It is that time of year again. Just in case you can’t see the image, the speaker will be Lev Grossman, and the salient details are: May 13th, 6:30pm, Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College, Oxford. Full details, including (free) booking, here.
I’d love to be there, but I have schedule issues so it will require work. Hopefully a bunch of you will make it.
Here’s the latest crowdfunding project that you should be following. It is an anthology called Stories for Chip. It is being published by Bill Campbell’s Rosarium Press — the same people who did the Mothership anthology — and it is chock full of great contributors. Plus, it is all dedicated to the fabulous Samuel R. Delany (Chip to his friends).
Contributors to the book include: Geoff Ryman, Nalo Hopkinson, Eileen Gunn, Nick Harkaway, Hal Duncan, Michael Swanwick, Fábio Fernandes, Ellen Kushner and Junot DÃaz. There’s also a story in the book by my friend Roz Clarke, which I am very happy about.
For further details, and to back the project, see Indiegogo.
Every so often Covet Fashion has what are essentially cosplay competitions, in that you have to style a look from fiction. This week, to coincide with the start of the new series of Game of Thrones, they asked us to design an outfit for a ruthless queen of a fantasy kingdom. They weren’t allowed to use the name, of course, but from the background image it was pretty clear which fantasy kingdom they had in mind.
Naturally I had to do Cersi. The dress isn’t really very queenly, but as I’m new to the game I haven’t accumulated many ballgowns and can’t really afford to buy one. However, I had won a green one in a previous contest so I went with it. I’m really pleased with the choice of makeup. I think it makes our girl look suitably villainous yet still very pretty. And she got more than 4 stars, which means she won a prize for me.
This talk is full of spoilers for the various books that are discussed.
The audio track is a bit quiet, but I’m playing it through speakers and it is clear enough.
My thanks again to the University of Liverpool, Professor Beer, the Flagship Group, the Liverpool University Library, and the SF Foundation for making this talk possible. The official page for the talk on the University website is here, and they may prefer you to leave any comments there.
We are fast approaching the final day for Keffy Kehrli’s Kickstarter campaign for GlitterShip, the LGBT SF&F fiction podcast. Keffy has easily smashed his initial funding targets, and as a consequence episodes will be 4 per month rather than 2 per month. There was a stretch goal to allow for 2 episodes a month of original fiction rather than reprints, but as that looked quite far off Keffy has added an easier goal for just one episode of original fiction per month. That looks achievable. Go pledge now!
So, I have worked out how to export images from Covert Fashion. (It wasn’t hard, there’s a Share function which includes options like PDF and DropBox). This is one I’m rather fond of.
One of the nice things about the game is that many of the contests have fun themes. Sure you might be asked for an outfit for a garden party, or a dinner for two at a 5-star restaurant, but you might also be asked to come up with an outfit that would not look out of place in a cosplay contest.
This one was actually a design for a “Space Oracle”, whatever that means, and it doesn’t score that well because it wasn’t mystical enough. However, having seen that top I knew I had to use it. I bet that girl’s ship could out-run the Millennium Falcon any day.
The lovely people at Twelfth Planet Press have another anthology that they are crowdfunding. If it ends up being anywhere near as good as Kaleidoscope we are in for a treat.
So what’s the book about? It is called Defying Doomsday, and it will be “an anthology of apocalypse-survival fiction with a focus on disabled characters”. The editors will be Tsana Dolichva and Holly Kench, who are new names to me but knowing Alisa she will have checked them out thoroughly before working with them.
There’s plenty of information about the book at the Pozible campaign page, but this bit is worth sharing with those of you who haven’t yet clicked through:
We want to create an anthology that is varied, especially among protagonists, with characters experiencing all kinds of disability from physical impairments, chronic illnesses, mental illnesses and/or neurodiverse characters. There will also be a variety of stories, including those that are fun or sad, adventurous or horrific, etc, but we are avoiding stories in which the character’s condition is the primary focus of the narrative.
I’m not sure that I’d want trans characters to count as having a physical or mental disability, but I’m absolutely there with the idea of the story not focusing on the character’s condition.
I see that they already have Corrine Duyvis, John Chu and Janet Edwards lined up to write stories, which is very promising. I’ve backed it. I look forward to seeing what they come up with.
March has been a bit of a blur, but I have finally got the February recordings from BristolCon Fringe online.
First up we have John Hawkes-Reed, who treats us to another tale about steam-powered, programmable war elephants. Well, part of a tale anyway. To get the rest of it you’ll need to get hold of North by Southwest, a fine anthology by local Bristol writers, and edited by the fabulous Jo Hall. The book is illustrated by Clare Hutt, who also started BristolCon Frine and drew the logo.
The second reader was the mysterious lone cowboy known as Stark Holborn, who treated us to a deleted scene from the fabulous Nunslinger. Cunningly Stark recruited a couple of volunteers from the audience to read some of the parts. However, they seem to have forgotten that in order to be on the recording you actually have to speak into the microphone. Let this be a lesson you, folks. Apologies to listeners. Maybe we can get Stark & Co to do this again at some point.
Finally we have the Q&A, in which Jo asks John where he gets his ideas from, and Stark reveals the origins of Nunslinger. Along the way there is mention of the amazing Bass Reeves, who is also a major character in Elizabeth Bear’s Karen Memory. I had to cut several of the questions, again due to people not speaking into the microphone.
Apologies once again for the poor sound quality. Now I need to get to work on the March event, because I am sure that you are all keen to hear an excerpt from the forthcoming Paul Cornell novel.
Yesterday Strange Horizons published their annual statistics on gender and race balance in SF&F. The full article is here. I’m pleased to see that they are now acknowledging non-binary people in the count. The data is only for the US and UK, but as those markets tend to dominate all other English-speaking markets we’re seeing a significant proportion of the Anglophone world here.
There are a few points I’d like to highlight:
Ouch.
This is going to be a busy weekend, but I’m popping by briefly because I’ve been asked to tell you that the latest issue of Dimension 6, the free Australian speculative fiction magazine, is now available. You can download it here.
This evening I was in Bath for the Mr. B’s SF Book Club. The chosen book for this month was Inverted World by Chris Priest. It got a mixed reception.
One of the more interesting things about the book club is that the members are by no means what people might think of as typical science fiction fans. In particular, if a book is all ideas and devoid of interesting characters then they will probably take against it. How times change.
Another thing that the group had trouble with was the cover blurb, which trumpets a supposed twist ending. Now of course the book has to have a big reveal. It is obvious that there must be a reason why the world of the book is so odd. That means that the explanation, when it comes, is hardly a surprise. Obviously the detail is probably unexpected, but the fact that it happens, and the true nature of the world, are pretty much telegraphed.
Priest, of course, has written many other books about twisted perceptions of the world since. I’m sure he’d be the first to say that he’s got better at it. Nevertheless, as Adam Roberts points out in his introduction to the SF Masterworks edition, the idea of a city moving on rails through a post-apocalyptic environment has been very influential down the years. And I’m still blown away by the audacity of trying to create a world like that.
For next month’s meeting the group will be reading Nick Harkaway’s The Gone Away World, a book that really does have a twist to it. I do hope that they like it. My slightly spoilerific review can be found here.
Tomorrow night in London the lovely people from Holdfast Magazine will be launching their first print anthology. The event will be at the College Arms in Store Street, not far from the British Museum. Details here.
According to Facebook some 76 people will be going, most of whom I don’t know which will be very interesting from an SF point of view. Part of the entertainment will be some short readings, and topping the bill (at least from my point of view) is the fabulous Stephanie Saulter.
As I have to be in London for Trans*Code I’m popping over a day early to attend this. Rather foolishly, Laurel & Lucy have asked me to read something too. So there will be a new piece of flash fiction, which I think classes as mythpunk. It will only last a few minutes. You can bring ear plugs.
Liverpool University is home to the only major collection of SF&F literature in the UK. The material came mainly from the Science Fiction Foundation, but a number of authors and fans have also donated material. Andy Sawyer, the librarian, gave me a tour of the stacks, and I got to hold the Hugo trophy that John Brunner won for Stand on Zanzibar.
This really is a very special resource, and I note that Andy and his colleagues are dependent on donations. They can’t just go out and buy things. Unfortunately keeping eBooks is complicated because of DRM nonsense (library policies tend to be driven by what the big publishers want them to do), but I’ll make sure that Andy gets a copy of every paper book that Wizard’s Tower produces. I think I also have copies of every BristolCon program book. And I’m going to take a look at my audio archives because there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to keep all of that stuff online forever.
Libraries. They are good things. Please support them.
Well, as I said this morning, that was fun.
I had some idea of what to expect because the talk had been on Eventbrite, but the last figure I’d been given was 60, and for a free event a significant percentage of people who have booked don’t bother to turn up. As it turned out, we got over 100, and the number of those with blue or green hair was significant. It was a lovely audience.
As it turned out, I’d had quite a bit of competition. The Welsh National Poet, Gillian Clarke, was giving a lecture in the English department, so all of the Literature staff had to be there instead. And Owen Jones was signing his new book in Waterstones so lot of local lefties (and some Waterstones staff – sorry Glyn) had to be there.
But the Vice Chancellor came to see me. She gave a lovely speech about the importance of diversity. And we chatted afterwards about Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Suzy McKee Charnas.
The talk went fine, and we had some good questions at the end. Does anyone know of any academic studies done on the way that talking animals get gendered (cats = female, dogs = male, etc.)?
The talk was recorded (audio only, I’m not that cruel to you) by both me and the University, and I’ve left my copy of the recording with them. Hopefully there will be something online soon. In the meantime you can see the slide pack here.
The Flagship people, the LGBT staff group who put on the talk, seemed very happy to have got so many people, and especially the VC. Andy Sawyer and his colleagues at the Science Fiction Collection (of which more later) were happy to have an SF-related event. And from my point of view I was absolutely delighted that a major university asked a trans person to give a lecture on a trans-related subject. I know there were several people from the local trans community in the audience. I hope this helps them in some way.
Thanks to Peter Wong for the tip-off.
Last night was great, particularly the response from the audience. Loads of people came up to me afterwards and said they’d be going out to buy books.
I’ll do a longer post later, with the slide pack, but I can’t do that right now because the Internet access here won’t let me FTP. For now I’d just like to thank the following:
Audio recordings were made. Fingers crossed those will be available fairly soon.
On Monday I will be heading for Liverpool University to deliver a lecture, “Exploring Gender Fluidity Through Science Fiction and Fantasyâ€. Apparently they have 60 people booked in already, but there is still room if anyone else wants to come. The booking form is here.
Meanwhile, back to rehearsals.
Last night saw the March meeting of BristolCon fringe. The readers were Chris Cutting and Paul Cornell.
Chris is more an actor/director/playwright than an author, so I’m not sure how his piece will come over as a recording. Bristol residents might like to check out his play, Vitomori, which will be on at the Alma Theatre at the end of the month. It is described as “A satire on vampires and social media.”
Paul read a couple of chapters from the new Shadow Police novel, which he is currently working on. In the segment he read, Inspector Quill and his team are investigating the murder of a particularly famous ghost. I am so looking forward to this book, even though Paul has said categorically that the famous person who made an appearance in The Severed Streets will not be coming back for this one.
I should have that on audio, though I haven’t checked the recording yet. However, first up I must get on with editing last month’s material which features the excellent Stark Holborn, ably assisted by Jonathan L. Howard doing cowboy impressions.
The first 2015 issue of Fafnir, the Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, is now available online. Some of the articles in this issue are in Finnish, but English-language readers may well be interested in an article titled “Your… Your Dog is Talking?”, which is about postdoggieism in Geoff Ryman’s Air.
Justina Robson’s new novel, The Glorious Angels, is due out on the 19th (and if you live in the UK you can pre-order the Kindle edition for just £1.99). As part of the PR campaign, Justina has an article in The Independent today talking about women and science fiction. This comment leaped out at me:
A friend tells me: “I was told by someone who has been in publishing a lot of years that the content of my books really didn’t matter. They put a woman [author] on the cover and that would determine sales. A man on the cover, any man, and sales would be higher.â€
Head * Desk * Repeat