The Skiffy and Fanty Show Podcasts

179. Ann Leckie (a.k.a. Singularitrix) — Ancillary Justice (An Interview + Giveaway)

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http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode179AnInterviewWAnnLeckie/SandF%20–%20Episode%20179%20–%20An%20Interview%20w%20Ann%20Leckie.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSEmpires, spaceships, and corruption, oh my!  Author Ann Leckie joins us to discuss her much-discussed novel, Ancillary Justice.  We talk about gender paradigms (in her work and elsewhere), research, colonial empires, science fiction as a genre, and much more! We hope you enjoy the episode! Giveaway Rules: Answer the following question:  What is your favorite science fiction novel? Submit your answer as a comment below, an email message to skiffyandfanty[at]gmail[dot]com, or as a Tweet to @skiffyandfanty We’ll get in contact when we pick a winner on the 13th of December! 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 179 — Download (MP3) Show Notes: Ann’s Website Orbit Books John Harris’ Website You can also support this podcast by signing up for a one month free trial at Audible.  Doing so helps us, gives you a change to try out Audible’s service, and brings joy to everyone. 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.

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Geekomancer Under Glass: Fall 2013 Pilots (Part Two)

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This week, I’m going to take another look at Fall TV pilots in the geekiverse, from Tesla Steampunk Tony Stark to the latest Buddy Cops With Androids. Dracula The latest in a years-long trend of re-imaginings and re-boots, the Jonathan Rhys-Meyers-fronted Dracula takes the story forward to the early 20th century, where Vlad Tepes (a.k.a. Dracula) is resurrected from an intricate grave and heads to London to plot against the Ordo Draco, the group that destroyed his life and killed the love of his eternal life, Ilona.

The Skiffy and Fanty Show Podcasts

178. Emma Newman (a.k.a. Tea & Cake) — The Split Worlds Trilogy

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http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode178AnInterviewWEmmaNewman/SandF%20–%20Episode%20178%20–%20An%20Interview%20w%20Emma%20Newman.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSEmpires, the Fae, and cake, oh my!  Emma Newman, author of The Split Worlds Trilogy, joins Paul and Shaun to discuss her novels, the mentality of empires, feminism in her work, history, and much more. 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 178 — Download (MP3) Show Notes: Emma’s Website Emma’s Twitter Emma’s Books Tea & Jeopardy Angry Robot Books You can also support this podcast by signing up for a one month free trial at Audible.  Doing so helps us, gives you a change to try out Audible’s service, and brings joy to everyone. 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.

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Mining the Genre Asteroid: Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

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“Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come” A portion of that line from Revelations is a code phrase that Colonel Mark Bragg, U.S. Air Force has with his little brother Randolph (Randy Bragg). The scene is 1950’s Florida, the small river town of Fort Repose. A sleepy isolated burg, Mark has sent his wife and children to stay with Randy along with the message. Geopolitical tensions have been rising, from spy satellites to conflict in the Middle East. Events are rapidly moving toward a head. The Missile Gap and technological superiority on the part of the Warsaw Pact means that for the moment, the Soviet Union has an advantage over the United States. This imbalance is a temporary advantage, perhaps one large enough to use. The code phrase’s meaning, then?  Nuclear War is nigh.

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Adventures in Teaching: Trauma and Realism in (Some) Weird Novels

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Today was the last day of teaching for my survey course in American Literature.  As with all my literature courses, I included quite a few works of SF/F on the reading list, from “classic” SF like Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War to contemporary weirdness like Flight by Sherman Alexie.  This year, I realized there were a few unintentional trends in the works I’d selected.  First, almost every text I had my students read directly or indirectly addressed sex.  I’m not going to talk about that today, except to say that my students and I were quite amused that our small representation of American Literature seemed to suggest that all American Literature will talk about sex at some point.  That’s probably not true, but it’s amusing nonetheless. The more interesting unintentional theme is that of trauma and its representation through weirdness / magical realism / anti-realism.  This became apparent only recently, when we finished reading Flight by Sherman Alexie, a definitively non-realist novel about a time traveling / body-switching Native American foster kid who must discover himself through a myriad of other people’s experiences.  As the last novel for the course, it resonated quite well with several of the other recent texts, something I hadn’t expected at the time.  The angst and blunt honesty of the main character, Zits, on

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The Disquieting Guest — Horror in/and Fantasy

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A few weeks back, Shaun quipped to me that horror is “fantasy with scary bits.” Even further back, a discussion went around on Twitter as to whether horror and epic or high fantasy could coexist. A few remarks this week (which I will get to in due course) had me thinking about this issue again. As I’ve argued previously, horror is too polymorphous to be considered a genre — any attempt to define it as such winds up with exclusions and inclusions so remarkable as to invalidate the definition. For example:  an insistence that there must be an element of the supernatural excludes the likes of Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and so on. On the other hand, horror’s symbiotic/parasitic nature allows it

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