Genre Fiction

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Confessions of a Comics Junkie: Rooting for the Underdog (or, Characters Marvel Forgot to Love)

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Readers of my personal blog will recall that I recently got back into comic books.  And by “got back into” I mean “I now have almost three long boxes full of comics.”[1]  It’s an obsession.  So sue me. One of the things that has been most interesting to me on this journey back into comics is discovering how much has changed since I was a lax reader in the 90s.  I don’t mean in terms of the narratives, mind you (though those have changed, too), but rather in terms of the characters who have stuck around, moved to the background, or (supposedly) left us for good.[2]  Things have really changed. The most alarming change for me was the realization that some of the characters I loved as a kid have since taken a sideline to more “popular” folks.  Oh, hell, let’s face it.  The characters I liked as a kid, and the characters I have since started to cling to in the now, will never be as popular as Wolverine or Batman or Captain America or Iron Man or most of the folks gracing our movie screens these days.  They are, and probably always have been or will be, the underdogs.  But they’re also the characters for which I can’t help rooting.

Blog Posts

Feed the Machine: Black Hole Son

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Goodbye Big Bang, hello black hole? A new theory of the universe’s creation This week’s article is a doozy. It has everything a science fiction fan could want — branes, four dimensional stars, black holes, hyperspheres — and it is all completely true. That’s a bit misleading. Mathematically, the theory is plausible. There are still a few kinks and refinements, but it does posit some interesting possibilities for the origin of our universe. Now let’s get down to making that Purina Machine Chow.

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This Katamari Feels Cleaningsish — Magical Cleaning Methods!

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(That’s probably because you rolled up nothing but magical cleaning techniques.) I know that common wisdom says spring is the season for cleaning, but for me this autumn is setting off my cleaning impulse. The last week has seen me taking every spare moment to do things that are usually completely out of character, like taking a damp cloth to the miniblinds. It’s quite lovely to fall asleep secure in the knowledge that all the crevices under and around the bed have been swept, dusted, and heartily scrubbed, but at the same time, the more I clean, the more it feels like the house will never ever actually be free of dust. For some people, like maybe Martha Stewart, or Tony Stark, I bet this leads to inventing newer, scarier, more efficient cleaning tools and methods. Alas, I am not a ginormously wealthy businessperson, so it just makes me daydream about all the ways I could clean if only I had access to magic. Seriously, have you ever stopped to think about all the magical ways to clean things? Here are a few:

The Skiffy and Fanty Show Podcasts

167. Worldcon Walkby Session #2: WSFS, Cross-species Romance, and Science Fiction

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http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode167WorldconWalkbySession2/SandF%20–%20Episode%20167%20–%20Worldcon%20Walkby%20Session%20%232.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSCross-species romance, science fiction, and WSFS followups, oh my!  Rachael Acks joins us once again at Worldcon to talk about the second stage of the WSFS meetings, romantic SF, movies, fans, 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 167 — Download (MP3) Intro and Discussion (0:00 – 40:18) Rachael Acks’ Page Rachael’s posts on the WSFS meetings can be found here. Rachael Acks’ Twitter “The Preservation of White Male Privilege at WSFS” by Endorphin Junkie Alien Nation (IMDB) 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.

Blog Posts

Mining the Genre Asteroid: Ringworld

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Mining the Genre Asteroid is Paul Weimer’s look at the history of the science fiction and fantasy field, bringing to light important, interesting and entertaining books from science fiction and fantasy’s past to you. Welcome to the inaugural installment of Mining the Genre Asteroid. On a recent podcast, a Campbell award winning writer admitted that they had not read our first book, a seminal work of the field,  and so I thought that it would be a fine place to begin the column. Imagine a ring of material the size of Earth’s orbit around the sun. A vast structure with a surface area millions of times the size of earth’s continents. Hundreds of different human-like and not so human like species run rampant on it, at all sorts of levels of technology.  And yet, the builders of this amazing structure seem to be gone. This ring is not only an enigma, but it’s even unknown to the universe at large, until a powerful alien puts together an expedition of misfits to explore its mystery. I give you RINGWORLD.

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Adventures in SF Parenting: Kids and their YouTubez

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Recently, I realized that I am no longer relevant.  This was not something that I thought would happen to me at the tender age of 35, but I don’t really get a say in the matter.  It is also possible that I wouldn’t have realized this for another decade had I not had children at a very young age.  Or perhaps if I were less liberal with my computer usage policies in our home.  Regardless, the epiphany occurred, and it was mind blowing. A little background data for those of you who haven’t listened to The Skiffy and Fanty Show podcast –  I am the occasionally proud, more commonly flabbergasted, parent of two girls.  My daughters are 11 and 12 years of age, and they are both in 7th grade at a local public Junior High School.  You’ll learn more about that at some point in these “Adventures in SF Parenting” posts.  Suffice it to say, if you bothered to do the math, I had my kids when I was fairly young. I was 22 when my older daughter, Mo, was born, my husband was only 18.  That probably gave us an entirely different viewpoint on parenting than

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