My Superpower: Cassandra Rose Clarke
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 Cassandra Rose Clarke to talk about how the power of making time for TV (psst: and organization) relates to The Wizard’s Promise. ——————————– Let us consider Wolverine. His superpower appears to be the ability to retract claws out of his knuckles like a cat, and indeed, for many years as a child I thought that was his superpower and wondered how such a weirdly specific mutation could come to be. But at some point I learned that Wolverine’s actual superpower is regeneration. It allows him to retract claws out of his knuckles like a cat and do other wonders as well — but mostly the cat claw thing. My writerly superpower is the same way.
202. Highlander II: the Quickening (1991) — A Torture Cinema “Adventure” w/ Mike Martinez
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode202TortureCinemaMeetsHighlanderIIWMikeMartinez/SandF%20–%20Episode%20202%20–%20Torture%20Cinema%20Meets%20Highlander%20II%20w%20Mike%20Martinez.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSImmortal weirdos, amazing suits, and hoverboard sword battles, oh my! Shaun, Jen, and Julia are joined by special guest, Michael J. Martinez, to discuss Highlander II: the Quickening, the officially forgotten Highlander sequel…about which we’re now going to remind every Highlander fan via this episode. Note: This episode was recorded live. However, viewers of the video file will not have heard the skit, which appears at the front of the mp3. We hope you enjoy the episode! (This episode was selected as a result of the perks on Shaun’s Worldcon fundraiser. Please support our efforts to bring the Skiffy and Fanty Show and the World SF Tour to Worldcon! Every little bit helps.) 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 202 — Download (MP3) Show Notes: Highlander II: the Quickening (1991)(IMDB) Mike’s Website Mike’s Books Mike’s Twitter 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.
201. The Hugo Awards (A Discussion w/ Justin Landon and Natalie Luhrs)
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode201TheHugoAwardsWJustinLandonAndNatalieLuhrs/SandF%20–%20Episode%20201%20–%20The%20Hugo%20Awards%20w%20Justin%20Landon%20and%20Natalie%20Luhrs.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSControversies, award changes, and the Hugos, oh my! Justin Landon and Natalie Luhrs join Shaun, Paul, and Jen to discuss the recently announced Hugo Award nominees — the good, the bad, and the awesome. We hope you enjoy the episode! (Please support our efforts to bring the Skiffy and Fanty Show and the World SF Tour to Worldcon! Every little bit helps.) 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 201 — Download (MP3) Show Notes: The Hugo Award Nominees Staffer’s Book Review Justin’s Twitter Radish Reviews Natalie’s Twitter Trading Rosemary by Octavia Cade 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.
Book Review: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
It’s a pleasure to re-read (or re-listen) to an old favorite. In an age where readers (including myself) look for new books, new authors, new perspectives, and new good stuff, I appreciate having the chance to revisit something, even from 7 years ago, that, if anything, holds up better for me now than it did when I read it. Camorr. A Venetian-style fantasy city, complete with canals, a strong mercantile sector that drives the rest of the city and the region around it. A city where the Duke rules, the Dons reign, the Bankers cash in and the ordinary person is caught between them and the nest of thieves who infest the city. By the command of Capa Barsavi, the lord of thieves, who has made a bargain with the duke’s spymaster, the thieves do not touch the Duke, or the Dons, but all others are fair game. And what game they are.
#18. Summer Wars (2009) w/ Daniel Huddleston — #WorldSFTour
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/ShootTheWISB18SummerWars2009WDanielHuddlestonWorldSFTour/Shoot%20the%20WISB%20%2318%20–%20Summer%20Wars%20%282009%29%20w%20Daniel%20Huddleston%20–%20%23WorldSFTour.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSRogue A.I., family troubles, and MMO-run civilizations, oh my! To celebrate Japanese cinema, we’re joined by translator Daniel Huddleston for a discussion of Mamoru Hosoda’s 2009 film, Summer Wars. You may be familiar with Hosoda’s other excellent work, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time; Summer Wars is also an excellent work. We hope you enjoy the episode! Spoiler Alert: the following podcast contains spoilers for the film being reviewed; if you wish to see the film without having it ruined for you, download this podcast and save it for later. Download the episode here. [audio http://archive.org/download/ShootTheWISB18SummerWars2009WDanielHuddlestonWorldSFTour/Shoot%20the%20WISB%20%2318%20–%20Summer%20Wars%20%282009%29%20w%20Daniel%20Huddleston%20–%20%23WorldSFTour.mp3] Show notes (info about our contributors can be found on the about page): Summer Wars (IMDB) Mamoru Hosoda (IMDB) Daniel Huddleston’s translation work: Virus by Sakyo Komatsu Apparitions: Ghosts of Old Endo by Miyuki Miyabe Speculative Japan 3 Comment away!
Cultural Tourists (Part 2): Publishing and Representation
Wendy Xu has a brilliant and critical assessment of racism in Eleanor and Park, and it’s tempered by Mike Jung’s post on how he can experience both love and be troubled by the novel. The latter is one of the complicated experiences of a reader is who is not privileged, who constantly struggles to find themselves in the literature they read and who sometimes settles for any representation. If in Part 1 I talked about the behavior of cultural tourists, let’s look at the larger implications of that here. In the Philippines for example, we have several talented authors like Eliza Victoria, Ian Rosales Casocot, and Dean Francis Alfar. Unfortunately, their readership is dwarfed by the number of fans of Western authors like Robert Jordan, J.K. Rowling, and George R. R. Martin. If our authors aren’t being read in our own country, how much better will they fare overseas? And this isn’t a scenario unique to the Philippines. It happens to a lot of countries affected by colonialism or imperialism (or both).
