Galactic Suburbia 42*
In which we discuss Orson Scott Card’s Hamlet, the agent who said no way to gay YA, Tansy’s Blake’s 7 dolls, the superhero who fights with her hair, and Alisa works through her issues with Doctor Who. You can get us on iTunes or download/stream us from Galactic Suburbia.
News
Subterranean Press address email complaints about “Hamlet’s Father” by Orson Scott Card (and the Rain Taxi review that started it)
The other big Internet Thing – agent says no gay in YA dystopia please & authors speak out
New podcast – Live and Sassy
Twelfth Planet Press opening for novel submissions
What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alex: Retribution Falls, Chris Wooding; Blake’s 7; Hyperion, Dan Simmons.
Tansy: Torchwood (non spoilery), Justice League comics (the new 52), The Business of Death by Trent Jamieson
Alisa: Podcasts: Locus Roundtable (Gail Carriger and Francesca Myman; Kathleen Goonan, Eileen Gunn and Gary K Wolfe); Eurocon 2011 Gender in SF&F Panel; The Outer Alliance Podcast Episode 11, Season 3 Doctor Who
[Book calling for papers on the topic of race and Doctor Who]
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
* Alisa and Tansy recorded no. 41 without me, as a Spoilerific Book Club episode about The Hunger Games trilogy. It’s on iTunes or at the website if you’re interested.
Galactic Suburbia 40!!
Weird Tales sold
Strange Horizons Fundraising Drive
Galactic Chat: Kelley Armstrong and Ben Peek
What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alisa: Doctor Who Season 2, Outer Alliance Podcast
Alex: Trouble and her Friends, Melissa Scott; Only Ever Always, Penni Russon; Synners, Pat Cadigan; Blake’s 7.
Tansy: SF Squeecast #3, Panel2Panel (http://panel2panel.podbean.com/), Among Others by Jo Walton, Alcestis by Katherine Beukner, Stormlord’s Exile by Glenda Larke, KINDLED
Pet Subject: Hugoriffic!
Were you there for the Hugo Twitter party? Or did you have to resort to sitting in the live audience?
The stats
The results
Hugos commentary round up.
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Galactic Suburbia 39
In which we defend Mary Sues everywhere, point at superheroes with their pants down, plan a Hugo Twitterparti and reveal which of the three of us is secretly a hardcore horror fan. But most importantly (according to Tansy), Alex is watching Blake’s 7 completely unspoiled and she loves Avon the best, hooray! You can get us from iTunes or download us from Galactic Suburbia.
News
The Mary Sue Conversation:
Zoe Marriott
Sarah Rees Brennan
Holly Black
Elizabeth Bear
“Sometimes a book is about a female character because there are female people in the world.”
What if Male Superheroes posed like Wonder Woman
Gender Bent Justice League
Bonus, superheroes without pants (except Wonder Woman)
Tansy: Lords & Ladies, Terry Pratchett; Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, Rob Shearman; Rob on the Big Finish Podcast, Xena & the mystical pregnancy
Alex: Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi; Blake’s 7; Across the Universe, Beth Revis.
Featured Feedback:
Grant Watson (and our producer) pointed out to Tansy that Jason Todd died in “A Death in the Family” and not “The Killing Joke.” She is very sorry.
Kirstyn McDermott took us to task over our dismissive attitude to horror, and we decided to address her concerns and chew over our complicated relationship with the darker side of spec fic.
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Galactic Suburbia 38
In which none of your fearless podcasters are impregnated by mysterious aliens for the duration of a single episode, nor do any of us experience a rapidly accelerated pregnancy or give birth to an otherworldly demon/alien/vampire. Also: Batgirl, Bujold and a cranky feminist rant or two. You can get us from iTunes or from Galactic Suburbia.
Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award – fascinating idea – given to a living writer for the first time, Katherine MacLean.
World Fantasy nominations, of course!
The Mystical Pregnancy trope – torture porn? Reproductive terrorism, exploiting women for being female. Violent degradation of women’s bodies for plot.
Vote For Top-100 Science Fiction, Fantasy Titles; Swedish Writing Fairy crunches the numbers.
Andromeda’s Offering Issue 1 – new fanzine to “open up new female voices in SF, raise the awareness of female SF writers and share ideas.”
(you can find them on Facebook)
Where are the women in the new DC Comics? Newsy; interview with Batgirl cosplayer.
SF Signal Episode 70 – 6 men talk about their favourite podcasts and illustrate what we mean by gender disparity in SF gatekeeping; Alisa makes reference to a recent Mind Meld.
What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alisa: Passage by Connie Willis; Red Glove by Holly Black; The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang.
Alex: Diplomatic Immunity and Cryoburn, Bujold; Chicks Dig Time Lords, ed. Lynne Thomas; The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell; Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal; Songs of the Earth, Elspeth Cooper (abandoned). SF Squeecast.
Tansy Glenda Larke – Stormlord Rising; Malinda Lo – Huntress; Penni Russon – Only, Ever, Always
Feedback
We get to be Friday Hoydens!
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Galactic Suburbia, #37
News
The Locus Awards
Prometheus Award winners
Sturgeon and Campbell Awards
Shirley Jackson
Recent announcement – Gollancz announces the SF Gateway, huge project to digitise & make available thousands of SF classics as ebooks.
Linda Nagata on ‘What’s in a Name’ and her career trajectory as a female writer of hard SF
Chris Moriarty on label in the women & SF conversation
via Thoraiya Dyer, women and the chilly climate
Liz Williams at the Guardian on the way science fiction reflects human belief
Alastair Reynolds to write Doctor Who novel: Tansy and Alex’s obsessions in one package!
What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alisa: Maureen Johnson on www.whyy.org/podcast; Twin Peaks; Mercy (not genre but interesting feminism);
Alex: sooo much Bujold (3rd, 4th and 5th omnibi, and Memory); lots of books, because of holidays! But particularly Heartless, Gail Carriger; Blackout, Connie Willis; Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, NK Jemisin… also Harry Potter 7 and Transformers 3.
Tansy: The Demon’s Surrender, The Holy Terror & Robophobia (Big Finish), Subterranean’s YA Issue
Pet Subject: Feedback from our Joanna Russ episode
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Galactic Suburbia’s Joanna Russ Tribute Show
We started talking about doing a Joanna Russ Spoilerific episode just after she died, in April, and here it is! We discuss Russ’ non-fiction polemic How to Suppress Women’s Writing, her novel The Female Man, and the short story “When it Changed.” We also discuss whether the issues confronted are still relevant today, and some of the problems we have with these works. All in a spirit of love and respect, of course, and attempting to overcome our feelings of inadequacy and terror in the face of the mighty Joanna….
You can get the episode from iTunes, or download it from Galactic Suburbia. Do leave us a review on iTunes, or email your comments to galacticsuburbia @ gmail . com !
Galactic Suburbia 35!
In which “best” becomes “superior,” Pottermore is Pottermeh, one of us wins all the awards, and we visit/revisit classic non-hard works of SF and Fantasy by Bujold, Willis and Pratchett (with bonus Russian fairytales by Valente). We can be got from iTunes or streamed from Galactic Suburbia.
News
Pottermore announcement to be made during our podcast…
Theodore Sturgeon finalists.
David Gemmell Awards…
NatCon professional guests for next year are Kelly Link and Alison Goodman.
Sidewise Awards finalists.
Translation Awards winners.
Coode Street Horror Special with Stoker winners Datlow & Straub.
Gender Spotting Tool. Alisa’s verdict: Naff.
What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alisa: Connie Willis’ Passage in progress, the next 3 Twelve Planets.
Alex: so much Bujold (Cordelia’s Honorand Young Miles omnibuses… omnibi… whatever), Fly by Night, Frances Hardinge, Red Glove, Holly Black. Series 2 of V (reboot)
Tansy: Deathless, Catherynne Valente; I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett; Wyrd Sisters audiobook, Terry Pratchett/Celia Imrie.
Next Fortnight: Galactic Suburbia’s Spoilerific Book Club Presents: Joanna Russ. Reading How to Suppress Women’s Writing, The Female Man, “When It Changed.”
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Galactic Suburbia 34
In which we surf the wave of feminist SF news that has deluged the internet this fortnight, plus Margaret Brundage, why YA books are allowed to be as dark as they want to be, the Tiptree Award, Connie Willis, were-thylacines, Ted Chiang and Alex finally discovers Bujold… You can download us from iTunes, or download/stream from Galactic Suburbia.
News
Nicola Griffith on the m/f imbalance in an informal SF favourites poll in the Guardian.
The Guardian: Damien Walter, author of the poll & followup articles revises his comments in response to Griffith.
Niall Harrison follows up on Strange Horizons.
Cheryl Morgan on invisibility of women (some really interesting discussion in the comments, too).
The Guardian again, asking with wide innocent eyes if SF is inherently sexist.
Ian Sales announces the SF Mistressworks blog project.
Nicola Griffith asks you to take the Joanna Russ pledge.
Gwyneth Jones, Karen Traviss & Farah Mendlesohn talk on the radio about the perception of women in British SF. Transcript.
MK Hobson on the term ‘bustlepunk’ and why there is a place for a domestic sub-genre of steampunk; follow up post on the assumptions made about works coded ‘female’ .
2011 Chesley Award Finalists; Cheryl Morgan on female & trans artists.
Nine Reasons Women Don’t Edit Wikipedia (interesting in light of the recent spout of incidents we’ve watched, notably the one with Nick Mamatas where winning World Fantasy Award was considered too regional to be significant).
Wall Street Journal on YA fiction.
Change to the Norma eligibility guidelines.
Why Galactic Suburbia T-shirts are no longer available through RedBubble.
What Culture Have we Consumed?
Tansy: Thyla, Kate Gordon; Will Supervillains Be on the Final? Naomi Novik
Alisa: Coode St Podcast with Ellen Klages, Eileen Gunn and Geoff Ryman; Connie Willis – Even the Queen; Octavia Butler – Bloodchild
Alex: Chill, and Grail, Elizabeth Bear; The Lifecycle of Software Objects, Ted Chiang; Welcome to the Greenhouse, Gordon van Gelder; Steampunk! Kelly Link and Gavin Grant.
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Galactic Sububria 33!
In which we wax lyrical about awards, short stories and the love of reading. Because it’s that time of year! You can download us from iTunes, or get us at Galactic Suburbia.
News
Aurealis Awards and Ceremony!
Aqueduct links to 25 commemorations of Joanna Russ
New podcast – How I got my Boyfriend to Read Comics
Last Short Story is on Twitter @lastshortstory
New Galactic Chat: Kirstyn McDermott
What Culture Have we Consumed?
Tansy: The Shattering, Karen Healey
Alex: The Wise Man’s Fear, Patrick Rothfuss; How to Suppress Women’s Writing, Joanna Russ; Welcome to Bordertown, Ellen Kushner and Terri Windling; finished Stargate SG1 for the second time.
Alisa: Ken Liu’s Paper Menagerie (F&SF March/April), Joanna Russ’s We Who Are About To
Pet Subject: Last Short Story 2011
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Galactic Suburbia 32
(It’s now older than me!) (just)
On Joanna Russ: some reminiscences (and here), and Samuel Delaney’s interview with her (transcript only).
Alisa: Madigan Mine, Kirstyn McDermott, Fringe Season 3
Alex: Deep State, Walter Jon Williams; Shattered City, and Love and Romanpunk, Tansy Rayner Roberts; Pushing Ice, Alastair Reynolds; Troubletwisters, Garth Nix and Sean Williams.
Tansy: Doctor Who & Big Finish audio plays (The Eighth Doctor Adventures).============
Announcing upcoming Spoilerific Book Club on Joanna Russ with particular focus on The Female Man, How To Suppress Women’s Writing and short story “When it Changed.” Read along with us!
Galactic Chat interviews Glenda Larke
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
Randomly Yours, Alex 