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Torture Cinema #83: Atlantis: The Lost Continent (1961)

https://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFTortureCinema83AtlantisTheLostContinent/Sandf-TortureCinema83-AtlantisTheLostContinent.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS Crystal lasers, pig people, and recycled costumes, oh my! In today’s episode of Torture Cinema, Paul, Alex, Daniel, and the prodigal son, Shaun, gather together to make absolutely sure that the destroyed civilization of Atlantis stays destroyed as they review the disastrous George Pal 1961 disaster movie, Atlantis: The Lost Continent. The team discusses everything from the shoddy world-building, the shaky special effects, the lazy misogyny, and the fact that this movie fails the Bechdel-Wallace test SO BAD that it technically couldn’t even hope to pass it. This movie is apparently so awful that even the director hated it, but Paul is such a clever salesperson that you might actually want to see it by the end of this podcast. Just don’t listen to Shaun. It’s not THAT bad. Really, we swear. (Don’t listen to the narrator of these posts. The movie is totally awful. –Shaun) We hope you enjoy the episode!

Book Review: The Ninety-Ninth Bride by Catherine Faris King

The cover of Catherine F. King's "The Ninety-Ninth Bride."

Catherine Faris King’s debut novel, The Ninety-Ninth Bride, is a beautiful retelling of the tale of  Scheherazade, and the thousand and one nights of stories that kept a bride alive.  But The Ninety-Ninth Bride is not directly about Scheherazade, the famed woman who tamed a king.  Instead, King tells the story of Dunya, a young girl in a family that cares little for her, whose open heart and wide eyes make for a unique perspective on the events of those thousand and one nights. Dunya is but 15 when she offers to help her father, and is given to the Sultan as his next bride in a string of murdered women.  The Sultan has executed the last ninety-eight women he has married, driven mad by the betrayal of his first Sultana, and Dunya fears for the worst.  But on her wedding night, Dunya is surprised to discover that there is another bride in the chamber—Zahra, who saves Dunya by telling the Sultan a tale each and every night, postponing the Sultan’s rage.  But there is something bigger at work, infecting the land and causing troubles for humans and magical folk alike, and Dunya is determined to fix it, no matter the cost.

Signal Boost #41 — Tansy Rayner Roberts (ed. Mother of Invention) & Sam Hawke (City of Lies)

https://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFSignalBoost41RobertsHawke/Sandf–SignalBoost41–RobertsHawke.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSIn today’s episode of Signal Boost, Elizabeth talks to Dr. Tansy Rayner Roberts, writer and editor extraordinaire, about 12th Planet Press’s robot creation anthology, Mother of Invention, which Tansy co-edited with Rivqa Rafael! The two discuss a bit of Tansy’s experience as an editor, how much she enjoyed going through the Kickstarter progress, what the anthology is about and how they gathered the stories (including one by Elizabeth! Yay Elizabeth!), and much more! Elizabeth stays down-under with an interview with Sam Hawke about her debut novel, City of Lies! They discuss how Sam’s love of food inspired a central premise of the story, what made her decide to focus on a sibling relationship and how that relationship was complicated by the physical limitations of one of them, the myth that women don’t write epic fantasy, and more! We hope you enjoy the episode!

Short Fiction Review: August 2018

Over the past several months, I’ve been using this column to spotlight my favorite new short stories. In particular, I’ve been attempting to spotlight work by new writers and/or writers with marginal identities. This month, I’m going to try something slightly different. Rather than spotlight short stories, I’m going to spotlight publications. Why? I was able to read a lot of short fiction over the last month, and there’s a lot of good work that deserves attention. In particular, this last month, most of my favorite stories appeared in these three publications: Nightmare Magazine (for the horror addicts), Anathema: Spec from the Margins (for those of you who love superb worldbuilding), and Broken Metropolis: Queer Tales of a City That Never Was, a new anthology of queer urban fantasy.

Book Review: HEARTS OF TABAT by Cat Rambo

Cat Rambo’s name should be a familiar one to any SF and Fantasy fans reading short fiction. Beyond publishing fiction in numerous premier outlets she also co-edited Fantasy Magazine (until its merger with Lightspeed) and served as President of the Science Fiction Writers of America. For me, Rambo’s stories fell into that category where I’d come across her name in a table of contents with pleased familiarity, but not that excited anticipation of a story that I would all but be guaranteed to love. Though always admiring her talented writing, I tend to connect with, and appreciate, her stories through a spectrum that runs from adoration to unaffected.

Speculative Fiction in Translation #8: Solarpunk, Nexhumans, and Ball Lightning

https://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SFiTEpisode8SolarpunkNexhumansAndBallLightning/Sfit-Episode8-SolarpunkNexhumansAndBallLightning.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSThis month’s episode is packed with info about the SFT from Algeria, Japan, Serbia, Italy, Brazil, Portugal, Russia, and China. It’s a vibrant mix of new books in a series, anthologies, novels, and stories, which I know you’ll enjoy. Plus, you can check out reviews of these and other stories around the internet. I also tell you about my current reading and translation work (starting a new project translating one of my favorite authors, Clelia Farris!). With new stories and books coming to our attention each week, make sure to check the SFT website for updates. Enjoy, and keep reading! A bientôt!