I’ve been meaning to start doing occasional personal blogging here. Now I’ve got something to post! At the beginning of the year, I sent in my application to Viable Paradise. That makes it sound easy, but it wasn’t–there was, of course, a lot of angst involved. The actual application isn’t difficult, and if you’re considering … Continue reading We’re going to very distant lands
“Does the science in science fiction have to be accurate?” That’s a question I’ve seen more than once. But beyond the (debatable) basics, what does “accurate” even mean in terms of science fiction? When I was a kid, an astronaut came to my elementary school. The thing I remember most vividly is his rundown of all the … Continue reading You keep using that word
Hannah More, a well-known philanthropist and playwright, author of one novel and many Evangelical moral tracts, saw the growth of novel reading as a serious threat. More is actually a really interesting and complex character, so before we chuckle at her silly ideas, let’s learn more about her. More was a strong believer in education. … Continue reading The Kids These Days and The Novels: Hannah More and Novels as a Tool of Oppression
The Reverend James Fordyce was quite a popular author for a while, and like Clara Reeve, he would be thoroughly horrified by how many modern women just aren’t into being hooted at in the street and treated like mobile vending machines for sexual favors. Reverend Fordyce was the author of the popular-in-its-time Sermons to Young … Continue reading The Kids These Days and The Novels: The Reverend James Fordyce and Sexy, Sexy Modesty, feat. Mary Wollstonecraft
Far more illustrious blogs than this one are reacting to and discussing the 2016 Hugo award nominations (which, much like your taxes, are for work done in 2015). I’ll provide a roundup of a few interesting ones below, but here’s my own personal reaction: I’m mostly just kinda bummed out that so many excellent podcasts, related works, and short stories were overlooked in … Continue reading 2016 Hugo Awards
So DragonCon is starting their own sff award program, and people have questions. And tweets. Continue reading There’s a new award in town…
So far in The Kids These Days and The Novels, we’ve seen people complain that novels can cause earthquakes, that novels can be written by women, that novels can cause false taste in criticism and art, that novels are too much fun to possibly be good for you, and that there are so darned many … Continue reading The Kids These Days and The Novels: Clara Reeve and the Circulating Library Menace
I haven’t finished my Hugo nominations yet–not even close. But I have been collecting links. There’s so much good stuff out there that it’s honestly pretty overwhelming. (A good problem to have, of course.) In the past I let that stop me from even thinking about participating in the nomination process, but you know what–it’s okay … Continue reading Last Minute Hugo Nominations Link Roundup
John Ruskin was a multi-talented artist, writer, drafter, and social thinker, as well as one of the top art critics of the Victorian age. He also had some goofy ideas about novels that, coincidentally, sound a lot like Coleridge’s. In his book The Elements of Drawing, Ruskin tries to teach his readers to develop their … Continue reading The Kids These Days and The Novels: John Ruskin and the Case of Endangered Art
Hello from Lobbycon at Gallifrey One! On the drive here, I was (duh) thinking about “Doctor Who,” and it occurred to me that there were four things that I turned out to be completely wrong about. Wrong Thing Number One: The Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) Before I watched any Second Doctor episodes, I was expecting … Continue reading Wrong about Who
