Anywho!

We hope you enjoy the episode!

Note:  If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show!

Here’s the episode (show notes are below):

Episode 100 — Download (MP3)

Intro and Torture Cinema Meets Doom (0:00 – 1:25:19)

• Doom (IMDB)

Our new intro music is “Time Flux” by Revolution Void (CC BY 3.0).

That’s all, folks!  Thanks for listening.  See you next week.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

Note:  If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show!

Here’s the episode (show notes are below):

Episode 99 — Download (MP3)

Intro and Interview w/ Pavarti K. Tyler (0:00 – 42:54)

• Fighting Monkey Press (where you can find links to Pavarti’s various web spaces)
• The 99

Our new intro music is “Time Flux” by Revolution Void (CC BY 3.0).

That’s all, folks!  Thanks for listening.  See you next week.

Anywho.  The idea is pretty simple.  You sign up for a trial membership with Audible.com, Audible hugs us with giant bear arms (just like in the 2nd Amendment), and everyone comes out on top — we get hugs, you get a free audiobook (and, we hope, a lifelong love of Audible’s services), and Audible realizes that it will only take a few more years before it can take over the world using its self-replicating spider robots…

But here’s where things get really fun.  To make things interesting, we’ve created a mad lib and want to solicit word suggestions from you, our dear listeners.  Every week, we’ll record a new version of the mad lib using words chosen by all of you.  Next season, we’ll write a whole new version and repeat the process.  This will make it a lot more fun for us, and for you, because our little dialogue will always be filled with wacky nonsense!

So, for our second mad lib Audible advertisement, we’d like to solicit word suggestions.  Here’s what we need:

9 x Thing
4 x Adjective
3 x Verb
1 x Feeling
1 x Date
1 x Place

The rules:
1) Nothing filthy. Mad libs tend to end up suggestive all on their own, but we don’t want to intentionally waltz into dirty territory.
2) Nothing with the obvious potential for offence (racial slurs, etc.).

Start suggesting! You can suggest all at once, or just throw in some random things. We’ll pick from the lot.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

Note:  If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show!

Here’s the episode (show notes are below):

Episode 98 — Download (MP3)

Intro and Interview w/ Brian Francis Slattery (0:00 – 58:53)

• Brian’s Website
• Shaun’s Review of Lost Everything

Our new intro music is “Time Flux” by Revolution Void (CC BY 3.0).

That’s all, folks!  Thanks for listening.  See you next week.

In reality, I was watching Ginger Snaps, films 1 and 2, and the prequel.

The Ginger Snaps movies, for those who haven’t discovered them yet, are a series of Canadian films that managedto successfully combine horror, feminism, satire and lycanthropy. In the first movie, teenage sisters Ginger and Brigitte are disaffected high school students contemplating either running away from home or dying by sixteen. Then, Ginger is attacked by a werewolf. She has, inevitably, just started her period. The plot escalates from there as Ginger revenges herself against their classmates and begins to lose her humanity while Brigitte tries desperately to cure her.

The movies, apart from being entertaining, got me thinking about depictions of female werewolves in sf and f and horror. There aren’t a lot to choose from, particularly as main characters: Ginger Snaps; Suzy McKee Charnas’ protagonist in “Boobs;” Millar’s Lonely Werewolf Girl; the anthology Women Who Run with Werewolves and a few others. The best-known female werewolves in science fiction and fantasy and horror are young women, often teenagers or in their early twenties. And the women often transition to lycanthropy as the result of the onset of menses, which triggers a werewolf attack.

While I was cogitating on this, editor JoSelle Vanderhooft contacted me about writing a story for an anthology of lesbian werewolf novellas that she was working on (now out as Bitten by Moonlight from Zumaya Press). So I started pulling my previous noodlings together into a story idea that went something along the lines of “If it can happen at one change in life, why not another?” Add to that the indisputable fact that there are very few middle-aged female protagonists in sf/f and put the two together, at least in my brain, and ta-da! Menopausal werewolves.

I decided that I wanted to write about a middle-aged woman who turns into a werewolf as she entered menopause. And she wouldn’t know that it was going to happen, until it did (not unlike some aspects of going through menopause). This woman would have a community of some sort around her, as well as people who didn’t want her to change, because I wanted to write about those relationships.

Once I got that far, I needed a rationale for why there would be more than one werewolf near my protagonist to support the story I wanted to tell. This was, as it turned out, closely connected to the question of how she or they became werewolves in the first place.

One of the marvelous things about writing about werewolves is that there is such a wealth of interesting stories about how the change is brought about. My personal favorite, though not the one I used, is the legend that suggests that you can become were by drinking rainwater from a wolf’s paw print. You can also put on a belt made of wolf skin, apply magical ointment, or simply sleep outside under the full moon. Given the options, being bitten by a werewolf or just plain being born that way were pretty prosaic.

I had already ruled out the option of her being born a werewolf if I wanted it to be unexpected. So that meant that either she had to get bitten by another werewolf or something else had to happen. I wanted to do something besides transmission by biting, in part because it would start her off with an antagonistic relationship with the other werewolves. I wanted to do something different, something that felt more in line with the tone of the story. But the rainwater from the paw print thing seemed a bit much.

What I came up with instead was the idea of using place-based magic. This had to do with my desire to write a story that touched on ideas about community and activism. Why not a place that impacted some of its inhabitants in unusual ways? I bowed to tradition in keeping the lunar-based transformations, though these werewolves can break from that if they have enough control. Otherwise, the magic of the place picks and chooses who changes and when.

The place in question is a town called “Wolf’s Point” in a valley in the American West (I opted not to put it in a specific state). Generations of Native Americans from different tribes and immigrants from different parts of the world combined elements of their various magical traditions to create a special place. It was one guarded first by the spirit of the wolves, then actual werewolves. And who better to call as guardians than healthy older women who’ve been written off as too old to be desirable or to bear children?

My protagonist, Becca Thornton, is a fairly recent transplant to Wolf’s Point. She’s divorced and working in the local hardware store for Pete and Shelly Peterson. Shelly Peterson has a secret, one shared by several of Becca’s neighbors and some of the other women in the Wolf’s Point Women’s Club. Shortly after her fiftieth birthday, the valley’s magic calls Becca to join them in the local werewolf pack, comprised of women of a “certain age.” And she’s not wildly enthusiastic about it.

In fact, Becca is pretty conflicted about a lot of things. She doesn’t want to be menopausal, or a werewolf, or have a crush on her neighbor, Pack Beta Erin Adams. She wants to be normal, at least some of the time. This is what leaves her open to the offer of a “cure” from a group of aspiring werewolf hunters who arrive in Wolf’s Point with an agenda of their own.

My werewolf hunters are an odd bunch in and of themselves. Most of them are former military, and several of them are “ex-wolves” (the parallel with ex-gays is deliberate), including one of their leaders. And they have conflicts of their own, ranging from physical reactions to their cure to lack of faith in their crusade.

I’ve been asked if Silver Moon is wishful thinking on the part of a middle-aged queer woman who might like to be a werewolf herself. The answer is a firm, unequivocal “maybe.” There is something to be said for transforming into something far stronger and braver than your everyday self. For being outside of social control and immensely powerful, even if it is only once a month. I think I’d want that all the time though, so I’m going to say that no, Becca Thornton and I are not one and the same. I’m glad she brought me along for her journey this time though.

 ——————————————————————–

About the Book

Becca Thornton just found out she’s going to celebrate turning 50 by turning into a werewolf. And she’s not the only one. Wolf’s Point has its own Pack, all women of a “certain age,” and they want to claim her for their own. Then there’s the werewolf hunters, come to town with a cure for lycanthropy. Add to that her newfound feelings for the Pack’s Beta, and Becca Thornton is in for a wild ride.

About the Author

Catherine Lundoff is the award-winning author of the collections Night’s Kiss (Lethe Press, 2009) and Crave (Lethe Press, 2007) as well as A Day at the Inn, A Night at the Palace and Other Stories (Lethe Press, 2011). Silver Moon (Lethe Press, 2012) is her first novel. She is also the editor of the acclaimed anthology Haunted Hearths and Sapphic Shades: Lesbian Ghost Stories (Lethe Press, 2008) and the co-editor, with JoSelle Vanderhooft, of Hellebore and Rue: Tales of Queer Women and Magic (Lethe Press, 2011). She periodically teaches writing classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and elsewhere. www.catherinelundoff.com

That’s where you all come in!  We need to pick a movie for Torture Cinema, and fast!  If you’ll be so kind, please vote for the bad movie you’d like us to watch this week to fill the gap.

The poll will run for 24 hours.  Thanks!

We hope you enjoy the episode!  Feel free to tell us how SF/F changed your worldview in the comments.

Note:  If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show!

Here’s the episode (show notes are below):

Episode 97 — Download (MP3)

Intro and Discussion (0:00 – 1:03:51)

• Myke Cole’s Website
  • Our interview w/ Myke!
  • Myke’s guest post:  ”Superhero Ethics“
• Stina Leicht’s Website
  • Our first interview w/ Stina!
  • Our second interview w/ Stina!  (Part One and Part Two)
  • Stina’s guest post:  ”Tacking Other Cultures in Fiction“
• Paul Weimer’s Website
• Paul’s Twitter

Our new intro music is “Time Flux” by Revolution Void (CC BY 3.0).

That’s all, folks!  Thanks for listening.  See you next week.

Author Stephen Harper Piziks, a fellow Book View Café member, says that:

“Amazon makes recommendations based on the number of reader reviews a book gets. When a book reaches 20 reader reviews, Amazon’s computer starts recommending it. The content of the reviews doesn’t matter–only that the book got reviews.”

To test Stephen’s theory, I’m following his example and launching a contest to encourage you to help me by writing an Amazon review of either The Dread Hammer or Hepen the Watcher, or if you’re really into it, of both! The review doesn’t have to be elaborate. A couple of sentences conveying your general opinion should do it, though of course longer coverage is fine too.

To sweeten the pot, she’s going to give away free books to one international and one U.S. reviewer. All you have to do is leave a comment with a link to your review! In the pot:

The selected USA commenter will receive EITHER a print copy of both Puzzle Lands books OR a print copy of any ONE of the Nanotech Succession books OR the Tor® hardcover of Memory.

The selected non-USA commenter will get to select any two of Mythic Island Press LLC’s ebooks.

Admit it.  That sounds pretty awesome, right?  You can find free samples here.  Both books are available on Booktopia, Powell’s, Book View Cafe, Amazon and Barnes and Noble in print and/or ebook editions.  You can find links to all these places here.  The ebook is only $4.99!

Have at it, folks!

So when I’m writing, I research. But. . . The thing about research is that you never know where it will lead you. Sometimes it won’t take you anywhere (or at least nowhere useful.)  I had a character once who heard a loud bonging noise. I wanted to say that it sounded like Big Ben, but I figured I should check if Big Ben had been built in 1886. It seemed like a simple yes or no question.

I discovered immediately that the tower for Big Ben was certainly in place. The clock was installed in plenty of time. But the bell was put in later. After four hours of research (during which I learned many interesting things about Victorian construction techniques, the sociological functions of large clocks and the legends that surround famous bells) I had the installation of the bell narrowed down to three possible dates. All this for one sentence?  I sighed heavily, and chose another image.

Of course, research can also go the other way. If I wanted my character to get on a train, I had to decide whether she would board at Victoria or Westminster Station. So I went looking for a map to tell me which was closer to her home. Instead I found out that a group called the Fenians—a precursor of the IRA—had attempted to bomb Victoria Station, but only managed to blow up a cloak room. What a wonderful detail!  How could I not include it?  My heroine would never have considered Victoria after that, even if it were next door; she was afraid of terrorists.

These are, of course, only details. You are probably supposing that I had a firm outline that could not be derailed by such trifles. Not so. Since my story involved dark doings in Victorian London I picked up some books about Victorian slums and criminal classes. (Allow me to recommend The Victorian Underworld by Kellow Chesney for a very entertaining read.)  But I never used any of them. Instead, I dragged my poor heroine through the sewer system, just because Liza Picard, author of Victorian London: the Life of a City, got me so interested in ‘the big stink’.

I believe that people are shaped by what they worry about. So I wanted some of my characters to worry about ‘the Maiden Tribute’ which was the hot prostitution/white slavery scandal of the era. (It was also a fascinating story in itself, in which a muck-raking journalist triumphantly proved that the desperate poor would sell their own children, but failed to prove who exactly—except himself—was buying them). I spent weeks looking for an opening. But I just couldn’t work it in. I still kick myself about that.

So perhaps I should have more sympathy for those novelists who are less concerned with historical accuracy than I am. After all, a little research is a very dangerous thing!

—————————————————————- 

About the Author

Michaele Jordan was born in Los Angeles, bred in the Midwest, educated in Liberal Arts at Bard College and in computers at Southern Ohio College.

She has worked at a kennel, a Hebrew School and AT&T. She’s a bit odd.

She lives now in Cincinnati with a grumpy cat, a long-suffering husband and many invisible playmates.

Her first novel, Blade Light, was serialized in Jim Baen’s Universe. Her new novel, Mirror Maze, is on the stands now, thanks to the good people of Pyr Books.  Check Buzzy Magazine, Redstone Magazine and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for her current and upcoming stories.

To learn more, you can visit her website, www.michaelejordan.com.

About Mirror Maze

Jacob Aldridge is still utterly devastated by the death of his fiance, when he suddenly encounters her doppelganger. Livia Aram’s uncanny resemblance to the late Rhoda Carothers so transcends coincidence that Jacob becomes obsessed with her. The intensity of his passion terrifies her until her compassion is roused by his desperate plight. A demon is stalking him, a succubus-like entity that feeds on human pain and desire. With the help of Jacob’s sister, Cecily, and Livia’s guardian, the mysterious Dr. Chang, they overcome the demon. Or so it appears . . .

Jacob, Livia, and Cecily are all victims of a single curse, a curse that entrapped and destroyed their parents before them. Now fate has drawn the unsuspecting descendants together, and the curse is playing out again. Nothing can help them, until Cecily’s husband returns from abroad. Colonel Beckford has been missing for years; he has seen strange things and acquired strange powers in his absence. Now he will do whatever it takes to free his wife and end the demon and its curse once and for all.

You should also check out our interview with Michaele here.

Tune in and enjoy!

Here’s the episode:

MMM #9 — Download (MP3)

The Movies (from IMDB):

• The Cabin in the Woods
  Shaun:  4 / Jen:  4
• The Moth Diaries
  Shaun:  3 / Jen:  3
• The Raven
  Shaun:  3 / Jen:  3
• Sound of My Voice
  Shaun:  4/ Jen:  3
• The Pirates!  Band of Misfits
  Shaun:  3/ Jen:  3

What do the scores mean?

• 1 — I’d rather kill myself!
• 2 — Probably Torture Cinema
• 3 — Eh, maybe…
• 4 — I’d like to see it!
• 5 — I’ll be there in costume!

The big question:  which movies do you want to see and which would you rather throw in the dumpster?