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The Skiffy and Fanty Show Podcasts

193. New Zealander Speculative Fiction w/ Helen Lowe, Norman Cates, & Stephen Minchin

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http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode193NewZealanderSpeculativeFictionWHelenLoweNormanCatesStephenMinchin/SandF%20–%20Episode%20193%20–%20New%20Zealander%20Speculative%20Fiction%20w%20Helen%20Lowe%20-%20Norman%20Cates%20-%20Stephen%20Minchin.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSThe World SF Tour continues with our discussion of New Zealander speculative fiction with Helen Lowe, Norman Cates, and Stephen Minchkin.  We discuss NZ publishing, the field of NZ specfic, themes and issues, and so 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 193 — Download (MP3) Show Notes: Helen Lowe is a fantasy author whose work has won the Sir Julius Vogel Award, the Gemmell Morningstar Award, and others.  She can be found on her website and blog; she is also on Twitter Norman Cates is president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand and is in charge of the 2020 New Zealand Worldcon bid, which will be updated soon. Like it via Facebook or sign up with e-mail address to get info for supporting it. Stephen Minchin runs New Zealand-based Steam Press, which has published award-winning works such as The Prince of Soul and the Lighthouse by Fredrik Brouneus.  He can also be found on Twitter.

Announcements and Errata

The World SF Tour: Fantastic February Dates!

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Here’s what’s on the tour docket for February: Holdovers from January (already dropped):  Torture Cinema review of Transformers 2:  Revenge of the Fallen and an interview w/ Myke Cole (published 2/1 and 2/2, respectively). 2/7 (already dropped):  discussion w/ Tansy Rayner Roberts and Marienne de Pierres on Australian Speculative Fiction 2/11:  discussion w/ Helen Lowe, Norman Cates, & Stephen Minchin on New Zealander Speculative Fiction 2/14:  WISB discussion of Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson) 2/17:  an interview w/ Adam Christopher about Hangwire, out from Angry Robot Books 2/21:  WISB discussion of Babylon 5 (season one; disc three) 3/2 or 3/3 (technically not a Feb. date, though it’s supposed to be):  Torture Cinema review of Sons of Steel So, there you go 🙂

Blog Posts

A (World) SFF Film Odyssey: Mutant Girls Squad (2010) and Anime’s Excesses

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Warning:  there are some graphic images in this post.  NSFW. Not too long ago, I set myself the goal of viewing every SF/F film released in 2010.  It figures that the first non-American film I decided to view would be one of the most ridiculous, violent, and bizarre films I have seen in a while.  After being bullied by her classmates, high school student Rin (Yumi Sugimoto) returns home to discover that her father is actually a humanoid mutant known as a HILKO (or hiruko — the subtitles use HILKO, but descriptions of the film use “hiruko,” so I’m not sure which one is correct).  But before she can take in this surprising news and its implications for herself, she and her parents are attacked by an anti-HILKO military unit.  What follows is an all out bloodbath as Rin tries to escape not only the military, but the blood-thirst of her home town.  Later, she is picked up by other HILKO members and trained and indoctrinated into a violent counter-revolutionary force run by Kisaragi (Tak Sakaguchi), who believes his pack of teen girl HILKOs are the perfect fighting force for making Japan a human-free zone.

The Skiffy and Fanty Show Podcasts

190. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (2009): A Torture Cinema “Adventure”

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http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode190TortureCinemaMeetsTransformers2/SandF%20–%20Episode%20190%20–%20Torture%20Cinema%20Meets%20Transformers%202.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSRobot fights, sand, and military advertising, oh my!  You asked for it, and here are providing it:  the latest in our Torture Cinema series, in which Shaun, Julia, Paul, and Jen take on the second Transformers movie from Michael Bay.  Prime help us… 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 190 — Download (MP3) Show Notes: Transformers 2:  Revenge of the Fallen (2009)(IMDB) For the previous pieces of the skit, check out Episode 147 and Episode 158. This is the thing we laughed our heads off about when Julia brought it up.  Enjoy: 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

The Disquieting Guest — Some Notes on Gore

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A couple of weeks ago, I took part in a brief Twitter conversation with Teresa Frohock and Fred Kiesche that touched on the virtues of the suggested versus the explicit in the creation of terror. If memory serves (and my apologies if it does not), Robert Wise’s The Haunting (the 1963 adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House) was invoked. That film is, without a doubt, a powerful argument for the virtues of subtlety. So is the CGI-laden 1999 version, which proves just how good Wise’s approach (faithful to Jackson) was by doing the precise opposite and failing in spectacular (if entertaining) fashion. That being said, I would like to mount a bit of a defence of explicitness here. More particularly, I would like to say a few words about the value of gore. Back around the end of the 80s, and the start of the 90s, there was a sometimes-heated debate on this subject. We had “quiet” versus “loud” horror, and this was when the term “splatterpunk” had its greatest currency. While the debates were interesting, the

The Skiffy and Fanty Show Podcasts

189. Our Favorite Things from 2013 (A Roundtable Discussion)

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http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode189OurFavoriteThingsFrom2013/SandF%20–%20Episode%20189%20–%20Our%20Favorite%20Things%20from%202013.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSBooks, movies, TV, and more, oh my!  In a fit of profound genius, most of the crew got together to discuss all the lovely stuff they read, viewed, and experienced in 2013. 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 189 — Download (MP3) Show Notes (all the things we mentioned):

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