The Falcon and the Winter Soldier meet “The Star Sprangled Man”

Posted on March 29, 2021 by Cora

I’m still not sure if I’ll do episode by episode reviews for the entire series of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, because it is much less complex than WandaVision and I’m not sure whether it really deserves deeper analysis. Camestros Felapton in his non-review also isn’t sure if the show actually deserves a deeper analysis. That said, if you want my thoughts on other episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (well, there is only one post so far), go here.

Warning: Spoilers behind the cut! Continue reading →

Posted in TV | Tagged , , , , , , , | 25 Comments

An Open Letter to the 2021 Hugo Finalists, Whoever They May Be

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Cora

DisCon III, the 2021 Worldcon in Washington DC, will announce the finalists for the 2021 Hugo Awards on April 13.

Right now, no one except for possibly the Hugo administrators knows who those finalists will be. However, sometime in the next two weeks or so, some of you will receive an e-mail from DisCon III, informing you that you are a finalist for the 2021 Hugo Award and asking you whether you want to accept the nomination. Some of you will have received such e-mails before, for others it will be the first time.

But whether it’s your first or your twentieth nomination, congratulations! That’s awesome.

As a first time recipient of such an e-mail last year, here are a few things I’ve learned:

  1. The e-mail may not look like you think it will. When I got the e-mail from CoNZealand last year, the subject line was “CoNZealand Hugo Awards Confidential”. I was exhausted that day and waiting for two important e-mails, so I scanned right past that subject line, because I assumed it was the convention newsletter. I only opened the mail, because none of the two important e-mails had come yet, so I thought I might as well check out the CoNZealand mail while I was waiting. Good thing that I did.
  2. If you receive an e-mail from DisCon III, please reply as soon as you can whether you accept the nomination or not. If there are questions with regard to eligibility, answer them as soon as possible. The Hugo administrator and their team work very hard, so don’t make their job any harder than it has to be.
  3. The DisCon III team will also ask you to keep quiet about your nomination until the official announcement. Please don’t violate this, because you don’t want to steal DisCon’s thunder!
  4. The period between the time when the finalists are notified and when the Hugo finalists are officially announced can be weird, because while you know that you’re a finalist, almost nobody else does. I blogged a bit about my experiences last year here. Basically, I kept having the niggling fear that there had been some terrible mistake and that I wasn’t a finalist after all or that I only was a finalist because all twenty people who would have been ahead of me had withdrawn. From talking to other first time finalist, I learned that I wasn’t alone in this. And while I can’t guarantee that terrible mistakes won’t happen, the chance that the wrong person is notified about being a Hugo finalist is extremely small. So relax. You really are a Hugo finalist, even if nobody else knows it yet.
  5. You can tell a few people you trust about your nomination as long as you know they won’t blab it all over the internet. Before the official announcement, a handful of people knew I was a Hugo finalist. These include my parents (whose reaction was, “That’s nice,” before turning back to watch a rerun of Midsomer Murders), some folks from Galactic Journey and others in the SFF community, who knew not to say anything before the official announcement, as well as my accountant (because I asked her if buying an evening gown for the Hugo ceremony was tax-deductible) and the guy who repaired my patio, because he just happened to be there, when I got the e-mail. Neither the accountant nor the patio guy are SFF fans, so chances of a leak were zero. They both also probably thought I was quite mad.
  6. One thing I did not do is tell people about my nomination who might be up in the same category. Because I didn’t know who else was nominated (you don’t before the official announcement) and didn’t want anybody to feel disappointed, because I was a finalist and they were not.
  7. Even if you can’t publicly talk about your Hugo nomination just yet, there are still a few things you can do in the meantime. For example, you can update your bio to mention that you’re a Hugo finalist or write a bio, if you don’t have one yet. Important: Don’t upload your updated bio anywhere until the official announcement has been made! In fact, I spent a chunk of the evening after the Hugo finalists had been announced updating my bio everywhere it appears.
  8. In fact – and this is important – don’t upload anything that mentions your Hugo nomination anywhere on the internet, until the official announcement has been made. Even if you set a Tweet or blogpost to go live after the announcement has been made, don’t upload it yet. Because mistakes happen, you accidentally hit “publish” rather than “schedule” or a post goes live too early. I had my celebratory blogpost ready to go in Word, but I only uploaded it with links and a few comments added once the announcement had been made.
  9. Another thing you can do in the meantime is prepare a media kit, if you haven’t got one already. You can see mine here and there are also plenty of pages around the web that tell you what a media kit is supposed to contain. Important: Get permission to use any photos that you did not take yourself.
  10. Another thing you can do is write a press release about your Hugo nomination. It doesn’t matter which category you’re nominated in, whether it’s Best Novel or a fan category. Write a press release anyway. There are plenty of places around the web which tell you how to write a press release. It varies from country to country, so make sure you get the correct format for your country. My press release from last year (in German) is here. Then make a list of the contact info for the relevant newspapers, radio stations and other media outlets in your region. Once the nominations have been announced, send your press release as well as the link to your media kit to those media outlets. The press release linked above netted me two in-depth profiles and a bonus article in two different newspapers, which is much more than I’d hoped for.
  11. Consider whether you want to attend Worldcon and the ceremony. And yes, I know it’s difficult during the pandemic, since we don’t know how or when the ceremony will happen, whether it will be virtual or in person, or whether our countries will even allow us to travel. Nonetheless, get a Worldcon membership, if you haven’t got one already. Like most recent Worldcons, DisCon III offers an installment plan, so you don’t have to pay for a full attending membership right now. You can also start looking for flights, hotels, etc…, though I wouldn’t book anything until we know for sure what’s going to happen. If money is an issue, as it’s for many of us, think about crowdfunding your Worldcon trip, as several finalists have done in recent years. However, don’t start your crowdfunding campaign, until after the finalists have been announced.
  12. If you want to participate in programming, fill out DisCon III’s program participant form, if you haven’t already. Do this as early as possible, so the programming team doesn’t have to find suitable programming for you at the last minute.
  13. Finally, start thinking about the Hugo voter packet.

Finally, here are a few observations regarding what happened after the Hugo finalists were announced last year:

  1. A lot of people will congratulate you. These will be people you expect – friends, peers, etc… – but also people you don’t expect. After the newspaper articles mentioned above came out last year, I suddenly got congratulations from translation customers, various relatives and my Dad’s diabetes doctor among others. Enjoy the experience, thank everybody and don’t forget to congratulate your fellow finalists.
  2. Some people will also not congratulate you and again, some of these will be people you don’t expect. There are several reasons why someone might not congratulate you and most of them are not malicious. For example, some people might simply not have seen the news yet. Or they may not understand the significance, since not everybody is plugged into the SFF community. Of course, there will also be a few people who think that you don’t deserve your nomination. Ignore them!
  3. Your fellow Hugo finalists are not your rivals, they are your peers. You’ll probably know some of them already and if not, you’ll quickly get to know them. And yes, only one of you will get to take home the rocket in the end, but all six of you are amazing and in a way, you’re all winners. This also applies across categories. I met a lot of great people in the SFF community because we were on the Hugo ballot in the same year.
  4. As a Hugo finalist, you will get plenty of e-mails from DisCon III about anything from the Hugo voter packet via the program book to the ceremony itself. Pay attention to those e-mails, send any information requested in time and check your spam folder. You don’t accidentally want to miss something important.

Finally – and this is the most important point – enjoy your experience! You’re a Hugo finalist, i.e. your peers consider you and your work one of the six best in your respective category. That’s amazing, so celebrate!

Posted in Books, General | Tagged , , , , | 13 Comments

Marvel’s “New World Order” – Some Thoughts on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Posted on March 22, 2021 by Cora

I probably won’t do episode by episode reviews of the new Marvel series on Disney+ The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, because compared to WandaVision, it’s a much more straight forward action adventure story and doesn’t seem to be the sort of show that invites a lot of analysis. Which is perfectly fine, cause sometimes all you want is some banter and explosion and entertainment. And The Falcon and the Winter Soldier certainly delivers that.

Warning: Spoilers behind the cut! Continue reading →

Posted in Comics, TV | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Some Comments on the 2020 Nebula Award Finalists

Posted on March 16, 2021 by Cora

The finalists for the 2020 Nebula Awards were announced yesterday night, uncommonly late in the year, since the Nebula finalists are normally announced several weeks rather than four day before the Hugo nominations close.

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

Best Novel

There are no big surprises in this categories – all six finalists are highly regarded novels, which got a lot of positive attention.

Piranesi is Susanna Clarke’s first novel since the Hugo and Nebula winning Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell back in 2004 and got a lot of attention well beyond the SFF sphere. I have to admit that I haven’t read it yet and that I don’t have a great desire to read it, even though I liked Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell quite a bit back in 2004. But then, I’ve also changed quite a bit since 2004 and my tastes have changed as well.

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin is an expansion of her 2016 short story “The City Born Great”. It’s an excellent novel by one of the top writers in our genre and in fact, I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed the Broken Earth trilogy. Heresy, I know.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia is another novel that got a lot of attention beyond the SFF sphere. I enjoyed it a lot and it’s on my Hugo ballot. With The City We Became, Mexican Gothic and Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark in the novella category as well as Lovecraft Country in the film and TV category, it’s also notable that the trend towards Lovecraftian horror featuring protagonists that Lovecraft himself would never have accepted in his fiction continues unabated.

The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk was the only finalist in this category that surprised me a little. I haven’t read it, so I can’t say anything about it, though C.L. Polk has been a Nebula finalist before.

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse is a fine fantasy novel by one of the most exciting newer writer in our genre. It’s another unsurprising finalist.

Network Effect by Martha Wells is the latest installment and first novel in the beloved Murderbot series. It’s also on my Hugo ballot and I’m not surprised to see it here at all.

Diversity count: 5 women, 1 non-binary, 4 writers of colour, 2 international writers.

ETA: It’s actually three international writers. C.L. Polk is Canadian.

Best Novella

This category is a mix of expected and unexpected finalists. The three Tor.com novellas Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark, Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi and Finna by Nino Cipri all got quite a bit of attention. I did like Ring Shout, though not quite enough to put it on my Hugo ballot. Haven’t read the other two.

The Four Profound Weaves by R.B. Lemberg is a novella I’ve heard of, though it got a little less attention than the previous three, probably because Tachyon’s marketing budget is smaller than Tor’s. Again, I haven’t read it.

“Tower of Mud and Straw” by Yaroslav Barsukov appeared in the magazine Metaphorosis. I’m afraid I’ve never heard either of the novella nor of the magazine, though it looks interesting. Yaroslav Barsukov is a Russian author currently living in Vienna BTW.

“Ife-Iyoku, the Tale of Imadeyunuagbon” by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki appeared in the anthology Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and the African Diaspora by small press Aurelia Leo. I have interacted online with Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Aurelia Leo does good work, though I haven’t read this particular novella. Together with Riot Baby, there are two novellas by Nigerian writers/writers of Nigerian origin on the Nebula ballot.

Diversity count: 4 men, 1 woman, 1 non-binary, 3 authors of colour, 2 international authors (4 if you include first/second generation immigrants to the US), at least 2 LGBTQ+ authors*

Best Novelette

“Two Truths and a Lie” by Sarah Pinsker is a fine SFF mystery that’s also on my Hugo ballot.

The “Shadow Prisons” triptych by Caroline M. Yoachim is a chilling dystopian serial that stuck with me for a long time after I read it. One of the individual stories is on my Hugo ballot, though it didn’t occur to me to nominate the serial as a whole. I’ll have to think about whether to change my Hugo ballot accordingly, because the three stories really belong together.

“Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super” by A.T. Greenblatt is a story I enjoyed quite a bit, though it didn’t quite make my Hugo ballot.

“Where You Linger” by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam is unfamiliar to me, though I normally read Uncanny. I probably missed it, especially since it came out at a time when I was busy with the Retro Reviews project and new fiction fell to the wayside for a while.

“Stepsister” by Leah Cypress is another story I’m not familiar with, probably because F&SF is difficult to come by here in Germany. This is one of only two Nebula nominations for the so-called “Big Three” print magazines this year BTW.

“The Pill” from Meg Elison’s collection Big Girl is another story I haven’t read, so I can’t say anything about it.

Diversity count: 6 women, 1 writer of colour

Best Short Story

“Badass Moms in the Zombie Apocalypse” by Rae Carson has a great title, though it’s a story I completely missed due to it coming out at a time when I was otherwise occupied. Ditto for “My Country Is a Ghost” by Eugenia Triantafyllou.

I very likely read “Advanced Word Problems in Portal Math” by Aimee Picchi, since I usually read Daily Science Fiction‘s story of the day, when it lands in my inbox. However, I don’t remember this particular story.

Vina Jie-Min Prasad is a great newish author, though I haven’t read her story “A Guide for Working Breeds” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad from the anthology Made to Order: Robots and Revolution.

I haven’t read “The Eight-Thousanders”, since Asimov’s is as difficult to come by here in Germany as F&SF. However, I’m really happy for Jason Sanford, especially after all the crap and harassment he got following his exposé of far right murder fantasies posted at the Baen’s Bar forum. You can find a summary of the whole ugly situation here, here and here. For that matter, this is the other Nebula nomination for one of the “Big Three” print magazines.

“Open House on Haunted Hill” by John Wiswell from Diabolical Plots is another story I haven’t read, I’m afraid.

Diversity count: 2 men, 4 women, 1 author of colour, 2 international authors

Andre Norton Award for YA SFF

Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar and A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher are two great YA fantasy novels that are also on my Lodestar ballot, so I’m thrilled to see them here.

I have heard a lot of good things about Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, though I haven’t read it.

I hadn’t heard of Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko before, though it looks interesting.

A Game of Fox & Squirrels by Jenn Reese is another book I’m afraid I haven’t heard of.

Diversity count: 5 women, 3 writers of colour

Best Game Writing

I’m not a gamer, so I can’t say anything about this category at all. Hades is the only game I’ve even heard of.

No diversity count, too many people are needed to write games

Ray Bradbury Award for Best Dramatic Presentation

I’m not surprised to see episodes of The Expanse and The Mandalorian as well as the whole 1st season of Lovecraft Country here, since all three are great SFF shows. The Mandalorian and Lovecraft Country also appear on my Hugo ballot. The Expanse doesn’t, largely because I’m woefully behind with the show.

I really loved The Old Guard, so I’m thrilled to see it here. It’s also on my Hugo ballot.

I have to admit that I was surprised to see Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn on the Nebula ballot, largely because I had completely forgotten that the film even existed. I remember that the trailers put me off at the time. Maybe the movie is better.

Finally, we have yet another episode of the execrable The Good Place. I guess I will never understand why so many people seem to love this show, especially in an age of so many great SFF TV shows. However, thankfully The Good Place ended in 2020, so this is the last year we will see it on SFF awards ballots.

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

And that’s it for the 2020 Nebula Awards. All in all, it’s a good ballot, which includes a mix of the expected and the unexpected. Writers from Africa and the African diaspora are making a strong showing and we also have two indigenous writers on the ballot, which is a first.

The decline of the “Big Three” print magazines continues, though they did manage to nab two nominations this year. The reasons for this is that there is so much great short fiction available in the online magazines that many people don’t look beyond the online zines. Which is a pity, because the print mags – well, F&SF and Asimov’s – publish a lot of good stories. They just don’t get the attention they deserve.

Though in general, we are seeing more variation in the sources for Nebula short fiction, which is a good thing. Tor.com no longer dominates the novella category like they used to. And while Uncanny is making a strong showing in the novelette and short story categories, it’s no longer as dominant as it used to be. Finally, four nominees come from anthologies and collections, which is something we haven’t seen as much in previous years.

Small presses are making a good showing on the Nebula ballot this year, though there are no self-published works for the second year in a row. It seems as if the 20Booksto50K dust-up of two years ago has soured a lot of Nebula nominators on indie authors and books, which is a pity, cause there is a lot of good work out there.

Beyond the Lovecraftian horror reimagined theme I already mentioned above, I don’t really see any notable themes this year. We have a wide variety of different stories and themes, which is a good thing.

All in all, another strong Nebula ballot.

*I’m only counting writers where I know for sure that they are LGBTQ+. Most likely, there are several others on the ballot whose orientation I simply don’t know.

 

 

Posted in Books, Film, TV | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

“The Cold Crowdfunding Campaign” is now available as a free e-book

Posted on March 16, 2021 by Cora

Almost a year ago, I wrote a short story in response to the famous 1954 science fiction story “The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin, which reimagines the classic story as a crowdfunding campaign. I then posted the story to my blog.

That story is called “The Cold Crowdfunding Campaign” and got quite a lot of hits and comments at the time.

Fast forward a year and I suddenly noticed that “The Cold Crowdfunding Campaign” got a quite a few hits, more than an old blog post normally gets. So I investigated and saw that a kindly soul had added “The Cold Crowdfunding Campaign” to the 2021 Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom.  Which is really awesome.

“The Cold Crowdfunding Campaign” is still available to read on this blog. However, if you’d rather read it as an e-book, you can now also get “The Cold Crowdfunding Campaign” as a free e-book in the format of your choice at StoryOrigins. It even has a pretty cover now, courtesy of Luca Oleastri.

The Cold Crowdfunding Campaign by Cora Buhlert

“The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin, winner of the 1955 Hugo Award for Best Short Story, is one of the most influential science fiction stories of all times and has inspired countless responses and rebuttals, mostly to avert the infamous tragic ending.

This story reimagines “The Cold Equations” in the form of a crowdfunding campaign. Will Captain Barton raise enough credits to refuel his emergency dispatch ship in time? Or is eighteen-year-old Marilyn Cross, who stowed away aboard Barton’s ship, doomed and will have to take a trip out of the airlock without a spacesuit?

Any similarities to persons living or dead are entirely intentional.

Get it for free in the e-book format of your choice!

Posted in Books, First Monday Free Fiction, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fanzine Spotlight: James Nicoll Reviews

Posted on March 15, 2021 by Cora

We’re heading into the homestretch for the 2021 Hugo nominations, so it’s time for the next entry in my Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project. For more about the Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project, go here. You can also check out the other great fanzines and fancasts featured by clicking here.

So today, I’m pleased to feature James Nicoll Reviews and welcome four time Best Fan Writer Hugo finalist James Davis Nicoll to my blog.

James Davis NicollTell us about your site or zine.

James Nicoll Reviews (1) is where I review genre and genre-adjacent works. This translates mostly to science fiction and fantasy but “genre-adjacent” is license to review anything that catches my eye.

I try to cast as wide a net as I can, because that’s more fun. Anyway, who needs yet another site featuring 60-year-old white reviewer who stubbornly sticks to the stuff he liked back in 1975 (2) while ignoring all the wonderful new material people are producing? To this end, JNR features a number of projects covering a wide range of subjects (3).

Originally, I intended to read and write a book a day but this proved impractical. To date there are about 1800 works reviews on the site, of which 256 were posted in 2020.

1: I went for a very straight-forward site name because I opted for whimsical when I named my old game store Imperiums to Order, with the result people were not sure what I sold or how to spell the store’s name.

2: Granted, my Because My Tears Are Delicious to You reviews are nostalgic in focus but they cover the whole of 1974 to 1981! Not just 1975. Anyway, 1977 was a better year for science fiction than 1975.

3: Also, I keep stats! Because nothing says whimsical spontaneity like off-handedly asserting that of the 256 works reviewed on JNR in 2020, 139 were by women (54%), 105.5 were by men (41%), 8 were by non-binary authors (3%), 3.5 were by authors whose gender was unknown to me (1%), and 99.5 were by POC (39%).

4: Sometimes footnotes appear without proper markers in the text.

Who are the people behind your site or zine?

I write the reviews, Karen Lofstrom translates my gibberish into comprehensible English, and Adrienne L. Travis manages the website. My Patreon patrons fund it, for which I am very grateful.

Why did you decide to start your site or zine?

The two organizations for which I reviewed books suddenly stopped sending me material and friends convinced me to start up my own site.

What format do you use for your site or zine (blog, e-mail newsletter, PDF zine, paper zine) and why did you choose this format?

I have a website—jamesdavisnicoll.com—and I chose that format for durability.

The fanzine category at the Hugos is one of the oldest, but also the category which consistently gets the lowest number of votes and nominations. So why do you think fanzines and sites are important?

In olden days, they were part of the conversation. Currently, despite the notorious effervescence of electronic media, they can serve as the genre’s memory. True, paper can last decades or centuries, but only if someone actively curates them, but as long as e-fanzines are copied in enough places, they too may survive.

In the past twenty years, fanzines have increasingly moved online. What do you think the future of fanzines looks like?

No offense to the fans of paper fanzines, but the advantages of online fanzines so outweigh the drawbacks that I expect fanzines will be online to an even greater extent.

The four fan categories of the Hugos (best fanzine, fan writer, fan artist and fancast) tend to get less attention than the fiction and dramatic presentation categories. Are there any awesome fanzines, fancasts, fan writers and fan artists you’d like to recommend?

My go-to sites are File 770, Camestros Felapton, a certain Facebook group of which I may not speak openly, The Dragon’s Tales, Atomic Rockets, and Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations.

Where can people find you?

https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
James Nicoll Reviews: https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/
https://twitter.com/jamesdnicoll
https://facebook.com/james.nicoll.927
https://upload.facebook.com/JamesNicollReviews/
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/jamesdavisnicoll
https://ello.co/jamesdavisnicoll
https://wt.social/u/james-nicoll

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

Check Out James Nicoll Review for reviews of SFF old and new.

***

Do you have a Hugo eligible fanzine/-site or fancast and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

 

Posted in Fanzine Spotlight | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Fanzine Spotlight: Young People Read Old SFF

Posted on March 14, 2021 by Cora

We’re heading into the homestretch for the 2021 Hugo nominations, so it’s time for the next entry in my Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project. For more about the Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project, go here. You can also check out the other great fanzines and fancasts featured by clicking here.

So today, I’m pleased to feature Young People Read Old SFF, a blog where a panel of young readers read selected older SFF stories.

Therefore, I’m happy to welcome James Davis Nicoll of Young People Read Old SFF to my blog. James is a reviewer, Tor.com columnist and four time finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. James was also one of my fellow Best Fan Writer finalists last year.

Young People Read Old SFF header

Tell us about your site or zine.

Young People Read Old SFF does what it says on the tin: my volunteers read a different vintage science fiction or fantasy piece each month, then comment on their reactions. It has been very educational; I was not all that surprised to discover my volunteers are not always thrilled by vintage SF. What did astound me was how incandescently furious some older fans got when they discovered not everyone adores their favourites.

Who are the people behind your site or zine?

I write the introductions, and Adrienne L. Travis manages the website. The Young People who contributed in 2020 were (first names only [1]) ambr, Gavin, Joe, Kris, Nina, Travis, and Nina.

1: My contributors haven’t given me permission to identify them by their full names, so I am playing it safe.

Why did you decide to start your site or zine?

To quote my site:
Young People Read Old SF was inspired by something award-winning author Adam-Troy Castro said on Facebook.

    (N)obody discovers a lifelong love of science fiction through Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein anymore, and directing newbies toward the work of those masters is a destructive thing, because the spark won’t happen. You might as well advise them to seek out Cordwainer Smith or Alan E. Nourse—fine tertiary avenues of investigation, even now, but not anything that’s going to set anybody’s heart afire, not from the standing start. Won’t happen.

This is a testable hypothesis! I’ve rounded up a pool of younger people who have agreed to let me expose them to classic works of science fiction1 and assembled a list of older works I think still have merit. Each month my subjects will read and react to those stories; I will then post the results to this site. Hilarity will doubtless ensue!

What format do you use for your site or zine (blog, e-mail newsletter, PDF zine, paper zine) and why did you choose this format?

I have a website and I chose that format for durability.

The fanzine category at the Hugos is one of the oldest, but also the  category which consistently gets the lowest number of votes and nominations. So why do you think fanzines and sites are important?

As I said in the other interview [which will be posted tomorrow], they’re part of SF’s conversation, and can function as its memory.

In the past twenty years, fanzines have increasingly moved online. What do you think the future of fanzines looks like?

No offense to the fans of paper fanzines, but the advantages of online fanzines so outweigh the drawbacks that I expect fanzines will be online to an even greater extent.

The four fan categories of the Hugos (best fanzine, fan writer, fan artist and fancast) tend to get less attention than the fiction and dramatic presentation categories. Are there any awesome fanzines, fancasts, fan writers and fan artists you’d like to recommend?

My go-to sites are File 770, Camestros Felapton, a certain Facebook group of which I may not speak openly, The Dragon’s Tales, Atomic Rockets, and Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations.

Where can people find you?

https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/
https://youngpeoplereadoldsff.com/
https://twitter.com/jamesdnicoll
https://facebook.com/james.nicoll.927
https://upload.facebook.com/JamesNicollReviews/
https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/jamesdavisnicoll
https://ello.co/jamesdavisnicoll
https://wt.social/u/james-nicoll

James Davis Nicoll

Young People Read Old SFF host James Davis Nicoll.

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

Check Out Young People Read Old SFF, cause it’s a great project.

***

Do you have a Hugo eligible fanzine/-site or fancast and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

Posted in Fanzine Spotlight | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Fanwriter/Fancaster Spotlight: Paul Weimer

Posted on March 13, 2021 by Cora

It’s time for the next entry in my Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project. For more about the Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project, go here. You can also check out the other great fanzines and fancasts featured by clicking here.

Today’s spotlight is a bit different, because I don’t interview a specific fancast and fanzine, but rather a prolific contributor to several fancasts and fanzines.

Therefore, I’m pleased to welcome my friend and fellow 2020 Best Fan Writer Hugo finalist (and excellent photographer) Paul Weimer to my blog. Paul contributes to The Skiffy and Fanty Show and nerds of a feather, both of which were featured here, as well as SFF Audio and Dive Into Worldbuilding, which were not.

Paul Weimer by Peter West Carey

Paul in his natural element behind the camera, as photographed by Peter West Carey.

Tell us about your podcast or channel.

I am on several podcasts and channels:

I am a member of the Skiffy and Fanty Show, created by Shaun Duke and Jen Zink, which is a general wide ranging SFF podcasts that tackles interviews, books, movies and more.

I am a regular on SFF Audio, which focuses on audiobooks, particularly older works.

I also appear frequently on Dive into Worldbuilding, a weekly videocast that talks about worldbuilding in SFF

Who are the people behind your podcast or channel?

Skiffy and Fanty is led by Shaun and Jen, and features a variety of other participants, writers, creators and fans.

SFF Audio was created by Jesse Willis, a fan in Vancouver strongly interested in SFF works falling out of copyright. He maintains a large archive of such stories, as well.

What format do you use for your podcast or channel and why did you choose this format?

Skiffy and Fanty and SFF audio are both audio podcasts, free ranging discussions. Dive into Worldbuilding is a video endeavor that publishes live to youtube.

The fan categories at the Hugos were there at the very beginning, but they are also the categories which consistently gets the lowest number of votes and nominations. So why do you think fanzines, fancasts and other fan projects are important?

Fans have been central to SFF since 1939. Without fans, without people agitating for books, for reading, for authors, the whole SFF community would not exist. Fanzines, fancasts, fan writers and fan enthusiasm make SFF the vibrant place it is.

In the past twenty years, fanzines have increasingly moved online and fancasts have sprung up. What do you think the future of fan media looks like?

I continue to think that the ways fans engage with each other is going to evolve and change. I think too the pandemic is going to change how we have and deal with things like conventions. I predict boldly there will be more conventions which are entirely virtual and that space will evolve and change over time.

The four fan categories of the Hugos (best fanzine, fan writer, fan artist and fancast) tend to get less attention than the fiction and dramatic presentation categories. Are there any awesome fanzines, fancasts, fan writers and fan artists you’d like to recommend?

Modestly, I myself am probably more eligible as a fan writer than I am in the fancast categories, since I write a boatload of SFF articles and interviews and reviews. Besides me, I value the voices of yourself, Alasdair Stewart, Adam Whitehead, Aidan Moher,Jason Sanford, the Worldbuilding for Masochists podcast, Charles Payseur, Alex Brown, Journey Planet, Nerds of a Feather (disclaimer, I am one of their writers), Claire Rousseau, The Breaking the Glass Slipper podcast, and a lot more. The fan community is fractally large, the deeper you go, the more complex and bigger it gets. Fans are everywhere!

Where can people find you?

http://www.princejvstin.com is my website but really, googling “princejvstin” on the internet finds me.

Paul Weimer by Peter West Carey

One more photo of Paul behind the camera in Nepal, captured by Peter West Carey.

Thanks, Paul, for stopping by and answering my questions.

Do check out Paul’s various ventures, cause he does great work across various media.

***

Do you have a Hugo eligible fanzine/-site or fancast and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

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Fanzine Spotlight: Astrolabe

Posted on March 12, 2021 by Cora

It’s time for the next entry in my Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project. For more about the Fanzine/Fancast Spotlight project, go here. You can also check out the other great fanzines and fancasts featured by clicking here.

So today, I’m pleased to feature the SFF newsletter Astrolabe.

Therefore, I’m happy to welcome Aidan Moher of Astrolabe. Aidan Moher also edited the blog A Dribble of Ink, winner of the 2014 Hugo Award for Best Fanzine.

Astrolabe logoTell us about your site or zine.

Astrolabe is a semi-monthly newsletter delivered free to your inbox. It’s stuffed full of features, reviews, book recommendations, fandom musings, retro video games, the coolest stories from around the web, and general geek goodies.

Past issues have covered what video games have taught me about worldbuilding, how Terry Brooks literally changed my life, a deep dive into non-fiction feature writing, the sick feeling you’re not reading enough, and the perils of going viral.

You can find it at aidan.substack.com. The main newsletter is free, and I’ve also got a $5/month subscription option that comes with exclusive content—like full transcript interviews, longer features, etc.

Who are the people behind your site or zine?

Just me!

Well, sort of.

I launched Astrolabe as a solo effort and published 11ish issues that way, and I’m still the solo editor/main writer, but I’ve recently launched a new series called Transmission Received. I want to bring plenty of new voices and perspectives to Astrolabe by inviting people for a focused discussion about a particular topic. One of my favourite things about being an editor—going all the way back to my days with A Dribble of Ink—was bringing forth stories and providing a platform for many voices. Transmission Received is a chance to tell many, many stories. Each edition will include a main feature interview in regular Astrolabe issues, and then I’ll follow up two days later with the interview posted in full. It’s a great way for readers to get a tight look at the topic, and also a deeper dive into my conversation with whomever I’m speaking with.

The first Transmission Received featured Chris DeMakes, the vocalist and guitarist from legendary Gainesville, Florida ska band Less Than Jake. I caught up with DeMakes to chat about creative momentum during troubling times, why you shouldn’t even think about your t-shirts before you’ve written a single song, and his advice for creative people struggling to get their project off the ground.

Why did you decide to start your site or zine?

From 2007 – 2015, I ran a popular SFF blog called A Dribble of Ink. I closed it down for a variety of reasons (changing tides in blogging, a growing family of kidlets, a desire to do more paid freelance work, etc.), but I always missed having a platform and an audience eager to dig into the nerdy stuff I love to talk about. So, as my routines changed and I found the space to think about editing my own platform again, I decided I wanted to bring my love of SFF and gaming together in a new format. One thing I discovered over several years of dedicated freelance writing is that there’s a TON of cross-over between fandoms, and I wanted to create a place that felt like a home for fans across a spectrum of geek culture.

What format do you use for your site or zine (blog, e-mail newsletter, PDF zine, paper zine) and why did you choose this format?

A newsletter seemed like a natural choice for a bunch of reasons: a) they’re popular, b) they don’t require the constant, daily output of blogs, and, c) you only have to convince someone you’re worth it one time. Even back in 2015, I was finding the constant necessity to promote blog content exhausting. Each new article felt like a fight for attention, and with the way social media algorithms are evolving, even reaching your dedicated and most engaged readers was becoming more difficult. With a newsletter, I just need to fight to reach someone one time, and once they’ve signed up, they see ALL my content when I want them to see it. Even though newsletters are a one-way form of communication, I feel a lot closer to my base of readers—like we’re a little family of geek friends who all love the same things.

The fanzine category at the Hugos is one of the oldest, but also the category which consistently gets the lowest number of votes and nominations. So why do you think fanzines and sites are important?

Oh, gosh. Where do I start?

It’s no secret to anyone who’s followed me over the past decade that the fan categories are immensely important to me personally, and that I feel like they get short shrift from a lot of nominating WorldCon members. For a convention that’s hugely fan-driven, the ambivalence toward fan projects/creators vs. professional projects/creators belies the concept a bit.

I think people are drawn toward huge, popular projects like moths to a flame—it’s good to feel involved in a zeitgeist, it’s fun to go to a bookstore and see something YOU personally voted for with a big HUGO WINNER sticker on its cover at the front of the store. Fan projects don’t have the same wide reach as professional projects for a lot of reasons, but I think they’re the heart and soul of the Hugos because they represent the passion of the fan community. They’re the collective effort of the fans out there busting their butts day-after-day creating brilliant non-fiction, art, YouTube videos, music, podcast, fanfic, blogs, magazines, and everything else that forms the emotional core of SFF fandom.

As fans, we commit a huge part of our lives to our fandom and expect nothing in return—we put hours and hours and hours into posting online, writing fanfic, posting Goodreads reviews, etc. because it means something to contribute to the larger conversation. It makes us FEEL good to spend time doing something simply because we love it so much.

The fan creators recognized on the Hugo ballots represent the highest echelon of fan creators—those who put out such good work (for free!) that it rivals professional work. Fan creators are the glue that holds fandom together, and, most importantly, they’re the ones of the cutting edge of discussion, opening doors for new fans, and, hopefully, a more inclusive fandom, because they’re not beholden to marketing budgets, quarterly profits, and ad revenue.

In the past twenty years, fanzines have increasingly moved online. What do you think the future of fanzines looks like?

I think we’re already seeing a fast and beautiful evolution of the fanzine community toward a broader range of multimedia platforms. For a long time we had just paper zines, then we had PDF zines, then blogs came around. It was sort of one thing leading into another, but over the past several years, the field has become so diversified that we have all of those things that came before, but also newsletters, BookTube, podcasts, and I’d even lump some streamers into the mix. I consider a fanzine—as far as stuff like the Hugos are concerned—to be basically anything from a fan creator that covers SFF with a non-fiction angle, and I want to continue to see a broader and broader range of creators recognized for their work.

The four fan categories of the Hugos (best fanzine, fan writer, fan artist and fancast) tend to get less attention than the fiction and dramatic presentation categories. Are there any awesome fanzines, fancasts, fan writers and fan artists you’d like to recommend?

Are there ever! It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of Nerds of a Feather, Lady Business, and Book Smugglers, all three of which have been recognized to varying (well deserved) degrees at the Hugos. Over the past year, I’ve really paid a lot of attention to SFF newsletters, and I hope more people subscribe to places like Andrew Liptak’s Transfer Orbit, Amal El-Mohtar’s Amal Content, Sarah Gailey’s Stone Soup, Isabel Yap’s hot yuzu tea, Charlie Jane Anders’ Happy Dancing, Matthew Claxton’s Unsettling Futures, and Alasdair Stuart’s The Full Lid. I’ve also really enjoyed Hilary Bisenieks’ Tales from the Trunk; it’s a podcast that sits down with writers to dissect one of their trunked stories, and it’s an absolute treasure trove of writing advice and insight into the SFF community.

As for “Best Fan Writer,” everyone mentioned above is brilliant, but I think this is the year Jason Sanford wins for his work on Genre Grapevine. His coverage of SFF fandom and publishing is unparalleled. He’s an absolute treasure.

Where can people find you?

Besides Astrolabe, I’m also very active on Twitter and have a website that rounds up all of my various writings for different outlets. I stream Astrolabe content to Twitch, and archive it all on YouTube. I’m… all over the place. In addition to Astrolabe being eligible for “Best Fanzine,” I’m also personally eligible for “Best Fan Writer,” and “Timeless: A History of Chrono Trigger” is eligible for “Best Related Work.”

You can find a big round-up of my best work from 2020 by visiting my official eligibility post.

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

Subscribe to Astrolabe, cause it’s a great newsletter.

***

Do you have a Hugo eligible fanzine/-site or fancast and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

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New Kurval Sword and Sorcery Story Available: The Wolf of Rajala

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Cora

I’m interrupted my schedule of Fanzine/Fancast Spotlights for a new release announcement. This one is for another Kurval sword and sorcery story, since the character has been occupying my mind of late.

To recap, during the 2020 July short story challenge, I had an idea for a sword and sorcery story that would not fit into my established Thurvok sword and sorcery series, so I created a new character named Kurval, barbarian usurper turned King of Azakoria. Kurval was initially intended to be a one-off character. However, I like him and he allows me to tell stories that just don’t fit Thurvok and his friends, so it was clear that he would show up again. Which he promptly did.

The Wolf of Rajala is the second Kurval story set before his time as King of Azakoria, though after he left his homeland of Temirzhan in The Plains of Shadow. At this time in his life, Kurval is plying his trade as a wandering mercenary and monster slayer for hire.

The initial inspiration for this story really was that I came across a great piece of artwork by Dominick Critelli featuring a swordsman facing off against a giant wolf in a wintery forest and thought, “That would make a great cover for a sword and sorcery story.” So I wrote a story to go with it.

However, after I had written the initial confrontation between Kurval and the wolf, I hit a wall. Because “Kurval fights a giant wolf and wins” is rather boring. And a dead wolf suddenly changing back into a human wouldn’t have shocked anybody in the 1930s, let alone today. After all, Weird Tales was full of werewolf stories in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.

As I looked through a rundown of werewolf stories published in Weird Tales with accompanying illustrations and covers, I noticed that a remarkable number of them seemed to feature werewolves and naked women. In particular, Margaret Brundage’s cover for the March 1933 issue of Weird Tales, which features a naked woman running through the snow with a pack of wolves and illustrates “The Thing in the Fog” by Seabury Quinn, caught my eye.

“What if my werewolf were a woman?” I wondered, “And what if she actually had a very good reason for harassing the people of Rajala? How will Kurval, someone we know cares about justice, react?” The rest of the story grew from there.

In the end, The Wolf of Rajala not only features a matriarchal werewolf pack – no, all characters with speaking parts in this story except for Kurval himself are women.

So accompany Kurval as a faces…

The Wolf of Rajala
The Wolf of Rajala by Richard Blakemore and Cora BuhlertBefore Kurval became King of Azakoria, he was a wandering mercenary and monster slayer for hire.

One day, Kurval is hired to take out the monstrous wolves that have been besetting the village of Rajala. However, he quickly finds that the wolves are not what they seem. He also realises that the wolves have a very good reason for attacking the villagers…

This is a novelette of 8700 words or approx. 30 print pages in the Kurval sword and sorcery series, but may be read as a standalone. Includes an introduction and afterword.

 

More information.
Length: 8700 words
List price: 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP
Buy it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Netherlands, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Google Play, Scribd, Smashwords, Thalia, Weltbild, Hugendubel, Buecher.de, DriveThruFiction, Casa del Libro, Vivlio and XinXii.

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