarily a cool fact or tidbit, it is important to note that we had such a strong response to the call for papers that we decided to divide things into a book and into a special issue of an academic journal. It was amazing to see the overlap between the book and the journal issue, especially on topics like video games, Lovecraft and gender, and Lovecraft and race. We felt like the issue and the book were in dialogue with each other while we worked on them. In one instance, authors from each collection corresponded and shared some ideas.

Since all those essays are available to read online, anyone who wants to see what else came out of this larger project can find them at

https://www.aeternumjournal.com/volume-8-issue-1

More to the point, the project does not have any “deep cuts” so to speak. Everything our authors wanted to address went into print. For me, the biggest surprises came from how well the essays blend discussion of contemporary challenges with Lovecraftian fiction. He definitely seems to be more relevant than ever.

Tony: Indeed, rather than tidbits, what the project brought was the revelation that the discussion around Lovecraft can bring together many interdisciplinary perspectives in terms of both the media and the academia. As Carl says, the interconnection between the book chapters proves Lovecraft’s legacy can be approached from multiple lines; all of them pointing at the central concern of his thought: the questioning of what being human means in the vastness of time and space around us.

SFF-related non-fiction is somewhat sidelined by the big genre awards, since the Nebulas have no non-fiction category and the Best Related Work Hugo category has become something of a grab bag of anything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. So why do you think SFF-related non-fiction is important?

Carl: When I think of the Hugos, I imagine a community of readers who care about their subjects enough to comment on them and to share their ideas with others. Academic work fits into that impulse to share and discuss even though some people are reluctant to call themselves fans. To me, SFF-related non-fiction is a way to test out ideas and interpretations and to see what others think of those ideas.

Tony: That’s right, SFF-related non-fiction can provide additional angles to approach the way SFF fiction is read, thus enriching the scope of interpretative discussions around it.

Are there any other great SFF-related non-fiction works or indeed anything else (books, stories, essays, writers, magazines, films, TV shows, etc…) you’d like to recommend?

Carl: I would recommend the podcast called “Imaginary Worlds.” I’ve listened to it for years and I love it. The episode on Philip K. Dick was one of my favorites, but the show never disappoints. I’m sure lots of your readers already know about that podcast, but if they don’t, they’re in for a great experience. I’ve also been fond of K. J. Bishop’s writing for the last couple of years.

Tony: I can recommend Sara Wasson and Emily Alder’s Gothic Science Fiction 1980-2010 (2011) as a reference on studies that focus on the interconnection between SSF and other types of fiction.

Where can people buy your book?

Routledge

Amazon

Where can people find you?

Carl: I don’t use social media as much as I used to, but I can sometimes be found on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/CarlSederholm

https://hum.byu.edu/directory/carl-sederholm

Tony: Mainly, at my FB account:

https://www.facebook.com/tony.alcala.5

http://sitios.itesm.mx/ehe/facultad/aalcala.htm

Thank you, Carl and Tony, for stopping by and answering my questions.

About Lovecraft in the 21st Century: Dead, But Still Dreaming:

Lovecraft in the 21st Century assembles reflections from a wide range of perspectives on the significance of Lovecraft’s influence in contemporary times. Building on a focus centered on the Anthropocene, adaptation, and visual media, the chapters in this collection focus on the following topics:

  • Adaptation of Lovecraft’s legacy in theater, television, film, graphic narratives, video games and game artwork
  • The connection between the writer’s legacy and his life
  • Reading Lovecraft in light of contemporary criticism about capitalism, the posthuman, and the Anthropocene
  • How contemporary authors have worked through the implicit racial and sexual politics in Lovecraft’s fiction
  • Reading Lovecraft’s fiction in light of contemporary approaches to gender and sexuality

About the Editors:

Antonio Alcala Gonzalez is founder of the International Gothic Literature Congress and chair of the Humanities Department at Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico City.

Carl H. Sederholm is professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities at Brigham Young University and chair of the Department of Comparative Arts and Letters.

***

Did you publish a work of SFF-related longform non-fiction in 2021 and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

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First Monday Free Fiction: Thirteen Minutes

Posted on March 7, 2022 by Cora

Welcome to the March 2022 edition of First Monday Free Fiction.

To recap, inspired by Kristine Kathryn Rusch who posts a free short story every week on her blog, I’ll post a free story on the first Monday of every month. At the end of the month, I’ll take the story down and post another.

These are dark times, so after some deliberation I decided to post a dark story today. Because dark stories serve as warnings. I doubt that the people who really need to hear that warning will read this story. But let’s not forget that it was stories – two TV movies in particular – who terrified the right people and thus helped to prevent what you’re about to read from becoming reality.

Today’s story is one of two short stories collected in Four Minute Warning. When I wrote both stories back in 2015, they were a period pieces, set in an alternate timeline where the world as we know it ended in 1984.  Recent events have made both stories a lot more timely than they used to be. So let’s hope that these stories remain period pieces, a stark reminder of a timeline that might have been, but thankfully never came to pass.

So follow college students Luke and David as they spend their last…

Thirteen Minutes

It was the long hot summer of 1984 and it was about to get even hotter.

Luke Stanton and David White, friends since childhood and now seniors at Bayshore College, were at the supermarket, buying burgers and steaks and sausages and beer for the annual Fourth of July neighbourhood barbecue. They were standing in the check-out line with a fully loaded shopping cart, moving towards the cashier at a glacial pace, when the sirens began to wail.

For the first twenty seconds or so, no one responded except for old Mrs. Zippowitz, who’d survived the firestorms of World War II in Europe and reacted badly to sirens ever since. But to everybody else, it was just a fire alarm or a tornado warning at worst.

Sure, there had been international tensions of late, in Europe, in the Persian Gulf, in the South China Sea. But there were always international tensions, always crises. And things always calmed down again eventually. No crisis would ever escalate to the point of nuclear war. No one would ever be so stupid, neither the Americans nor the Soviets.

Only that someone had been that stupid. No one would ever know who exactly it was that pressed the button or what it was that made him do it, cause there was no one left to tell. Not that it mattered much now. The deed was done.

Luke and David realised that something was seriously wrong at around the same time everybody else did. The sound of the sirens was wrong, for starters, not the steady sound of the tornado warning or the three blasts of the fire siren. No, this was a continuous wail, steadily rising and falling in pitch. And it didn’t stop, it just went on and on and on.

Luke and David exchanged a glance.

“Fuck, that’s a nuke attack warning,” Luke exclaimed.

***

This story was available for free on this blog for one month only, but you can still read it in Four Minute Warning. And if you click on the First Monday Free Fiction tag, you can read this month’s free story.

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Star Trek Picard Meets “The Star Gazer”

Posted on March 6, 2022 by Cora

Season 4 of Star Trek Discovery hasn’t yet wound down, yet season 2 of Star Trek Picard is already starting up. I’m not sure if I will continue to do episode by episode reviews of Picard or indeed any Star Trek, because it’s a lot of work and there is also simply too much Star Trek, let alone other SFF TV of interest, around to cover.

That said, you can find my thoughts on the season 2 premiere of Star Trek Picard below and my thoughts on season 1 here.

Warning! Spoilers below the cut! Continue reading →

Posted in TV | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Non-Fiction Spotlight: Out of This World: Speculative Fiction in Translation from the Cold War to the New Millennium by Rachel S. Cordasco

Posted on March 6, 2022 by Cora

The 2022 Hugo nomination deadline is approaching and the Non-Fiction Spotlights are coming fast and furious now. If you’re just joining us, the Non-Fiction Spotlights are a project, where I interview the authors/editors of SFF-related non-fiction books that came out in 2021 and are eligible for the 2022 Hugo Awards. For more about the Non-Fiction Spotlight project, go here. To check out the spotlights I already posted, go here.

For more recommendations for SFF-related non-fiction, also check out this Facebook group set up by the always excellent Farah Mendlesohn, who is a champion (and author) of SFF-related non-fiction.

SFF-related reference books and overviews of a certain aspect of the genre have appeared on the Hugo ballot several times, including all three editions of the venerable Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.  The subject of today’s non-fiction spotlight is a work along those lines and also one that’s dear to my heart, because it focusses on SFF translated into English.

Therfore I’m thrilled to welcome Rachel S. Cordasco, author of Out of This World: Speculative Fiction in Translation from the Cold War to the New Millennium to my blog today.

Out of This World: Speculative Fiction in Translation from the Cold War to the New Millennium by Rachel S. CordascoTell us about your book.

Out of This World is a reference book for anyone interested in translated speculative fiction since 1960. SFT has been gaining an audience since the Cold War, though it really hit its stride at the beginning of this century. Each chapter, which is introduced by a guest scholar, focuses on a single source-language and the kinds of books that are available to Anglophone readers. The fourteen chapters explore SFT from the following languages: Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I received my PhD in Literary Studies in 2010 and thought I would become a professor. After a single semester, I realized that it wasn’t going to happen, and I found a job as an editor at a historical society press. When I took a few years off to have my kids, I needed to keep my brain busy and started reading and reviewing science fiction, which I hadn’t read in years since my focus in grad school was American Literary Naturalism. Eventually, my interests in translation and science fiction converged, so I started SFinTranslation.com to track science fiction, fantasy, and horror in translation. My freelancing continued when I went back to my editing job, and somewhere along the line I started translating, as well. A few months ago, life started feeling pretty crazy and I decided to leave the editing job to focus on my kids, my freelancing, and my translating.

What prompted you to write this book?

After building the SFT website, I realized that a lot of the information it contained might be useful in book form. Following a discussion with an editor at the University of Illinois Press, I started writing a book that functions as a reference/analysis text. Each chapter reviews what’s available but also analyzes why certain subgenres are more prominent in some SFTs rather than others. Furthermore, my general introduction to the volume offers an overview of SFT as a subject of discussion (stretching back to the 1970s and even earlier). Hopefully, this book will help scholars in their exploration of world SF, professors who are building world SF courses, and readers just looking for new and interesting stories.

Why should SFF fans in general and Hugo voters in particular read this book?

This book isn’t necessarily the kind of thing you’d read in one sitting by the fire (though you definitely could!). Rather, it’s the kind of book that you’d read to learn about SF from different source languages. You might read the Finnish chapter if you’re interested in Sinisalo or Krohn. Then, if you’ve picked up a work of Japanese space opera at a bookstore, you could turn to the relevant section to learn about that  language’s wide variety of hard-science-fiction subgenres. You could even use the index to find themes that span the different SFTs and compose reading lists for your book club. Also, that cover is gorgeous (the people at UIP picked it), so it would be a lovely display for your coffee table.

Do you have any cool facts or tidbits that you unearthed during your research, but that did not make it into the final book?

I did have to cut about twenty thousand words to keep the manuscript within the word limits, but most of what I cut was textual analysis (which wasn’t necessarily crucial). I would love to write a second volume that focuses on underrepresented source languages in SFT: Romanian, Greek, Tamil, Bulgarian, Danish, etc.

SFF-related non-fiction is somewhat sidelined by the big genre awards, since the Nebulas have no non-fiction category and the Best Related Work Hugo category has become something of a grab bag of anything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. So why do you think SFF-related non-fiction is important?

SFF-related non-fiction represents the analysis/discussion side of the larger SFF genre. Authors write fictional texts, and then readers and scholars discuss them. SFF non-fiction is the tangible manifestation of those discussions and is an integral part of the genre ecosystem.

Are there any other great SFF-related non-fiction works or indeed anything else (books, stories, essays, writers, magazines, films, TV shows, etc…) you’d like to recommend?

In terms of SFF-related non-fiction, I highly recommend Ian Campbell’s Science Fiction in Translation: Perspectives on the Global Theory and Practice of Translation. The website https://sciencefictionruminations.com/, which reviews vintage science fiction published from the 1950s through the 1980s, is also a wonderful place for reviews of older SF (including translations) and some of the great SF art of the period.

Where can people buy your book?

You can buy the book directly from UIP (https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=45sfy6nx9780252043987) or anywhere else you buy books! Also, ask if your local or university library has it.

Where can people find you?

rachel@sfintranslation.com
https://www.sfintranslation.com/
Twitter: @Rcordas

Thank you, Rachel, for stopping by and answering my questions.

About Out of This World: Speculative Fiction in Translation from the Cold War to the New Millennium:

The twenty-first century has witnessed an explosion of speculative fiction in translation (SFT). Rachel Cordasco examines speculative fiction published in English translation since 1960, ranging from Soviet-era fiction to the Arabic-language dystopias that emerged following the Iraq War. Individual chapters on SFT from Japanese, French, and twelve other source languages feature an introduction by an expert in the language’s speculative fiction tradition and its present-day output. Cordasco then breaks down each chapter by subgenre–including science fiction, fantasy, and horror–to guide readers toward the kinds of works that most interest them. Her discussion of available SFT stands alongside an analysis of how various subgenres emerged and developed in different source languages and why some subgenres have been more likely to be translated into English.

An informative and one-of-a-kind guide, Out of This World offers readers and scholars alike a tour of speculative fiction’s new globalized era.

About Rachel S. Cordasco:

Rachel S. Cordasco founded the website SFinTranslation.com. She works as a writer, editor, and translator and is co-translator of Clelia Ferris’s Creative Surgery.

***

Did you publish a work of SFF-related longform non-fiction in 2021 and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

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Star Trek Discovery finds the “Rosetta” Stone

Posted on March 5, 2022 by Cora

Star Trek Discovery is back for the last few episodes of season 4 and in their infinite wisdom, Paramount decided to drop season 2 of Star Trek Picard, while season 4 of Discovery is still running. So here is the review of the latest episode of Star Trek Discovery. Star Trek Picard will follow in the next few days. Reviews of previous seasons and episodes may be found here.

Another one word episode title. It’s not just me, the episode titles have definitely become shorter.

Warning: Spoilers under the cut! Continue reading →

Posted in TV | Tagged , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Non-Fiction Spotlight: Robert E. Howard Changed My Life, edited by Jason M. Waltz

Posted on March 3, 2022 by Cora

The 2022 Hugo nomination deadline is approaching and the Non-Fiction Spotlights are coming fast and furious now. If you’re just joining us, the Non-Fiction Spotlights are a project, where I interview the authors/editors of SFF-related non-fiction books that came out in 2021 and are eligible for the 2022 Hugo Awards. For more about the Non-Fiction Spotlight project, go here. To check out the spotlights I already posted, go here.

For more recommendations for SFF-related non-fiction, also check out this Facebook group set up by the always excellent Farah Mendlesohn, who is a champion (and author) of SFF-related non-fiction.

Essay collections have appeared in the Best Related Work category on the Hugo ballot several times and today, I’m pleased to feature a collection of personal essays about the impact that one of the great foundational writers of our genre had on many writers and scholars.

Therefore, I’m thrilled to welcome Jason M. Waltz, editor of Robert E. Howard Changed My Life, to my blog today.

This is already the second non-fiction book about Robert E. Howard that I’ve featured as part of the Non-Fiction Spotlight project after Renegades and Rogues: The Life and Legacy of Robert E. Howard by Todd B. Vick. If you’re looking for even more Howard scholarship, Jason was kind enough to send along a PDF of the Appendix REH (named after the famous Appendix N from the Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Handbook), a list of educational and inspirational reading about Robert E. Howard and his works from Robert E. Howard Changed My Life.

Robert E. Howard Changed My Life, edited by Jason M. WaltzTell us about your book.

“Color, action, movement–growth and power! The atmosphere was alive with these elements, stinging and tingling. Here there were no delicate shadings or subtle contrasts. Life painted here in broad, raw colors, in bold, vivid strokes.” (REH in “Vultures of Whapeton”) This is not my book. I’m just the guy lucky enough to have gathered these contributors into its covers, into the same place at the same time. The above quote is on the title page, and though Howard used it in his description of the land, the times, the conditions, the people, the atmosphere and the immediacy of his Western, it is to me the ultimate triumph of his own writing. There is no better depiction of Howard’s style, no better summation of his impact with words. Thus, it is the perfect introduction to a book containing 33 memoirs of his direct impact upon numerous creators following his legacy while navigating their own. REH CHANGED MY LIFE is a collection of personal essays examining the influence of REH and many of his characters on the lives of: Barbara A. Barrett, Barbara Baum, Fred Blosser, Rusty Burke, Bill Cavalier, Becky Cloonan, Adrian Cole, Nancy A. Collins, Bobby Derie, Jason Durall, Steven Erikson, Mark Finn, Jaym Gates, Chris Gruber, Dierk Guenther, Dave Hardy, John C. Hocking, Cecelia Holland, Matthew John, Howard Andrew Jones, Karen Joan Kohoutek, Joe R. Lansdale, Patrice Louinet, Michael Moorcock, Scott Oden, Deuce Richardson, Charles Saunders, Jeffrey Shanks, David C. Smith, Keith J. Taylor, Roy Thomas, Todd B. Vick, and C. L. Werner. It includes an Afterword by Janet Morris and ‘Appendix REH: Suggested Additional Inspirational and Educational Reading’ from the contributors. Cover art is by Didier Normand. REH CHANGED MY LIFE overflows with vivid color, raw action, and bold movement exemplified. Power and growth resonant throughout the essays shared. Bob Howard did not change my life until I united these essays within this salute to his extraordinary legacy. I daresay there is no other book of its nature, not in any concerned fields, and if there were no other compulsion to explore it, that alone makes it a worthy read.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I am a proponent of heroic literature: I read, write, edit, publish, collect, speak, and preserve it. I’m also just a fellow who happened to lend a hand one day back in 2005 when a few small press people solicited help. Things led to other things, and in 2008 I was suddenly the micro publisher Rogue Blades Entertainment, publisher of all that is heroic, specifically heroic fantasy. Several well-regarded (though never as many as intended) anthologies–such as RETURN OF THE SWORD, RAGE OF THE BEHEMOTH, CROSSBONES & CROSSES, REACH FOR THE SKY–and the popular non-fiction how-to WRITING FANTASY HEROES later, Rogue Blades Foundation was established specifically to take on larger scale titles like REH CHANGED MY LIFE.

What prompted you to edit this book?

I believe much of modern entertainment can be traced to REH, directly or via his influence. From music to gaming to professional wrestling, all the myriad forms of storytelling through any media owes its current existence to Robert E. Howard to some extent. I’ve often thought about exploring that connection, tracing that lineage. Frankly, I also always considered it too much work. Until I heard Bill Cavalier’s Guest of Honor speech “How Robert E. Howard Saved My Life” at Howard Days 2018 in Cross Plains, Texas. While much of that audience already knew that story–it truly touched me. Before the evening was over I considered it a revelation and immediately voiced efforts to gather similar stories I knew had to exist, though slightly tweaking the emphasis to be on changed rather than saved personal lives. My initial goal was a dozen essays, due to both my perceived contributor potential and the ensuing costs. Indy (Bill Cavalier) was graciously instantly on board, as well as a handful of others present. And then word spread and suddenly I was receiving requests to be included! It truly was amazing, with contributors coming to me or quickly accepting my invitation to join. Very few that I made contact with declined, though each who did specifically stated they could not unequivocally declare Robert Howard had changed their lives and so did not deem it appropriate to contribute. I find that alone makes this an amazing book, for that means that everyone who is present definitely can point to Howard as an influencer of change in their lives! And so what I had intended to be a small, almost chapbook like title mostly intended for the Howard Days crowd became the largest title I’ve ever worked on let alone helmed. And I am humbled by it: by its contents, by its contributors, and by its potential to be my own legacy.

Why should SFF fans in general and Hugo voters in particular read this book?

Fans of action adventure in all its glories should be highly interested in learning how a founding father of American heroic literature impacts today’s storytelling entertainment directly through these contributors who attribute some of their life and career choices, motivations, creations, and successes to him. SFF fans should even moreso read this title because this is not JUST a book about Robert E. Howard and his influence–it is ALSO a book about how 33 current heroic storytellers continue to impact today’s fantastical entertainment themselves! This is a book that covers much more than one man and his characters and stories no matter how numerous they are; this book shares the memories, realizations, personal growths, and sheer inspiring creativity of dozens of modern influencers who carry on the best of Robert Howard to the best of their abilities. Not only do they share how Howard changed them, they share what they did with that change and even further add recommendations for others to continue finding inspirational and educational reading in their pursuit of change. As one of the very few SFF awards programs to recognize non-fiction SFF/SFF-adjacent literature, the Hugo voters should seriously read this book.

Do you have any cool facts or tidbits that you unearthed during your research, but that did not make it into the final book?

Everything I learned/received during the compilation of this book made it within its covers, so no, there are no missing delights. There are, however, unexpected things that appear inside: what I believe is the final essay written by Charles R. Saunders, Father of Sword & Soul, and three salutes to his influence and friendship. Sadly, due to his untimely death, there are no recommendations in Appendix REH from the author. I deliberated quite awhile about including these salutes to Saunders in a title inspired by and dedicated to Howard. Finally I decided that doing so detracted from neither, and doing so honored both men and emphasized the underscoring theme of changed lives.

SFF-related non-fiction is somewhat sidelined by the big genre awards, since the Nebulas have no non-fiction category and the Best Related Work Hugo category has become something of a grab bag of anything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. So why do you think SFF-related non-fiction is important?

The analysis of creativity, of motivation, and of legacy should be a regular genre consideration. Not to the extent of peer reviewed thesis or literary journal material, but most assuredly in the informative and educational and frankly illuminating non-fiction exploration of SFF. From examinations and histories of entire genres, to biographies of the influential and even the obscure, to what storytelling changed the trajectory of our storytellers’ lives…all of it is of merit and worthy of recognition and promotion. With regularly-occurring material each year, SFF-related non-fiction should have its own category in each of the major awards programs.

Are there any other great SFF-related non-fiction works or indeed anything else (books, stories, essays, writers, magazines, films, TV shows, etc…) you’d like to recommend?

There have been a number of SFF non-fiction titles to appear within the last two years within my purview: heroic literature. David C. Smith and Todd B. Vick both released biographical looks at Robert E. Howard, while Brian Murphy wrote a history of Sword & Sorcery. In the past there were the Tales from Before titles examining what books and authors influenced those such as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. There’s a long-overdue and greatly welcomed documentary style movie about Karl Edward Wagner. I’m sure there are others, those are all that come to mind at the moment.

Where can people buy your book?

Rogue Blades Foundation sells via Amazon, so here’s a hopefully working link to everyone’s own Amazon: http://authl.it/B09419WQZ9?d

Where can people find you?

Rogue Blades is found at https://rogue-blades.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/RogueBladesFoundation

Thank you, Jason, for stopping by and answering my questions.

About Robert E. Howard Changed My Life:

ROBERT E. HOWARD CHANGED MY LIFE is a brand-new way of understanding how the Texas author’s legacy continues today. 33 contributors long familiar with the man and his creations share how he impacted their lives and continues to impact modern entertainment. This is an intimate look at the changes wrought personally and professionally by the Father of Sword-and-Sorcery and a Founder of American Fantasy.

ROBERT E. HOWARD CHANGED MY LIFE is homage not only in memoir but also in financial support for Project Pride, the agency that sustains the Howard Home and Museum in Cross Plains, Texas. A portion of each sale of the hardcover and electronic book will be donated by RBF to Project Pride each year at the annual Howard Days.

ROBERT E. HOWARD CHANGED MY LIFE is as bold, raw, and filled with vibrant life as the words, characters, and works of the man himself. This collection of intimate essays on the impact of Robert E. Howard and his characters as catalysts of personal change comes from 33 scholars, writers, artists, publishers, and fans who can say, “Because Howard lived I am a changed person.”

A Riot of Life, by Jason M Waltz
How REH Saved My Life, by Bill Cavalier
REH, Conan and Me, by John C. Hocking
Dreams of the Purple Kingdom, by Jason Durall
Out there in the Wilds with REH, by Joe R. Lansdale
Bêlit, Queen of the Black Coast, by Jaym Gates
REH and Me: The Celtic Connection, by Adrian Cole
He Himself was in Every One of Them, by Rusty Burke
Crossed Swords and Bloody Seas, by David C. Smith
Taking the World by the Throat, by Karen Joan Kohoutek
The Black Dog and REH, by C.L. Werner
An Empire of Ghosts and Smoke, by Scott Oden
From Conan to Cormac: My Path to Howard Studies, by Todd B. Vick
REH: Opener of the Way, by Nancy A. Collins
Wyrd Ensemble, by Bobby Derie
The Ride of Falume, by Barbara A. Barrett
For the Honor of the Ship, by Christopher A. Gruber
An Ode to REH, by Cecelia Holland
A Love Letter to Bear Creek, by Mark Finn
On the Trail with El Borak, by David Hardy
The Were-Woman, the Gnome, and the Zebra, by Deuce Richardson
In the Footsteps of Steve Harrison, by Fred Blosser
Unearthing an Age Undreamed Of, by Jeffrey Shanks
How REH (And Glenn Lord) Changed My Life, by Roy Thomas
Kosru’s Road, by Howard Andrew Jones
1975: The Year of the Cormac, by Keith J. Taylor
In a Dark Place, by Steven Erikson
My New Friend Agnes, by Becky Cloonan
Sol K. and Me, by Dierk Günther
An Unexpected Gift, by Barbara Ingram Baum
A New and Mighty Mission, by Matthew John
White Spark, Black Fire, by Charles R. Saunders
The Extraordinary Inner World of Charles R. Saunders, Father of ‘Sword and Soul,’ by Jon Tattrie
Charles Saunders and I were Friends, by Joe R. Lansdale
The Importance of Charles Saunders, by David C. Smith
Why No Howard Character Ever Changed My Life, by Patrice Louinet
REH: A European Perspective, by Michael Moorcock
Afterword, by Janet E. Morris
Appendix REH: Suggested Additional Inspirational and Educational Readings

About Jason M. Waltz:

Jason M Waltz is THE RogueBlade, owner/editor at Rogue Blades Entertainment, a high octane adventure publisher sharing heroic literature, and founder/publisher at Rogue Blades Foundation, a literary publisher exploring heroics. As such, he gets to produce the wonderful titles from RBE & RBF listed here. In addition, you’ll find a few adventures of his own, mostly within the speculative and grand adventure genres.

***

Did you publish a work of SFF-related longform non-fiction in 2021 and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

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Non-Fiction Spotlight: True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abe Riesman

Posted on March 1, 2022 by Cora

Today, I’m continuing the Non-Fiction Spotlight project, wherein I interview the authors/editors of SFF-related non-fiction books that came out in 2021 and are eligible for the 2022 Hugo Awards. For more about the Non-Fiction Spotlight project, go here. To check out the spotlights I already posted, go here.

For more recommendations for SFF-related non-fiction, also check out this Facebook group set up by the always excellent Farah Mendlesohn, who is a champion (and author) of SFF-related non-fiction.

Biographies of SFF authors and other people of genre interest have appeared on the ballot for the Best Related Work Hugo several times in the past. So this Non-Fiction Spotlight features another excellent biography of an important figure in SFF history.

Therefore, I’m thrilled to welcome Abe Riesman*, author of True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee, to my blog. Furthermore, by some amazing cosmic coincidence (not really, since we timed it that way), True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee came out in paperback yesterday, so get yourselves to your favourite bookstore and buy a copy.

True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee by Abraham Riesman

Tell us about your book.

It’s the first complete and unvarnished look at the life of the man born Stanley Martin Lieber. You know him as Stan Lee, the writer/editor who brought Marvel Comics to the world, changed global popular culture, and became an unmistakeable icon. But beyond those broad strokes, most of what the world knew about Stan Lee was false.

True Believer is based on more than 150 exclusive interviews and thousands of pages of archival material — from both Stan’s massive, rarely-visited archive and the private archives of others. True Believer’s narrative stretches from Stan’s ancestral trauma in eastern Romania to his shocking final days in Los Angeles. Along the way, it digs into many unsettling questions: Did Stan actually create the characters he gained fame for creating? Was he complicit in millions of dollars’ worth of fraud at his post-Marvel companies? Which members of the cavalcade of grifters who surrounded him were most responsible for the misery of his final days?

It’s a story of overreach; of a man who achieved so much, yet always boasted of more. It’s a story of obsession; of the birth of modern fandom and its ripeness for manipulation. Above all, it’s a story of ambiguity; of the fact that certain moral judgments and factual assertions can never be made with certainty. Living with that ambiguity is the great challenge of understanding the life and impact of Stan Lee.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’m a 36-year-old author and journalist based in Rhode Island. My main gig has been as a writer for New York magazine and its culture site, Vulture. I was on staff there for about six years, writing about a wide array of things — but especially about the geek-industrial complex, for lack of a better term. I’ve also written for The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The New Republic, and The Washington Post. I have made it my goal to bring serious analysis to topics where real harm is being done and no one is paying attention because the industry in question makes a product deemed silly by the mainstream media. True Believer is my first book, but I’m currently writing Ringmaster, a biography of professional wrestling’s Vince McMahon, for Simon & Schuster. I’m married to a wonderful journalist/editor named S.I. Rosenbaum and we have three cats.

What prompted you to write this book?

In the summer of 2015, while I was on staff at New York magazine, an editor named David Wallace-Wells stopped by my desk, plopped a book onto it, and said, “You should do something with this.” It was a galley of Stan Lee’s then-upcoming graphic memoir Amazing, Fantastic, Incredible. I was eager to show my mettle, so I got to work on a profile. A week later, I checked in with David and he told me he had meant I should write a short capsule review. Oops. But, to his credit, he said I should continue! So I wrote a long reported feature about Stan — without interviewing him; his people kept giving me the run-around — that was released in February of 2016. It was a hit. Flash forward to November 2018. When Stan passed away, an editor at Penguin Random House / Crown reached out to me about doing a full biography. I almost said no! I had no idea how to write a book! But sense was talked into me and I got to work.

Why should SFF fans in general and Hugo voters in particular read this book?

Well, first of all, superhero fiction is a subdivision of SFF, is it not? Its own unique, screwed-up species, to be sure. But the superheroes Stan worked on were all powered by radioactive accidents and ancient incantations. Even before the superhero days of the sixties, Stan did a wide array of SFF (well, mostly SF) comics — as did his most important collaborators, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko! By that basic measure, the core cast of this book is crucial for understanding the history of genre fiction. And the story of Stan, the possibly undeserving man at the center of it all, has simply never been told before now.

Do you have any cool facts or tidbits that you unearthed during your research, but that did not make it into the final book?

I keep kicking myself that I forgot to put this in, but there’s a fascinating bit in Stan’s co-written early-aughts memoir, Excelsior!, in which he talks about his difficulty adopting a child as a mixed-background couple alongside his wife, Joan Boocock Lee. Joan was an Episcopalian Englishwoman and Stan — well, as Stan puts it in the memoir, “My parents were Jewish.” Not “I’m Jewish,” mind you. It was such a window into Stan’s tortured relationship with his Jewish identity and his very stern, very Jewish father. But most of the stuff about that relationship made it into the book, Baruch HaShem.

SFF-related non-fiction is somewhat sidelined by the big genre awards, since the Nebulas have no non-fiction category and the Best Related Work Hugo category has become something of a grab bag of anything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. So why do you think SFF-related non-fiction is important?

Well, for one thing, because SFF is the dominant mode of storytelling in the global entertainment marketplace right now. Period, end of sentence, full stop, over and out. Of course we need serious historical and journalistic work on the behemoths that dominate our lives!

Additionally, we live in an age of genre storytelling where the Powers That Be have figured out how to make crude hijackings of fandom dynamics, and part of that has to do with fictional “non-fiction.” Memoirs from geek-celebs, official histories, adoring fanboy hagiography — it’s everywhere! And nobody seems to question it! I’m writing about wrestling right now, and it sort of laid out the template: wrestling superfans were always looking for the “true story” behind the scenes, and, eventually, promoters figured out how to seed the gossip mill with disinformation. Soon, people were superfans of the “real life” versions of the wrestlers — which were just as made-up as the in-ring versions. We see that all over the place in genre storytelling these days, and we need good nonfiction about the nature and creation of SFF if we’re going to get out of the apocalyptic mess we’re in.

Are there any other great SFF-related non-fiction works or indeed anything else (books, stories, essays, writers, magazines, films, TV shows, etc…) you’d like to recommend?

I always recommend this amazing, brief video-essay by Slavoj Žižek about John Carpenter’s They Live:

Beyond that, read everything written by comics critic Tegan O’Neil:

https://whenwillthehurtingstop.blogspot.com/

Where can people buy your book?

Head over to the book page on my website!

abrahamriesman.com/true-believer

Where can people find you?

abrahamriesman.com

twitter.com/abrahamjoseph

Thank you, Abe, for stopping by and answering my questions. Also, did I mention that True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee just came out in paperback?

About True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee:

The definitive, revelatory biography of Marvel Comics icon Stan Lee, a writer and entrepreneur who reshaped global pop culture–at a steep personal cost

“A biography that reads like a thriller or a whodunit . . . scrupulously honest, deeply damning, and sometimes even heartbreaking.”–Neil Gaiman

Stan Lee was one of the most famous and beloved entertainers to emerge from the twentieth century. He served as head editor of Marvel Comics for three decades and, in that time, became known as the creator of more pieces of internationally recognizable intellectual property than nearly anyone: Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, Black Panther, the Incredible Hulk . . . the list goes on. His carnival-barker marketing prowess helped save the comic-book industry and superhero fiction. His cameos in Marvel movies have charmed billions. When he died in 2018, grief poured in from around the world, further cementing his legacy.

But what if Stan Lee wasn’t who he said he was? To craft the definitive biography of Lee, Abraham Riesman conducted more than 150 interviews and investigated thousands of pages of private documents, turning up never-before-published revelations about Lee’s life and work. True Believer tackles tough questions: Did Lee actually create the characters he gained fame for creating? Was he complicit in millions of dollars’ worth of fraud in his post-Marvel life? Which members of the cavalcade of grifters who surrounded him were most responsible for the misery of his final days?

And, above all, what drove this man to achieve so much yet always boast of more?

About Abe Riesman:

Abe Riesman is a Providence-based journalist, writing primarily for New York magazine about arts and culture. Her work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The New Republic, and Vice, among other publications.

***

Did you publish a work of SFF-related longform non-fiction in 2021 and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

*The article has been updated with regard to Abraham Riesman’s pronouns.

Posted in Books, Comics, Non-Fiction Spotlight | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Star Trek Discovery Crosses “The Galactic Barrier”

Posted on March 1, 2022 by Cora

Star Trek Discovery is back for the last few episodes of season 4, so here is my somewhat belated review of the latest episode. Reviews of previous seasons and episodes may be found here.

Another short episode title and another one which is easy to turn into a blog post headline.  Is it me or have the episode titles become much shorter of late?

But before we get to the meat of this post, I also want to point you to the latest episode of Take Me To Your Reader, a podcast which discusses filmic science fiction adaptations. The subject of this episode of Robert Sheckley’s 1958 short story “The Prize of Peril”, which was adapted in West Germany as Das Millionenspiel in 1970 and in France as Le Prix Du Danger in 1983. I put in a guest appearance to talk about Das Millionenspiel (which you should absolutely watch, if you can find it, because it’s brilliant), while Emmanuel Dubois talks about the French adaption.

Warning: Spoilers under the cut! Continue reading →

Posted in TV | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments