More 2014 Hugo Reactions

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Cora

First of all, the winners of the BSFA awards have been announced as well with much less controversy than the Hugo nominations. This slate of winners hews a lot closer to my own choices than the Hugo nominations, e.g. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, Spin by Nina Allan, Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer and the artwork of Joey Hi-Fi were all on my Hugo nomination list.

Meanwhile, we’re still talking about the Hugo nominations. First of all, Stefan Raets has a great round-up of reactions at Far Beyond Reality. Lots of interesting reactions there. Here are a few I want to highlight: Continue reading →

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The Annual Hugo Nomination Reaction Post

Posted on April 20, 2014 by Cora

There are certain debates that reoccur with clockwork-like regularity in the SFF world, e.g. the gender debate, the race debate, the grimdark debate, the genre versus literary fiction debate, etc… However, there is only one debate that reoccurs at exactly the same time every single year and that is the debate about the Hugo Award nominations. Because the nominations are always announced on Easter Saturday, even if some people don’t like it*, it means that the online SFF world will be amusing itself during the long Easter weekend by debating, praising and complaining about the Hugo nominees.

Indeed, I even postponed a planned series of posts till after Easter, because the Easter weekend is Hugo nomination announcement time and I’ll be sure to post about that at least once, maybe repeatedly if there’s a bigger controversy.

Plus, this year I am even more invested than in past years, since I have nomination and voting rights. And lots of “Who?” or “What the fuck?” or “No fucking way!” nominees means I’ll have a harder time deciding who to vote for beyond the ever popular “No award”. Especially since I’m also not overly inclined to spend a lot of time on evaluating works I have zero interest in. To quote the late great Marcel Reich-Ranicki, “Life is too short for bad books.”

Anyway, here are the nominees for the 2014 Hugo Awards and 1939 Retro Hugo Awards. Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Comics, Film, TV | Tagged , , , | 31 Comments

The Obligatory Birthday Post

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Cora

Today was my birthday.

It was also Good Friday, which means on the plus side that it’s a public holiday with neither school nor work. On the downside, it means that you can’t go out either, because Good Friday in Germany is a day where literally nothing is open. Many restaurants are closed, there are no sports events, no concerts, shows and other public events. Here in Bremen, they’re even closing down the annual Easter fair for an entire day, because the two big Christian churches feel offended by people daring to have fun on Good Friday. Oh yes, and if you’re feeling like having a party or going clubbing on Good Friday, best forget it, because dancing on a Good Friday is forbidden by law – the churches want it that way. You can usually get away with a private party, as long as you don’t bother the neighbours. But otherwise, you might as well be living in the world of Footloose for this one day.

As for the why, here is the usually quite reasonably Margot Käßmann, former Lutheran bishop of Hannover, ranting against Easter decorations and defending the “dance and fun” ban on Good Friday, because “we need a day of peace and quiet and contemplation”. Here is another Lutheran bishop with the same message. For some reason, I couldn’t find any statements by Catholic officials, even though the Good Friday dance and fun ban is usually a lot stricter in Catholic majority regions. Understandably, there is also a lot of opposition against this display of Christian privilege, as these articles from the Kölner Express, the Hamburger Morgenpost, the Münchener Abendzeitung and the Frankfurter Rundschau attest.

Now I’ve never been much for partying, besides I’m too old to dance the night away anyway. Nonetheless, my birthday being on Good Friday meant that going to a restaurant for lunch or dinner was out, because nothing was open. So I had lunch at home with my parents instead. We had pork curry, which is definitely against the rules on Good Friday as well, but which also happens to be my favourite food. And tonight, I settled down on the sofa and decided to engage in quiet contemplation of life, death and the meaning of either by (re)watching The Avengers on DVD, because it’s loud and full of explosions and just plain fun and would likely annoy the “Good Friday should be quiet” types. Even though it’s a movie about friendship and heroism and sacrifices and fighting the good fight, so I suspect Jesus would approve. I actually do have an unwatched episode of Game of Thrones lying around, but watching Game of Thrones isn’t really something that makes you happy, so The Avengers it was.

An unexpected side effect of having your birthday fall on the Easter weekend is that people tend to forget you. I usually get a couple of congratulations phone calls from family and friends, but today only my cousin remembered. Well, at least nobody rang me out of bed on a public holiday at 8 AM, as has happened in past years.

Of course, I got presents as well. Mostly books, because – well, I love books: Continue reading →

Posted in Personal | Tagged , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Springtime Pretties

Posted on April 15, 2014 by Cora

We are experiencing an extremely early spring this year (which is hell for people with hayfever), so here are two pretty springtime shots:

Rapeseed field

This is the view from my bedroom window. A blooming cherry tree in the foreground and a blooming rapeseed field in the background. It sure looks lovely, though I’d enjoy the view more, if I wasn’t violently allergic to rapeseed pollen.

Pretty blue flowers

Some pretty blue flowers and some hyacinths in the garden

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New Silencer story available: The Great Fraud

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Cora

Richard Blakemore a.k.a. the Silencer, pulp writer by day and crimefighter by night, is back.

His latest adventure is entitled The Great Fraud and was inspired by the weird ads for X-ray specs, sea-monkeys, amazing muscles in only seven days and other products of highly questionable value that used to be found in the backpages of comic books (probably still are, though I haven’t read them in ages). Here is a really fascinating article about the man behind many of those products BTW.

Those ads always stunned me, first of all because I couldn’t imagine anybody falling for products that obviously couldn’t work as advertised, and secondly because of the incongruence of false advertising for problematic products found in the pages of superhero comics whose heroes held very strong moral codes. Sometimes I wondered how a superhero would feel to find such ads in a comic book dedicated to his or her exploits? Most likely they wouldn’t be pleased. And they’d probably decide to do something about it.

So I created Charles William Finchley, fictional marketer of novelty products of questionable value, and sicced the Silencer on him. The result is The Great Fraud.

The Great Fraud is a bit of a departure for the Silencer series. First of all, Charles William Finchley is hardly a world-threatening menace like the rest of the Silencer’s rogues gallery. Secondly, The Great Fraud is the only Silencer story to date without a POV scene for the Silencer. Instead, we see the Silencer through the eyes of someone who finds himself at the receiving end of the Silencer’s brand of justice.

So here is The Great Fraud:

The Great Fraud by Cora Buhlert Charles William Finchley made his fortune selling novelty products of questionable value via ads in the backpages of pulp magazines.

Finchley is well on his way to becoming a millionaire, until his unscrupulous business practices put him in the crosshairs of the Silencer, a pulp hero come to life to fight crime in the streets of Depression era New York.

And the Silencer is not at all pleased that Finchley uses the crimefighter’s good name to peddle worthless junk…

 

For more information, visit the The Great Fraud page.
Buy it for the low price of 0.99 USD, EUR or GBP at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Spain, Amazon Italy, Amazon Canada, Amazon Australia, Amazon Brazil, Amazon Japan, Amazon India, Amazon Mexico, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes, Casa del Libro, Libiro, Nook UK, DriveThruFiction, OmniLit/AllRomance e-books and XinXii.

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Palm Sunday Linkdump

Posted on April 13, 2014 by Cora

True story, I actually was in Rome on Palm Sunday once. Our hotel was near the Vatican and so I even chanced to see the Pope (John Paul II, i.e. two popes ago) holding mass on St. Peter’s Square. I also snagged an olive branch outside a church and walked around with it all day long, getting beatific smiles from several nuns.

And now let’s have some links:

Wired has a rather silly article about the resurgence of interest in vampires, inspired by the impending US release of Jim Jarmush’s Only Lovers Left Alive (The US is only getting that film now? Guess my Hugo nomination was wasted then*) and a TV show based on Guillermo del Toro’s novel The Strain. So why is the article silly? First of all, because there’s always a base level of interest in vampires and even though the explosion of interest in vampires in the mid to late 2000s has somewhat passed by now, vampires never went away to be replaced by zombies. And they didn’t just stick around in YA either, as the article insinuates. I absolutely understand if paranormal romance or romantic urban fantasy are not your thing, but that doesn’t make it YA. Never mind that The Strain is a pretty bad example, because it’s basically vampires as zombies, similar to 30 Days of Night, which first came out in 2007 and which I really hated.

Damien Walter sums up the debate about non-binary gender and queer characters in SFF for those readers of the Guardian who are not as plugged into genre debates as some of us are. The Guardian, particularly Alison Flood and Damien Walter, is doing really good work bringing debates in the SFF community to a mainstream audience.

A. Lee Martinez laments the triumph of grimdark and wonders how he fits into a genre where grimdark is increasingly considered a mark of sophistication. I certainly smypathize, though my own work is darker than A. Lee Martinez’, based on what I’ve read by him. Or rather, my work tends to oscillate between light and dark.

Here is a great post on writing sex scenes by Jennifer Crusie. Actually, I had the hardest time writing sex scenes, when I tried to write them mainly for titillation. Once I started considering the characters and what sort of sex these particular characters would have, it got a lot easier.

Blastr has some popular science fiction films reimagined as vintage movie posters. I really would love to see some of those alternate universe versions such as the Mission Impossible/Man from U.N.C.L.E style Iron Man, the 1970s kung-fu cum blaxploitation version of The Matrix or the Hammer horror edition of Ghostbusters. And Humphrey Bogart in Blade Runner of course.

*Only Lovers Left Alive came out in Germany in late December and was quite extensively discussed in the cultural pages of newspapers and cultural programs on TV, though amusingly enough none of our highbrow cultural critics seemed to have any idea who Tom Hiddleston is.

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A spooky, foggy morning

Posted on April 12, 2014 by Cora

Waking up early can get you some really great views such as this spooky, foggy view out of the window, illuminated by an early morning streetlight.

Spooky foggy view

A spooky look out of the window at a foggy morning complete with streetlight and tree.

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A bit of ephemera

Posted on April 11, 2014 by Cora

So this is what happens when I forget to take my trusty notebook with me and find myself with some downtime. I start scribbling bits of story on whatever scraps of paper are at hand. In this case, a receipt from a chain of DIY stores that I found floating around in my handbag.

Receipt

Bits of story scribbled on the back of a receipt

The scene in question is from a novella currently entitled Green Skin, Red Blood. The title may well change down the line, because the focus of the story has changed quite drastically to the point that it no longer fits.

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Two gorgeous new fantasy covers

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Cora

I should actually have a new release to announce in the very near future, but for now feast your eyes on these gorgeous new covers for two of my existing fantasy stories.

You can see the covers under the cut for friends list mercy: Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

It’s dead, Jim – On the Cancellation of “Wetten Dass?”

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Cora

Yesterday evening, I flipped through my TV listings magazine, switched on the TV, surfed right over public channels, found an episode of NCIS, realised that I had seen it before and remembered it pretty well, switched off the TV to design an e-book cover and do some translation work. And so I managed to miss the most momentous announcement on German TV in approximately twenty years. Namely the announcement that Wetten Dass? is cancelled and will end after three more shows this fall. Here is an English language article about the cancellation from Yahoo News.

Now this is a big deal, as big a deal as David Letterman announcing his retirement was for the US, because Wetten Dass? was the most popular program on German TV for decades and may still be, for all I know. There is also another parallel between the two huge TV announcements of this week, namely that both Wetten Dass? and Letterman’s show were examples of undead zombie television, programs that were years past their prime and yet still shambling on, animated by the dark forces of habit and TV officials unwilling to try something else.

I’ll let the Americans comment about the Letterman retirement and focus on Wetten Dass?, if only because I’ve actually seen more than one and a half episodes, though not in the past twenty years. I’ve written about the show before, on the occasion of long-time host Thomas Gottschalk announcing his retirement. My verdict then was quite similar to my verdict now. Wetten Dass? was a relic from another television era, an era that’s long gone. It had a good long run, but maybe it’s time to put the old warhorse to rest. Continue reading →

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