science fiction – Page 47

Jack and Jack, Kirby and Vance

Published on May 30, 2012Leave a comment

cover of the Moon Moth comics adaptation

Tom Spurgeon recommends the comics adaptation of Jack Vance’s short story The Moon Moth

This has to be the oddest stand-alone science fiction comic I’ve read in years. While I can’t tell yet how good it is, it was certainly memorable and I encourage those of you that like such things — and as much as the new science fiction-oriented Image stuff is on everyone’s minds I’m thinking that’s a lot of you — pick this one up and take a look. Jack Vance has an almost Kirby-sized issue with neglect in terms of his influence and the ubiquity of his approach.

Interesting to compare Vance to Kirby, where I can sort of see what Tom means as both were incredibly influential on their own terms and somewhat neglected now, though I do think Vance does not quite have the stature in science fiction that Kirby has in comics, if only because the field is more contested. The true difference between the two is of course that Vance got to keep the copyright and trademarks for all his stories and Kirby could not, which means that we did get a fan driven Vance Integral Edition, but not a Kirby equivalent.

Jo Walton wins the Nebula!

Published on May 20, 20123 Comments

The 2011 Nebula Awards were awarded last night and the deserved winner in the novel category is an old friend of mine — Jo Walton:

Novel Winner: Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)

Other Nominees

Embassytown, China Miéville (Macmillan UK; Del Rey; Subterranean Press)

Firebird, Jack McDevitt (Ace Books)

God’s War, Kameron Hurley (Night Shade Books)

Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, Genevieve Valentine (Prime Books)

The Kingdom of Gods, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

Unlike this year’s Hugo Awards, which were disappointing to say the least, that Nebula shortlist is fairly strong, with only the Jack McDevitt –who has never written anything not bland and workmanlike– out of place. It was also nicely diversive, with five out of six nominees being women and at least one person of colour (N. K. Jemisin) on it. In a genre where all too often award shortlists are filled with legacy white male candidates, more voted for due to their name than their books, this is a good thing.

Among Others was one of the best novels I read last year and I’m glad it got the recognition it deserved.

Why London?

Published on May 14, 20124 Comments

From Lavie Tidhar’s “some Notes Towards a Working Definition of Steampunk”:

Nicholls does go on to say that “it is as if, for a handful of SF writers, Victorian London has come to stand for one of those turning points in history where things can go one way or the other, a turning point peculiarly relevant to SF itself.” It could indeed be argued that, while not all Steampunk or Steampunk-influenced novels are set in Victorian London, the city, to a large extent, dominates these narratives: “a city,” Nicholls observes, where “the modern world was being born.”

But if steampunk is indeed a mulligan on the industrial revolution, a do-ocer to get all the cool toys we didn’t get in the real world (brass computers! armoured zeppelins! cogs on shoes!) as Kip Manley has it, than London surely is the wrong city to use. The industrial revolution happened up ‘orth, in the Midlands, in Lancastershire and Yorkshire, not in the capital, but in the grimy horrible industrial towns and cities Pete Wylie lists here.

Not that London didn’t have industry of course; just that the schwerpunkt of the industrial revolution was never there. Which makes the central role it plays in steampunk imagination all the more strange, until you realise most steampunk writers are as much influenced by Sherlock Holmes as real history. London fits the middle class conciets of steampunk, the desire to have an industrial revolution without the industrial classes. In that regard, London was indeed the city where the future was being born.

Daughters of SF Mistressworks

Published on May 3, 2012Leave a comment

So we all know about Ian Sales’ SF Mistressworks blog don’t we, and how it showcases classic pre-2000 science fiction books by female writers? Well, it has inspired two people to start up their own blogs, showcasing female sf and fantasy writers.

First up is the new Fantasy Mistressworks blog, which is run by Amanda Rutter and is still in the process of starting up. It aims to do exactly the same as the SF Mistressworks blog has been doing, but for fantasy.

Second, there’s Michaela Staton’s Daughters of Promotheus, which goes on where the other two leave off, by showcasing twentyfirst century female sf writers. It’s already blogging up a storm, with several reviews up.

Both are open for submission of reviews, whether new or previously published.

Silence or rape threats

Published on April 7, 2012Leave a comment

Catherynne M. Valente explains why what Christopher Priest did could not have been done by a woman:

I couldn’t, of course, even if I wanted to. But neither could almost any other woman writer or blogger I can think of. Go after popular SF writers and a respected award? She’d have gotten death threats, rape threats, comments telling her everything from shut up and make [unnamed internet male] a sandwich to wishing she’d be raped to death because that would shut her right up.

[…]

That’s the line I walk, and most female authors and commentators walk. On one side of it is a silence which we can’t afford and on the other are the blowback and threats, which come quietly and secretly through email or boldly and baldly in comments.

This is a reality you don’t have to face as a bloke; one of the greatest advantages/privileges of being a straight, white male is that if people dislike me or disagree with me, it’s purely because of what I say or do, not what I present as. Which means that voices like mine or Priest’s are both overrepresented and overvalued, both because we are listened to more and because other voices are dismissed; even worse is that some voices aren’t just ignored but actively chased away. With rape threats even!

Apart from anything else, this impovers the dialogue we’re all having with each other about science fiction, if you can only be taken serious if you’re a straight white bloke and if you’re not, you get sexist or racist slurs (or both) aimed at you. It’s not good for fandom and it’s obviously incredibly bad for those who are subjected to it.

For those of us who don’t run this risk, there’s the obligation to do something about it, to speak out against such attacks whenever we see them, obviously not participate in them ourselves and most importantly, not blame the victims for something they supposedly done to “provoke” these attacks.