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Top 10 Episodes and Posts for November 2014

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November should have been more eventful than it turned out, what with the Month of Joy and all that.  But a combination of travel, illness, endless mountains of grading, and Gremlins kept me from doing what needed doing around here.  In any case, these are the things the readers and listeners enjoyed throughout November. Top 10 Episodes: #08 — The Riddick Trilogy (2000, 2004, & 2013) — A Shoot the WISB Discussion 234. Ann Leckie (a.k.a. Singularitrix) — Ancillary Sword (An Interview) 190. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (2009): A Torture Cinema “Adventure” #28. Interstellar (2014) — A Shoot the WISB Subcast 231. City Building in Urban Fantasy (CONvergence Panel w/ Emma Bull, Tania Richter, Kathryn Sullivan, and Christoforo Pasquarette) 233. Alma Alexander (a.k.a. The Tree Shifter) — Random (An Interview) 230. Celine Kiernan (a.k.a. the Ghost of Nimh) — Into the Grey (An Interview) 229. Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) — A Live Torture Cinema “Adventure” (Halloween Special) 192. Australian Speculative Fiction w/ Tansy Rayner Roberts & Marianne de Pierres (the World SF Tour) 193. New Zealander Speculative Fiction w/ Helen Lowe, Norman Cates, & Stephen Minchin Top 10 Posts: “The Mysterious Appeal of Tintin” by Jonathan Wood Mining the Genre Asteroid: A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny (by Paul Weimer) Squeeing About Superheroines by Tansy Rayner Roberts — #monthofjoy A (World) SFF Film Odyssey: Mutant Girls Squad (2010) and Anime’s Excesses (by Shaun Duke) Women Destroy Reviewing! (by Cecily Kane) “Dying is easy. It’s comedy that’s hard” — Willful Child by Steven Erikson (by Paul Weimer) A World SF Reading List (by Shaun Duke) On the Joy of Battlestar Galactica (by Shaun Duke) Metropolis (1927), Feminism, and Influence (by Stina Leicht) My Superpower: Benjanun Sriduangkaew Enjoy!

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Book Review: The Blood of Angels by Johanna Sinisalo

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Most readers could fly through Lola Rogers’ translation of The Blood of Angels by Finnish author Johanna Sinisalo in a handful of hours. Yet, as the relatively brief enjoyment of a spoonful of honey belies the phenomenal labor of countless bees, so too does consumption of this novel’s simple, flowing prose hide the rich, complex depth of its construction and significance. Sinisalo’s novel captures an apocalyptic, large-scale focus on humanity that is typical of speculative fiction, yet keeps a keenly literary focus on the psychological trials of an individual and family. In a near future of worldwide catastrophic ecologic change and economic crisis, apiarist Orvo finds his life personally shaken when his long-absent, inattentive father, Ari, returns from the devastated United States and when his activist son, Eero, tragically dies. Ari had taken over Hopevale Meats slaughterhouse, putting him in opposition to Eero’s dedication to animal rights and leadership in organized disruption of industries that utilize – and in Eero’s mind exploit – animals. Eero’s activities and passionate beliefs are only fully revealed to Orvo after his son’s death and discovering Eero’s posts in a personal blog and on the extremist Animalist Revolutionary Army website Eero ran.

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On the Joy of Battlestar Galactica

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I came to Battlestar Galactica (the reboot) quite late.  In fact, I think I finally got into the show near the end of its second season.  Something about that first season didn’t grab me the first time I watched; the same happened to the first season of Doctor Who.  But for some reason, I went back to BSG to see if I could figure out what everyone loved about the thing…and in a handful of episodes, I was hooked.  Not just hooked.  Obsessed.

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Movie Review: David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (1999) — #monthofjoy

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The movie opens with the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) writing a title on a chalkboard: “eXistenZ. Written like this. One word. Small e. capital X, capital Z.”  A virtual reality game, led by the designer itself, goes violent and wrong. As she and her companion flee assassins and death, their exploration within the game itself soon blurs the lines between game and reality.

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Geekomancer Under Glass: Month of Joy Comics-Palooza

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Our robo-goblin overlord has declared a Month of Joy, and allowed that in this month, by his grace, I am allowed to be right about comics. Therefore, this month, I’m going to do a round-up of comics I’ve been loving. Which is a lot, since this is the year I decided to get into comics writing, and as a result, have been reading a LOT of comics, especially since Baltimore Comic-Con. Here’s a round-up of some of the books that have wowed me this month:

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My Superpower: Justin Robinson (Get Blank)

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My Superpower is a regular guest column on the Skiffy and Fanty blog where authors and creators tell us about one weird skill, neat trick, highly specialized cybernetic upgrade, or other superpower they have, and how it helped (or hindered!) their creative process as they built their project. Today we welcome Justin Robinson to talk about how the power of art relates to Get Blank. —————————————— If I’m ever interrogated by a foreign power — something I was convinced would happen from the moment I saw my first James Bond film until lunchtime last Tuesday — there’s one thing that can never possibly break me. Bad movies.

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