Book Review: Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
This semester, I’m teaching a course on American literature which seeks to challenge what that term actually means and how we can define “American Lit” as something which is multi-national, multi-cultural, and infinitely larger. After all, we live in the Americas; technically speaking, Canadians are Americans in this sense of the term. That’s why I’m here talking about Surfacing by Margaret Atwood and not As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. Though only loosely fantastic, Atwoods Surfacing is a complex, character-driven feminist tale about relationships, patriarchy, nationalism, and the human psyche. It follows an unnamed narrator who returns with her friends to her childhood home to search for her missing father, who she assumes has either died or run off into the woods. As she tries to piece together her father’s last days from the clues left in his cabin, she is confronted with her friends’ abusive marriage, her recent and distant past, and the crippling expectations of post-WW2 society (and the changes brought on by the Quiet Revolution in 1960s Quebec). Though not intended as horror, Surfacing explores its themes with a sense of impending terror, such that the final moments, which I won’t discuss in any detail here, are profoundly fantastic, with the character drama forming the root of an exploding, terror-driven tree.
Boo! Horror in Southeast Asia!
When I was growing up, I heard stories about the flying heads-with-entrails that would lurk in the dark. People would grow cacti or thorny plants in their gardens to deter such horrific creatures. So there I was, listening to my relatives breathlessly account their experiences (or friend of a friend’s, you know, the usual) of finding one of those flying heads stuck in the cacti, their entrails caught and snared. Then, there were the stories when I grew up and started working. How my friend’s father confronted a pontianak out right. They had heard her shrieks in the darkness. Frightened, they huddled, but the father simply stalked out and challenged the Pontianak: “I know you are here! Show yourself!” A pontianak is a spirit of a woman who has died in childbirth and undead; she stalks for blood, especially the blood of a newborn and its mother.
My Superpower: Steve McHugh
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 Steve McHugh to talk about how the power of Having a Brain That Won’t Shut Up relates to With Silent Screams. ——————————– My superpower is a brain that won’t shut up. I don’t mean just one that’s always full of new ideas and stories, but one that just won’t let something go. Now, as a writer, 9 times out of 10, this is the greatest gift in the world. The ability to keep coming up with fresh ideas and stories is pretty much essential if I want to keep writing new books. Normally I’ll have an idea, a glimmer of a story or character, and then I’ll spend the next few days thinking on it, mulling it over and allowing it to evolve into whatever it needs to in order to grow. I discard the notions that don’t work, or file them away for use later, and see how far it needs to go before whatever gave me that initial thought becomes something fully formed and much more real.
The Disquieting Guest — The Sublime Terror of Kaiju
In 1985, I had the chance to see Godzilla on the big screen for the first time since that treasured day in the mid-70s, when my father took me to a matinee of Godzilla vs. the Thing (aka Mothra vs. Godzilla, 1964). On this occasion, the film was Godzilla 1985 (aka The Return of Godzilla, 1984). Like the 1954 original, it had been re-edited by its American distributor, with Raymond Burr shoehorned in. It was also dubbed. I didn’t care. It was Godzilla. When a couple of kids (about eight years old, I’m guessing) called out “Hi, Godzilla!” when he appeared, I barely restrained myself from doing the same. But there was another voice in that theatre. In the row ahead of me, a couple sat with their daughter. She was young enough (four? five?) that it’s possible this was her first movie. Twice during the film, I heard a small voice emerge from the seat in front of me with a quavering, “This scares me.” The first time was early in the film, when a corpse is found on a derelict ship. The second time was when Godzilla’s massive foot comes down on a fleeing crowd.
195. Sons of Steel (1988): A Torture Cinema “Adventure” w/ Danny Oz
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode195TortureCinemaMeetsSonsOfSteel/SandF%20–%20Episode%20195%20–%20Torture%20Cinema%20Meets%20Sons%20of%20Steel.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS80s hair bands, nuclear submarines, and mutant grunts, oh my! In celebration of Australian cinema, we’re joined by Danny Oz to discuss his favorite terrible movie ever, Sons of Steel. Trust me, you won’t want to miss this episode… 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 195 — Download (MP3) Show Notes: Sons of Steel (1988)(IMDB) Sons of Steel Website Danny’s Twitter Danny’s Website 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.
For Your Hugo Award Consideration: A Very Big, Non-Endorsement List of Things to Love
We’re not going to release a Skiffy and Fanty endorsed set of Hugo Award nomination lists this year (though I might do so on my personal blog in the next month). Yes, we’re eligible for Best Fancast (and technically you can nominate our Sharknado episode for Best Related Work OR “The Great Lake Conspiracy (A Mustache and the Mutt Mystery)” for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) if you want to be cute). We do appreciate every vote we’ve received so far. But this post isn’t about us. It’s about all the books, writers, critics, movies, and so on that have been a part of the show throughout 2013. So what follows is a giant list of possibilities. At the very least, it’ll give you something new to check out. Here goes (only eligible works will be listed; Torture Cinema films have been left off, because you shouldn’t vote for them anyway):
