#05. Crosscurrent – Thrawn and On and On (A Star Wars Literary Podcast)
https://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFThrawnandOnandOn5Crosscurrent/SandF–ThrawnandOnandOn5–Crosscurrent.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSJack up your hyperspace engines and get your Sith bath salts ready! Shaun, Alex, and Kate bounce back in time to the OLD Canon (Legends) for an in-depth discussion of Paul S. Kemp’s Crosscurrent. And “time” really is the word of the day. The crew of this absurdly comical starfreighter take a look at how Kemp’s novel deals with Force users in two drastically different time periods, the role of vengeance and doubt in the battle between the Dark and Light, and even the eccentricities of the Unknown Regions. Plus, this is the first book they’ve read that is downright creepy, so you better believe they’ve got a few things to say about getting the willies while reading a Star Wars novel. We hope you enjoy the episode!
Torture Cinema #90: Kull the Conqueror (1997)
https://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFTortureCinema90KullTheConqueror/SandF–Torture_Cinema_90–Kull_the_Conqueror.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSApe men, nicked bits, and shirtless Sorbo, oh my! Shaun, Stephen, and Daniel join forces to fulfill their dudetastic Torture Cinema destiny by discussing 1997’s Kull the Conqueror (starring Hercules). They discuss the history behind the film, why it fails miserably at just about everything (action, romance, adventure, carefully crafted plots), and what it’s like to contemplate Kevin Sorbo’s bedroom abilities. We’re sorry about this one, folks, but our Patreon supports picked it, and we are bound by honor and blood to fulfill our sacred duties. Join us for this special dudetastic discussion of one of the most horrifically awful action movies of all time! We hope you enjoy the episode!
Book Review: LISTEN TO THE SIGNAL (Short Stories, Vol 1) by Rob Dircks
If your busy lifestyle is leaving you with little time to enjoy the speculative fiction that you love, allow me to suggest a remedy: short story collections and anthologies. Such books require a low time commitment, and if a few days — or weeks — go by between the moments you manage to carve out for reading, recalling details isn’t a struggle. Reading shorts, though, can still tease the imagination, challenge a preconception, and let you explore a tiny slice of another life — maybe even another life form. And in that realm, you could do far, far worse than treating yourself to Rob Dircks’ Listen to the Signal: Short Stories, Vol 1. Collecting work from the author’s short fiction podcast of the same name, Listen to the Signal is a delightful bounty of fun ideas, clever twists, and endings that leave just enough to the reader’s own imagination to beguile a tedious wait for a doctor or car wash or turn at the DMV — or, my personal choice for short fiction, as bedtime stories for grown ups. Although, let me add, there is nothing here that, say, a mother should hesitate to let a young’un read, especially in her attempts to cultivate in the kid a love for her favorite genre (i.e. this is a precocious and kid-friendly collection).
Comics Review – ON A SUNBEAM is brilliant and beautiful
Welcome to the latest installment of my comics review column here at Skiffy & Fanty! Every month, I use this space to shine a spotlight on SF&F comics (print comics, graphic novels, and webcomics) that I believe deserve more attention from SF&F readers. This month, I’m going to explore one of this year’s Best Graphic Story Hugo nominees, a work (and a creator) that, to my embarrassment, I was previously unfamiliar with. What work might that be? The remarkable On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden. Warning: this review contains spoilers! I knew nothing else about On A Sunbeam, but after it landed a Hugo nomination, I knew I was going to need to read it. I figured I’d give it a shorter review as part of an overview of the nominees (like this one from last year). Roughly three minutes after picking up and beginning to read a copy at this year’s Toronto Comics Arts Festival, I knew that approach was not going to fly. This is an important work by a remarkable talent, and it merits more than a capsule review. It is deep and heartfelt, and it is a major work of science fiction that deserves every accolade that it’s received.
Korean Movie Review: Flu (2013)
If you need to know one thing about Flu (2013), know that it tries very, very hard to convey to its audience the importance of treating people with dignity and humanity — and that within the first five minutes, it fails in the most hamfisted of ways. It might seem like a strange choice to review a disaster film for a SFF column, but when you think about it, disaster films also take a premise based on scientific facts — in this case, an epidemic — and extrapolate it to an extreme level. Directed by Kim Sung Soo and written by Kim and Lee Young Jong, Flu imagines what would happen if a mutated version of the avian flu virus were to hit Bundang, South Korea. Infected patients die within 36 hours, sporting large rashes and vomiting blood, all of which results in mass panic and the inhumane detainment of Bundang’s citizens, who are all condemned to extermination by a political elite more concerned with saving their own skins than valuing the lives of the ordinary people. At the center of Flu is Kim In Hae (Soo Ae), a doctor involved in the effort to find a cure for the virus; Kang Ji Goo (Jang Hyuk), an everyman rescue worker who crosses paths with In Hae after saving her from a car crash; and Mi Reu (Park Min Ha), In Hae’s daughter. And that’s where the movie really falters, because even while trying to tell a story about the grotesqueries of a callous government wholly unconcerned about protecting its people, it chooses the most respectable characters as the heroes of the story.
Short Fiction Review: April 2019
My favorite stories often revolve around similar themes: justice, community, gender, and religion. In April 2019, the dominant themes in my favorite stories were gender and justice (or lack thereof), two important topics that intersect our lives in countless ways. These stories include “In That Place She Grows a Garden” by Del Sandeen in FIYAH Literary Magazine; “A Conch-Shell’s Notes” by Shweta Adhyam in Lightspeed Magazine; and “Vīs Dēlendī” by Marie Brennan in Uncanny Magazine. I found these stories emotionally and intellectually engaging, and they asked me to approach the themes of gender and justice from a variety of perspectives.
