(1) Richard Powers has been inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame reports Irene Gallo on Tor.com.
Science fiction artist Richard Powers is among the Society of Illustrators’ newest Hall of Fame inductees, along with Beatrix Potter, Peter de Seve, Marshall Arisman, Guy Billout, Rolf Armstrong, and William Glackens. Since 1958, the Society of Illustrators has elected to its Hall of Fame artists recognized for their “distinguished achievement in the art of illustration.”
Richard Powers was a hugely influential science fiction illustrator throughout the 1950s and ’60s…
Powers was dedicated to a fine art career alongside of his commercial work—the influences of modern art were clear throughout his illustration. While trends switched towards more literal and rendered illustration in the ’80s to ’90s, Powers is still beloved today. This year’s World Fantasy Convention mounted a special exhibit of nearly 90 Powers paintings and collages.
Paperback covers by Richard Powers.
(2) There are many shots of the Richard Powers exhibit in John Davis’ photos from the 2015 World Fantasy Convention.
Andrew Porter, who sent the link, hopes you will also appreciate the five paintings and the other Powers material he contributed to the show.
(3) Gallo’s post “Twelve Tor.com Story Illustrations Make it Into Society of Illustrators Awards” features all 12 images.
We talk a lot of about writers and stories on Tor.com but we always strive to give equal attention to our visual presentation. We are indebted to the artists who work tirelessly to make us, and our stories, look good and connect to readers. With that in mind, I’m sure you can appreciate how delighted and honored I am that 12 illustrations for Tor.com Publishing have been selected for this year’s Society of Illustrators annual exhibition.
(4) Simon Spanton, associate publisher at Gollancz, left Orion on November 20. Orion said Spanton was leaving the publisher after 19 years “by mutual agreement.”
Spanton joined Orion in 1996, having started out as a bookseller in 1986 and after a spell at Macmillan UK.
He first worked on Orion’s Millennium imprint in a wide role encompassing fiction, sports books, military history and children’s fiction before it was bought by Cassell in 1999, after which he became co-editorial director for Gollancz with Jo Fletcher. Spanton was promoted to the position of associate publisher at the sci-fi and fantasy imprint in May 2013, tasked with responsibility for “innovative acquisitions and Gollancz’s social media and community engagement, as well as continuing to publish his award-winning list to its full potential”.
(5) N. K. Jemisin’s newest fan is a reader who had given up on fantasy – but is back now.
There does seem to be a theme running through a lot of the fanmail I get, along these lines: people who’d stopped reading fantasy for whatever reason have been reading my work and then feeling pulled back into the genre. And that’s awesome. I love that my audience contains so many “non-traditional” fantasy fans. But this is the kind of thing that shouldn’t be happening just because of my fiction. There’s plenty of fantasy out there with “no wizards or orcs or rangers or elves”… and while I think there isn’t nearly enough fantasy out there starring middle-aged mothers of color (or biracial polyamorous proto-goddesses, or blind black women, or Asian male ex-gods with daddy issues, or gay black male assassins, or shy black female healers, or…), there’s some other stories like that out there, too. So what’s happening here, that so many ex-fantasy readers — readers who really just need one non-formulaic book to bring them back into the fold — aren’t aware that there’s stuff here they might enjoy?
(6) Pam Uphoff rides to the rescue of NaNoWriMo participants who are out of gas, in her post at Mad Genius Club.
Welcome to the last third of NaNoWriMo, where we all despair! Let me throw out some ideas that might help you get going again.
Finished? Ha! Go back a make a searchable mark (I use ///) everyplace where you told us about something instead of showing us, instead of pulling us into the situation.
Then go back to the start and search those out. Rewrite them. Use lots of dialog. Don’t be stiff and terse. Have some fun. Have your hero call something pink. Have your heroine disagree. “Don’t be silly! It’s obviously a soft dusty salmon.” “It’s a fish?” Or flip the genders on it. He’s an artist, he sees these colors. Make the reader laugh. Or cry. Or get mad.
Then go to the next mark and rewrite that bit. Do them all.
(7) A local Spokane man was in court November 16, charged with attacking his neighbor with a Klingon bat’leth, a bladed weapon, reports TV station KREM.
Carlo Morris Cerutti was in court Monday, accused of attacking his neighbor for putting trash in his trash can on Saturday. Court documents Cerutti, 50, is charged with Assault after swinging a Klingon sword at his neighbor.
Documents said Cerutti’s wife, Joyce, had accused their neighbor of putting trash in their trash can. The neighbor told police he had gotten into argument with the wife about the trash.
“Our next door neighbor was evicted and he was throwing his stuff in our garbage can so I took it put it in a bag, took it to him and said Jr. will you please not put your stuff in our garbage can,” said Joyce.
Joyce said the incident only escalated from there.
“I turned around and he chucked the bag at me and hit me in the back and then he started throwing garbage all over my yard,” said Joyce.
The neighbor said after the argument, Cerutti came rushing out of his house with a weapon that had multiple blades and started swinging. Court documents said the neighbor put his hands up and blocked the blade from striking him. The neighbor said he was able to pull the weapon away from Cerrutti and in the process, he fell backwards off the porch. The neighbor then called 911. Documents said when police arrived on scene Cerrutti was taken into custody for Assault and was later booked into the Spokane County Jail.
Joyce said that her husband never attacked the neighbor with a sword. She said her husband did grab the Klingon sword off the wall and said he did swing it at the neighbor. She said he only did this after he barged into their home.
(8) Neal Stephenson will be at George R. R. Martin’s Jean Cocteau Theatre in Santa Fe to discuss Seveneves next Friday at 3:30 p.m.
Neal Stephenson
(9) While I don’t think Brian Clegg’s “A Strange Relationship” for the SFWA Blog is heretical, surely somebody will.
Although definitions of science fiction are tricky, it surely specializes in “What if?” – placing humans (or aliens) in an imagined scenario that has an element of science or technology in its set-up and seeing how they react. This is why Jules Verne got it so wrong about H. G. Wells when comparing their fictional voyages to the Moon. Verne remarked “It occurs to me that his stories do not repose on a very scientific basis… I make use of physics.” Yet in reality, Wells did the better job. He took an admittedly fictional means of travel, but then followed it through logically in its impact on humans. Verne took an existing technology – the cannon – and used it in a totally illogical fashion, firing his astronauts into space with a g force that would have left them as soup.
It is far more important in science fiction for the follow-through of the “what if” to be realistic and logical than it is for the setup to make a clear prediction of scientific possibility.
(10) Cheezburger is letting people vote on whether “H.P. Lovecraft Looks Totally Like Woodrow Wilson”.
And you wonder why I don’t link more often to Cheezburger…
(11) Michael G. Gross, who designed the Ghostbusters logo and a famous/infamous magazine cover died November 16 at the age of 70.
Gross is perhaps best remembered at National Lampoon for the 1973 “Death” issue, whose cover featured the words “If You Don’t Buy This Magazine, We’ll Kill This Dog” emblazoned over an image of a dog with a gun to its head. “This very talented comedian named Ed Bluestone came to the office in 1972 with the line,” Beard told Splitsider in 2012. “The next day Michael found a dog who would turn its eyes away from a pistol with a little prodding. I saw this picture and simply couldn’t believe it. And it was like with a wave of his left hand. Magic.”
(12) Mike Hale finds many good things to say about Netflix’ new Jessica Jones in his review at the New York Times.
“Jessica Jones,” the second of Netflix’s original series based on Marvel comic books (after “Daredevil”), is reluctantly superheroic. Created by Melissa Rosenberg, the screenwriter of five “Twilight” movies as well as a writer on TV shows including “Dexter,” and starring the acerbic Krysten Ritter of “Don’t Trust the B____ in Apartment 23,” it’s a clever 21st-century take on film noir, featuring a heroine who hides her superstrength because it’s at the root of her extreme emotional vulnerability and fear. There’s a tricky balancing act going on — crossing a moody detective show with both a comic action thriller and a woman-in-peril psychological drama — but Ms. Rosenberg proves to be mostly up to the task.
(13) M.I.T. researchers’ haste to open a time capsule addressed to the year 2957, found during construction, led the media to kid them about their deficient counting skills.
(14) Hunger Games‘ heroine Katniss Everdeen (played by comedian Whitney Avalon) and Harry Potter‘s Hermione Granger (played by actress Molly C. Quinn) are facing off in an epic edition of Princess Rap Battles.
[Thanks to Brian Z., John King Tarpinian, Steven H Silver, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day JJ .]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
I’m thinking that garbage-strewing is not sufficient cause to threaten someone with a lethal weapon. Way to make nerds look bad, dude.
Also, first? Huh. That’s unusual.
Two-fifths!
Hmm. I don’t think Epic Rap Battles of History has anything to worry about.
Some Cordwainer Smith:
The Pixel Scrolled Back from Nothing at All
Think Pixel, Count Scroll
The Ballad of Lost Pixels
Mother Pixel’s Littul Scrolls
Wandering through on a Friday night to drop some reviews for anyone who is interested–since all that looms ahead for this weekend is grading, I’m having fun tonight by planning some stuff for one of my classes in the spring, a course that will focus on sff by women authors.
And one thing I’m building into the class is having the students read and discuss online reviews (and, eventually, incorporate reviews and commentary online into a discussion of reception of the works in their papers). (Yes, they’ll be reading scholarship too–it’s a graduate course–but we’ll be talking about fan scholarship and academic scholarship as different interpretive communities.)
I thought some of you might be interested!
(If you’d like the word document with the hyperlinks, drop me an email at rrede 13 AT yahoo and I’ll send it to you).
First two novels we’ll be reading (paired, in a unit, that I’m currently calling “You just think it’s about the pronouns” [whether this will make it into the online course or not, I do not know–I also think I haz been affected by the Brackets]): LeGuin and Leckie.
Reviews: The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula K. LeGuin (1969)
Goia, Ted. “The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin.” Conceptual Fiction. n.d. Web. 19 November 2015.
James, Thea. “Book Review: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin.” The Book Smugglers. January 2010. WEb. 19 November 2015.
Kate. “Review: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin.” Adventures with Words. 13 December 2013. Web. 19 November 2015.
LeGuin, Ursula K. Interview by John Wray. The Paris Review. Fall 2013. Web. 19 November 2015.
LeFanu, Sarah. “The king is pregnant.” The Guardian. Books. 3 January 2004. Web. 19 November 2015.
Walton, Jo. “Gender and Glaciers: Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness.” 8 June 2009. Web. 19 November 2011.
Wimmer, Josh. “The truth is Self-Evident; Ursula Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness isn’t About Gender.” io9. 5 June 2010. Web. 19 November 2015.
Reviews: Ancillary Justice Ann Leckie (2015)
Flood, Alison. “Ann Leckie’s Novel Anillary Justice Wins Arthur C. Clarke Award.” The Guardian. Books. 1 May 2014. Web. 19 November 2015.
Garrott, Lila. “Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.” Strange Horizons. 7 April 2014. Web. 19 November 2015.
Grilo, Ana and Thea James. “Joint Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.” The Book Smugglers.” October 2013. Web. 19 November 2015.
Landon, Justine. “Why I’m Voting for Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice.” Tor.com. 11 July 2014. Web. 19 November 2015.
Letson, Russell. “Russell Letson Reviews Ann Leckie.” Locus. Reviews. 27 Ictiber 2913. Web. 19 November 2015.
Newitz, Annalee. “Ancillary Justice is the Mind-Blowing Space Opera You’ve Been Needing.” io9. 30 September 2013. Web. 19 November 2015.
Valentine, Genevieve. “A Skillfully Composed Space Opera in ‘Ancillary Justice.’ NPR Books. 8 October 2013. Web. 19 November 2015.
?
::Steals fifth! from rreid::
*slides past snowcrash on SKIS to take SECOND FIFTH !*
Pair: Russ and Hopkinson. Sort of hmmmm, postmodernism laughs at your desire for plot!
The Female Man Joanna Russ (1975)
Allbery, Russ. “The Female Man by Joanna Russ.” Eyrie. 31 December 2013. Web. 19 November 2015.
Mandelo, Brit. “Queering SFF: The Female Man by Joanna Russ (+ BOnus Story, “When it Changed.” Tor.com. 15 March 2011. Web. 19 November 2015.
McBride, Clare. “Review: The Female Man.” The Literary Omnivore. 17 March 2014. Web. 19 November 2015.
Priest, Christopher. “Joanna Russ Obituary.” The Guardian. 12 May 2011. Web. 19 November 2015.
“Reviews: Joanna Russ.” Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Utopia. 16 June 1995. Web. 19 November 2015.
Roy, Daniel. “WoGF Review: The Female Man by Joanna Russ.” Worlds Without End. 20 May 2013. Web. 19 November 2015.
Wisse, Martin. “The Female Man, Joanna Russ.” SF Mistressworks. 4 June 2011. Web. 19 November 2015.
Sister Mine Nalo Hopkinson (2013)
Cornum, Lindsey Catherine. “Claypicken Mojo and Mixed Identities.” Briarpatch Magazine. 1 July 2013. Web. 19 November 2015.
Due, Tannarive. “Sister Mine: Nalo Hopkinson’s YA Magic Carpet Ride.” Smallaxe Salon. Reviews. 5 February 2015. Web. 19 November 2015.
Emery, Hannah B. “Book Review: Sister Mine, by Nalo Hopkinson.” Sociologist Novelist. 14 September 2014. Web. 19 November 2015.
Langer, Jessica. “Dysfunctional Fabulist Families: Nalo Hopkinson’s ‘Sister Mine.'” Los Angeles Review of Books. 21 March 2013. Web. 19 November 2015.
McBride, Clare. “Review: Sister Mine.” The Literary Omnivore. 24 July 2013. Web. 19 November 2015.
Tilahun, Na’amen Gobert. “Sister Mine Proves Nalo Hopkinson is One of the Best Fantasy Authors.” io9. 18 April 2013. WEb. 19 November 2015.
Valentine, Genevieve. “Mojo, Music and Semi-Divine Sibling Rivalry in ‘Sister Mine.'” NPR Books. 21 March 2013. Web. 19 November 2015.
Waitaminnit–seventh? Whut?
It’s too late to count.
Just have to say I love the scroll title. For some reason the inspiring song is one of my favorites from way back when.
. So what’s happening here, that so many ex-fantasy readers — readers who really just need one non-formulaic book to bring them back into the fold — aren’t aware that there’s stuff here they might enjoy?
There is a lot of “Extruded fantasy product” out there, but it is good that there is new, and different stuff, and that people like Nora are bringing readers into reading genre or reading genre again, thereby. I’ve read a lot of Epic fantasy, but unless it tries to do new and interesting things, its more likely to piss me off than entertain me these days.
::tickbox::
Molly Quinn, you rock it girl, even if your TV dad is a notorious Brown Coat.
I’m up through 5 episodes of Jessica Jones, stopping only to do my weekly expense report so my boss doesn’t yell at me. JJ comes with all the trigger warnings, but it’s amazing. Ritter is perfect; Tennant is really playing The Tenth Doctor – But Eeeeevillll; and Rachel Taylor is killing it as Patsy/Trish Walker. I’m sure glad I didn’t know the showrunner was responsible for the Twilight movies before starting the series because it would’ve unnecessarily prejudiced me. There’s some really nice bits of writing and enormous, earned displays of courage.
[ticky]
Eight fifths.
Still here, wiped out.
Not especially coherent.
Clicky.
’Twas pixel, and the slithy scrolls did gyre and gimble in the wabe
The [Pixel], the [Scroll], and Boff.
20,000 Links Under the Sea
The Incredible Linking Fan
When Blogs Collide
Scrolljira
Voxura vs. Scrolljira
If you like the covers in (1) at all, viewing the gallery in (2) will be time well spent.
*snicker*
More relevantly, re: the show-runner, and speaking as someone who watched the first two Twilight films (against my will) – Rosenberg honestly did a pretty good job. The main problem was the source material was, ah, not the highest, but the execution of the films, acting, writing etc? Not bad at all.
Basically seconding Jim’s opinion of Jessica Jones. It’s fantastic, but not a light-hearted romp. I’ve only seen three episodes, but the main villain, Kilgrave, clearly was abusive and probably was sexually violent to Jessica. A lot of the characters are wounded in some way and seem more concerned with never being hurt again (which is impossible) than anything else. Consequently they seem to keep hurting one another.
There’s also some pretty shocking violence.
It’s engrossing, but not for everyone.
Heh. 13) seems to be an old Cambridge joke in reverse, said joke being;
A college aged customer is in a grocery checkout lane marked “10 Items Or Fewer” with obviously more than 10 items in the cart. The cashier looks at the cart, looks at the sign, and says “OK, are you from MIT and can’t read, or from Harvard and can’t count?”
So now we have two superhero TV shows starring women, and both seem pretty good, and both seem to be getting good responses from the public. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll finally decide to give Wonder Woman a movie? And a good one? (I know, it’s supposedly in the works, but I’m not going to believe it till my rear is plunked down in a seat at the theatre!)
After watching a couple of episodes of JJ, I have to say that I’m a bit surprised they were willing to just go for it in displaying the relationship between JJ and Luke. I thought Hollywood was still very skittish about showing a relationship between an African-American man and a white woman, unless the man is one of a handful of “safe” actors (e.g. Will Smith). Netflix didn’t just give us a relationship—they even pulled out the old “when two superheros have sex, the furniture is doomed” gag. I giggled. 🙂
Notable short story reading this week, courtesy of Nightmare Magazine:
“And This Is the Song It Sings” by Megan Arkenberg. A woman drives up and down a desolate highway, picking up hitchhiking young women, and asking each one for a ghost story. I consider this story award-worthy because it actually got more disturbing as I thought about it after reading (even though gur nhgube zvffgrccrq fbzrjung ol qrfpevovat gur zbafgre — inthre jbhyq unir orra orggre). Jurgure gur aneengbe znqr n qrny jvgu gur zbafgre gb yrg ure yvir vs fur srrqf vg uvgpuuvxref, be jurgure (zl sniberq ulcbgurfvf) fur vf xvyyvat gur jbzra urefrys, gur qvfgheovat guvat vf ure vqragvsvpngvba jvgu gur jbzra fur pnyyf “fvfgref”, gur xvafuvc rkcerffrq ol tubfg fgbevrf. Nyy gur fgbevrf jrer nobhg fbzr _bgure_ jbzna fhssrevat be qlvat, ohg abg yrff sevtugravat sbe gung; gur aneengbe vf raqyrffyl genccrq va ure bja fgbel jurer bguref qvr. Fur fnlf “Rirelbar unf n tubfg fgbel… Bar bs gubfr guvatf lbh erzrzore be unys-erzrzore jura lbh’er ernpuvat sbe gur yvtug-fjvgpu ng gur raq bs gur qnl, naq vg znxrf lbhe xarrf fgvssra naq lbhe svatref tb ahzo. Gur fgbel gung znxrf lbh nsenvq bs zrrgvat lbhe ersyrpgvba va n qnex jvaqbj.” Ersyrpgvba, vqragvsvpngvba, vf sevtugravat. This is a story made up of many telling details, almost perfectly balanced.
“Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” by Alyssa Wong. This story has gotten praise from various reviewers, and it is indeed striking. A psychic vampire story in which emotions are corporeal things, in which the younger generation learns from mothers and mentors a gourmet appetite for strong, foul tastes, and in which memories of home can be both unbearable and irresistible.
“Descent” by Carmen Maria Machado. The opening paragraphs are a good example of turning the mundane sinister by a subtly off-key use of language. In this story, things are wrong and wronger, and it’s not clear how far down it’ll go; at the end, have we even gotten to the bottom?
Although I didn’t think I liked horror much, I’ve been appreciating quite a few stories from Nightmare; I suppose that’s a reason to nominate it for Best Semiprozine. Other notables were “The Cellar Dweller” (Maria Dahvana Headley); “Please, Momma” (Chesya Burke); and “Ten Things to Know About the Ten Questions” (Gwendolyn Kiste).
I’ll just +1 what everyone has said about Jessica Jones. Am at ep 6, and it’s as good as Daredevil was, if structurally verrrry different.
I like “Mother Pixel’s Littul Scrolls”.
The Man in the High Castle.
I haven’t read the source material, so not sure how qualified I am but not sure what to make of the show so far. At times it just comes across as a show with generic Nazis=evil but…in America! And it doesn’t really explore much past that.
Only caught the first two episodes though
Third round of the fantasy move bracket is finished, see the results here. Next round is open for voting here.
Jessica Jones it’s basically one of the best “tough female detective portrayals I’ve ever seen, because it shows south painful intensity where the veneer of toughness and cynicism comes from. You might think fort a moment that Jessica is delivering a tough girl line, but then you see the expression in her eyes and it’s heartbreaking.
Damn it’s a wonderful show, and I have to decompress after every episode.
All white racists look alike.
More Cordwainer Smith:-
Scrollers Live in Vain
The Scroll of Lost C’Mell
The Lady Who Sailed The Scroll
(1), (2)
I love many of the old abstract covers. Sometimes a good abstraction is a far better evocation of the story than a literal rendering of a scene in realism.
(10)
No. No, he doesn’t.
The Pixel, The Scroll, The Prestige.
::ticky::
Different eyes, different nose, different eyebrows, different musculature, different skull shapes, different mouths, way different ears and chin. Hmm. And it looks like Lovecraft had a noticeable underbite that most of the artists who have depicted him seem to have minimized.
(12)
Out at group dinner with an excitable young person last night who enthusiastically recommended “Jessica Jones”, although also warned that it made “Daredevil” look like a warm fuzzy happyfest.
Only 2 eps of Jessica Jones watched so far, but it’s very good if rather grimdark.
Tomorrow will Pixel Scroll be called Maurice?
Colbert had another Tolkien riff last night. Someone has named a newly discovered spider Iandumoema smeagol and Colbert was disappointed that they didn’t name it after Shelob.
International news reports on the Lovecraft bust issue:
France:
https://www.actualitte.com/article/monde-edition/le-biographe-de-lovecraft-appelle-au-boycott-du-prix-world-fantasy/62058
http://www.syfantasy.fr/21679-World_Fantasy_awards__La_reaction_des_amis_de_Lovecraft
Finland:
http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/a1448000621556
I hadn’t realized S.T. Joshi had been crusading so strongly against removing Lovecraft’s image from the World Fantasy Award for so long.
Here’s a post from more than a year ago discussing it: http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/s-t-joshi-people-who-arent-famous-have-no-right-to-criticize-lovecraft-for-racism
Apparently Joshi thought it would be a good thing to humorously point out the ridiculousness of criticizing Lovecraft.
More Cordwainer Smith:
Think scroll, count pixel
The Pixel came back from nothing at scroll
When the pixel scrolled
Just a heads up for a panel discussion programme on BBC Radio 3 at 2200 on Monday as part of the Free Thinking Festival:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06pssk1
The programmme looks at the work of Angela Carter and the panel includes Natasha Pulley, the author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. It will be available via iPlayer after broadcast.
@ Peace – Yow. Some people should leave humor to the professionals.
In other Lovecraft news, I finally figured out what was going on with “The Festival.” Lovecraft didn’t do himself any favors cloaking his big reveal in purple prose. I read it probably a dozen times over the years and never got the maggot thing until now.
Cordwainer Smith: The Dead Pixel of Scroll Town
Apparently Joshi thought it would be a good thing to humorously point out the ridiculousness of criticizing Lovecraft.
Joshi isn’t really doing Lovecraft any favors with his defense.
I also find it interesting that Joshi appears to have taken the position that one much have a certain amount of fame before being critical of an author’s work. I suppose he thinks we need to put signs outside various author’s works saying “You must be this tall to criticize this book”. He certainly has certainly a bizarre way of viewing the world.
!!!Melissa Rosenberg!!!
I’m sold; say no more.
::goes to watch Jessica Jones::
@Vasha: Thanks for those short-fic recommendations! I’ll be reading those.
(5) very much describes my own experience. I had been avoiding fantasy except for series that had been grandfathered in that I wanted to finish (LOOKING AT YOU, MARTIN) until a friend whose reading recommendations I trust had said I should really read some Scott Lynch. Several months, latter, I asked for her recommendations for books by Jemisin, admittedly because I figured that anyone so despised by the despicable must be doing something right.
My first thought was that Jemisin is the first fantasy writer who’s been able to answer the criticism David Brin had in the afterword to Glory Season. Dreamblood for me stood out for several reasons, but for this point it was that it can’t be boiled down to Sir Walter Scott + Magic and Elves. Which is a criticism that applies a lot of fantasy, including Tolkien.
After a certain point in my life, I was sick of hearing the next tale of the virtuous farm boy who emerges to claim his blood right and restore the feudal society that was a timeless ideal. Once I realized that adulthood, with all its confusions, was more fun than being a small child, that lost its appeal.
And usually, how this hayseeds homespun wisdom will just sweep them fancy city people’s convoluted plots clean out of the barn. The last two decades of US politics has been a through cure to finding that at all charming.
And of course, the noble and pre-ordained place in society that one’s birth, which gives you immutable characteristics based on race, places one ine.
And against that theres the Dreamblood books, and Fifth Season, and Dagger and the Crown, and many others I’ve discovered do ask questions about hierarchy, and why the world is this way, and why can’t it change, and how should we change it. It feels as far from the fantasy genre as I once would have said sci-fi was. And thus far more interesting.
I had a lot of problems with Netflix Daredevil, but its love of torture as an investigative technique especially makes Jessica Jones a real breath of fresh air by comparison.
Also, I’m actually struck by the heroism of many characters in JJ – particularly Trish Walker’s desire to “save the world.” It is understandable that Jessica’s first desire on learning of Killgrave’s return is to run, but the way she conquers that impulse, first on her own and then with the help of her friend(s), is compelling.
::looks around bleary eyed::
Welp, just finished Jessica Jones, and I’m probably need some time to really process it, but man, Marvel’s been knocking it out of the park with their TV stuff.
I do like how they keep tying things to the rest of the MCU, and also the reference, if not outright presence, of C- and D-list comic characters.
We need the SF equivalent of Roger Ebert to give him the “As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified” smackdown he’s so desperately begging for.