She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Lays Down the “Superhuman Law”

Posted on September 20, 2022 by Cora

After a pause for Worldcon and winning a Hugo, I return to my episode by episode reviews of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. For my takes on previous episodes (well, just one so far) go here.

Warning: Spoilers behind the cut! Continue reading →

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Non-Fiction Spotlight: Bridging Worlds: Global Conversations On Creating Pan-African Speculative Literature In a Pandemic, edited by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki

Posted on September 17, 2022 by Cora

After the Hugos is before the next Hugos, so I’m continuing my Non-Fiction Spotlight project, where I interview the authors/editors of SFF-related non-fiction books that come out in 2022 and are eligible for the 2023 Hugo Awards. For more about the Non-Fiction Spotlight project, go here. To check out the spotlights I already posted, go here.

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

Speculative fiction from beyond the US/UK is a cause that is close to my heart. Therefore I’m thrilled to welcome my fellow 2022 Hugo finalist Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, editor of Bridging Worlds: Global Conversations On Creating Pan-African Speculative Literature In a Pandemic to my blog.

Bridging Worlds, edited by Oghenechovwe Donald EkpekiTell us about your book.

The Bridging Worlds anthology is a Pan-African, pandemic non-fiction anthology. It aims to chronicle and document the experience of Black people and Africans creating speculative fiction during the first year of the covid 19 pandemic. It was a harrowing year for all and those in publishing, with whole economies shutting down. There were riots and political upheavals in Nigeria where I am. And Black people and Africans caught the brunt of it, with vaccine hoarding policies, being the most vulnerable demographics even in advanced countries and economic shutdowns hitting developing African countries the hardest. So this is the story of how we lived, survived and thrived, what it cost, what we gained and lost, from all the amazing individuals we could capture their experiences.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’m an African speculative fiction writer, editor, publisher, conrunner, slush reader, award administrator, founder and a bunch else. I am currently a resident of Nigeria but travelling the US, unshackled and ungrounded by the rocket, my words and the voices of all who oppose discrimination in society.

What prompted you to write/edit this book?

It just seemed like often we were shouting into the void, and not being heard. The works we create were received with narry a thought for where they came from or the work that went into them. It might seem like a seperate issue, the origin of the work. But a creator’s identity is very valid to their creation. And you cannot properly value a body of work without knowing it’s history or it’s creator. I witnessed a lot of struggle during the pandemic year, from my perch in Nigeria. And interacted with a lot of writers and creatives of African descent. And I just knew that these experiences needed to be documented, seen and heard.

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

It should be a must read by true genre fans and Hugo voters because it’s an integral part of genre history. A chronicle of one of its most turbulent times, by some of the most enduring and resilient people.

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

A lot actually. My own experiences with both editing and publishing this book, depredations by Amazon and Smashwords-Draft2Digital, who wrongfully suspended my books and confiscated my funds, some of which they still hold. All this backed by their racist policies. There just might be a volume 2 of this book since there still happens to be a lot to the story that needs to be told.

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

I think sff related non-fiction is important because it tells the very integral and real story of fiction. The things that need to be said directly, not disguised, hidden behind anecdotes and in strange worlds. Where fiction is the shiny, metal exterior of the vehicle, non-fiction is the engine, the inner workings that drive it’s movement.

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

Well, there’s Suyi Davies Okungbowa’s newsletter on the craft of writing.

My own non-fiction piece ‘Too Dystopian For Whom, A Marginalized Nigerian Writer’s Perspective’ in the latest issue of Uncanny magazine.

Kristy Anne Cox’s series on disability in Strange Horizons.

Where can people get your book?

Following the depredations of the publishing giants, which I mentioned above, the book is now free to download in all formats here

https://ekpeki.wordpress.com/2022/09/10/bridging-worlds-global-conversations-on-creating-pan-african-speculative-literature-in-a-pandemic/

[Since Bridging Worlds is a free download, just include that link]

https://ekpeki.wordpress.com/2022/09/10/bridging-worlds-global-conversations-on-creating-pan-african-speculative-literature-in-a-pandemic/

Where can people find you?

On Twitter: https://twitter.com/penprince_

Instagram: https://instagram.com/penprince

Facebook: https://facebook.com/penprince

Website: https://odekpeki.com

Thank you, Oghenechovwe, for stopping by and answering my questions. Do check out Bridging Worlds: Global Conversations On Creating Pan-African Speculative Literature In a Pandemic, because it’s a great anthology. Besides, it’s free, so you really have no excuse not to.

About  Bridging Worlds: Global Conversations On Creating Pan-African Speculative Literature In a Pandemic:

The Bridging Worlds non-fiction anthology examines the difficulties Black people and African writers faced in the 2020 pandemic-lockdown breakout year and how they navigated them. Bridging Worlds seeks to explore the threads and lines that connect us as we navigated this singular yet multifaceted experience, and show that connection in the various non-fiction pieces written in the diverse styles and forms the authors chose.

Bridging Worlds contains 18 pieces of speculative non-fiction, by 19 creatives aimed at documenting the experiences we had as speculative creators during that very challenging year.

It contains essays, interviews, narrative non-fiction pieces, whatever styles the creatives chose to tell their stories in. Stories that touch on their hopes, difficulties, losses, successes and further plans. It is meant to be an integral contribution to the speculative fiction canon and shed much needed light on the marginalized and scarcely represented Black and African experience

About Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki:

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki is an African speculative fiction writer and editor in Nigeria. He won the Nebula award and is a multiple Hugo finalist. He also won the Otherwise, Nommo, BFA and is a finalist in the WFA, Locus, BSFA, & Sturgeon awards. His short story Destiny Delayed appeared in the May/June issue of Asimov’s. His other fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Strange Horizons, Galaxy’s Edge, Apex, Tor.com, and more. He edited and published the Bridging Worlds anthology, the first ever Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction anthology, and co-edited the Dominion and Africa Risen anthologies. He founded Jembefola Press and the Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award For Disability In Speculative Fiction. He’s a 2022 Can*Con guest of honour and 2023 ICFA guest of honour

***

Are you publishing a work of SFF-related longform non-fiction in 2022 and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

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Non-Fiction Spotlight: Story Matrices: Cultural Encoding and Cultural Baggage in Science Fiction and Fantasy by Gillian Polack

Posted on September 15, 2022 by Cora

After the Hugos is before the next Hugos, so I’m continuing my Non-Fiction Spotlight project, where I interview the authors/editors of SFF-related non-fiction books that come out in 2022 and are eligible for the 2023 Hugo Awards. For more about the Non-Fiction Spotlight project, go here. To check out the spotlights I already posted, go here.

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

Today’s featured non-fiction book is a fascinating study of how culture and the baggage it carries influence storytelling in general and speculative fiction in particular. Therefore, I am thrilled to welcome Gillian Polack, author of Story Matrices: Cultural Encoding and Cultural Baggage in Science Fiction and Fantasy to my blog today.

Story Matrices by Gillian Polack

Tell us about your book.

What do we carry with us into our reading? What do we share with writers?

I’ve been exploring how we use fiction to transmit culture for a very long time. I wanted to explain where my explorations had led me, and find a way for writers and editors to think about fiction and for readers to get new insights. Story Matrices is that explanation.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Like many writers, I’m addicted to learning. I’m an historian, and a fiction writer, and someone who always tries to understand how the world works. My family focused on scientific explanations: I like the human side of things. It’s complicated and ever-changing.

What prompted you to write/edit this book?

Because I’m addicted to story, I wondered just how much of our invisible culture we carried in in the way we tell stories. I began to look at the world building we do and the paths we take when we tell stories and read them. What is the difference between story space for the reader and story space for the writer and, indeed, story space for the editor? As I addressed these questions, I discovered how very powerful genre literature is in our lives. Even those who have never read a science fiction novel have experienced the narratives we tell and the cultural material we embed into our stories.

I wanted to explain this: that genre literature is a powerful, powerful force, that culture is transmitted through story, that we can all think about story and through that thought have more control over what we accept from story. We can, in short, choose not to be bigots.

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

Because it takes speculative fiction seriously. Story Matrices is useful for understanding any story, but it’s described by focusing on our stories, on SFF.

It shows some of the stuff we’re all beginning to realise about the way people from various parts of politics translate the worlds in our stories to meet their own needs. It provides tools for thinking about these things, and it helps us discover how we share our world, as SFF fans. It also gives some thoughts on how we can work through the discovery that our favourite author is problematic – what parts of the worlds we read about do we actually share with these people we suddenly distrust? In simple form: do Harry Potter fans have to give everything up, because they do not want to meet JK Rowling? And how do fans interpret those aspects of the novels that hurt?

We need tools and methods for handling these things, and Story Matrices uses SFF to provide them.

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

When I dreamed of this study, years ago, I used to call it “A Universal Theory of Story.” It’s the opposite to that, but I still dream of writing a universal theory.

My favourite tidbit, however, is that you can interpret recipes using my tools. Every story is set in its own world, or, in the case of recipes, its own kitchen. I can prove this, in my kitchen. Maybe one day I shall…

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

Stories don’t stand alone. They’re part of a vast and complex narrative. Non-fiction is part of our discourse about that narrative. Some of this discourse is clear and obvious: if we know what the most fascinating works are in any given year, we can read them first. This alone is a good reason to have that category – so that we can find out about fabulous work we’d otherwise miss. Non-fiction very seldom gets the public airing that the most popular fiction gets, and it can be equally important.

There is, however, another reason for it. The category helps us understand who we are as SFF fans, and enables us to see the wood, and not focus only on certain trees in that wood.

For example, so many of us talk incessantly about bias towards white men in publishing. It’s easy enough to compare the wide numbers of male and female authors. It’s much harder to look at the number of writers who are non-binary.

Then we look at who we talk about and how visible they are. Male writers are more likely to get reviews, for instance, especially in the most notable review places. US writers also have certain privileges. Australian writers have fewer, but compared with writers from, say Malaysia or Zimbabwe, we do well. The hierarchy of publishing and what that means about works that are available to readers is never boring, though often frustrating.

When we look at which writers are written about by experts ie have studies of their work, get mentioned in academic studies and general non-fiction, we can see how this works. We can discover what underpins what we hear about and what we can find in bookshops. These are the studies that help us work through the fog of too many books, and give us a means of interpreting them. (Some of the white male bias comes from this discourse, which is another story. There are always other stories.)

When we talk about story, we influence what stories are seen. The Hugo category helps us make decisions about what is important to us, as SFFians. Me, I examine at the category every year and note who is visible and why, and what that visibility adds to our understanding of ourselves. This is as well as reading the cool books, never instead of reading them!

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

I want to recommend a set of communities. There are whole worlds of academic research that illumine SFF. German universities are looking at Australian speculative fiction, for instance, and the big Medieval Studies conferences always have a section just for people like us. I blog about them from time to time, when I attend a conference, or find a book that I want to share. My work as a medieval historian led me to the Tales after Tolkien people, and to fairy tale studies and ethnography and folk studies experts. There’s an amazing amount of very exciting work in all these areas right now, and so much of it is relevant to SFF. This is a golden decade for research that’s of interest to SFF fans.

Find me, tell me your interests, and I’ll introduce you to this side of my world.

Where can people buy your book?

Most online bookshops have it. Most brick-and-mortar shops can get it in. This sounds like an evasion, but it’s hard to know what shops on the other side of the world stock my books! (And, from Australia, most of the world is the other side.)

The easiest way to find a copy near you is through online tools such as this (the UK site given, but it’s international): https://booko.info/9781913387914/Story-Matrices-Cultural-Encoding-and-Cultural-Baggage-in-Science-Fiction-and-Fantasy

or, for those of you in the US, this: https://bookshop.org/a/1838/9781913387914

Where can people find you?

My website is: https://gillianpolack.com/ but I also blog every Monday at a favourite haunt (a treehouse for writers – a few of us set this up during the big COVID lockdown and have never left it) https://treehousewriters.com/wp53 . I write essays for Aurealis (the magazine) and elsewhere. I usually report the most interesting pieces on Twitter (https://twitter.com/GillianPolack) and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/gillian.polack

Thank you, Gillian, for stopping by and answering my questions. Do check out Story Matrices: Cultural Encoding and Cultural Baggage in Science Fiction and Fantasy if you’re interested in storytelling, culture and speculative fiction.

About Story Matrices: Cultural Encoding and Cultural Baggage in Science Fiction and Fantasy:

The culture we live in shapes us. We also shape the culture we live in. Stories we tell play critical roles in this shaping.
The heart of cultural transmission is how stories and the way we shape knowledge come together and make a novel work. How do they combine within the novel? Genre writing plays a critical role in demonstrating how this transmission functions.

Science fiction and fantasy illustrate this through shared traditions and understanding, colonialism, diasporic experiences, own voices, ethics, selective forgetting and silencing. They illuminate ways in which speculative fiction is important for cultural transmission.

This study uses cultural encoding and baggage within speculative fiction to decode critical elements of modern English-language culture.

About Gillian Polack:

I am Gillian Polack. I answer mainly to Gillian, but also to Dr Polack, Ms Polack, Miss Polack and “Hey, you”. I sometimes answer to “Gillian Pollack” because people simply can’t seem to get my name right. ‘Polack’ is not an insult in Australia and it is most definitely the correct spelling of my surname. I live in the centre of the known universe (Canberra, ACT, Australia).

I write, I think, I serve on committees, I teach. I am passionate about people, about books, about history.

I talk a lot. I dream a lot. The Middle Ages sneaks into my dreaming, and so does speculative fiction. Cooking sneaks onto my waistline.

***

Are you publishing a work of SFF-related longform non-fiction in 2022 and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

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Some Comments on the 2022 Hugo Award Winners and the Hugo Ceremony in General

Posted on September 13, 2022 by Cora

Now that I have somewhat recovered from the excitement of the past few days, here is the detailed Hugo commentary I promised you. The full list of 2022 Hugo winners may be found here and the detailed voting and nomination statistics breakdown here.

Hugo commentary is somewhat muted this year – and what there is often focusses solely on the Dramatic Presentation and Best Novel winners – but you can find more comments and analysis by fellow Hugo finalist Camestros Felapton (with bonus stats analysis here), my other fellow finalist Chris M. Barkley, my pal Steve J. Wright, Doris V. Sutherland, Kristenelle of the SFF Reader BookTube channel and deputy Hugo administrator Nicholas Whyte as well as some strongly worded comments from Peculiar Monster (really strongly worded, so if you’re a finalist/winner and don’t want your moment spoiled, don’t click) here.

ETA: I don’t necessarily agree with everything everybody says in the commentaries linked above.

The local free paper Weser Report wrote a nice article about my Hugo win. You can read it on page 5 of their electronic flip edition or check out the screenshots below:

Hugo article

The actual article from the Weser Report

Weser Report front page

And here is the front page of the “Huchting Stuhr Brinkum” regional edition of the Weser Report with me featured in the top right-hand corner. Looking at the other editions, I knocked the local football team Werder Bremen off the front page, which is huge. Okay, so I won and Werder lost, but it’s still huge.

Furthermore, I was also the top news item in last week’s edition of the Thews You Can Use sword & sorcery newsletter. Considering how many articles about the Hugos only focus on the Dramatic Presentation or Best Novel and often can’t even be bothered to list all the winners (which I accept in a print mag or paper, where space is limited, but not online), it’s nice to be the headline news item for once.

But before we get to the detailed discussion of the winners, I want to say a few words about the ceremony itself. You can watch the entire ceremony on YouTube BTW. I’m up at the 30 minute mark.

All in all, it was a very good – and most importantly, fairly brisk (the YouTube video is two hours and four minutes long) – Hugo ceremony. I particularly appreciate the latter, considering I survived the neverending Hugo ceremony from hell of 2020. We should probably put that on a badge ribbon. Toastmasters Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders were charming and funny hosts. There were also some fine guest presenters, including 2022 TAFF winner Fia Karlsson and Mary Anne Mohanraj. Finally, there was also a land acknowledgement read out by representatives of an indigenous youth group from Chicago. According to them, there are 75000 indigenous people living in Chicago, which I for one did not know.

Unlike previous years, there also was very little in the way of controversy. There was no controversial sponsor this year, unlike the Raytheon debacle of 2021. Google did provide the automatic captioning again, which has improved a lot since the Dublin Hugo ceremony, though unintentionally hilarious gaffes still happened. For example, when the staff of Best Semiprozine winner Uncanny thanked their supporters, the Space Unicorns, the auto captioning software turned that into “space urine corns”, which sounds like spilled pee droplets you might find floating around the ISS. I should probably check the auto-captioning of my acceptance speech to see what the software made of He-Man and Man-e-Faces.

There were also no names mispronounced that I noticed – and mine was pronounced correctly, so thank you to Annalee and Charlie Jane – though the hosts forgot to read out Marguerite Kenner, editor of Best Fanzine finalist The Full Lid. There was also some unpleasantness involving Best Semiprozine finalist Strange Horizons, who have a large staff and have long fought for all of them to be listed. The hosts did not read out the entire long list of names, which was agreed upon with Strange Horizons beforehand, but the dramatic pause before “…by the Strange Horizons editorial collective” generated laughter in the auditorium, which may not even have been ill intended, but which nonetheless hurt the Strange Horizons people, especially given the crap they’ve gotten over the years, e.g. last year when many people blamed Strange Horizons for complaining about the (eventually repealed) “only four people plus ones at the Hugo ceremony and reception rule”, even though it was a completely different team that complained. Finally – speaking as someone who’s been there three times now – it is a thrilling feeling to hear your name read out at the Hugo ceremony. Having that thrilling feeling marred by having your name mispronounced, omitted or people laughing about it is not cool. I was still in the finalist Zoom green room with Sonia Sulaiman of Strange Horizons, when Best Semiprozine was announced, and I could tell she was hurt. That said, Annalee and Charlie Jane have apologised by now.

Last year, the virtual finalists who couldn’t attend were “beamed” into the Hugo reception and after-party via Zoom and a mobile tablet. This was nice, because it allowed virtual and on-site finalists to interact, admire each other’s gowns, etc… Sadly, this was not repeated this year, so the virtual finalists were very isolated in the Zoom green room with hardly any contact to the in person finalists. Come to think of it, I don’t even know if there was a Hugo after-party this year, since I haven’t seen any photos.

Warning: I will be discussing the winners, finalists, placements and also the nomination statistics, so if this sort of thing bothers you – e.g. I know that there are finalists who do not want to know the rankings – you may want to stop reading now. Continue reading →

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I Won a Hugo Award!

Posted on September 5, 2022 by Cora

You’ll have to wait a bit longer for the 2022 Hugo Winner commentary, because it turns out that I’m one of the winners.

That was a huge surprise, because I honestly didn’t think I’d win this year, considering how strong the Fan Writer ballot was.

I had finished typing up the Dragon Award winner post with about twenty minutes to go. Since I couldn’t attend in person, I was in the virtual finalist Zoom chat in my full Hugo get-up, which you can see below, photographed earlier yesterday in the garden.

In my Hugo gown in the garden.

Hugo gown with sundial

We could watch a livestream of the Hugo ceremony in the virtual Zoom green room, but when your category comes up, you are sent to a breakout room, so they can bring you on stage, if necessary. In this breakout room, you don’t get the ceremony livestream, so you don’t hear the winner announcement. This is why Astounding winner Shelley Parker-Chan was so confused, because they hadn’t heard the announcement. After Shelley won, I told the ceremony Zoom moderator, “You should tell us who won, if we can’t hear it.”

The Lodestar and Fan Artist were awarded and then Best Fan Writer was up and fellow finalist Alex Brown and I were sent into the breakout room. The moderator typed into the chat, “The winner is Cora Buhlert,” and that’s how I learned I won, via Zoom chat. So I delivered my speech – with some action figure assistance – and my own Zoom screen was all I could see.

Though according to photos online, this is what it looked like on the big screen in the Hyatt Regency ballroom in Chicago.

Cora on screen

Cora on screen

The second photo is courtesy of my wonderful fellow finalist Olav Rokne. I don’t know who took the first one. Love the little dog in the front row.

ETA: You can rewatch the entire ceremony on YouTube, which is how I finally saw what happened after I was sent to the Zoom breakout room. Best Fan Writer is announced at the thirty minute mark.

After I’d finished my speech, I was sent back to the regular finalist Zoom green room. By that time, a lady whose name I did not catch [ETA: it was Mary Anne Mohanraj] was introducing Best Fancast. I waited for Fancast and Fanzine to be announced, because I have friends in both categories, though I switched off the camera to take off my gown and tiara. When Fanzine was announced, I got back to the computer to wish fellow virtual finalist Charley Payseur good luck. Unfortunately, typing into the chat switched the camera back on, so I accidentally managed to flash my fellow finalists. Though I don’t think anybody saw anything, because the camera doesn’t go that far down.

I wished the semiprozine and editor finalists good luck and switched off the camera. My parents had given me permission to wake them up in case I won, so that’s what I did. Because you should know that it was almost 4 AM German time by that point. My parents were very happy for me.

I had champagne in the fridge and some really fancy Belgian chocolate in the cellar, so I got that out to celebrate.

Cora celebrating with champagne

Brand-new Hugo winner celebrating with champagne.

And since He-Man and Man-e-Faces assisted with the speech, they got to celebrate with champagne, too.

He-Man and Man-a-Faces celebrate with champagne

Having stopped Skeletor, He-Man and Man-e-Faces celebrate with champagne.

Finally, here is my acceptance speech, complete with stage directions to myself:

Acceptance Speech Best Fan Writer 2022

Thank you very much.

September 4th is “Take Man-e-Faces to Work Day”. And yes, this is a real thing.

Now I happen to have a Man-e-Faces, but since I work from home, I don’t really have a workplace I could take him to. But then I realised that September 4th is actually Hugo Night, so I thought, “Why not take Man-e-Faces to the Hugos?” So here he is:

[Bring Manny on stage]

Say hello to the audience, Manny!

“People of Eternia, I am absolutely thrilled to win the Greatest Actor of the Universe Award…”

“Ahem, Manny, this is actually Chicago and the Hugo Awards.”

“All right then, people of Chicago, I am absolutely thrilled to win…”

“Ahem, Manny, actually I won the award.”

“So what am I doing here then?”

“Well today is “Take Man-e-Faces to Work” day and this is the closest thing to work I could take you to.”

[Bring He-Man on stage]

“Manny, come quick. Skeletor is attacking Castle Grayskull and we need your help!”

“Sorry, got to go!”

[Exit stage right]

Well, looks like Manny and He-Man will be busy for a while, so let’s talk about fandom.

Science fiction fandom was born shortly after the genre itself, in the letter pages of the science fiction magazines of the 1920s and 1930s. Via these letter columns, fans found each other and went on to publish fanzines, found clubs and organise conventions.

From these beginnings, fandom has grown by leaps and bounds into directions the letter writers of the 1930s could never have imagined. Over the past ninety years, thousands of people of all genders and races and from all over the world have written articles and reviews, letters and blogposts, essays and parodies, filk songs, poetry and fanfiction. They published fanzines, created fan art, made fanvids, sewed costumes, started blogs and podcasts, organised cons, all for the love of the genre. And so they all contributed to the great and colourful tapestry we call fandom, a tapestry that is wrapped around the entire world by now.

In the past 83 years, Worldcons have been held on four continents and in ten different countries. Next year, we will add Chengdu in China to the list and in 2024 we are going to Glasgow in Scotland. We also have active bids from Uganda, Egypt, Israel, Australia, Ireland and the US to make it truly a WORLDcon. Cause if there is one thing Worldcon has proven it’s that in spite of our many differences, we all have one thing in common: our love of science fiction, fantasy and horror.

I’m honoured that tonight, the threads I added to the great and glorious tapestry that is fandom have been recognised by you. Thank you very much.

I particularly want to thank Gideon Marcus and the crew at Galactic Journey, Jessica Rydill, my co-conspirator at the Speculative Fiction Showcase, Mike Glyer and everybody at File 770, Jo Van Ekeren, Camestros Felapton, Jason Ray Carney and everybody at the Whetstone Discord, Dr. Ian Watson of the University of Bremen, my parents and of course my wonderful fellow finalists Paul, Jason, Chris, Alex and Bitter. You’re all amazing and as far as I’m concerned, we’re all winners here tonight.

Thank you very much.

[Man-e-Faces and He-Man wave good-bye]

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Some Comments on the 2022 Dragon Award Winners

Posted on September 5, 2022 by Cora

In a feat of terrible scheduling, not only do Chicon 8, the 2022 Worldcon, and DragonCon, the big media con in Atlanta, Georgia, happen on the exact same weekend, no, both Hugos and the Dragon Awards were also handed out on the same day.

Luckily, the Dragons were awarded earlier than the Hugos, which means that I could get a headstart on this post, before I have to get ready for the Hugos. The full list of winners is here.

So let’s dive right in:

The winner of the 2022 Dragon Award for Best Science Fiction Novel is Leviathan Falls by James S.A. Corey. No big surprise here, because it is a popular novel and the final volume of the hugely popular series.

The 2022 Dragon Award for Best Fantasy Novel goes to Book of Night by Holly Black. This one surprised me a little, because Book of Night was the finalist in this category I was least familiar with. That said, Holly Black is a very popular writer, though better known for her YA work.

The winner of the 2022 Dragon Award for Best Young Adult/Middle Grade Novel is A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell. This one is another surprise to me, because this was the only book in  this category I hadn’t heard of. But then, I’m not much of a YA reader.

The 2022 Dragon Award for Best Military SFF novel goes to A Call to Insurrection by David Weber, Timothy Zahn and Thomas Pope. Once again, this isn’t much of a surprise, because David Weber and Timothy Zahn are hugely popular, plus this novel is apparently tied in to Weber’s Honor Harrington series. Though I do wish that the voters in this category would look beyond David Weber and Honor Harrington once in a while.

The winner of the 2022 Dragon Award for Best Alternate History Novel is The Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley by Mercedes Lackey. The Alternate History category was uncommonly strong this year, so pretty much any of the finalists would have been a credible winner. That said, Mercedes Lackey is very popular, though I haven’t read this particular novel. Alas, Vondy McIntyre did not get to take home a posthumous Dragon Award three years after her death for a twenty-five-year-old novel.

The 2022 Dragon Award for Best Media Tie-In Novel goes to Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil by Timothy Zahn. Again, there is no real surprise here. I mean, the winner is a Star Wars novel by Timothy Zahn, most popular of the Star Wars tie-in writers, and the novel is about Grand Admiral Thrawn, one of the most popular characters in two continuities of Star Wars novels.

The winner of the 2022 Dragon Award for Best Horror Novel is The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig. I have to admit that this win surprised me a little, because I assumed Stephen Grahma Jones or Grady Hendrix would take it. That said, Chuck Wendig is a fine writer and his win will piss off the puppies so very much.

The 2022 Dragon Award for Best Comic Book goes to Immortal X-Men by Kieron Gillen and Mark Brooks. I’m surprised that the X-Men are still/again so popular, because it was my impression that their popularity had faded while Marvel focussed more on the Avengers and related heroes. Besides, I have to admit that I don’t care for this new Krakoa era of the X-Men at all. I preferred the X-Men when they were still underdogs, hated and feared by the very world they’re trying to protect.

The winner of the 2022 Dragon Award for Best Graphic Novel is Dune: House Atreides Volume 2 by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson and Dev Pramanik. This very much wouldn’t have been my choice – I voted for Saga – but I guess it got a boost from the Dune movie.

The 2022 Dragon Award for Best SFF TV series goes to Stranger Things, which is not only very popular, but also got a boost from airing fairly close to the nomination deadline.

The winner of the 2022 Dragon Award for Best SFF movie is Dune. Again, no real surprise here. I also strongly suspect that Dune will take the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation Long this year.

I still can’t offer any comment on the four game categories except that I have heard of the winners, which means they must be popular.

Furthermore, the 2022 Julie Award was awarded to Jim Starlin, creator of Thanos, Adam Warlock and many other memorable Marvel characters. The Hank Reinhardt Fandom Award went to John Carrol.

In general, the Dragon Awards continue the trend we have observed in recent years and now finally do what they were designed to do, namely award broadly popular works in a variety of genres and subgenres. There is no truly unexpected  winner here nor is there a single winner this year that will make future historians of the Dragon Awards go WTF?

So in short, after six years the Dragons are finally where they wanted to be.

The Hugo commentary will come tomorrow, because the ceremony starts at 3 AM my time.

ETA 1: Doris V. Sutherland has a write-up of the 2022 Dragon Award winners.

ETA 2: Camestros Felapton notes that one thing that hasn’t changed about the Dragons is that the winners skew heavily male. This is likely a result of the fact that the Dragons tend award broadly popular and very well known works. And books by big name male authors still get more promotion than books by female authors.

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First Monday Free Fiction: Old Mommark’s Tale

Posted on September 5, 2022 by Cora

Old Mommark's Tale by Cora BuhlertWelcome to the September 2022 edition of First Monday Free Fiction.

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

“Talk Like a Pirate Day” is September 19, so why not have a pirate story. Therefore, I give you Old Mommark’s Tale, the story of a pirate, a treasure and a mysterious island with a secret.

So take a seat in the most disreputable tavern in Tortuga and listen to…

Old Mommark’s Tale

 

Arr, my luvvies, let me tell you a tale. A tale that’s one hundred and ten percent true, honest to God, cross my heart and hope to die. And if my tale be just sailor’s yarn, then may I swing upon the gallows ere the week is through.

So buy me a cup of rum and I’ll tell you my tale. The true tale of how I escaped the island of horror.

***

’twas thirty years ago, when I was still a young whippersnapper, a cabin boy sailing under Captain Scarlet on the Bloody Skull and hoping for better things.

As ye may know, Captain Scarlet was the most feared pirate in all of the Caribbean in those days. He’d gotten that name both for the colour of his beard and the colour of the deck of a captured ship after he was done with her. Battle-hardened men shuddered and trembled when the Captain entered a room, while women fainted straight away. And when the Skull appeared on the horizon with its sails the colour of blood, many a sailor jumped over board rather than face Captain Scarlet. The Captain spread terror wherever he went, and that included us, his own crew.

The Bloody Skull was once again prowling the Caribbean, looking for booty, when the lookout suddenly yelled from the crow’s nest, “Ahoy, land ahead.”

Now that was very odd, cause there wasn’t supposed to be no land in that part of the Caribbean. Just sea and waves and sharks as far as the eye could see. Besides, the lookout was known to have indulged a bit much in the good old Jamaica rum the night before. So no one paid much heed to what he’d said and seen.

But then he yelled again, “Land ahead,” and again and again. And finally, the first mate Mr. Bones reached for his spyglass and peered through. He frowned and then handed the spyglass to Captain Scarlet, who peered through as well. For lo and behold, the lookout had been right. There really was land on the horizon. A small island, uncharted and not found on any map.

Now it just happened that Captain Scarlet was looking for a good spot to hide some treasure. And an island that’s not found on any map… well, there is no better place to hide a treasure on the Lord’s great big Earth.

So Captain Scarlet ordered the Bloody Skull to set course for the island. We anchored just off the coast. I still remember the jolt as the anchor hit the bottom of the sea. It was bad enough to knock several pirates off their feet and throw me down the staircase back below deck.

“Captain, something’s wrong,” Mr. Bones said, “I don’t like this.”

But the Captain would have none of it. He ordered a boat let into the water, a boat that carried Mr. Bones, Mr. Scrabbles, Captain Scarlet, the treasure chest and mine own self, Jakob Mommark. Mr. Scrabbles and my own self were rowing, Mr. Bones watched over the chest and Captain Scarlet stood at the bow, arms crossed, glowering at nothing in particular, as he was wont to do. The plume of his hat fluttered in the wind.

The sea was smooth that day, almost unnaturally calm. That should’ve warned us… but it didn’t. And so Mr. Scrabbles and me strained our muscles to row over to the island, for the treasure chest was very heavy indeed and Captain Scarlet not exactly light either.

Finally, we set the boat onto the beach. The Captain was the first to jump ashore, then Mr. Bones, then Mr. Scrabbles and finally my own self. As my boots hit the ground, I got the strangest sensation. For this was no ordinary beach. There was no sand, no pebbles, not even rock. Instead, the ground was smooth and springy like I’d never seen before and have never seen since.

The others noticed it, too. For Mr. Scrabbles had trouble keeping his footing, while Mr. Bones frowned and poked the ground with the tip of his boot. And in response, the ground — I swear to God that it’s true — the ground itself flinched and shuddered, as if it really did not like to be poked.

“I really don’t like this, Captain,” Mr. Bones said, “I think we should leave. Now.”

***

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

 

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Cora goes virtually to Chicon 8, the 2022 Worldcon

Posted on August 30, 2022 by Cora

Chicon 8 BannerFor a variety of reasons, I can’t attend Chicon 8, the 2022 Worldcon in Chicago, Illinois, in person, but I will be participating virtually.

If you’re a member of Chicon 8, you can see me on the following panels:

If It’s Not Love, Then It’s The Bomb That Will Bring Us Together

Thursday, September 1, 1 PM CDT, Airmeet 1

A huge swath of SF from the 50s through the 70s was written in direct response to the Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and disastrous and inhumane proxy wars. It all feels terribly relevant again! What are some gems and must-reads in the genre of “cautionary tales, pacificist, and anti-war SF”? Who are some more recent writers taking up these trends and what changes in approach have they made?

Cora Buhlert, Gloria McMillan, Julia Meitov Hersey, PJ Manney (moderator)

Virtual Table Talk – Cora Buhlert

Friday, September 2, 1 PM, Airmeet tables

This is what used to be called Kaffeeklatsch, but because there won’t be any food or drinks on site, they’ve renamed them. Anyway, sign up if you want to virtually chat with me.

To sign up for this Table Talk, visit https://chicon.org/tabletalks All sign up are available starting WednesdayAugust 31st at Noon central, and you will be notified at least 12 hours before the Table Talk time if you were chosen for a spot. More details available at https://chicon.org/tabletalks

1946: A Vintage Season For SFF

Saturday, September 3, 8:30 AM CDT, Airmeet 5

As the world began to recover from the trauma of the Second World War, SFF authors grappled with atomic futures. From Chan Davis to C.L. Moore, what works have withstood the test of time, and how are these works continuing to influence the genre today? How did they reflect, respond to, or ignore social and technological challenges of the day? (This panel is part of the 1946 project, a look back at the year in lieu of awarding Retro Hugo Awards.)

Cora Buhlert (moderator), Valentin D. Ivanov, Farah Mendlesohn, Terry Franklin

How Horror and SFF Blend

Saturday, September 3, 5:30 PM CDT, Airmeet 1

Horror has often overlapped with SFF—hello, Frankenstein! Lately it seems like we’re seeing a rise in horror elements in popular SFF, including many recent Hugo winners and nominees. What makes horror blend well with science fiction or fantasy? Are there challenges or problems with mixing the genres? And how do cosmic horror, the Weird, and New Weird fit into this discussion? Come find out whether or not anyone can hear you scream . . . in space!

Bob J. Koester, Cora Buhlert (moderator), Emma Osborne, Jennifer Brozek, L. Marie Wood

The Culinary Delights of Speculative Fiction

Monday, September 5, 8:30 CDT, Airmeet 3

Why do the fellowship/party have to eat the same stew every day on their trek into the dark lands? Why do the space farers enjoy reconstituted cubes/pellets on their way to Alpha Centauri? Food is the way we as a species come together, bond, and connect with each other. What are some examples of stories with rich descriptions of culinary traditions, as opposed to “astronaut fare” or “epic fantasy stews”? How does the inclusion—or exclusion—of eating and cooking practices impact the story?

Cora Buhlert, Gillian Polack, Jennifer Rhorer (moderator), Jo Miles, Thiago Ambrósio Lage

Finally, as regular readers of this blog will know, I’m a Hugo finalist for Best Fan Writer this year,  so of course you’ll find me (virtually) at the Hugo ceremony.

Hugo Awards Ceremony

Sunday, September 4, 8 PM, Grand Ballroom

Join your hosts Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz — and a bevvy of guest presenters — for the most prestigious awards in science fiction and fantasy. Come for the glitz and glamour, stay for the laughs and surprises!

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She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Experiences “A Normal Amount of Rage”

Posted on August 29, 2022 by Cora

I haven’t been able to keep up with watching, let alone reviewing the latest Marvel TV series, because there are a lot of them and I don’t have a lot of time these days. So I still haven’t caught up with Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel, though I did like what little I saw of them.

However, there’s no way I was not going to watch She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, because She-Hulk or rather a version of her is a long-time favourite of mine.

Back in the 1980s, a company called Comics Spain made amazing PVC figures of various comic and pop culture characters, both American and European characters. Comics Spain had hardly any distribution in Germany, but at the time my Dad worked in the Netherlands and Belgium, where you could get the figures. And since I collect PVC figures and love comics, I bought a lot of their offerings.

Comics Spain‘s product range included a selection of Marvel and DC superheroes and a few supervillains (plus the Phantom and Flash Gordon, who are King’s Features Syndicate characters, but matched the Marvel and DC line in scale and style). Of course, I wanted to buy all of the characters – and I did eventually acquire most of them – but my pocket money was limited, so I could only afford a single figure first. I wanted a female character and as so often with toys supposedly aimed at boys, there were only two available, the Jessica Drew Spider-Woman and She-Hulk (they later added two DC heroines, Wonder Woman and Starfire, to the line). I never much liked the blank-eyes 1980s Spider-Woman costume, so I picked She-Hulk.

Except that I had no idea that this character was called She-Hulk at the time. To me, she was just an awesome green superheroine. Browsing some of the American comics on offer at the comic and book stores of Rotterdam and Antwerp eventually revealed that the character was called She-Hulk a.k.a. Jennifer Walters and that she was a female counterpart of the Hulk.

However, at this point I had already come up with a name, code name and origin story for the character, so I took the Marvel version as “Well, that’s their version of the story, but I prefer mine.” So here’s my version of her story:

Her name is Maud Daniels* and she used to be an investigative reporter. One day, while investigating a series of mysterious disappearances and deaths, she stumbles upon a mad scientist, is captured and experimented upon. Unlike the scientist’s previous test subjects, Maud survives, but she is now tall, muscular, super-strong and green. Maud takes out the mad scientist and escapes his lab, only to find that her old life is gone. No one will believe her, she loses her job, because she’s green and way too noticeable now and her boyfriend dumps her, because she’s green, taller and stronger than him and he thinks she’s ugly.

So Maud takes to wandering the world, looking for a cure, a purpose and a home. She finds the latter two, when she stumbles upon the Kirchenkistenheinis, an underground civilisation of gnomes, fairies, anthropomorphic animals and humans who have nowhere else to go. This underground civilisation of the Kirchenkistenheinis (the name means “church box guys” and refers to the fact that I originally kept my PVC figurine collection in a cookie tin embossed with a picture of the Cologne cathedral) is one of my oldest imaginary worlds and everybody, whether my own characters or characters borrowed from somewhere else, eventually washes up there. This stuff rarely finds its way into my published fiction, because it’s just too weird, but trust me, there are Kirchenkistenheinis everywhere and they’ve met everybody.

Anyway, the Kirchenkistenheinis and their leader Stella aren’t afraid of Maud, but think she’s absolutely awesome. Plus, her super-strength is really useful to help build their ever expanding underground civilisation (they have a space port, laser guns, highway, tunnels and everything). So Maud stays, find friends and is encouraged to become a superheroine, starts calling herself the Green Lady (yeah, not very imaginative, but then neither is She-Hulk) and joins a Justice League/Avengers type superhero organisation, because more Comics Spain superhero figures had by now joined my collection.

After a lot of misunderstandings, Maud eventually falls in love with and marries the Phantom, the second Comics Spain superhero figure I ever bought, because I liked the character. Plus, the version of the Phantom I was most familiar with was the one from the Defenders of the Earth cartoon who’s a widower living in a single dad superhero house share**. Together, Maud and Phantom raise Phantom’s teenage daughter Jedda from the Defenders of the Earth cartoon (who sadly never had a figure of any kind) adopt Suske and Wiske (there was no Aunt Sidonie figure and Suske and Wiske needed parent figures) and even have a baby boy.

You can see Maud and her family (sans Jedda, who has snuck off to make out with Flash Gordon’s son Rick – and yes, this is actually implied in Defenders of the Earth) below:

Maud and Phantom and their family

The extended Daniels-Walker family with Maud, Phantom, Suske, Wiske, Baby Kit, Jedda’s pet panther Kisa and the skull of the first Phantom.

Summing up Maud’s story, I still think it’s pretty good and no more absurd than what Marvel has come up with over the years.

Anyway, I absolutely loved this figure and took her everywhere. She was my absolute favourite for many years and I still love her and have her on display.

I did buy the John Byrne Sensational She-Hulk comics of the 1980s/1990s and generally enjoyed them, even if that story was not Maud’s story. Though Jennifer and Maud have a lot in common. They’re both green and both snarky and both kick arse.

There were rumours of a She-Hulk movie starring Brigitte Nielsen in the early 1990s, but it never happened and I never thought I’d ever see a version of this character on screen. Except that we now live in the golden age of superhero movies and every character, no matter how strange or obscure, will eventually wind up on screen. And if it’s a Marvel character, the chances of it being good are pretty high. If it’s a DC character, the chances are very hit and miss.

And so we have a She-Hulk TV series on Disney+ now and I of course had to watch it, because my teen self and Maud would never forgive me, if I didn’t. And yes, I had Maud and Phantom next to me, as I was watching.

Warning: Spoilers after this point! Continue reading →

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Obi-Wan Kenobi Heads Into the Grand Finale

Posted on August 19, 2022 by Cora

Here are my much belated thoughts on the final episode of the Disney Plus Obi-Wan Kenobi series. For my thoughts on previous episodes, go here.

Meanwhile, my latest article at Galactic Journey just went up two days ago. The subject is the rise of the shipping container, which may not be as flashy as space travel news, but which will profoundly transform global trade from the late 1960s on.

I’m also not sure if I linked to my previous Galactic Journey article, which was a review of two 1967 SFF novels, Chthon by Piers Anthony, which was still as terrible as it was when I first tried to read it at age 16, and The Flame of Iridar by Lin Carter, which was actually decent.

Warning! Spoilers under the cut! Continue reading →

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