Author name: Skiffy Fanty

The Skiffy and Fanty Show Podcasts

Episode 5. The Swimmer (1968): The Surreality and Collapse of WASP Culture

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http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/TotallyPretentiousEpisode005TheSwimmer/TotallyPretentiousEpisode005–TheSwimmer.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSThe Surreality and Collapse of WASP Culture! In our fifth episode, we discuss what we’ve been watching lately — a little bit of Dredd and Abel Ferrara — and then head back to the 60s to discuss the recently-reappraised Burt Lancaster film, The Swimmer (1968; dir. Frank Perry).   We tackle the film’s exploration of age and morality, its stunning indictment of WASP culture, the film’s rocky history, and much more. We’re also still working on our Subscriber Drive so we can add a second episode to the show.  More details on that to come on the blog! Enjoy!

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Book Review: Queen of the Deep by Kay Kenyon

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Janet Zabrinski, now Jane Gray for the stage, is an actress with dreams of being in a Broadway production. It’s not an easy life, however, in the big city of New York. Her best friend and roommate Rickie is battling cancer. Things seem to be just falling apart, with strange dust storms, the world crumbling, and an odor of decay about the city, and the entire world. Even as the role of her life falls into her lap, an encounter with a childhood friend, a childhood friend that Jane had thought to be imaginary, sends her into a space between worlds, and to another universe. A strange universe indeed, one shaped and in the appearance of a great ocean liner, a world whose fate has unexpected connections to Earth. And to Jane herself.

The Skiffy and Fanty Show Podcasts

272. German Language SF at LonCon3 w/ Martin Stricker, Ju Honisch, Oliver Plaschka, Volker Tanger, and Stefanie Zurek

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http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode272GermanLanguageSFAtLonCon3/SandF%20–%20Episode%20272%20–%20German%20Language%20SF%20at%20LonCon3.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSAchtung, deutsche Science-Fiction im Haus!  In our last recording from LonCon3, we present the panel on German Language SF featuring Martin Stricker, Ju Honisch, Oliver Plaschka, Volker Tanger, and Stefanie Zurek! Here is the panel description: Recent years have seen several major German SF novels appear in English, including Wolfgang Jeschke’s “The Cusanus Game”, Frank Schatzing’s “The Swarm”, and Julie Zeh’s “The Method”. Are these representative of the contemporary German field? Which other writers (and film-makers, and TV shows) are defining contemporary German SF? 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 272 — Download (MP3) Show Notes:

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Book Review: Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge

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It is England during the reign of King George V. The Machine Age is at its peak, and human society is in flux, becoming increasingly urbanized, secular. The Great War has come to a close, but the traumatic devastation it has wrought echoes on in family’s lives. Nations struggle to recover and political/economic turmoil presages greater conflicts and changes to come. What the future holds is not only a concern for humanity, but also for The Besiders, a race that has lived alongside us in the margins, driven further into the isolated shadows as human civilization spreads. Eleven-year-old Triss Crescent awakens in a bed surrounded by her parents and a doctor, her memory fragmented and incomplete. She gradually recalls that the family is together on vacation, and that she has had an accident, coming close to drowning in the Grimmer, a local millpond. But she has difficulty remembering the details of how she fell in, or how she managed to get out. Triss’ younger sister Pen was there to witness the accident, but Pen sulks in the corner of the room, far from Triss, and won’t say more than angrily proclaim that Triss is lying, pretending; that Triss is not who she claims to be.

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Book Review: The End of the Sentence by Maria Dahvana Headley and Kat Howard

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Malcolm Mays has been running from a tragic event in his past. His flight has taken him to the tiny community of Ione, Oregon. There, he has bought an old, abandoned house to make his own, sight unseen. Much to his surprise, the town knows all about the House, and its reputation casts a long shadow indeed. Worse, Malcolm is getting impossible letters from a prisoner, Dusha, in the Oregon state prison who should be long dead. A prisoner that tells Malcolm that the house will “welcome him” but that Malcolm must prepare for Dusha’s release from the prison at the end of the sentence. Impossible letters, a haunted house, dark secrets, the dread coming of Dusha, and Malcolm’s own tragic past come together in The End of the Sentence, a Subterranean Press novella, a collaboration between  Maria Dahvana Headley and Kat Howard.

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“Ten Post-Apocalyptic Novels Written by Women” by Nicolette Stewart

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There are 1000 ways to end the world, and fictional explorations of those possibilities have been popular (more so whenever disaster seems near at hand) for going on 200 years. But why do we love to watch the world burn?  Is it a desire to start over?  A catharsis for our fears about things out of our control? Or just a fun thought experiment in which we can examine the actions and reactions of humans put in the most extreme of situations?

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