Blood & Rhetoric

“yare”

marked by quickness and agility; nimble; prepared; easily handled.

– From The Phrontistery Word List: Definitions of archaic words

For lovers of dark fiction, two social networking sites worth checking out are Wonderlands and Darklands.

Another prime example of someone with little to no experience reading science fiction or fantasy, speculating on whether “any good science fiction novels are still being written.”

I honestly have no further comment on this.

A new novel writing course for writers of fantasy and science fiction in the Yukon.

A couple years ago I looked into renting a remote cabin in a far flung region of the Yukon to “work on my writing” in that asshole isolationist way we sometimes do. For reasons I won’t bore you with, that never worked out, but this reminded me of that time and desire.

University of Warwick launches £50,000 writing prize, with science fiction author China Miéville (Perdido Street Station) named as chief judge.

Buzz Aldrin slams Sci-Fi.

I’m going to confess something here: I had kind of a crush on Spock when a child. I don’t know why. There’s just something about an emotionally unavailable, cold, logical man that excites the Catherine Earnshaw-Linton in me. I like Vulcans in general. With that said, I genuinely dislike Star Trek. It’s cheesy, lame, and the science is laughable. However, I would disagree with the following statement from Aldrin:

“But, if you start dealing with fantasy and beaming people up and down and traveling seven times the speed of light, you are doing damage. You’re not helping. You have young people who have got expectations that are far unrealistic, and you can’t possibly live up to the expectations you have created in young people. Why do they get bored with the space program? That’s why.”

I would think that if young people are bored with the space program, it’s because it can be quite boring for someone not fascinated by the minute steps humanity is making in exploring space. Finding water in moon rocks may be a startling discovery, but ultimately, it’s a bunch of freakin’ pebbles and general public interest can only ooh and ahh so much over that.

Whether Star Trek creates unrealistic expectations or not (and I don’t think people are that stupid but don’t quote me) is our imagination when it comes to space and space travel not as important as the hard facts and scientific data? Our imaginations made us want to go up there in the first place, so let us have our little fantasies.

And seriously, pebbles are boring.

I knew it had to end.

And truth be told, it was getting a bit monotonous. The cottage is a great place; but there’s only so much sitting in one place I can do before I start pining for a sleek, sexy computer in front me bursting with information and multitudes of blindingly-shiny other things.

(Yes I do get the irony of that statement, thanks.)

Not that I’m complaining or anything. Not really. I read a few books; got some writing done; got a great tan and etc. Good times. But now I’m ready for a longer and more adventurous vacation somewhere else in the world, and perhaps in the cruel Canadian winter time when the entire population is contemplating the sweet release of suicide. Maybe Chile? Argentina? China? Hmm? We’ll see.

One thing I certainly won’t miss is the massive hordes of blood thirsty mosquitoes covering every exposed inch of flesh at dusk.

(And no, DEET is not the answer. That stuff is dangerous and I will not give birth to mutant children sometime in the future when children actually become a desire and not just a cute pet-type thing other people have.)

But the bugs got to me to thinking about all those novels I’ve read where the hapless hero and/or heroine are wandering through the woods. And y’know what? I really can’t recall (at present) a single mention of insect harassment. Nothing that sticks out anyways. I distinctly remember in this tedious piece of navel-gazing garbage I couldn’t finish the doomed lovers running to their fates (gasp!) through a thick forest and having crazy sex in a forest and sleeping naked… in a fucking forest! In the fucking summer!

And it never even consciously occurred to me that there was anything wrong with any of those scenarios until this last week brought back the harsh realities of the natural world. And I’m talking harsh as in a million dollar cottage on a private lake harsh with barely a neighbour within shouting distance. So imagine a forest with no shelter in the oppressive heat of summer when the mosquitoes and flies and other critters are out at full force?

Egads.

Just something to think about. Oh and the whole insect-borne diseases like malaria thing…

Cottage time!

No phone. No internet. No television. No Work!

NO TECHNOLOGY!

Well there’s a boat I guess, and music and stuff of that nature.

And I will have personal writing to do like (hopefully) catching up on all my 2YN assignments. And I’m sure I’ll read several books.

But other than that it will be an entire week of: beer, rum, smokes, and enough red meat ingestion to kill a saner woman.

Basically, like last year, an entire week of THIS:

THIS:

And even, THIS:

There are drawbacks of course; being self-employed means no sweet company vacation pay. And when I get back, I’ll be slightly behind and racing like a mad woman to meet deadlines. But that doesn’t matter. Not for the next week it won’t; not as I’m laying on a dock in the sun and drinking or pathetically trying to learn how to wakeboard.

For those of you living in say, the freakin’ Bahamas, this won’t mean much; but, for us Canadians forced to hibernate like animals six months out of the year, it’s pure heaven.

After being snubbed four years in a row, Mary McDonnell (BSG’s President Laura Roslin) is rumored to be on the short list of ten potential nominees for the Best Actress in a Drama Emmy.

I will refrain from saying “that’s just frackin great.” Because it’s just too obvious, really.

The rest of the cast remains at large. And keep in mind it just the short list, which will eventually be whittled down to five final nominees. And also keep in mind, it’s still just a rumour and if history has taught us anything, she will not remain on the still-a-rumour-short-list.

Prolific science fiction author Andre Norton left behind a puzzle of a last will that has caused conflict over her estate amongst the many greedy friends and family who each want a piece of the pie. Norton began writing in the 1930s and defied gender stereotypes by becoming the first woman to win the Grand Master of Fantasy Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America and the Nebula Grand Master Award.

Time travel isn’t happening. Hollywood needs to get over it.

Or do they? I have no clue. I’m not big on time travel plots in books or movies since it really does seem so implausible and the story tends to revolve around the same cliche of any small change in the past drastically changing the future and blah blah blah don’t make out with the younger version of your mom blah. That scenario seems to unlikely for me and mostly I’m just bored by it.

Lastly, because I’m lazy: Vote for the Top 10 Obsure Books over at Femenist SF.

“wobble-shop”

A shop where intoxicants are sold without a license.

John Farmer & E. Henley, Slang and Its Analogues, 1890-1904

And in the spirit of intoxication and celebration — HAPPY 4th OF JULY, AMERICANS!

“felo de se”

Anglo-Latin felo, felon, and de se, of himself.

He that deliberately puts an end to his own existence, or commits an unlawful malicious act; the consequences of which is his own death; as if, attempting to kill another, he runs upon his antagonist’s sword; or, shooting at another, the gun bursts and kills himself. The party must be of years of discretion and in its senses; else it is no crime.

Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765-69

Megan McArdle from The Atlantic wrote an article last week on explaining science fiction to women that managed to (rightfully so) piss a lot of women off.

One of the more offensive points she had was this little gem:

“Those of you who pitch science fiction to wives and girlfriends who do not enjoy it are probably saying something along the following lines: “Space ships! Alien monsters! Men in tights!” Instead, for women who find that sort of thing distasteful, talk about it as a fairy tale–only a fairy tale with science instead of magic. The basic emotional space it taps is the same.”

Yes, that’s right. Sell it as a magical fairy tale populated by melodrama and unicorns and TRUE LOVE CONQUERING ALL! We chicks just eat that shit up like crazy! That and nothing else! For realz.

Um no. Have we seriously not yet passed all this needless gender warring? Or, much like fitting science fiction and fantasy into neat genres and subgenres, do we still seriously maintain as a species that men and women are so fundamentally different that our tastes simply don’t and can’t overlap?

It’s like watching a bad comedien spin his outdated “women are like this, and men are like that” jokes to an audience where one half of it is rolling their eyes, and the other is too stupid to know any better.

It’s as offensive as marvelling over the idea that black people like reading and writing science fiction.

And ultimately it’s just a moot point; one that I’m tired of. I’m a woman. I do like romantic plots (and unicorns too, actually) but I also love hard science fiction, and I shouldn’t have to qualify that statement or explain myself.

This chick does a better job than I of explaining why this is so stupid, but I wanted to add my voice to the disconted masses of women wondering where this bullshit stems from.

“pubble”

Full, plump; usually spoken of corn or fruit.

John Brockett, Glossary of North Country Words, 1825

Again, I found this via Nathan Bransford’s blog: Vanguard Press, Imprint of the Future.

Where Jonathan Karp’s Imprint 12 focuses on a small catalogue of books along with intense advertising and promotion to generate sales; Vanguard Press, run by Roger Cooper takes an even more unusual approach in that it asks the author to share in the initial investment.

Translation: NO advance, but a much larger investment put into marketing along with higher royalties and monthly paycheques being paid out based on book sales.