Archive for Speculative Fiction
In 1989, I wrote a story (titled “Absences”) about a kid and her brother who had survived an alien invasion. Part of the core idea of the story was that the invading aliens were super sensitive to sound; humans who made too much noise got killed, and the protagonist’s brother was deaf, so the protagonist […]
I keep seeing articles suggesting that it’s universally understood that Star Trek: Discovery wasn’t very good in the first season, and/or that it’s generally disliked by fans. Which makes me sad, because I loved the first season (and am continuing to love the second season so far). It continues to be my favorite Trek series […]
(This post is about last week’s Robert Silverberg quote that criticized N. K. Jemisin. If you read about it last week, there’s nothing new here. Content warning for descriptions of racism and for referring to Vox Day.) Last week, Vox Day posted in his blog to the effect that the list of this year’s Hugo […]
Here’s the next Strange Horizons Flashback story: “Messengers from the Stars Will Come to Help Us Overcome the Obstacles That Hold Us Back from Achieving Our True Potential,” by Grady Hendrix Voyager Sraosha is part of the Transhuman Project, and all of the Voyagers in the Project are about to Discard their human vessels to […]
I now have author-gender stats for over 80 anthologies that I’ve looked at in the past couple years, from my father’s and my bookshelves, with publication dates ranging from 1951 through about 1990, plus a few outliers outside of that date range. (This post is essentially an update of my post from a couple years […]
Here’s the next Strange Horizons Flashback story: “How to Hide Your Heart,” by Deborah Coates A man who hunts monsters meets a woman who’s really good at driving. (Somewhat NSFW.) (Content warning for hints of bad things in character backstory.) (Published in 2008.) (5,300 words.) He’s a hunter. And the things he hunts live in […]
I’ve been reading William Tenn stories, from NESFA Press’s 2001 volume Immodest Proposals: The Compete Science Fiction of William Tenn, Volume 1. I used to like Tenn’s work a lot, but these days I’m not a good audience for satire, even when I agree with it politically. I’m skimming the stories and mostly rolling my […]
Here are some recurring themes and tropes that seem to me to be a lot more prominent than usual in this year’s Hugo-nominated fiction. (For some of these items, by “a lot more prominent” I just mean featured in two of the nominated works; but in those cases, I feel like even two is more […]
I think I’ve now read nearly all of Joanna Russ’s published fiction. A couple of people who haven’t read her work have recently asked me for recommendations for starting points, so here’s an attempt to provide some. As with my Delany-starting-points post from last year, I’m dividing this into categories, depending on what you’re interested […]
I’m excited that five Joanna Russ novels are going to be released as ebooks (from Open Road Media) in three days, on May 8. The books are: And Chaos Died The Female Man Picnic on Paradise The Two of Them We Who Are About To… Also, Russ’s excellent nonfiction book How to Suppress Women’s Writing […]
I’m sad to learn that Mary Rosenblum has died. I think she was recently best-known as a mystery writer, under the name Mary Freeman, but I was most familiar with her Drylands series, about a future Pacific Northwest with very little water. I particularly liked the first story in that series, “Water Bringer.” The whole […]
Didn’t sleep much or well on Friday night, I think mostly because I stayed up way too late reading and playing iOS games. Hung out with Karen and Pär and Jeremiah during the day on Saturday, mostly playing Terraforming Mars, which has become one of my favorite boardgames. Then came home to help Kam move […]