Top 10 Posts and Episodes for April 2017
Time for another statistics post! Here’s what readers loved on our blog or podcast throughout April 2017: Top Posts: Metropolis (1927), Feminism, and Influence by Stina Leicht Beyond the Cliché Shelf: Making Characters Vibrant and Unexpected by Aliette de Bodard Breaking News: Peter Jackson to turn The Silmarillion into a 14-movie epic by Michael J. Martinez Book Review: CUCKOO SONG by Frances Hardinge (Reviewed by Daniel Haeusser) Ten Post-Apocalyptic Novels Written by Women by Nicolette Stewart The Intersection: AI and Creator-bias by Stina Leicht Book Review: Wothwood by Natania Barron (Reviewed by Paul Weimer) Book Review: The Weight of the World by Tom Toner (Reviewed by Paul Weimer) Book Review: Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer (Reviewed by Paul Weimer) Book Review: The House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard (Reviewed by Paul Weimer) Top Episodes: Signal Boost #1: George Sandison (2084) and Alexandra Pierce (Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler) 321. The Immigrant Experience in SFF w/ Sabrina Vourvoulias, Rose Lemberg, and Bogi Takács #55. Attack the Block (2011) — A Shoot the WISB Subcast w/ Tiara W. #03. The Last Command — Thrawn and On and On (A Star Wars Literary Podcast) 317. Disability in SF/F — A Discussion w/ Sarah Chorn and Elsa Sjunneson-Henry 313. Looking Back, Moving Forward: Anticipating 2017 #57. Get Out (2017) w/ Faridah Gbadamosi and Andrew Hackley — A Shoot the WISB Subcast 294. Mazes and Monsters (1982) — A Torture Cinema “Adventure” 320. Alex Wells/Acks (a.k.a. Social Justice Biker Witch) — Hunger Makes the Wolf (An Interview) 304. Scott Lynch and Elizabeth Bear (a.k.a. The Rakish Rogue and the Sky Marshall) — An Interview What did you enjoy the most? Let us know in the comments!
Book Review: Of Sand and Malice Made by Bradley Beaulieu
Before she started her quest for vengeance against the Twelve Kings of Sharakhai, Ceda had a different encounter with the supernatural otherness that infuses the world of the Shattered Sands. Early in her career as a pit fighter, her exploits, and a chance encounter, brought her to the attention of Rümayesh. Rümayesh is an ehrekh, a creature of fire and chaos living in Sharakhai under the guise of humanity. Her interest and fascination with Ceda, however, as with all who attracted her attention, is a corrosive, sadistic and destructive one, as befits her nature. Ceda found herself having to protect much more than just herself in order to ward against the creature’s manipulations. This is the story told in Of Sand and Malice Made, by Bradley Beaulieu. Of Sand and Malice Made isn’t really a prequel as I expected at the outset, but rather a side story to Ceda’s main tale. While Twelve Kings of Sharakhai has a number of threads in different time periods, Of Sand and Malice made is a much more straightforward narrative, set in a single time frame in between a couple of the time frames in Twelve Kings. Ceda is already the White Wolf, but relatively young and new to the arena, her youth being much more noteworthy than her skill. Ceda is still fighting for a place there, fighting to make her name. The novel does well in showing that she’s not the force of nature that she is in the “present” portions of Twelve Kings in Sharakhai.
Book review: Firebrand, by A.J. Hartley
I hate, hate, hate coming into a series in the middle (which means no, I haven’t read the first novel in this series, Steeplejack, but I sure plan to soon!), but I have a good personal track record with author A.J. Hartley, so I knew that if anyone could write a good middle book that still stands on its own it would be he. My assumption, in this case, proved absolutely correct, in case you’re wondering. Firebrand is the second volume in Hartley’s steampunk-flavored, young adult series “Alternative Detective”, and takes place a few months after the events in the first novel, which took a young woman from “steeplejack” (a person who works up high on the roofs and sides of very tall buildings, mostly cleaning chimneys but also doing repairs and maintenance and other sundry jobs) to amateur detective, and landed her in the very informal employ of a member of her city-state’s Parliament. As this novel opens, Anglet Sutonga is now enjoying an unaccustomed level of financial security and autonomy, but her sense of duty and survival instincts don’t let her get too comfortable, so as the novel opens, she is chasing an infamous cat burglar over the rooftops of Bar-Selehm, which leads her into a whole new mystery of linked and nested conspiracies, exploitation, human trafficking, treason and, of course, murder.
The 2017 Charity Fundraiser for Human Rights Watch: Make Us Review Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) for a Good Cause!
For the next two months, we will be raising $500 for Human Rights Watch for the opportunity to entertain our listeners! HRW have done some amazing work, and we’re happy to contribute to their mission by subjecting ourselves to bad movies! Here are the full details:
Book Review: All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
A SecUnit assigned to the exploratory group PreservationAux has a problem. Two in fact. As an android, it’s supposed to serve the small exploratory mission to which it has been assigned. The SecUnit’s entire function is to support the exploratory mission’s investigation of a local planetary environment that it has placed a bid on to look at. Androids like SecUnit are a safety precaution from the Company because, well, alien planets can be rather hostile. And of course, they are handy recording devices, too, for the Company that is. A mandatory helper and a spy for anyone looking to explore the wild frontier in space. Given that planets are not monolithic single-biome worlds, having multiple teams from competing groups spread out across a newly found world is a pretty regular thing. Who knows what you will find over in the next valley, down the river a bit, from another team. One team can’t find everything on a planet. So when a neighboring team to SecUnit’s goes dark, that’s a bad sign for its team, a major concern. What disaster befell them? Environmental? Natural? Something else? Given the proximity, is it a threat to PreservationAux, and to SecUnit itself?
Torture Cinema Poll: Mayday!
Well, everyone, Babylon AD was pretty awful. More awful than some of us remembered. So good job on your April pick! This time around, there are no redeeming features to any of these movies. We swear. None. So pick away and be confident that whatever you do choose, it will be torturous for our participants!!
