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MINING THE GENRE ASTEROID: Way Station by Clifford Simak

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Mining the Genre Asteroid: Way Station and the works of Clifford Simak Enoch Wallace has a secret. Okay, he actually has two. Almost a century after the Civil War, this veteran of that divisive conflict has been quietly living in the Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin. He has some strange neighbors (including a family whose deaf-mute daughter has some rather strange abilities) and only uses his gun in a virtual reality simulator. His second secret, though is even bigger than the first. Enoch Wallace hides an interstellar transfer point for aliens to travel through the galaxy. It is his charge to keep this important facility safe, and secret. But now the U.S. government is very interested in Enoch, enough to go snooping around. Furthermore, the Galactic Council that set up the transfer point  is fracturing and falling apart. Oh, and Enoch’s use of alien mathematics is leading him to conclude that nuclear war is coming, soon. All this means an uncertain future for both Enoch and his Way Station.

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Mining the Genre Asteroid–Brave New World

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“Oh, Brave New World, that has such people in it”–Miranda, The Tempest, Act 5 Scene 1 Published in 1932, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is a seminal dystopian novel. The time is the 26th century, although the A.D. calendar is no longer used. Instead, the year is 632 After Ford, for Henry Ford is the model, the hero, the prophet for this seeming paradise of infantile games and recreation, uncomplicated work, and of course, drug-inspired holidays from reality. Happiness is the greatest good. Into this ‘Eden’, inadvertently, comes a serpent in the form of John, a ‘savage’ from a reservation isolated from modern society, whose fateful encounter with the society of this Brave New World provides much of  the dramatic tension of the novel.

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Recommended Reads for October 2013

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Recommended Reads is a monthly feature in which the Skiffy and Fanty crew tell you about one thing they recently read that they think you might like too. Here are their picks: Shaun Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Orbit Books:  Oct. 2013) To say that a lot of people are talking about this book is an understatement.  Yet, the amount of buzz Leckie has received for Ancillary Justice, her debut novel, is deserved.  This is the kind of military SF / space opera a lot of us have been waiting for.  From the first pages, the novel tears down our comfortable notions of self and gender, pulls apart language to display its arbitrary construction in relation to culture, and shoves us right smack dab in the middle of a sprawling, reminiscent empire.  It’s the kind of novel that my geek side can squee about without end…oh, hell, my academic side is doing that too.  If you’re looking for

The Skiffy and Fanty Show Podcasts

#09 — Gravity (2013) — A Shoot the WISB Discussion

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http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/ShootTheWISB09Gravity2013/Shoot%20the%20WISB%20%2309%20–%20Gravity%20%282013%29.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSSpace, vacuums, and terror, oh my! Mike, Paul, David, and Shaun offer their thoughts on the Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity.  That pretty much covers it… 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. Show notes (info about our contributors can be found on the about page): Gravity (2013)(IMDB) Note:  We’re shifting over the Shoot the WISB segments from my personal blog to The Skiffy and Fanty Show.  Why?  It just makes more sense, I suppose.  If you’ve never listened to the Shoot the WISB casts, you’ll likely see them pop up in your iTunes or RSS feeds over the next few weeks.

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This Katamari Feels Ghostly, and Also Netflixish

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(That’s probably because you rolled up nothing but spooky things on Netflix streaming!) This is my LAST chance this year to write about Halloween before the actual day arrives, and if you know me at all, you know I’m taking advantage of that! This week, I’ve been browsing Netflix instant viewing, and here is a selection of the top things in my instant queue. ParaNorman: This may be one of the best kids’ movies I’ve seen in recent years, and I watch way more kids’ movies than a grownup without kids might be expected to watch. Norman, like Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense, can see dead people. Only, unlike in the The Sixth Sense, everyone else around him knows this, and thinks he’s a freak. When his town’s curse comes true, and some undead puritans rise from their graves, he’s gotta do something about it,

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Mining the Genre Asteroid: Time Out of Joint by Philip K Dick

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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. A seemingly ordinary 1950’s slice of Suburbia. Ragle Gumm spends his days working on the “Where will the Little Man be Next” puzzle for the local paper. As the reigning champion of solving the daily puzzle, it is practically a full time job for him. But, then, when a soft drink stand disappears before Ragle’s eyes, to have a piece of paper with the words “soft drink stand” fall to the ground, things are clearly not what they appear. Especially since, judging from the drawerful of paper slips,  it becomes clear that this has happened to Gumm before…

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