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Urban Fantasy in World SF: Scale-Bright by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

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Demons stalking the streets, hidden from ordinary view and prying eyes, living their lives as ordinary people. A pair of goddesses in a long term, loving, and sometimes fraught relationship. A (relatively) ordinary mortal, swept up in events by a chance meeting with one of the aforementioned demons, drawing her deeper into a magical portion of the world. This sounds like the latest urban fantasy, doesn’t it? The city is probably New York City, maybe London, right? The Goddesses are probably Greco-Roman, maybe Norse? The demon is probably of Judeo-Christian origin? Bog standard Urban Fantasy, right? No, no, no, and no. The Goddesses are Chinese, and one of them is a gender-flipped version of a God from Chinese Mythology. And yes, they are married (and oh the scandal in Heaven!). Similarly, the demons are from that same tradition, and the city is Hong Kong. This is urban fantasy, if one will call it that, of a different sort. This is Scale-Bright, by Benjanun Sriduangkaew.

The Skiffy and Fanty Show Podcasts

#26. In the Flesh (Season One) — A Shoot the WISB Subcast w/ Catherine Hill

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http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/ShootTheWISB26InTheFleshSeasonOneWCatherineHill/Shoot%20the%20WISB%20%2326%20–%20In%20the%20Flesh%20%28Season%20One%29%20w%20Catherine%20Hill.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSZombies, race allegories, and disgruntled fathers, oh my!  Shaun, Julia, Paul, and Mike are joined by the lovely Catherine Hill to discuss the first season BBC3’s In the Flesh (you all need to be watching this; no joke). We hope you enjoy the episode! Note:  This episode is also one of the perks for Shaun’s World SF Tour fundraiser.  Catherine was selected to participate in an episode; we decided to record it at LonCon3! Spoiler Alert:  the following podcast contains spoilers for the film being reviewed; if you wish to see the film without having it ruined for you, download this podcast and save it for later. Download the episode here. [audio http://archive.org/download/ShootTheWISB24SherlockSeasonOne/Shoot%20the%20WISB%20%2324%20–%20Sherlock%20%28Season%20One%29.mp3] Show notes (info about our contributors can be found on the about page): In the Flesh (BBC3)(IMDB) Catherine’s Website Catherine’s Twitter Comment away!

Blog Posts

Book Review: Phantasm Japan edited by Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington

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Occasionally, I read something and don’t particularly want to review it so much as say, just read this. Or produce a review consisting of nothing but quotations from the text:  let the evidence speak. Phantasm Japan, a 2014 anthology edited by Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington, is such a book. Pardon me while I spend the next several hundred words embarrassingly fangirl-gushing about it. There are a few different ways to measure an anthology’s success. The one that is used most often is determining how many of the stories the reader liked versus how many they didn’t. While there’s nothing wrong with this as a metric, it’s not the primary one I use. My favorite anthologies shift my perception in some fundamental way, whether by some of the stories taken individually or by the aggregate body. Phantasm Japan does both. Considerably. Of course, producing a collection that’s bold and smart is not without risk; two or three of the more cerebral stories in this anthology sailed right over my head. There were several more that blew my mind in the best possible way.

The Skiffy and Fanty Show Podcasts

222. Hawk the Slayer (1980) — A Torture Cinema “Adventure”

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http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/TheSkiffyAndFantyShowseasonFiveEpisode222TortureCinemaMeetsHawk/Sandf–Episode222–TortureCinemaMeetsHawkTheSlayer.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSRepeating magic crossbows, emotionless heroes, and gentle giants, oh my!  You voted for it.  We watched it, and then we got intoxicated and talked about it.  Feel our pain in this special LonCon3 editions of the British-produced Hawk the Slayer (1980)! 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 222 — Download (MP3)  Show Notes: Hawk the Slayer (1980)(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.

Blog Posts

Monopoly and Appropriation

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is there a support group for people who used to like the word “diversity” but now they want to burn it with fire — Sofia Samatar (@SofiaSamatar) September 3, 2014 While appropriation is a two-way street, it is not always equal. Filipinos, Singaporeans, and Indians, for example, have appropriated English as their own language, and yet we are still often complimented for our good English. The corollary to that is best summed up by this statement from Aliette de Bodard:

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Book Review: SOFT APOCALYPSES by Lucy A. Snyder

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Soft is a particularly ironic description for this collection of short fiction by Lucy A. Snyder. Brutal. Grisly. Unflinching. These are all words that are easier to associate with the dark nature of her stories. Indeed, a cover blurb by Seanan McGuire states that Snyder’s work “attacks the page with the raw, manic intensity of an early Sam Raimi.”

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