Back again and some comments on the 2013 Nebula Awards

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Cora

As mentioned in my last post, I was in Scotland for a few days on very short notice. The hotel WiFi was actually decent, but only free for 30 minutes per day, which is only just about enough to deal with vital e-mail that needs to be dealt with and maybe look up a few things. Hence there was no blogging these past few days. However, I managed to take a lot of photos.

Of course, neither the world nor the SFF part of it stopped, while I was away. And so the 2013 Nebula Awards were awarded last weekend. The full list of winners is here. Continue reading →

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Away for a Few Days Linkdump

Posted on May 17, 2014 by Cora

I’ll be away for a few days and since I’m not sure about Internet availability, it may be until the middle of next week until I can post again. However, there will be photos when I’m back.

But in the meantime, here is a linkdump:

Tor.com has a very interesting article by Chen Qiufan about Chinese science fiction. This is a subject I know very little about (I know some Chinese translators, but they don’t do SF), so I was happy to find this overview.

At The Guardian, Joanne Harris muses whether the existence of women’s fiction as a separate subcategory is a sign that that the literary world is still very sexist. It’s one of those articles that make you want to quote How to Suppress Women’s Writing again, which is really depressing considering it came out in 1983. Yet here we are, 31 years later, and very little has changed.

The New York Times offers an extensive profile of James Patterson and his bestseller writing factory. Now James Patterson is one of those writers whose success absolutely mystifies me and his approach to writing and storytelling, as outlined in the article, is pretty much the antithesis to how I approach these things. Still interesting, though, as a glimpse into the dark side.

Apex has an article by Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who worked as a screenwriter on Lost, about why Lost succeeded, while so many more or less blatant Lost copies failed. Now I stopped watching Lost halfway through season 2, so it obviously didn’t work for me, but the theses of Javier Grillo-Marxuach are still interesting.

Screenrobot gets into the grimdark debate with this article, in which Taylor Burns laments how the success of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy suddenly turned every second summer blockbuster into a grey-tinged epos of grimdark misery. Now I am on record as never having been a fan of Christopher Nolan’s work, all the way back to Memento, which arrived in our cinemas with huge accolades from “in the know” US cinemagoers and just flat out sucked. Though in this house we still refer to Jorja Fox’s character on CSI as “Ms. Memento” more than ten years later. As for Nolan’s take on Batman, I kind of liked Batman Begins, flat out hated The Dark Knight and never bothered with the third one. As for the whole grimdark mode in modern entertainment, I have made my views on that clear on more than one occasion.

But luckily there is a solution. Since DC seems to be on a grimdark kick with its superhero movies of late, simply watch Marvel if you want some fun in your summer blockbuster superhero action, mixed with the occasional bit of surprising emotional depth for a superhero movie.

However, back when I still read superhero comics, the bits I always liked best were the quiet moments of the characters hanging out inbetween the big battles and worldshattering events. Very few superhero movies actually manage to capture these moments. The X-Men movies, particularly the second one, have the occasional bit along those lines. So do the Avengersverse movies.

But if you want more, here is an absolute delight: Steve Rogers’ American Captain is a fictional diary comic drawn by Steve Rogers – yes, that Steve Rogers – about adjusting to life in the 21st century, dealing with (or rather failing to deal with) his PTSD and hanging out with the other Avengers. Before he became Captain America, Steve Rogers was an art student (and we actually see him sketching in some of the movies), so it makes sense for him to have a comic diary. And for those of us who always liked the downtime bits best, there is plenty of interaction between Steve, his fellow Avengers and their respective partners. Some really neat bits of characterisation, too, such as Pepper Potts sort of adopting Steve (Tony is not amused) or the fact that everybody uses Bruce Banner as the inofficial team therapist.

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Yet more thoughts on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. now that it finally got good

Posted on May 17, 2014 by Cora

Like many people, I had some initial problems with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. such as the fact that the main characters were mostly bland, the vast majority of antagonists in the early episodes were people of colour, which was made all the more notable by the fact that the main cast was so very white, and that maybe S.H.I.E.L.D. is not really an outfit many people can sympathize with in the days of the NSA scandal. I go a bit deeper into my issues with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. here and here.

Shortly after I wrote those posts, I stopped watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. That is, I still got the episodes, I simply no longer got around to watching them, because the show simply wasn’t interesting enough to make time for it. It was only when I got sick with a stomach bug and suddenly found myself without the energy to do more than lie on a sofa and watch TV that I found myself catching up with the episodes I missed. And lo and behold, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. got a lot better after approx. episode 10. It also got a lot less one-sided with regard to who got to play heroes and who got to play villains.

Spoilers in the following: Continue reading →

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Eurovision 2014 or It ain’t over till the bearded lady wins

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Cora

This year’s Eurovision Song Contest not just offered a surprising number of decent songs and performances (they probably weeded most of the bad ones out during the semi-finals), but also struck a blow for tolerance, equality and non-binary gender, when the gender-neutral Austrian contestant Conchita Wurst won by a wide margin. Her winning performance can be seen here. This is Austria’s second ever win in 59 years of Eurovision history, 48 years after Austria’s first win for Udo Jürgens with “Merci Cherie” back in 1966. My impressions of previous Eurovision Song Contests may be found here BTW.

In the run-up to the contest, Conchita Wurst got a lot of attention as well as some transphobic blow-back particularly from Russia and other countries in Eastern Europe, where homophobia and transphobia are still a lot stronger. Which makes it even more amazing that Conchita Wurst not only won the contest, but that she also got many votes, including a few 10 and 12 point votes from Eastern Europe. Her acceptance speech, “This is for all those who believe in the future of peace and freedom – you know who you are. You are unity and your are unstoppable”, was also remarkable, especially considering that the Eurovision Song Contest is watched by approximately 125 million people worldwide on TV (and even more via livestream), many of whom live in places where being different is not nearly as accepted as in the more liberal parts of Western Europe.

This is not the first time a transperson has won the Eurovision Song Contest by the way. That honour goes to the 1998 winner Dana International from Israel. But Dana International looked traditionally feminine, whereas Conchita Wurst embraces her non-binary gender identity. And yes, there will inevitably be those who say that Conchita only won, because she is a woman with a beard. But that would be grossly unfair, because regardless the the performer’s appearance and gender identity, “Rise like a Phoenix” is a fantastic song. Lots of people have already noted how Bond-like it sounds and indeed “Rise like a Phoenix” is the perfect example of a Bond-theme in search of a movie. It’s also a much better song than Austria’s previous winner in 1966, but then I have never liked “Merci, Cherie”, though I like Udo Jürgens quite a bit.

When Conchita was performing and the fiery Phoenix silhouette appeared on the projection wall behind her, I said to the people I was watching with, “Look, the Phoenix force is finally decided to ditch Jean Grey and find a more worthy host.” And for the record, how sad is it that the Eurovision producers managed to create a more convincing Phoenix manifestation than Bryan Singer in X-Men: The Last Stand?

The Netherlands came in second with a country-inspired song performed by a cute couple. Sweden was third with a totally forgettable ballad sung by a Celine Dion wannabe – which is kind of redundant considering that the real Celine Dion already won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1988 (check out that dress). Armenia finished in 4th place with a forgettable “meh” entry, though as I understand it the singer Aram MP3 (yes, he’s named after a file format) is very popular in Eastern and South Eastern Europe. Hungary came in 5th with the cute son of Lou Reed’s bassist and a good song. Ukraine was 6th, probably purely due to sympathy votes, since the song was totally forgettable. My other favourite, Iceland with a cheery punky song performed by blokes in colourful suits (one of them a member of the Icelandic parliament) only made it to 15th place.

In general, this was a year for depressing ballads, most of them instantly forgettable. Last year’s trend of putting sacrificial virgins in white dresses on stage continued this year, since there were several women in flowing white dresses on stage, including the female third of the hosting trio, Spain’s rain-drenched entry, San Marino’s Ralph Siegel penned entry and of course the Russian twins. At one point I said, “They still don’t get it. You’re supposed to sacrifice the virgins, not let them sing.” Though I suspect not even virgin sacrifices could save Ralph Siegel at this point – the man is hopelessly stuck in the 1970s/early 1980s.

The Russian Tolmachevy twins as well as the Russian presenter and any other presenter announcing votes for Russia got booed. Now I understand the political sentiment behind this, though I still felt sorry for the Russian twins, because those girls are 17 years old and really cannot be blamed for their country’s politics.

As usual, the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest also had its share of WTF? entries including shouty Polish milkmaids with their assets in full display, equally shouty Greeks backed by a guy jumping around on a trampolin, jumpy French boys singing about moustaches, an Italian woman with a decent song who looked as if she had escaped from the set of Dino de Laurentiis’ Flash Gordon adapation, a Slovenian woman with monstrous shoulder pads playing the flute, an Azerbaijani woman singing a ballad backed by a trapeze act, a Ukrainian woman singing another ballad backed by a guy in a hamster wheel and a Danish entry named “cliché love song”. I can imagine the meeting at the Danish broadcaster. “What are we sending to Eurovision this year?” – “Oh, just a cliché love song.” – “Wait a minute, that was never supposed to be the title…”

Germany’s entry Elaiza, a folksy newcomer trio consisting of a girl with an accordeon, a girl with a string bass and a singer, finished in 18th place. It was pretty clear to me that they wouldn’t win – and indeed they were ranked even lower for much of the voting, until they caught a few last minute points – but I expected them to do better, because their song wasn’t bad and actually a bit of a change from all those interchangable ballads. Of course, being up right after Conchita Wurst knocked it out of the park didn’t help either. Interestingly, most of the points for Elaiza came from Eastern Europe, probably because the singer is the daughter of a Ukrainian father and a Polish mother.

But what will stick in memory from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest is that 2014 was the year a woman with a beard won and proved that non-binary gender identities can go mainstream and that gender labels matter less than many people think.

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The true motives behind the “War on Comics”

Posted on May 10, 2014 by Cora

Buzzfeed of all places has a really great article by Saladin Ahmed about the surprising diversity sometimes found in American comics during the Golden Age of the 1940s and early 1950s. The basis for the article is treasure trove of out-of-copyight Golden Age comics from the Digital Comics Museum.

As someone who started reading American comics in the 1980s and gave up in frustration in 2005, i.e. just before widespread digital availability of vintage comics, my knowledge of the Golden Age is comparatively scant. I have never held an original Golden Age comic in my hands*, even though my Dad supposedly owned a stack of Golden Age superhero comics** inherited from an older cousin that he deciphered with the help of a dictionary and cherished, until my grandma threw them away sometime in the early 1960s. I have seen a few reprints – Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Submariner, EC horror and Crime Does Not Pay (which I found luridly violent and unbelievably preachy at the same time) and seen bits and covers of other intriguing looking titles.

But reprints of Golden Age comics were not widely available during my prime comic reading days in the late 1980s and 1990s, so I derive most of my knowledge of that era of comics from tomes on comic history. And those books mostly had the same story to tell: American comic books were born from newspaper strips. There were superheroes. Then there were crime and horror comics. The usual busybodies, led by one Frederic Wertham (who it later turned out fudged his research or made it up altogether), got the vapours and intervened. The Comics Code Authority imposed its rules and comics did not quite die, but went into suspended animation, until they were reborn from the ashes during the Silver Age. There were occasional glimpses of intriguing other comics that did not fit into the “Superheroes – Crime – Horror” trinity, such as the romance comics from which Roy Lichtenstein copied much of his work, war comics, western comics and a neverending parade of jungle girl comics, in which unfailingly white and scantily clad women fought wild animals and played goddess to blatantly racist depictions of people of colour. But as for actually reading one of those lesser known entries of the Golden Age… – forget about it.

Hence I find Saladin Ahmed’s alternate story of pre-Code comics full of arsekicking female superheroines, characters and even superheroes of colour and a general diversity no longer found post-1954 quite fascinating. Now the lack of genre diversity in mainstream American comics is quite obvious, particularly if – like me – you started out reading Franco-Belgian-Dutch comics, which had and continue to have a lot more genre diversity than their American counterparts. Indeed, in my prime comic reading days, I read US comics for superheroes and European comics for everything else. And I did know that Golden Age comics had female heroines apart from Wonder Woman – all those jungle girl comics clearly suggested that.

But the existence of characters of colour apart from gross stereotypes was in pre-Code comics a surprise, since I’d always assumed that apart from Mandrake’s pal Lothar in the newspaper strips (reprints of which were easier to come by, at least if you were willing to read them in French or Italian) there were no heroes of colour until Black Panther and the Falcon appeared in the 1960s (and then Luke Cage, Jon Stewart, Sunfire, Storm and War Machine a bit later). There also is the well known anecdote that when Marvel’s Sergeant Fury and his Howling Commandos included the black soldier Gabe Jones in the team, the printer called up Marvel to check whether he was really supposed to be black. It’s also interesting that both Falcon and Gabe Jones*** have recently appeared in Marvel’s Avengersverse movies (and we’ll probably get Black Panther at some point), while the grandson of Gabe Jones**** makes a welcome (and handsome) addition to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

So if – as Saladin Ahmed believes – the Comics Code was deliberately aimed at removing independent women and heroes of colour from comics, the question is why most histories of the American comic book don’t seem to cover that aspect at all, since the conventional narrative is that comics were getting too edgy and violent and adult, so they had to be cut down to size, and that the code was mainly aimed at crime and horror comics and their perceived and actual excesses.

This also makes me wonder what changed between 1955, when EC Comics was not allowed to reprint a pre-Code SF story featuring a black astronaut under the new Comics Code rules and 1963, when Gabe Jones was allowed to be a black guy doing heroic stuff with Sergeant Fury and his Howling Commandos with no one but a printer batting an eyelash. As for a ban on racist depictions of people of colour, has anybody ever read the Iron Man origin story from 1963 with its Communist menaces coloured in the same oddly neon yellow hue***** that was used for yellow peril characters from the 1930s to the 1960s and probably beyond? So why did this stuff pass and EC’s Judgment Day didn’t? Was it simply that the Comics Code Authority had it in for EC in particular and simply didn’t much care what Atlas/Marvel did, as has often been argued? Was it because the Marvel stories promoted the “right” kind of politics? Was it the stirrings of the civil rights movement in the 1960s? Had the Comics Code Authority already lost some of its teeth by 1963? Or did they no longer care as much, now they had served their purpose and killed off crime and horror comics and nearly destroyed the comics industry altogether? Or was it because by 1963, television had replaced comic books as the innocent-seducing bogeyman in the minds of busybodies everywhere?

Another thing that’s notable is that while many of the male superheroes of the Golden Age are still with us in some for or other, the superheroines (with the exception of Wonder Woman and Black Canary) are largely forgotten. The tragic saga of Steve Rogers a.k.a. Captain America and Bucky Barnes, two characters who debuted in 1941, is currently breaking box office records and making legions of cinema goers around the globe cry, yet Golden Girl, Captain America’s female partner who succeeded Bucky after his untimely demise (well, he got better), is completely forgotten (though there was a different Golden Girl, a woman of colour at that, in a 1978 miniseries). Interestingly, the real name of the original 1940s Golden Girl was Betty Ross, a name that will be familiar to long term Marvel readers. And indeed, it turns out that Golden Girl is the great-aunt of the Marvel’s other Betty Ross, girlfriend/wife/whatever their current relationship status is of Bruce Banner a.k.a. the Hulk. Now that should make for some uncomfortable conversations around the Avengers’ dinner table, especially if you add in the fact that Steve Rogers also thinks that Tony Stark’s dad used to have a thing for Peggy Carter. Talking of the delightful Peggy Carter, who took the place of the Betty Ross character from the 1960s on all the way to the current Avengersverse movies, she is getting her own TV series, co-starring Howard Stark. Both Peggy Carter and Howard Stark will be portrayed by the same actors who played them in Captain America: The First Avenger, which sounds fabulous, because Peggy is the best thing about that movie and I like 1940s Howard Stark a lot more than the 1970s version from Iron Man 2 who turned out to be such a complete failure as a dad.

There seems to be something in the air regarding comics (or maybe they are more on everybody’s mind, because we are getting so many comic based movies and TV shows right now), because here is a Guardian article about comic books from a British POV, inspired by a comic exhibition at the British Library. What’s striking here are the similarities in the concern about comic books and their impact on children and teenagers on both sides of the Atlantic to the point that the UK had its own version of a moral panic about horror comics in the mid 1950s. To be fair, from what I’ve seen of them, Tales from the Crypt and other EC horror comics really were over-the-top lurid and bloody and I can almost understand that many people were concerned about them. However, this doesn’t excuse the widespread moral panic about comics in general nor does it explain why so many interesting and diverse comics had to be taken down along with a handful of overly lurid horror and crime comics.

*The oldest original comic in my collection is a Doom Patrol issue from the late 1960s.

**My Dad clearly remembers Superman and Wonder Woman and believes Spider-Man was involved as well, which we know is impossible, since Spider-Man didn’t debut until 1962. I guess he must have gotten Spider-Man, whom he knew from the 1970s TV series, of which I was an avid viewer, mixed up with another character. Interestingly, he does not remember Captain America at all – and yes, I asked, in an attempt to see if he would be interested in watching The Winter Soldier.

***It’s also quite interesting that apart from Dum Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones is the only of the original Howling Commandos to make it to the screen (well, there is Nick Fury, but he’s not a Howling Commando in the movies). Not that the Howling Commandos from Captain America: The First Avenger aren’t still “Ethnic Stereotypes R Us”, but they’re mostly different stereotypes than back in 1963.

****It’s never explicitly stated that Agent Tripp is the grandson of Gabe Jones, but it’s certainly the likeliest possibility.

*****The first time I saw that strange neon yellow skin tone in old Flash Gordon reprints, I assumed it was because the inhabitants of Mongo were aliens. I was quite stunned to find the same skin tone no human ever had in clearly human characters in 1960s Marvel comics.

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Can’t you guys take a joke? – Policing women’s speech

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Cora

Here in Germany, Walpurgisnacht, i.e. the night from April 30th to May 1st, is traditionally a time for partying and having fun, especially since the following day is a public holiday. Most of the time, that fun takes the form of “Dance into May” parties, though in some bigger cities – most notably Berlin and Hamburg, but also Bremen in years past – it’s also a time for rioting.

I’m not much for partying and tend to stay as far away as possible from riots (never mind that the expected riots didn’t even materialise this year), but nonetheless I had a lot of fun on Walpurgisnacht.

When I logged onto the Internet for an hour or two before going to bed, I saw people discussing and snarking about this fantasy short story contest sponsored by Baen Books. Now it’s absolutely understandable why people would be snarking about this contest, since the wording is sexist and includes jabs against whole genres like YA paranormal romance as well as “political drama with no action” (a.k.a. stories that don’t match the US conservative view of the world) and the final judge is a writer who had just relieved himself all over the Hugo Awards. And considering that this contest was announced less than two weeks after the Hugo nominations, at a point when the controversy surrounding those nominations (more here, here and here) still hadn’t died down, it’s kind of obvious why many people would be discussing and mocking this contest.

The discussion quickly turned to wondering what sort of stories would be candidates for the award, based on the sort of books and themes that make up the majority of Baen’s output. So the #BaenAwardStories hashtag sprung up for 140 character summaries of the sort of stories expected.

It was all good fun – and there was a side conversation about a naked Captain America, too – until a couple of men decided to take exception, because “there are good people working at and writing for Baen, so why are you smearing them?” As you can imagine, this rather killed the mood.

At Dreamwidth, someone called legionseagle has a summary as well as some thoughts about the whole thing (and also includes two of my own contributions). Found via The Radish.

This post largely sums up my own feelings about the whole issue. Because “Can’t you take a joke?” is a very common response whenever women, people of colour, GLBTQI people, people of non-Anglo-American origin, etc… speak up about problematic or flat-out demeaning jokes. But make a few good-natured jokes about the tropes in books that are clearly targetted at a largely white and male American readership (and it is worth noting that unlike other genre publishers you can’t even find Baen books on European bookshelves, you need to order them online).

Never mind that no one was suggesting boycotting Baen books or marching on their headquarters to burn it all down. Indeed, there were a lot of side conversations about Baen books and authors we loved. All people were doing was mocking a rather mockable contest with a badly phrased announcement and yet this mockery was immediately slammed down by the tone argument.

legionseagle also addresses some of the problems I had with Jim C. Hines’ much publicized gender-switched cover art parodies. Now I think that Jim Hines is generally a really great guy and supporter of gender, race and GLBTQI issues, but his parodies of cover art, mostly urban fantasy covers at that, left a really sour taste in my mouth, especially when they went on and on. Because here we had a man mocking the largely female dominated subgenre of urban fantasy – how original! Especially since it’s not as if the SFF community, mainly the male half, hasn’t been dismissing and mocking urban fantasy for ages, because it contains such pesky elements as female protagonists, emotions, love and sex. Did the authors of those books, not to mention the publishers and their employees, deserve to be mocked for the cover art? No, of course not. As for a man trying to tell women what kind of cover art they should find offensive – no, just no. In fact, I quite like many urban fantasy novels, including some of the covers, and I’m not a bad feminist for doing so. I even drafted a detailed blog post just why those cover pose parodies left such a sore taste in my mouth, but I never posted it, because by that point the fad had passed.

So Jim Hines has no problem mocking a largely female dominated subgenre and – by association – its authors, but a couple of women (though there were men involved as well) mocking a male dominated subgenre and a publisher whose cover art makes even the worst, most cliched urban fantasy cover look like Da Vinci by comparison is somehow offensive and smearing the good folks who work for said publisher. Yeah right.

As for how offended the good folks at Baen were by the Twitter mockery, check out this contribution by yours truly:

Among those who favourited the tweet is… drumroll… the official Baen Books Twitter feed. So that’s how offended they are.

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Photos: A May Day outing to the East Friesian seaside

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Cora

May 1st, i.e. International Workers’ Day, is a public holiday in Germany, so we took the opportunity for a day trip to the East Friesian seaside.

Now the people of East Friesia have (unfairly) been the butt of jokes for decades (though East Friesian jokes – yes, there is such a thing – have thankfully become less acceptable in recent years). The reason is probably that East Friesia is culturally distinct from the rest of North Germany and actually closer to the neighbouring Netherlands (the Dutch region on the other side of the border is West Friesia) to the point that landscape and architecture often seem more Dutch than German. There are lots of windmills, too.

The Friesian language has largely died out with the exception of Saterfriesich, which has approx. 1000 native speakers in the Southern part of East Friesia, though it has left its mark on the town names. Indeed, someone looking for epic fantasy names could do worse than mine East Friesian town and village names for material (and I’m totally going to do this one day). A lot of villages are also named for notable geographic features, so you get a lot of places with names ending in -siel (means “lock”), -fehn (means “moor” or “watery lowland”), -um (means “home”) and -groden (no idea).

East Friesia is traditionally an agircultural and fishing area. Nowadays, tourism plays a big role as well, particularly with regard to the East Friesian Islands, a chain of islands off the coast, which are close enough that you can walk there on foot, if the tide is low (though you should not do so without a guide). What is more, the Wadden Sea region is also a national park and UNESCO World Heritage site.

Of course, I also took along my camera and shot some photos of the vilages of Bensersiel, Westeraccumersiel and Dornum, which coincidentally is the hometown of Minnie Marx, né Miene Schönberg, mother of the Marx Brothers. There is a well known saying that all the best comedians are from East Friesia, since both Otto Waalkes and Minnie Marx, mother of the Marx Brothers, hail from there.

Unfortunately, the warm and sunny weather of the past few days had to break for May Day, so the photos look a tad gloomy: Continue reading →

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Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month: April 2014

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Cora

Indie Speculative Fiction of the MonthIt’s that time of the month again, time for “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month, though some March books I missed the last time around snuck in as well. The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, all the links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future editions.

This time around, we have science fiction, YA fantasy, paranormal romance, historical fantasy, a fairy tale retelling, haunted small towns, magical inns, superheroes, zombies, necromancers, frost mages, death witches, a magical wetnurse, gargoyles and unicorns. We even have a non-fiction book, a collection of essays about science fiction.

As always, I know the authors at least vaguely, but I haven’t read all of the books themselves, so Caveat emptor.

And now on to the books:

Magnet: Scarecrow by David AdamsMagnet: Scarecrow by David Adams

My name is Mike “Magnet” Williams. I’ve come a long way. These days I have my own ship, the Rubens. We stole it from the Toralii Alliance. For the last year the Rubens has been tasked with ‘counter-logistical privateering’ against the Toralii Alliance, attacking their military supply network.

We hit them hard, we get out, we do it all over again. Modern day buccaneers given total autonomy. We’re alone, without another Human within a thousand light years.

If only that were true.

Somewhere out in the black, around a remote moon covered in ice that’s kilometres thick, we found something. Something that was not supposed to be there. Something we were not supposed to find.

Scarecrow.

I can take a lot of pressure. Fighter pilots are supposed to be able to do that. Whatever the universe throws at me, I can handle it. So far I’ve faced aliens, friendly and otherwise, and I’ve seen things that so very few Humans have. I’ve dealt with it all.

But not this. Not my own conscience.

15,700-word story in the Lacuna universe, set after the events of Magnet: Marauder and Lacuna: The Ashes of Humanity, but suitable for reading as a stand-alone story.

The Guests of Honor by Cat AmesburyThe Guests of Honor: Tales from the Virtue Inn by Cat Amesbury

Welcome to the Virtue Inn

Honor Desry’s only employee is a magical nudist, her guest list has an abnormal fascination with eels, and a surprising number of household objects are trying to hurt her.

When Honor’s mother mysteriously disappeared, Honor became responsible for both her younger sisters and the family inn. Now, all Honor wants to do is run the inn, pay the bills, and not get killed by her unusually violent toaster.

Unfortunately for Honor, the Virtue Inn has more secrets than it does rooms and the Guests are restless. If Honor wants to keep her house –and her head- she’s going to have to learn how to please The Guests of Honor.

Warning: Contains some violence, profanity, innuendo, and semi-sentient household objects.

Rosamonde by Christopher BunnRosamonde by Christopher Bunn

The real story of Sleeping Beauty has never been told. At least, not until this moment. Rosamonde is the reluctant princess of Bordavia, a tiny, peaceful country in central Europe. Life is perfectly pleasant until an aggressive prince arrives, complete with a hot air balloon and romantic designs on Rosamonde’s hand. What’s a girl to do? Pigs, trickery and derring-do abound, along with a great deal of napping, of course.

 

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91MkdkcxDnL._SL1500_Girl Out Of Water by Winifred Burton

Awkward know-it-all Tabitha Slate was born and raised in Seattle. Her life consists of Friday night fights with her family for the remote control, her crappy minimum wage job, and convincing her sisters that collecting action figures doesn’t disqualify her from being Black or a girl.
Then Tabitha blunders into the Wardein, those sworn to police the supernatural hybrids and legendary creatures of the city. She reluctantly abandons her dreams of being the popular girl on her new campus, to adopt a position of power in a hidden world with a dangerous learning curve.
When a physicist that uses Seattle’s population for monstrous experiments wants Tabitha as the next subject, Tabitha has to accept the darkness she’s capable of, or lose everything.

Paradox by Daniel A. DennisTales from the Abyss: Paradox by Daniel A. Dennis

“What is the Void?”

The world watched in horror the day the mysterious being known as ‘the Void’ made its presence known to the world. But for John Parker it would be remembered as the day his son disappeared without a trace.

Desperate for answers, John begins a life-changing search for his lost child that brings him to the brink of despair while the FBI uncovers a link between John’s missing child and a Void-worshiping cult called The Brotherhood.

Rebirth by Shaun DowdallRebirth by Shaun Dowdall

For some, death is the end. For others, such as Michael Nolan, death is only the beginning. Reborn into a world unlike any he could have dreamed of, Michael is thrust into The Guild—an elite squadron of supernatural beings. They are the guardians of the modern world and the only thing standing between peace and chaos.

Struggling to come to terms with the loss of his previous life, and to understand his new powers, Michael is forced to adapt quickly when The Guild is betrayed and comes under attack from within.

With time against them, Michael and his allies set out to discover the identity of the traitor before The Guild is destroyed and the world is left unprotected. However, when the one person Michael loves becomes a target, he is left with a difficult decision…

Should he defend the woman he loves or stand by his allies?

Blades of Magic by Terah EdunBlades of Magic by Terah Edun

It is not a peaceful time in the Algardis Empire. War is raging between the mages and seventeen-year-old Sara Fairchild will be right in the middle of it.

She just doesn’t know it yet.

Sara is the daughter of a disgraced imperial commander, executed for desertion. Sara is also the best duelist and hand-to-hand combatant in Sandrin. She lives quietly with her family’s shame but when challenged about her family’s honor, her opponent inevitably loses.

On the night she finds out her father’s true last actions, she takes the Mercenary Guilds’ vows to serve in the emperor’s army. Using her quick wits and fierce fighting skills, she earns a spot in the first division.

There she discovers secrets the mages on both sides would prefer stay hidden. Dark enemies hunt her and soon it’s not just Sara questioning the motivation behind this war.

While fighting mages, blackmailing merchants and discovering new friends, Sara comes across something she’s never had before – passion. The question is – can she fight for her empress against a mage who might unwittingly claim her heart?

This is year one of the Initiate Wars. Sara is hoping it doesn’t become the year she dies.

The Secret Dead by S.W. FairbrotherThe Secret Dead by S.W. Fairbrother

Vivia Brisk knows about the dead. She should. She’s died enough times.

Vivia is a hag – or death witch – one of the last of her race, and can die, visit the underworld and return at will. As a consultant with charity The Lipscombe Trust, she has a job she loves — helping London’s most vulnerable supernaturals, even if her colleague Malcolm drives her round the bend on a daily basis.

Vivia thinks she’s got Malcolm’s measure – sexist, not too bright and generally a pain in the ass, but then Malcolm zombifies and, along with his fourteen year old son Ben, flees the police.

With a zombie on the loose, London goes into lock down and Vivia is roped in into find them. After all, Malcolm can only keep control so long without fresh flesh, and the risk of the zompocalypse increases the longer he’s on the lam.

At first what happened seems simple, but then the police find decades-old corpses hidden near Malcolm’s house, and Vivia begins to realise Malcolm’s missing son is in a lot more danger than from just a single zombie on the loose…

The Fetch by John GroverThe Fetch by John Grover

WAR OF WITCHES
From the author of Creatures and Crypts and Frozen Stiff comes an all new horror.
They are followers of a different path, a way of magic and mystery, of old customs and ancient knowledge. In their world appearances can mean so much but those appearances are not always what they seem.

Isabelle Thicket, a sorceress of the black arts is about to collide with Jacob Norsen, a sorcerer of white magic, and all Hell will break loose. Isabelle will stop at nothing to get what she wants and Jacob will do anything to protect those he loves. Two of the most powerful forces of nature will clash in a battle to the death and their power will unleash a greater evil…an old, hungering evil that will threaten the world.

There’s no safe place to hide from… The Fetch.

White Blood by Angela HolderWhite Blood by Angela Holder

When Maryn loses her baby, husband, and home, becoming a wet-nurse seems like her best opportunity for a new life, especially when she qualifies for a position with the royal family. But nursing an infant prince exposes her to dangers she never could have imagined. Caught in the middle of a bloody struggle for the throne, Maryn will need all her wits and courage to survive. Both her enemies and allies consider her a helpless pawn. But if she can master the dangerous magic of blood and milk she’ll have a chance to defy those who will do anything to seize power—even threaten the child she’s coming to love as her own.

Larkspur by V.M. JaskiernaLarkspur: A Necromancer’s Romance by V.M. Jaskierna

Pierre Salvador has returned to court after graduating early, and a party in his honour happens that very evening. But feeling unwell so shortly after his travels the princeling excuses himself from dancing-and-flirting with Lady Elizabeth Anne, and retreats to his room with a black cat in tow. In addition to medical studies, Pierre has almost finished the last task set by Mora, lady of death, to complete his knowledge of necrocræft. Enthralled with the illegal magic, the power over life and death, he consorts with Mora as he also begins to court Elizabeth.

Recoil by Paul B. KohlerSilo Saga: Recoil by Paul B. Kohler

In a silo where cleanings are a cause for celebration and are handled by a crew of teenage boys, a hazing initiation goes horribly wrong. The silo leadership hunts for the boys to clean – this time without the safety of the silo waiting for them when they finish.

The story is told through the lens of teenage girls Petra and Tavi. Enamored with the cleaning crew, the girls find themselves on the wrong side of a manhunt to find the boys. Just like the girls, the reader doesn’t really find out what is really happening with the adults in the silo until the final, deadly confrontation.

A novella set in the world of Hugh Howey’s Wool.

Brush with Darkness by Jamie MaltmanBrush With Darkness by Jamie Maltman

Creativity is magic, with imagination the only limit to its power. Yet others choose instead to channel the power of destruction. Or so the myths say. Neither has been seen in centuries—until now.

Simon Baroba joined the Pazian legions to make a name for himself, rejecting his father’s failing business, and his late mother’s faith.

Shadush leads the Scentari and lusts for revenge on the Pazian Republic that stole his people’s land. And he will have it—through his mastery of the power of dark flames.

In the aftermath of Shadush’s slaughter of the legion, Simon stumbles across his own buried creative abilities. As he explores the potential of his Talent with Elysia, the intriguing young woman who secretly creates sculptures of incredible beauty, Simon discovers much more about the evil magic he faces.

In order to save his friends, himself, and the entire Republic, Simon must navigate a treacherous maelstrom of political intrigue and shifting allegiances, torn between ambition and curiosity, duty and love.

ARTS REBORN is a new fantasy series set in the Republic of Pazh, home to diverse peoples and cultures, reminiscent of ancient Rome, Greece and the Mediterranean. It follows the story of the individuals touched by these opposing magical forces of artistic creation and malevolent destruction.

Frost Magic by Kathryn A. MillerFrost Magic by Kathryn A. Miller
*** This is a novella of 13,700 words ***

Jackie Frost lives in Normal Springs, Ohio, where nothing is quite as it seems. For example, Jackie is a Frost Mage who can make anything freeze up in an instant — the same way she freezes up around hunky firefighter Dante.

Nonetheless, sparks fly between the two, and not just the magical fireflies that infest Jackie’s apartment. Is it true love, or just the magic of mistletoe?

 

Shade by Marilyn PeakeShade by Marilyn Peake

Thanks to her offbeat mother, Shade’s full name is Galactic Shade Griffin. Having a name like that while being the new girl in school is pretty much catnip for bullies. The summer before Shade’s junior year of high school, her mother breaks up with yet another boyfriend and moves them once again to a new town.
This time, they move into a dilapidated old house where Shade has an entire attic bedroom to herself—at least until she discovers it’s haunted by the ghost of a teenaged boy named Brandon Yates. When Shade’s best friend goes missing, her life becomes even more complicated. With the help of Brandon who’s struggling with his own issues in the world beyond, Shade faces the question of whether or not she has what it takes to become a true hero.

Darkangel by Christine PopeDarkangel by Christine Pope

Finding the man of your dreams can be a real nightmare…

As the future prima, or head witch of her clan, Angela McAllister is expected to bond with her consort during her twenty-first year, thus ensuring that she will come into her full powers at the appointed time. The clock is ticking down, and her consort has yet to make an appearance. Instead, her dreams are haunted by a man she’s never seen, the one she believes must be her intended match.

But with time running out, and dark forces attempting to seize her powers for their own, Angela is faced with a terrible choice: give up her dreams of the man she may never meet and take the safer path, or risk leaving her clan and everyone in it at the mercy of those who seek their ruin.

Darkangel is the first book in The Witches of Cleopatra Hill, a paranormal romance trilogy set in the haunted town of Jerome, Arizona.

The Descendants by Landon PorterThe Devil Came Down to Mayfield by Landon Porter
They survived an evil sorceress. They stood up to an organization bent on experimenting on them. They even weathered their own, internal storms.

Now the Descendants must face a new challenge: living their lives. From reconnecting with their families and mentors, to delving into romance, they’re about to learn that there’s more to being superheroes than squaring off against bad guys.

Of course, while they try tending to their personal lives, evil isn’t lying idle. They face new baddies in the form of New York’s Tongs, extra-dimensional monsters and… cyborg nerds?

They are heroes. They are people. This is their story.

Styled after works from the Bronze Age of Comic Books, The Descendants is presented in a unique manner: as an all-prose comic book complete with issues, specials and annuals, each telling a complete story that ties into the overall tale of the titular superheroes.

It is also written as a throwback and love letter to an earlier age of superheroes, to a time before everything was grim and gritty and when comic books were fun.

Collects Issues #13-20 of the web serial The Descendants by Landon Porter. The previous volumes in the series are We Could Be Heroes and Tome Attacks.

Heart of Rock by Becca PriceHeart of Rock by Becca Price

In the distant past, a city of wizards was menaced by horrible Night Mares. The wizards carved hideous gargoyles out of stone, bringing them to life using the magical Heart of Rock, to defend their city.

Now the Heart of Rock is needed to save another kingdom, and one brave cobbler must find it.

But the gargoyles cannot live without their talisman; will the cobbler’s quest to save his kingdom doom theirs?

“Heart of Rock” is three interconnected short stories that look at the question: when one questing hero finds a magical amulet, what happens to those who’ve lost it?

Southwind Knights by B.E. PriestSouthwind Knights by B.E. Priest

In an age when people lived off the land and the Wild was still wild—when a young Queen warmed the throne and her Bulwark Knights patrolled the unruly borders—the edge of civilization was a place where dreams went to die.

Welcome to Southwind.

Asher’s best friend has been poisoned.
He has three days to live.
The only cure: a unicorn horn.
The only place to find one:
Dragoncliff Cove, where none dare go.

Book #1 in a series of fantasy novellas.

Science Fiction from A to Z by Joe VasicekScience Fiction from A to Z by Joe Vasicek

AN EXPLORATION OF THE TROPES OF SCIENCE FICTION BY A WRITER, AUTHOR, AND FAN

From Empire to Rebel, from Faster Than Light to Wagon Train to the Stars, join one of science fiction’s rising authors as he explores the central themes and tropes of the genre. Originally written for the 2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge, these twenty-six chapters run through the letters of the alphabet to examine the different facets of the science fiction experience. At times forward-looking and at other times nostalgic, this book is both a treatise on what makes science fiction great and a love letter to the genre from one of its most ardent life-long fans.

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Springtime Animal Pics

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Cora

I’ve written about Maikäfer or cockchafers, those once elusive insects that have been making a comeback in recent years, before. However, this morning I found not one but two cockchafers sitting on my welcome mat.

Since welcome mats are a rather dangerous location for beetles, I relocated them onto the lawn. I also took a photo: Continue reading →

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Yet more on the Hugos and the problem of divorcing an author from their work

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Cora

Rose Lemberg has a great post about the pitfalls of demanding that works nominated for the Hugos and other awards be judged only on the basis of merit, independent of the author and their personality or political views.

She never states it explicitly, but I strongly suspect that the post was inspired by this and this post by John Scalzi in which he asked people to give fair consideration to the works by Larry Correia and Vox Day (and Wheel of Time) on the Hugo shortlist and judge them solely on their artistic merits or lack thereof. This post by Brandon Sanderson asking people to give Wheel of Time a fair shot might also play a role.

Now there is a definite difference between Wheel of Time and the works of Vox Day or Larry Correia. Wheel of Time is a massive series of 14 books that I have little to no desire to read (even if Tor has promised to throw the whole thing into the Hugo voters’ packet), but I don’t have any problems with either Robert Jordan or Brandon Sanderson as people. Wheel of Time is simply a case of a book or a series in this case I am not interested in, just as I’m not interested in Neptune’s Brood, since Charles Stross’ works have never worked for me, or Parasite, because zombies and medical horror aren’t my thing at all, though I like both Charles Stross and Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant as people. I will give both books a try (and will also try the first Wheel of Time), to have at least some basis for judging them.

However, Vox Day and Larry Correia are both problematic and just plain unpleasant people (and I have had run-ins with both before*) and I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect me or anybody else who has had the misfortune of dealing with either gentleman or their posses to forget that and just focus on the merits of their respective works. Will I look at the works? Sure I will, if only to see what their writing is like. But will the personality of the writers in question influence my voting decision. You bet. And like I said before, the work will have to be knock-your-socks-off amazing for me to ignore the fact that the authors behaved like jerks.

This is not just a problem limited to ultra-rightwing writers BTW. Earlier this year, the names of two people with whom I’ve had issues in the past popped up on several recommendation and nomination lists as suggestions for “best fanwriter”. Now neither was nominated, so the issue has been averted. But if they had been nominated, my experience with and opinions of the people in question would certainly have coloured my judgment.

Coincidentally, the Hugos are not the only place where readers are asked to judge a work only on its artistic merits and not take the fact that the author is a horrible person into consideration. Today, I saw this report about the new novel by German writer Sibylle Lewitscharoff on the cultural program kulturzeit. And again we had someone – though not a white guy for once – ask people to forget the fact that Ms. Lewitscharoff has basically called children conceived via IVF not really human (more about that in this post, which also coincidentally involved a Hugo-related controversy) and just judge her work on its artistic merits. And again, I thought, “Well, easy enough for you to say, but I for one find it hard to ignore or forget that fact that the writer is a bigot. And if that makes me a bad critic, then so be it.”

Luckily, I’m not the only person willing to be a bad critic or bad Hugo voter. Kate Nepveu also responds to Scalzi’s request for fairness as well as the Wheel of Time nomination and points out that there are several valid ways to engage with a work of art and its creator and that no one should feel obliged to read the works of Vox Day or Larry Correia, if they don’t want to. Meanwhile, Rachel Ackes points out that every person has their own personal line in such matters and should act according to this personal line.

Susan Jane Bigelow points out that Vox Day, Larry Correia and their ilk are actively trying to maliciously provoke the glittering hoo-has, special snowflake, pink SF crowd, social justice warriors or whatever cutesy name they have come up with this week and that nobody has to engage with them or read their work.

At The Radish, Natalie Luhrs – whose last post on this subject attracted a troll attack of gigantic proportions – points out that no one is obliged to read works by people who actively despise them and to judge said work on its artistic merit, because art and fiction don’t exist in a vacuum.

S.L. Huang was originally neutral about the 2014 Hugo nomination slate, but also points out that more privileged people who are not normally the target of Vox Day’s and Correia’s rage (though Vox Day really seems to have a beef with John Scalzi) asking people who are targets to give their works fair consideration is hugely problematic.

Shweta Narayan points out that John Scalzi’s request to give fair consideration to the works of Larry Correia and Vox Day is contradricting Scalzi’s own widely publicized post about straight white male being the lowest difficulty setting. It’s an excellent post, so go and read it.

Finally, Ferrett Steinmetz points out what happens when works are nominated for awards based purely on their alleged or actual merit, namely that perception of a work’s objective merit is influenced by all sorts of subconscious biases and we still end up with a shortlist consisting only of straight white men more often than not.

Comments disabled because I don’t need the grief.

*Coincidentally, I have also interacted with Brad Torgersen, whose name also appeared on Correia’s “Vote this or puppies die” sample ballot. However, those interactions were not unpleasant, so I am willing to give Torgersen more benefit of a doubt than either Larry Correia or Vox Day.

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