(1) LOSCON ADDS MOSHE FEDER. Tor Books editor Moshe Feder has been named a guest of honor of the 2019 Loscon, to be held over Thanksgiving weekend (November 29 – December 1) at the Marriott Los Angeles Airport Hotel.
Moshe Feder’s influence is felt around the world, perfecting the work of science fiction and fantasy’s brightest writers: David Gerrold, Juliet McKenna, Archbishop John J. Myers, Robert Silverberg, Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells and Gary K. Wolfe. Loscon 46 is proud to announce Feder, a Tor Books editor, as its Editor Guest of Honor.
Loscon 46 Guests of Honor also include award-winning speculative fiction writer Howard Waldrop (The Ugly Chickens, Night of the Cooters), and Edie Stern, a fan celebrated for her work at fanac.org, a fan-history archive as well as other fan community activities around the world.
Participants include area artists and authors, such as Sean M. Carroll, Rick Sternbach, Steven Barnes, Harry Turtledove, Tananarive Due, Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff and Tim Powers.
(2) DOCTOR WHO MOVING. Will you need to pony up for another streaming service? Variety brings word that “‘Doctor Who’ to Stream Exclusively on HBO Max”.
The forthcoming WarnerMedia streaming platform has acquired the exclusive streaming rights to “Doctor Who,” with all 11 seasons of the historic BBC series coming to the service upon launch in spring 2020. The news comes as part of a deal with BBC studios which means the streamer will be the home of future “Doctor Who” seasons after they air on BBC America.
(3) ROCKET STACK RANK. Eric Wong reports Rocket Stack Rank’s “July 2019 Ratings” have been updated to show 31 recommendations (red highlights) by seven prolific reviewers of SF/F short fiction.
Here are some quick observations by pivoting the list on story length, new writers, and authors. (Click links to see the different views.)
- Length: 5 stories out of 70 got a score of 3 or more (only 1 free online).
- New Writers: 6 stories out of 9 written by Campbell-eligible writers got a recommendation (5 free online).
- Authors: Of 5 authors out of 65 with more than one story here, only Tegan Moore had all her stories recommended by one or more reviewers (1 free online).
(4) ST:P COMICS. What do you call the prequel of a sequel? The Hollywood Reporter is claiming yet another Star Trek: Picard exclusive — “’Star Trek: Picard’ to Get Prequel Novel and Comic Series”. Both a short comic series and a novel will lay some groundwork for the new CBS All Access streaming series. So get out your theodolite and let’s mark the corners for this new foundation.
The first prequel to appear will be IDW’s Star Trek: Picard – Countdown, a three-issue comic book series written by Mike Johnson and Picard supervising producer Kirsten Beyer, which will center around a single mission that would change the life of Picard. That series launches in November, and runs through January 2020.
In February 2020, Galley Books will follow the conclusion of Countdown with Una McCormack’s The Last Best Hope, a novel that will lead directly into the Picard television series proper, and introduce new characters appearing in the show. McCormack is a name familiar to Star Trek fans, having previously written eight novels tying into the legendary sci-fi property
(5) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman launches the second century of Eating the Fantastic by nibbling New York cheesecake in L.A. with Nebula Award-winning writer Rachel Swirsky in episode 101:
This episode’s guest is Rachel Swirsky, who’s won some Nebula Awards of her own — for her novella “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen’s Window” in 2010 and her short story “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” in 2013. She’s also been a Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award nominee. She was the founding editor of the PodCastle podcast, co-edited the anthology People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction & Fantasy, and served as vice president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2013.
We got together for brunch the Saturday morning of the Nebula Awards weekend at Lovi’s Delicatessan in Calabasas, California where we chatted over brisket, latke, and of course, cheesecake.
We discussed what it was like to be critiqued by Octavia Butler at the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop, how she learned there’s no inherent goodness in being concise in one’s writing, the generational shift in mainstream literature’s acceptance of science fiction, why she’s an anarchist (though she’s really not), what she learned about writing as a reporter covering pinball professionally, how the things most people say are impossible actually aren’t, why you shouldn’t base your self-worth on your accomplishments, how to deal with writers block and impostor syndrome (and the way they’re sometimes connected), the proper way to depict mental illness in fiction, why whenever she writes erotica it turns out to be depressing, how she survived the controversy over “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love,” and much more.
(6) MARTIN HOARE. The August issue of Ansible includes David Langford’s tribute to his friend, the late Martin Hoare, and a wonderful gallery of photos showing him from his time at Oxford (1972) through his latest adventures with Doris Panda (2018), plus prized moments like sharing the Hugo ceremony stage with George Takei at Nippon 2007.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
- Born August 2, 1932 — Peter O’Toole. Though his best-known role in genre was as Dr. Harry Wolper in Creator, I’d like to single out his performance as A. Conan Doyle in Fairytale: A True Story. And though uncredited, he’s a Scottish bagpiper in Casino Royale! (Died 2003.)
- Born August 2, 1917 — Wah Chang. Of interest to us is the props he designed for Star Trek: The Original Series including the tricorder and communicator. He did a number of other things for the series as the Rabbit you see on the “Shore Leave” episode, the Tribbles and the Romulan Bird of Prey. Other work included building the title object from The Time Machine, and the dinosaurs in Land of the Lost. (Died 2003.)
- Born August 2, 1944 — Susan Denberg, 75. One of the actresses in “Mudd’s Women”, she played Magda Kovacs. It was one of but two genre roles in her very brief acting career, the other that of Cristina in Frankenstein Created Woman, a British Hammer horror film. After two years as an actress, she returned to her native Austria. Rumors circulated that she become drug addicted and died a horrid death, but no, she’s alive and quite well.
- Born August 2, 1945 — Joanna Cassidy, 74. She is known for being the replicant Zhora Salome in Blade Runner and Dolores in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, two of my favorite films. She also did really bad horror films that don’t bear thinking about.
- Born August 2, 1948 — Robert Holdstock. Another one who died far too young. His Ryhope Wood series is simply amazing with Lavondyss being my favourite volume. And let’s not overlook his Merlin Codex series which is one of the more original takes on that character I’ve read. The Ragthorn, co-written with Garry Kilworth, is interesting as well.(Died 2009.)
- Born August 2, 1949 — Wes Craven. Swamp Thing comes to mind first plus of course the Nightmare on Elm Street franchiseof nine films in which he created Freddy Krueger. Let’s not forget The Serpent and the Rainbow. (Died 2015.)
- Born August 2, 1954 — Ken MacLeod, 65. Sometimes I don’t realize until I do a Birthday note just how much I’ve read a certain author. And so it was of MacLeod. I’ve read the entire Fall Revolution series, not quite all of the Engines of Light Trilogy, all of The Fall Revolution, just the first two of the Corporation Wars and every one of his one-off novels save Descent. I should go find his Giant Lizards from Another Star collection as I’ve not read his short fiction. Damn, it’s not available digitally!
- Born August 2, 1976 — Emma Newman, 43. Author of quite a few SF novels and a collection of short fiction. Of interest to us is that she is co-creator along with her husband Peter, of the Hugo Award winning podcast Tea and Jeopardy which centres around her hosting another creator for a nice cup of tea and cake, while her scheming butler Latimer (played by Peter) attempts to send them to their deaths at the end of the episode.
(8) CHECK THE BACK OF YOUR CLOSET. An Associated Press story tells how “Unopened 1987 Nintendo video game could sell for $10,000”.
An unopened copy of a 1987 cult-classic video game that a Nevada man found in the attic of his childhood home is expected to sell for up to $10,000 at an online auction.
The boxed game cartridge of Nintendo’s “Kid Icarus” was still in the bag with the receipt for $38.45 from J.C. Penney’s catalog department three decades earlier.
Scott Amos of Reno told the Reno Gazette Journal he initially thought it might be worth a couple hundred dollars.
But Valarie McLeckie, video game consignment director at Heritage Auctions, says it’s one of the hardest Nintendo titles to find in sealed condition. She says there are fewer than 10 in the hands of vintage game collectors.
“To find a sealed copy ‘in the wild,’ so to speak, not to mention one in such a nice condition and one with such transparent provenance, is both an unusual and rather historic occurrence,” she said. “We feel that the provenance will add a significant premium for serious collectors.”
(9) THEY GIVE A SHIRT. The posters at Mumsnet are deciding what they think about Worldcon Dublin. The initial comment in the thread asks:
Any other GC fans going to Worldcon in Dublin? There’s already things I’ve seen on the schedule that make me want to stand outside in my AHF t-shirt but not brave enough to do it alone!
(The meaning of the initials is explained in the thread.)
(10) MORE ACCOUNTS OF MIGNOGNA HARASSMENT. Anime News Network’s “Former Tekkoshocon Staff Allege Mignogna Harassed Macross Voice Actress Mari Iijima” adds to its coverage of Vic Mignogna’s harassment history, this time with a conrunner as its main source:
…A former staff member of multiple U.S. anime conventions confirmed to ANN that she is the author of a Twitter thread that includes allegations about voice actor Vic Mignogna‘s conduct.
Lynn Hunt, who uses the Twitter name @ljmontello, has worked in many positions at anime conventions across the United States since 2000. She told ANN that at the Ohayacon event in Columbus, Ohio in 2003, she saw many instances of Mignogna inappropriately touching guests, fans, and other convention patrons. Hunt believes many of the attendees who Mignogna allegedly touched inappropriately looked young.
At the Anime Central (ACEN) convention in Rosemont, Illinois in 2004, Hunt says she saw Mignogna give his personal phone number to many young female fans, and touch and kiss other young female fans inappropriately. Again, she believes many of the other parties he allegedly touched and kissed looked young.
Most of Hunt’s allegations, however, relate to the Tekkoshocon event (now known as Tekko) in Pittsburgh. Hunt said that at this event in 2007, Mignogna allegedly harassed convention guest Mari Iijima, the Japanese voice of Lynn Minmay in The Super Dimension Fortress Macross anime.
Responding on Twitter to Hunt’s comments about Mignogna and Iijima, voice actor Brett Weaver claimed to have been on a panel at Tekkoshocon 2007 with both actors. He said, “I had never met Mari but just before the panel, she told me that she felt very uncomfortable being around him. I had her sit to my right, and when Vic arrived I made it clear he was going to sit to my left. He laughed and moved toward her. I looked him square in the eye and [said], ‘Nope. Sit there.’ We went through the panel and I don’t think Vic and I ever spoke again.” …
…[Hunt] said that she notified the Tekko convention staff on June 9, 2019 to give them a “heads up” that she would be posting material regarding Mignogna on Twitter. She said that she received no response from Tekko until after she started posting the material on June 27.
Tekko issued a statement on Twitter that said that no member of the current Board of Directors was present during the years in question, and that no documented harassment issues were passed along by the previous leadership team during the transition period.
(11) RACE AND THE FUTURE. CNN publicized an eye-opening report — “Robot racism? Yes, says a study showing humans’ biases extend to robots”. They mean robots that look like Caucasians, not the white plastic-bodied kind that I always thought were inspired by the laboratory-clean look of technology in the movie 2001.
Have you ever noticed the popularity of white robots?
You see them in films like Will Smith’s “I, Robot” and Eve from “Wall-E.” Real-life examples include Honda’s Asimo, UBTECH’s Walker, Boston Dynamics’ Atlas, and even NASA’s Valkyrie robot. All made of shiny white material. And some real-life humanoid robots are modeled after white celebrities, such as Audrey Hepburn and Scarlett Johansson.
The reason for these shades of technological white may be racism, according to new research.
“Robots And Racism,” a study conducted by the Human Interface Technology Laboratory in New Zealand (HIT Lab NZ) and published by the country’s University of Canterbury, suggests people perceive physically human-like robots to have a race and therefore apply racial stereotypes to white and black robots.
These colors have been found to trigger social cues that determine how humans react to and behave toward other people and also, apparently, robots.
“The bias against black robots is a result of bias against African-Americans,” lead researcher Christoph Bartneck explained to The Next Web. He told CNN, “It is amazing to see how people who had no prior interaction with robots show racial bias towards them.”
(12) FOR PEOPLE PURPLE EATERS. “Twinkie’s Latest Flavor Has A Mystery Moonberry Cream Filling” and Delish tells you where to find it.
American delicacy, the Twinkie, is looking a little different these days. On Thursday, Hostess announced its latest flavor launch, a mysterious dark blue Moonberry, and it’s out of this world.
…like literally. It’s got a whole galactic thing going.
By the looks of that packaging, it’s got the same shape as our OG Twinkie, but with a completely different taste and aesthetic otherwise. A rep for the brand told PEOPLE the dark sponge cake is meant to resemble the night sky. And that inside, an elusive Moonberry-flavored filling, is smooth, sweet, and fruity.
(13) WHAT THEY THOUGHT OF NEXT. That’s not Paul Revere, it’s Nerdist telling everyone “Fudge Brownie M&Ms Are Coming!”
(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “While you Were Sleeping” on Vimeo, Charlie Stewart explains why robots always do their jobs.
[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, Hampus Eckerman, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day johnstick.]
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First!
(7) I loved “Mythago Wood” (for whatever reason the later books in the series didn’t hit me in the same way).
All the birthdays say “July 2”
Didn’t know Peter O’Toole was born so long ago.
I still don’t know what AHF means
Second? Let’s see.
Nope! Fourth. How sad! I shall have to go lie down,and recover from the disappointment of being neither first nor fifth. 😉
bill: Pour yourself your favorite beverage for saving the birthday list from my copyediting!
Look again — it’s in there.
I remain confused about why the Worldcon program would move them to stand outside it with their AHF tshirts, though.
AHF. – Got it.
O’Toole was born in 1932, per Wikipedia.
(7) Peter O’Toole was also in an episode of the Ray Bradbury Theater, the episode “Banshee.” His character was a thinly disguised John Huston and the young writer, Charlie Martin Smith, was a thinly disguised Ray Bradbury.
Andrew says I loved “Mythago Wood” (for whatever reason the later books in the series didn’t hit me in the same way).
I actually think that Lavondyss is the best book in the series and it’s by far a better written book than Mythago Wood is. It’s not precisely a book to love, but it’s a book to ponder and think about as it’s quite complex.
@Cat: I should give it another try – it’s possible that I might feel very different about it this time.
Robert Holdstock is one of my favorite authors. His evocative prose style is right there with McKillip, Wolfe, Greer Gilman, and John Crowley. I’d agree with Cat that Lavondyss is his best though I would probably start with Mythago Wood as a good prologue.
Wah Chang was also the co-head and co-founder (with Gene Warren) of the special effects company Project Unlimited, which among other things did much of the effects work on the original Outer Limits.
@Lis: That site has a reputation for being transphobic, so the LGBTQI+ panel alone would presumably be enough.
@7: there are two issues with getting Giant Lizards as an e-book: the original rights were limited (convention books are limited editions) and would need to be renegotiated to cover e-pubbing, and there’s not a visible demand for it (as seen by <1000 books not having sold out in 13 years), which means that it’s a ways back in the queue of books to investigate e-ifying. One could argue that physical sales don’t correlate to e-demand, instancing the long queues I see for e-books at the Boston library vs the shorter queues for physical copies — but that’s not a consistent difference, and MacLeod isn’t (AFAICT) in high demand in the US.
@13: can it be worse than fudge brownie pretzel bites?
@14: well, that’s one way to update “There Will Come Soft Rains” — but I’m surprised the robots/AIs have no long-term memory.
(2) “All 11 seasons” of the historic series Doctor Who?
@A. P. Howell–Thank you! That makes sense, sadly. Well, then, let them, and fans can point and laugh.
Mmmmmm MMs……….
My mom was a big MM fan — she almost always had a bag of peanut MMs around. My favorites are the almond ones, but some of their special flavors are pretty darned good. Yes, I’ll be trying the brownie ones eventually.
And you can keep all the Twinkies!
I came across this tidbit: Green Ronin To Publish The Fifth Season Roleplaying Game
This may be an intriguing world to explore in a game.
Won’t the dice keep rerolling themselves all the time, though?
Judge Magney asks “All 11 seasons” of the historic series Doctor Who?
This doesn’t make any sense. There’s far more than eleven seasons of Doctor Who as almost all Doctors has multiple seasons. And there’s been Thirteen Doctors, so it can’t be referring to the number of Doctors either.
@Cat I actually think that Lavondyss is the best book in the series and it’s by far a better written book than Mythago Wood is.
Very much agreed, as you can probably tell from my choice of avatar. I kept trying his other books but none of them resonated for me in the way Lavondyss does.
It’s counting from the 2005 series oneards.
Sophie Jane says Very much agreed, as you can probably tell from my choice of avatar. I kept trying his other books but none of them resonated for me in the way Lavondyss does.
Thought your avatar looked familiar. I just think that the story is Lavondyss is a much better story than anything he tells elsewhere in the cycle. It certainly helps that Tallis is present as she adds a lot to make the story what it is. The other novels by comparison seem flat, even emotionless in their telling.
James Moar says re counting Who: It’s counting from the 2005 series oneards.
So they’re only broadcasting the new Who? And only in the US I assume? I’m betting it doesn’t effect either Amazon or Apple selling individual episodes or entire seasons either.
Meredith Moments: Gene Wolfe’s The Sorcerer’s House is $2.99 and Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren is $1.99.
Actually, they’re only streaming the resurrected Doctor Who.
BBC America still has the broadcast/cable rights, and the episodes will appear there first.
Hmm, I would have assumed that “historic Dr. Who” referred to old Who. I mean, technically last year is part of history now, but…
OTOH, I know that old Who ran for over a quarter of a century. And if new Who started in 2005, then it’s been going for thirteen or fourteen years. So I’m not sure where eleven comes in either way. (This uncertainty may make it obvious that I’m not a Who fan–my curiosity is purely academic.) New Who is definitely closer to eleven though, but “historic” still seems like an odd term to use in that case, especially since old Who exists.
The show was on hiatus from 1989-2005. There have been 11 aired seasons since it resumed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_episodes_(2005–present).
It hasn’t quite run with one-series-a-year regularity, though. British TV is generally less stringent about that than in the US, and there have been noticeable delays in Who since the last few Tennant epidodes.
By the way, Eric and I just arrived in Edinburg from Seattle. We’re going to spend some time here checking out the Festival of the Fringe before we head over to WorldCon.
As for the festival, I can report that the terraforming looks great! You’d swear this place was hundreds of years old! 🙂
@Joe H: “Samuel R. Delany’s Dhalgren is $1.99.”
I already have enough copies of Dhalgren, but I’m still tempted, just to see what the hell an e-book of it would look like.
Meredith Moment: Robert McCammon’s story collection “Blue World” is on sale at Amazon (and possibly other places) for $1.99.
Lis Carey on August 2, 2019 at 6:06 pm said:
Because trans and non-binary people are not only allowed to attend Worldcon, but (gasp, shock, horror) they participate in program items that accept such people for who they are.
Have a great time. It’s a wonderful city.
@ John Lorentz
This raises the question of what’s going to happen to all the previous ‘New Who’ shows on BBC America. That show put the channel on the map for a lot of American viewers, and they run mini-thons of those episodes on a routine basis.
( And after having a hit with the Who sci-fi, they added ST:TNG and X-Files reruns as well. It made a kind of sense since P. Stewart and G. Anderson are Brits.)
Will the older seasons of ‘New Who’ become streaming exclusive? Will new seasons get one broadcast on BBC America, and that’s it?
A lot of cable channels keep themselves going in non-prime-time hours with old network reruns. I wonder what they’re going to do in situations like this …
@Kevin Standlee–
I guess it kind of sucks to be a TERF, having to stand outside the con, wearing just a tshirt, while a few thousand other people are inside, having a good time. Do we have a small enough violin for the occasion?
Given mumsnet’s history, I’m assuming “GC” stands for “Gender Critical”, aka anti-trans, so I’m inclined to take their definition of “AHF” with a little bit of the ol’ stink-eye.
EDIT: after a bit more searching, it stands for “Adult Human Female” which from a blank slate, sure, but with context is a big no thanks.
So the T-shirted are TERFs? That explains — something; I’m reminded of the card-tactical game “Illuminatus”, in which the alignments include Liberal vs Conservative, Straight vs Weird, … and Fanatic vs Fanatic. Although even that is hardly applicable here — the fanatics will be mostly on the outside.
9) So these TERFs are angry that there is LGBTQI+ programming at WorldCon, so they want to stage a protest outside with their AHF t-shirts? Has no one told them that there is no requirement to attend programming at WorldCon that one isn’t interested in? Especially considering that there is so much programming that they’re sure to find something they’re interested in. Honestly, this “protest” is even sadder than last year’s
@Cora Buhlert
TERFs are a little more narrow than that. Like other radical feminists, they pretty much hate all men (even gay men), but they count trans women as men, so they hate them too.
At one time, I believed that all radical feminists were lesbians, but apparently it’s possible to hate men but still like sex with them. We certainly see right-wingers who hate women but still like sex with them. Regardless, TERFs are certainly cool with lesbians, and I’m sure they have no problems with intersex people. No clue how they feel about trans men. Logic would say they’d count them as women, but I don’t think logic is in the driver’s seat here.
@GregHullender–I never actually got the man-hating part from some of the women I talked to online but then it depends on what definition of TERF is used. But since I’m apparently on Terf-Blocker, what do I know.
I did a search on the WorldCon programming page for ‘gender’ and got something like 27 hits. Since one panel had the word in it’s description 4 times and I think a couple of others twice, that really cut the panels/signings down to maybe 20 or so that even mentioned gender out of a huge number of panels. And that included panels talking about “The Left Hand of Darkness” and Anne Leckie’s novels.
And since attending any of it is voluntary, standing outside the venue to make such a point is silly. Just skip the panels that bother you–it’s like someone who wants to eliminate the military being upset that there would be a panel about David Weber’s books.
The British Isle’s GenderWar and the internet have created a number of people there who obsess over this issue from many sides. Most people, I think, are somewhere in the middle.
So bigots will protest by standing outside, wearing T-shirts that no one understands. Ok.
@Greg Hullender: The town where I spent my young adulthood had a large radical feminist and lesbian separatist (lots of overlap, but not total) community; the left circles I moved in out of town had a disproportionate number of gay men. I’ve never heard a radical feminist talk about how men smell, but I’ve heard more than my share of that sort of shit-talking misogyny out of gay men, particularly drag queens. It’s not typical of gay men today, but it’s not unheard of, either. There are certainly some feminists who hate men, but in my formative years–which was also the time of radical feminisms flourishing–my experience was that gay men on average had much worse attitudes toward women.
That was the late seventies through the mid-eighties. There seemed to be a change in this as the AIDS crisis progressed. There’s nothing like an extinction-level event to pull people together. Now that’s fraying again, and we seem to have returned to people without penises consistently being given the brown end of the corncob.
Moshe Feder and Edie Stern: what’s apparently lost in the shuffle here is Moshe’s decades-long involvement in fandom, through fanzines, a Corflu here in NYC, his simple presence in so many places. I’m happy to see his pro career being celebrated.
Edie Stern works heavily on the fanac.org site, but she also co-chaired the 1992 Worldcon in Orlando, and has the perhaps largest collection (with her husband Joe Siclari) of SF/fantasy artwork up on the walls of their home. Yes, even in the bathrooms!
She and Joe also host an annual summer party at their home which by latest estimate had more than 60 people in attendance, fans, filkers and neighboring mundanes. It doesn’t hurt that they have a swimming pool.
That took a while to get round the “Well, yes, of course Gerry Anderson is British, but what’s he got to do with The X-Files?”.
When I was a young man, that was one of two or three things the older gay guys did that made me uncomfortable. (I mean, how would they even know what it smells like down there?) I’m disappointed if young gay guys are really starting to do that again. I haven’t heard it in decades, though, so I really hope we’ve outgrown it.
I also worked with some lesbian separatists in San Francisco, but I got along pretty well with them because they told me I didn’t give off the wrong “vibe.” Apparently some gay guys have enough residual heterosexuality to look at women in ways that make them uncomfortable, even if they’re not aware of doing it. (Or at least that was the theory.) But I never heard them talk about hating men–just about men making them uncomfortable. I didn’t make them uncomfortable, so I was okay.
On the other hand, I had a radical feminist tell me just last month that gay men were just as bad as men in general, so I’m pretty sure that attitude is current. Not regular feminists, though; just the “rad” kind. Anyway, TERFs just take it one step further.
@Cat —
This.
I listened to most of Mythago Wood, but when I was within an HOUR of the end I decided I Just Didn’t Care and dropped the book. Never tried to finish, never tried the rest of the series. There was one passage I did especially like — the part about the way the feral woman (forget her name!) smelled, of all things — but the rest was just not engaging for me.
I try not to see radical feminists as a homogeneous group. There are some that see everything that sticks out from the norm as unacceptable (queers, transpersons, BDSM:ers, sexual minorities) because they have this framework built around heteronormal males and women and everything that challenges that framework makes them react with anger.
On the other hand, there’s also a group of radical feminists that go the total opposite way (closely aligned with queer feminists). They are often fighting against the first group.
“Radical” is that kind of word. You can be radical in so many different ways.
I suppose it’s a good thing the Star Trek Picard spin-off material is using writers with some existing experience of the character, but wouldn’t it be a good idea to get writers on the show itself who worked on Star Trek The Next Generation? The same is true of Doctor Who now, which seems to be ignoring all the fantastic writers and directors who.ve worked on that show since it was brought back in 2005.