Category Archives: Science Fiction and Fantasy

May 29, 2017 · 1:00 am

Why I Love to Read Speculative Fiction

Speculative fiction is an umbrella term for everything from science fiction to dystopians, fantasy to horror.

I’ve been thinking a lot about speculative fiction in general since The Handmaid’s Tale began last month. This specific storytelling style has appealed to me for as long as I can remember for several different reasons.

Honesty

Books like 1984, Animal Farm, or Brave New World reveal the ugly sides of the systems, societies, or cultures they’re critiquing without hesitation. Do they offend some people along the way? Yes, without a doubt. It wasn’t necessarily their original goal, but they’re not afraid to ruffle a few feathers while attempting to get their audiences to wrestle with the big issues that authors in this genre often explore.

I love that about these tales. There are times when I’m in the mood for something light and fluffy, but my first literary love will always be tales that rip off the parts of human society that are hidden and reveal everything they’re trying so hard to conceal.

It definitely isn’t easy to write an entertaining story that also challenges people to rethink their assumptions. When an author manages to pull this off, it’s truly magical.

Critical Thinking

One of the things that irritates me the most about many news networks in the United States is how sensationalized they are. All of their repetitive panic over serious and frivolous stories alike dulls the senses and makes it extremely difficult to think critically about what the newscaster is reporting. When everything is an emergency, nothing is an emergency.

I avoided the news as much as possible when I lived in the U.S. Now that I’ve been an expat for a dozen years, I find it overwhelming when I’m back in the States for a visit.

The nice thing about the more serious side of speculative fiction is that a well-timed plot doesn’t leave room for these kinds of diversions. Yes, there are scenes in The Handmaid’s Tale that draw me into deep thought every time I read about or watch them. These scenes not about assuming the worst or blowing things out of proportion in order to snag people’s attention, though.

Everything that was included in that particular book has actually happened at least once in the past. Some of the plot points have been repeated over and over again throughout history as we try and fail yet again to learn our lessons and improve on how previous generations behaved.

Speculative fiction can push readers to sort through the various points of view in their plots, decide which ones make sense, and come up with our own theories about what happened and how we should interpret fictional stories that have something to say about real-world events.

Wonderment 

First of all, isn’t wonderment a fantastic word? It’s the kind of word that I like to gently roll around on my tongue a few times before I bother to share it with anyone else.

All of the genres I mentioned in the first paragraph of this post are full of wonder in their own way. For example, I will never forget how I felt at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when dozens of invitations to Hogwarts appeared at the Dursleys house after Harry’s uncle destroyed the first few that arrived.

Seeing the Dursleys react so strongly to simple magic makes me grin every time I see it. If only they could have seen the more powerful, playful, and sometimes downright dangerous types of magic that Harry encountered once he started attending Hogwarts!

This sense of wonder stuck with me through all of the Harry Potter books. Even the darkest and saddest scenes in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows still tickled my imagination in small ways. Once wonderment has been introduced into a story, it almost always remains there for good.

Escapism

Yes, I know that some people use this term in a derogatory way. I don’t think of escapist literature as a negative thing at all, though.

There is something to be said for immersing yourself in a completely different world when you need a short break or could use some encouragement.

The first time I read the Lord of the Rings series was shortly after my life had changed in all kinds of stressful ways due to a cross-country move my family made when I was a preteen. I had a lot of  trouble making friends and adjusting to my new school.

I was not a happy kid at that point in my life by any stretch of the imagination, but I found a lot of solace in seeing how Frodo and Sam persevered through even the most impossible circumstances.

We weren’t facing the same obstacles, but we were facing the same fears. If they could push through another day, then I could as well.

How about you? Why do you love speculative fiction? I hope you’ll pop over to Twitter today and tell me all about it!

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May 18, 2017 · 1:00 am

The Handmaid’s Tale: Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum


This post includes spoilers for “Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum” (Season 1, Episode 4) of The Handmaid’s Tale. As usual, the link on the left has full summaries of all of the episodes that have aired so far. 

While this episode included several important world-building moments, it wasn’t as action-filled as the previous episodes have been. The picture on the left is one reminder of just how out of the ordinary “Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum” was, but we’ll talk about that more in a few minutes. Let’s stick with the slower pacing for now.

You see, Offred had spent the last 13 days banished to her room as punishment for not being pregnant. Women in Gilead weren’t allowed to read or write, so she had absolutely nothing to occupy her time during those long days and nights.

It was only after examining every last square inch of her room that Offred noticed the phrase nolite te bastardes carborundorum scratched into the wall in her closet. I loved the way they showed her staring listlessly at this phrase as she tried to figure out who wrote it and what they were trying to communicate with her. She had found out in the first episode that the Commander and his wife had a previous Handmaid, but she didn’t know what happened to her predecessor.

There was an important clue to the first Offred’s fate that was revealed to the audience when Martha discovered our Offred lying on the floor and assumed she was dead. Offred lied and said she had fainted in order to prevent anyone else from finding what she’d found in the closet.

The doctor’s visit our Offred was sent on to make sure she was healthy made my skin crawl.  Not only was the doctor creepy in a sad sort of way when he told Offred that he could try to get her pregnant, the rows of pictures of Commanders and Wives holding healthy babies in the waiting room made me wonder exactly how many Handmaids there were altogether out there. For some reason, I thought there were far fewer of them than all of those happy portraits hinted there could be.

They also made me wonder how many of those babies were genetically the doctor’s offspring. Once again I’m glad that I’m only recommending this series for the 14+ crowd. The failed ceremony scene was even more disturbing this week in light of the doctor’s comment about many of the Commanders being sterile. Assuming this is true of Offred’s Commander, then all of the trauma of those nights happens for no reason at all.

My favourite scene, though, occurred at the end of this episode when Offred decided to take the Commander up on his invitation to play a forbidden game of Scrabble after everyone else in the house had gone to bed. Knowing what his intentions were this time didn’t make their interactions any less strange. She was his property. He wanted her to be happy with the arrangement and with her unorthodox relationship with him. In fact, he couldn’t get an erection this month without the illusion that they had some kind of connection.

The nice thing about Offred realizing this was that she was able to use it to find out that the previous Offred committed suicide and that “nolite te bastardes carborundorum” jokingly translates to “don’t let the bastards grind you down.” It was through pretending to have a connection with the Commander that she was also released from her confinement to her room. His fear of another Handmaid killing herself was stronger than Serena Joy’s desire to keep punishing Offred.

Some of the other reactions to this episode that I’ve read have talked about feeling sorry for the Commander in light of how concerned he was about Offred. Given how much power he holds in this world, I had a lot of trouble feeling that way for him. He was so far up the ranks in Gilead that I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d played a key role in creating this world. No, I haven’t read any spoilers about the future episodes. It is pure speculation on my part, but he struck me as someone who fought for something that only sounded good on paper. Once he actually began to experience the world he helped to create, he seemed to feel some buyer’s remorse.

The thing is, the Commander hasn’t had anything important taken away from him. He still has his name, his identity, his family, and as much freedom as anyone can reasonably expect to have in this world. It will be interesting to see if my opinion of him changes in the future, but for now all of my sympathies lie with the Handmaids and everyone else who lost everything to this system.

I have not decided yet if I have sympathy for Serena Joy (who is pictured on the right). The way she treated Offred was abusive and abysmal in this episode, but I’ve also seen the men in her life treat her terribly, too.

That’s not an excuse for her behaviour, by the way. It’s simply an acknowledgement that all of the women in this society have been dealt a crappy hand.

The fact that she has stubbornly refused to help the other women in her house unless it directly benefitted her in some way makes me dislike her intensely. I also hate the fact that she feels so entitled to stealing and raising someone else’s child.

While I have sympathy for her inability to get pregnant when she so clearly yearns to be a parent, wanting to separate a baby from his or her biological mother when the mother has done nothing wrong and has zero history of harming children is horrific.

This is something I hope will be explored further in the future. There have been multiple examples of this sort of thing happening in recent human history, from the Plazo de Mayo mothers to the Baby Scoop era of the 1940s-1970s.

Overall, this was not my favourite episode of this series so far. It was still very good storytelling, but I’m hoping that next week’s episode will have more action in it for Offred’s sake as well as for ours.

Previous posts in this series:

5 Things I Want from The Handmaid’s Tale

Introducing Offred’s World

Gender Treachery

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May 11, 2017 · 1:00 am

The Handmaid’s Tale: Gender Treachery

This post includes spoilers for “Gender Treachery” (Season 1, Episode 3) of The Handmaid’s Tale. The link on the left will have full summaries of all of the episodes. I will continue to mostly use this series to talk about my reaction to what has been happening to the characters, although I have summered some of the plot today. All of the links in this post may contain spoilers as well. 

Offred’s main storyline this week revolved around whether or not she was pregnant. The Martha (cook) of her household was in charge of giving Offred her monthly supply of sanitary napkins, and when she didn’t ask for them at the usual time the entire household began to suspect that she might be pregnant.

Suddenly, Offred was being offered better quality food and having small whims obeyed. She was allowed to visit Ofwarren and the baby she had in the second episode, for example. Offred was even allowed to hold the baby, which isn’t something Handmaids are generally encouraged to do. It was surreal to see Serena Joy, the wife of the Commander, suddenly treating Offred with kindness and joy after spending the first two episodes bitterly resenting her presence in their home.

What made this part of the storyline even stranger was how quickly Serena Joy turned on Offred when Offred discovered that she wasn’t pregnant after all. I have had a handful of experiences in the past with people who assumed I was pregnant when I was not. It’s weird and inappropriate enough in our world when someone who isn’t your life partner or family doctor is that obsessed with what you will or won’t be doing with your reproductive organs. In Offred’s world, this sort of thing is downright dangerous due to how little power she has over what happens to her as long as Serena Joy doesn’t do anything that will damage her fertility. I can’t wait to see where this part of the storyline goes next. So far it is looking very promising, if also unbelievably creepy.

The most interesting part of this week’s episode by far, though, was what happened to Ofglen, the handmaid who was secretly part of the Resistance that Offred befriended in the first and second episode. At the end of episode two, Offred was shocked to meet a stranger at the end of her driveway for their daily walk to buy groceries. There was suddenly a new woman who was called Ofglen, and Offred had no idea what happened to the previous one she had been getting to know so well.

Offred was briefly tortured by Aunt Lydia and an Eye who were convinced she knew more about the old Ofglen’s criminal activities than she was letting on. As soon as they found out that Offred was presumed to be pregnant, though, the electric rod was put away and Offred was released.

I shudder to think what would have happened to her if this wasn’t the case. Handmaids are only valued for their reproductive abilities, as we’ve already been told and are also about to find out in even more excruciating detail.

So what happened to Ofglen, you’re probably wondering?

How was she caught? We’re not entirely sure yet. I am crossing my fingers that this will be mentioned in a later episode. We already know that Ofglen trusted Offred fairly quickly. Did she trust someone else too quickly as well, or was she caught another way? At this point, that is my best guess.

What was she charged with? She was charged with being a Gender Traitor. That is, the authorities somehow discovered that she was having a romantic and sexual relationship with the Martha who lived at her house. They were both taken into custody and disappeared permanently as far as the people who knew them are currently concerned.

What happened to them? Both characters were given a “trial” that consisted of nothing more than the authorities swearing on the Bible that what they claimed to have discovered was true. The “judge” for that case sentenced the Martha to death for her crime, and the punishment was carried out immediately after the trial ended. As an infertile woman, she was no longer of any use to The Republic of Gilead.

Ofglen’s fate was trickier. Even being a Gender Traitor doesn’t erase her value as one of the few fertile woman left in their society. The question is, how do you preserve that fertility while also preventing her from her acting on her forbidden sexual impulses in the future?

The final scene chilled me to my bones. The next time we saw Ofglen, she was waking up alone in a cold, white hospital room. I was relieved to see that she was still alive and still had use of her eyes, ears, and all four limbs.

As soon as she attempted to get out of bed, though, both she and the audience realized that something was terribly wrong. She could barely walk. Every single step was agonizing. I have three words for you: female genital mutilation. You see, you don’t need a clitoris to get pregnant.

There aren’t enough words in the English language to describe how horrified I am by this idea. What makes it even scarier is that there are millions of women around the world who have had this done to them. This is by no means something that was invented for the purposes of this storyline. It wasn’t part of the original story, but it makes perfect sense given all of the other awful things that happened to women in the book. I will be crossing my legs and wincing every time this is mentioned again in this series, but I do think it was a good addition to many other  horrors of living in Gilead.

On a final note for today’s post, I’ve been thinking about the lowest possible age range I’d recommend this show to since I first started watching it. Based on the dark and disturbing things that have happened so far, I can’t currently recommend it to anyone under the age of 14. As important as its messages about feminism, fundamentalism, propaganda, and fascism are, this is not something that’s appropriate for younger audiences due to how violent it is.

Previous posts in this series:

5 Things I Want from The Handmaid’s Tale

Introducing Offred’s World

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May 4, 2017 · 1:00 am

The Handmaid’s Tale: Introducing Offred’s World

This post includes spoilers for “Offred” (Season 1, Episode 1) and “Birth Day” (Season 1, Episode 2 )of The Handmaid’s Tale.

As I mentioned last month, I’ll be blogging my thoughts about this show. New episodes air on iTunes five days after they do on Hulu, so this series will be published about a week after each episode is released unless or until iTunes changes this schedule.

The first link above provides excellent plot summaries, so I’m going to use this post to focus on my analysis and reaction to what has happened to Offred so far.

“Offred” 

The opening scene of the first episode made me blink back tears. June – the woman we now know as Offred who is wearing the white bonnet in the image above-  attempted to escape what was formerly known as the United States with her husband and their young daughter. There was so much emotion packed into that scene: terror; love; hope; fear. I was so pleased with how it was put together. It was the best possible introduction to the characters and the totalitarian regime that had suddenly taken over that country.

What I found most interesting about this episode was how smooth the transitions were between Offred’s attempt to flee the country, the time she spent being brainwashed in the Red Center, and her repetitive but still frightening days as a handmaiden who has just moved onto her second placement.

Every setting was terrifying for a different reason. Watching her scream as her daughter was ripped out of her arms was heartbreaking. I couldn’t help but to wonder if the TV show would mirror what happened in the book when it came to the daughter’s fate. This is one of the biggest questions I carried with me through the first two episodes. I really hope it is at least somewhat answered in this season, although I won’t say anything else about it until I know where this storyline leads.

What stuck out to me the most about the Red Center was how effective The Aunts were at forcing the handmaidens to obey. Let me put it to you this way:  there are plenty of ways to hurt someone that will in no way affect their chances of getting pregnant in the future. As Offred and the other handmaidens are only prized for their reproductive capabilities, everything else doesn’t matter so much. I am very glad that these scenes weren’t shown to the audience outright. Seeing the characters react to the aftermath of them was more than enough.

The Ceremony was brutal as well. The book described it in much fuzzier terms, but what happened to the handmaidens each week was rape. This had been something that bothered me about the original plot, so I was glad to see it clarified for the small screen.

“Birth Day”

While both of these episodes do have independent story arcs, I strongly recommend watching them as closely together as possible because of how well they introduce the audience to the most important parts of this world. Gilead has a beautiful and mostly peaceful facade, but the things that happen behind closed doors in it are sickening.

For example: what do you do with all of the repressed anger that handmaidens carry with them? All of them were and are being abused. They are not allowed to defend themselves or protect themselves from future harm.

The Salvaging itself was shot nicely, but I would have loved to see more character and plot development happening before Offred and the other handmaids were told that the bound man before them had raped a pregnant handmaid and caused her to miscarry her child. The audience knew why they were viciously beating him, but they knew nothing else about what was going on there.

This scene happened much later in the book. It’s the only thing I’d change about the beginning of this show because new fans won’t know why it’s so significant to the plot. I can’t say anything else without possibly giving away spoilers if the show decides to follow the same plot as the original story.

With that being said, “Birth Day” also contained my favourite scene in this series. As I mentioned earlier, June/Offred gave birth to a daughter several years before the Republic of Gilead was formed. At the time, newborns were being diagnosed with serious birth defects at an alarming rate…if they were born alive at all. Out of all of the women giving birth in the hospital ward that day, June was the only person whose baby was perfectly healthy.

The nurse’s response to the birth was a strange one. Was the fact that she said “Praise Be!” a hint that she was a supporter of the religious movement that eventually brought about this dystopia? I doubt June noticed that phrase at the time, but once she was indoctrinated into using it that memory must have haunted her.

I am hoping to see more hints like this in future episodes. It was tantalizing to say the least.

How about you? What did you think of the first two episodes of this series? Are you excited that it’s already been renewed for season 2? Come let me know on Twitter.

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April 24, 2017 · 1:00 am

5 Things I Want from The Handmaid’s Tale

There are only two days left until The Handmaid’s Tale premiers on Hulu.

The word excited doesn’t even begin to cover how I feel about this show.

I know that some of my readers are scrupulously avoiding  spoilers, so I’m going to honour that with today’s post. Everything I’ll be talking about is strictly from what happened the book, and it won’t include plot twists. I also won’t go into any detail about what the previews for this show have or have not shown.

Yes, I am tentatively planning to write about this series in depth once I’ve seen the first few episodes. Consider yourself warned when it comes to me sharing a few spoilers in the future.

With that being said, here are the top five things I’ll be looking for in this show when I finally get to see it.

1. A Clearer Understanding of Exactly How Gilead Was Formed

I am really hoping that Offred, the main character, will tell us more about how The United States was dismantled and why The Republic of Gilead took its place.

The book touched on this briefly, but it left out a lot of details about how everything went down. There were certain parts of the original timeline that never made sense to me. Other sections of it were easier to imagine really happening, so it will be fascinating to see how all of these scenes are woven together in a way that hopefully explains the political and social shifts that I found harder to believe.

2. Terrifying Normalcy

Most dystopian novels take place in dark, dreary settings where people fight over the last scraps of food or spend all of their time attempting to outrun zombies.

The Handmaid’s Tale, on the other hand, takes place in a house on a quiet, sunny street where even very minor crimes like littering are completely unthinkable. The lawns are all perfectly manicured there, and everyone still gets to eat three square meals a day.

This was one of the things that appealed to me the most the first time I read this book. I’m crossing my fingers that the cinematography will capture the strange and unforgettable juxtaposition of the tranquil place she currently lives in and Offred’s traumatic memories of her very recent past.

3. Feminism

The Handmaid’s Tale folded all kinds of commentary on feminism, gender, and sexism into a story that I couldn’t stop reading. I can’t wait to see how this is translated from the written word to a TV show. There were so many moments in the original story that could be expanded to make an even bigger impression on the audience.

As much as I want to talk about this section in great detail, I’d risk slipping into spoiler territory if I do.

If the miniseries explores this the way I hope it will, I will definitely return to this topic in a future post. It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about since I first heard that this series was being developed.

4. False News

“I’m ravenous for news, any kind of news; even if it’s false news, it must mean something.” – The Handmaid’s Tale

Offred lived in a world where any kind of news was hard to come by. It was impossible to tell whether or not it was true even if you’d managed to hear a scrap of information about something or someone you’ve been dying to know more about.

I didn’t think too much about this part of the plot the first time I read the book, but it’s something that really frightened me when I reread it last winter.

Information is a form of power. People are much easier to control if you prevent them from easily learning new things or hearing what’s going on in other parts of Gilead. This is especially true if they are constantly doubting whether or not anything they hear is real.

5.  A Roadmap for Staying Hopeful

Offred had no reason at all to feel hope in her tale.

Everything and everyone she’d ever loved had been ripped away from her. She didn’t know where her loved ones were or what they were doing, and yet she never stopped dreaming of being reunited with them someday.

No matter what happened to her, Offred refused to give up. She pushed through every dark mood and painful memory that came her way even when there was no conceivable way for her to make those days even slightly better.

I deeply admired that about this character, and I can’t wait to see how this part of her personality shines through on the small screen. So much of her personal development happened while she was thinking things she dare not say aloud to anyone. It’s going to be fascinating to watch all of that unfold at the end of this month.

How about you? What are you most looking forward to in this show?

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April 13, 2017 · 1:00 am

Why I’m Tired of Stories About the Chosen One

I’ve been reading less speculative fiction this year. One of the things that has reduced how much of it I read has to do with the concept of the Chosen One and how overused it is in this genre.

There are a few different reasons why I’m quickly losing interest in stories about people who have been chosen to save their village, humankind, or the entire universe from whatever it is that is threatening their existence.

1. The Chosen One Doesn’t Earn His or Her Place

As I mentioned last month in Scifi and Fantasy Rules That Should Be Broken, heroes in science fiction and fantasy usually aren’t people who have any special training or education. They’re the Chosen One because of who their parents are, what an ancient prophecy foretold, or whether or not Voldemort tried to curse them to death when they were a baby.

If this happened occasionally, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. There is definitely something to be said for showing that heroes can come from anywhere.

The fact that it’s so prevalent, though, makes me feel uneasy. Education and experience are a positive thing. I’d never go to a doctor or dentist who had somehow skipped medical/dental school and was just winging it when it came to diagnosing an infection or deciding if I had a cavity.

So it feels strange for the fate of the entire world to be regularly handed to people who don’t have any unique skills or advanced training whatsoever.

At this point, I’d much rather read about someone who has spent or will spend years studying magic/spaceships/medicine / the dark arts. Show me some of the times they failed terribly and what they learned from it. Let me see them struggle with something that other people in their field generally don’t find difficult like casting a spell or putting on a spacesuit.

I want heroes who have earned the respect they get!

2. The Chosen One Is Often Less Interesting Than Their Sidekicks.

Case in point: Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

There was nothing unlikeable about Buffy. She was generally a kind and courteous girl, and I was fascinated by her adjustment to becoming the most recent Slayer. (That is, a teen girl who was given supernatural strength and healing abilities so that she could save the world from everything that wanted to destroy it. The previous Slayer has to die before the next one is supernaturally chosen).

The problem was that Buffy’s sidekicks were much more relatable and complex than she was. Giles, her watcher (which is like a personal trainer for mystical stuff), was as mystified by teenagers as he was by American culture in general. His very British reactions to some of the biggest differences between the U.S. and England were hilarious.  Willow, her female best friend, was a shy, awkward nerd who had a strong perfectionistic streak. Xander, her male best friend, was a slacker and class clown who hid a lot of painful truths behind his wisecracks and hijinks.

Buffy’s character development simply wasn’t as compelling as the development of those closest to her. She was already athletic, (fairly) popular, self-confident, and tough when the show began. I liked her, but I loved her inner circle because of how much more attention had been paid to the little things that made them unique.

Many Chosen Ones have the same problem. They are so busy saving the world that they often don’t get to develop a well-rounded set of quirks, weird habits, phobias, and/or non-superficial character flaws that their side-kicks get to have.

I want heroes who are deliciously imperfect. Maybe their sidekicks could be stronger, more assertive, or better looking than them. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how a main character would respond to a friend or assistant who intimidated them a little bit or who was better at certain crucial skills than they were?

3. The Chosen One Never Dies in the End

As much as I liked him, Harry Potter really should have been killed off permanently at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

All of the foreshadowing up until that point nudged the readers into this direction. It felt strange to me to see Harry walk away from that final battle. While I knew that J.K. Rowling would try to figure out how to save him because of how rare it is for a protagonist to die in the end, that wasn’t the direction the storyline had been pointing at for all seven books in the series.

After the narrator cut away to show how all of his friends put wizarding society back together after Voldemort is finally defeated, there could have been a beautiful scene showing him reuniting with his parents in the afterlife and realizing that he was finally at peace now.

I could also imagine Harry having a conversation with his parents about wanting to go back to Earth. Maybe his mother would tell him that it was impossible, but that he would be reunited with Ron, Hermione, and everyone else he loved after they’d finished living out the long, full lives that wizards usually get to experience.

There could even be a line in there about how time moves quite differently after death so that the audience would know Harry wouldn’t be missing his friends for as long as we might assume.

Yes, this would have been a tearjerker of an ending, but it also would have tied up all of the foreshadowing in the earlier books much more tightly than technically killing Harry off for a few minutes before finding a magical loophole to bring him back to life again.

I want to start genuinely fearing for the safety of the characters I love. It would be so cool to arrive at the final scene of a story and not know who – if anyone – was going to make it out again. No, I’m not saying that every final confrontation has to be a bloodbath. That would quickly become just as predictable as things are currently.

It would be really nice if there were far fewer last-minute plot twists that allowed characters to live when the first 99% of a book or series foreshadowed their deaths, though.

How do you feel about the Chosen One trope? Do you enjoy it? Do you think it’s been played out? I’ll be talking about this on Twitter today if you’d like to chat about it.

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April 6, 2017 · 1:00 am

The 10 Best Blogs to Follow If You Love Science Fiction and Fantasy

Every once in a while I like to google questions like “what are the best blogs to follow if you’re a huge fan of [fill in the blank]”?

Google will give you hundreds of hits when you search for something like this, but there are a lot of gems out there that are easy to overlook if you’re not willing to scroll through dozens of pages of results. Sometimes they might not even show up at all depending on what keywords you use!

This post is the beginning of a series I’ll be doing on the topic of small(er) sites that deserve much more praise than they’re currently getting. I won’t be numbering my posts because I have no idea how many posts will eventually be included in this category. All of them will be tagged with Best of Lists…, though, so that new readers will be able to scroll through all of them in the future and hopefully find some great new sites to visit.

Today I will be talking about the 10 best sci-fi and fantasy blogs that you might not have heard of yet but should definitely be checking out.

Surreal Situations

This is a  whimsical comic strip by my friend Michael Mock about a small group of action figures trying to survive in a world that is overrun with zombies.

What I like the most about it is how many funny moments Michael has managed to fit into a storyline that’s quite serious overall. He’s good at making me smile one minute and gasp the next.

The first panel of the first strip in this series is on the left.

 

The Setup Wizard.

Okay, so I thought that everyone had already heard of this blog, but every time I mention I meet at least one person who has no idea what I’m talking about. I am including it here to make sure that every fan of Harry Potter and/or tech support culture has had a chance to read it.

Imagine being a muggle who has been hired by Hogwarts to provide IT support. You had no idea that wizards exist, and they still don’t know how the hell the Internet works.

Nearly everything that could go wrong with such an arrangement has gone wrong so far, from students pulling pranks to all kinds of magical creatures wreaking havoc on muggle technology. I can’t recommend this one highly enough.

 

Queer Sci Fi

I’ve read a lot of Queer science fiction that I happened to stumble upon over the years, but until recently I didn’t know there was a specific place for talking about this specific corner of the sci-fi market.

This site has everything from book reviews to interviews to discussion groups that are always open to new members. Now that I know it exists, I am really looking forward to finding some great new reads over there.

 

Biology in Science Fiction 

One of the rules I made for myself when I started working on this post was that every site I linked to needed to have been updated at least once since the beginning of 2017.

Well, I just broke that rule. I’ve been reading the old posts and am fascinated by all of the scientific explanations for how certain science fiction and fantasy creatures would actually behave, live, breed, and die.

And who knows? Maybe there’s a slim chance the author will notice that their blog is still getting attention and decide to start updating it again!

 

Could This Happen? 

This is similar to Biology in Science Fiction except that it’s about the science of speculative fiction in general.

It’s been a long time since I took any science classes, so I often wonder if the chemistry, physics, geology, zoology, or botany in a story is anywhere close to how things would really be if that kind of spaceship/ecosystem/device/planet really existed.

The fact that there’s a site dedicated to answering these questions makes me happy.

 

Tobias Buckell

I’ve never met Tobias, although he is friends with a couple of my extended family members. What I like the most about his blog is how much of his own personality and interests he adds to it.

I love it when people – and especially authors –  mix science fiction in with whatever else they enjoy in their lives. It gives you such a well-rounded understanding of who they are as people.

 

Black Girls Create

I still haven’t had a chance to explore all of the links on this site, but Hogwarts BSU is my favourite part of it so far if you’re going to make me pick only one section to begin with.

Be sure to give yourself a lot of time to look around when you visit. There are so many different sections that you’ll want to make sure you get a good look at everything.

 

Speculating Canada: Canadian Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy 

This is another one of those blogs that I only recent discovered. It seem to be a mishmash of all kinds of science fiction and fantasy. I’m assuming that’s because Canada is a much smaller country than the U.S., so our speculative community is also smaller.

I really like seeing everything kept together, though. It’s introduced me to some titles that I almost certainly wouldn’t have otherwise heard of.

 

Good Show Sir

This blog shows nothing but terrible science fiction and fantasy book covers from many different eras.

My first impulse when I see a cover like that in many circumstances is to read the blurb. It would take a much worse set of cover art than most of the things I’ve seen on this site to keep me away entirely, although I will admit to being ocasssionally so turned off by a truly awful cover that I don’t even give the story inside a chance.

With that being said, some wonderful books have awful covers, and some awful books have wonderful covers. You won’t know for sure whether a story appeals to until you take the time to dig a little deeper.

 

Unfridged

Sexism, racism, and other forms of prejudice definitely aren’t new in the sci-fi realm, but times are changing for the better. This site talks about how the SFF community can improve, what sci-fi books and shows are doing a good job at being inclusive, and which ones still need some work.

It’s also one of the funniest sites I’ve come across in a long time.

 

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March 30, 2017 · 1:00 am

How to Convince Someone to Try Something You Love

One of the first things my spouse introduced me to after we moved in together was the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I don’t remember exactly what he said about it when he mentioned wanting to watch it with me, but I do remember his excitement. He was sure I was going to love that series as much as he did. (Spoiler alert: he was right!)

Last year I felt that same surge of excitement when I heard that one of my favourite books of all time, The Handmaid’s Tale, was going to be turned into a series. While my husband read that story years ago, I wasn’t entirely sure if he was planning to watch it with me when I first brought up the idea. I grinned as soon as he said he was willing to give it a try.

If there’s a book, album, song, TV show, or movie you’ve been wanting to share with someone, keep these tips in mind when you’re explaining to them why you think they’d love it as much as you do.

Clearly Explain Why You Love It

My spouse told me that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was science fiction, horror, satire, comedy, romance, and drama all rolled into one. He gave examples of these elements of the plot that were as specific as they could be without giving away any spoilers.

I was immediately intrigued. Stories often jump between two or even three genres, but I’d never heard of one that tried to be so many different things at once. It was even more interesting to think that this had been a success!

The fact that he could so clearly explain how all of those genres came to be fused into one single tale made me want to give it a try.

Be Honest About Its Faults

Every time I recommend Jean M. Auel’s Earth’s Children series to someone, I make sure to note that the storytelling changes a lot from the first book to the last one. I have a strong preference for the writing style of the first few books, and I’m not afraid to tell people that.

This doesn’t mean I’m any less a fan of her work. There are other stories that I enjoy even though they presented certain groups in stereotypical ways or were a little problematic in general. You can love something and still see things in it that you really wish had been told in a different way for any number of reasons.

If someone can admit that their favourite piece of pop culture isn’t perfect, it makes me more willing to give that book or show a try. There’s a fine line between being excited about something and overlooking any flaws it may have.

Pick the Best Part (or Explain Why You Can’t)

My favourite singers have certain songs that I would immediately start playing if someone asked me why I enjoyed their music so much. In some cases, this would mean jumping back and forth by years or even decades in their catalogue.

There’s always time to go back and fill in the gaps later if the other person happens to like my suggestion and it’s something that can be listened to or watched in any order without messing up the flow of the storytelling

This isn’t possible in some cases, of course. A TV show that builds complex and interrelated storylines over time might not make sense if you jump into the middle of season 4. Sometimes you really do have to start at the beginning. Buffy’s first season wasn’t the best part of that show, but it still needs to be watched in order to understand what happens later and why certain things were foreshadowed early on.

Be Prepared to Accept No for an Answer

Not everyone will become a fan of the new things they try. For example, I watched several Doctor Who episodes before deciding that it’s not my cup of tea and I won’t be watching it again. There were a few specific scenes that I enjoyed, but the storylines in general simply don’t appeal to me.

One of the things I admire in a person is the ability to accept that not everyone will love the same things they do. People’s preferences are complicated. Sometimes those preferences can shift over time, but in other cases someone is never going to love that thing that you can’t get enough of.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Recommending Stuff is a Two-Way Street

There’s something fascinating about getting to know someone by paying close attention to what they do and don’t like. As much as I want to recommend The Handmaid’s Tale to everyone I meet, someone who doesn’t like speculative or dystopian fiction wouldn’t be a good match for this tale.

I appreciate it when others give me this same level of attention. Over the years I’ve tried all kinds of things that I wouldn’t normally read, listen to, or watch. Sometimes I end up enjoying them, and sometimes I don’t. I especially like trading ideas with people who take my suggestions seriously as well.

Recommending stuff is like dancing with someone. There’s a natural pattern of give and take to it that works beautifully if everyone involved understands the rhythm.

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March 13, 2017 · 1:00 am

Scifi and Fantasy Rules That Should be Broken

I’ve been reading science fiction and fantasy stories for about as long as I’ve known how to read at all. There are so many things I love about these genres, but today I wanted to talk about some of the things that I wish SFF writers would do differently.

1. The Chosen One Must be Young and Uneducated

Why is the chosen one nearly always a teenager or young adult who hasn’t completed – or often even started – their training yet? Why are they the only one who can defeat the wizard, dragon, corrupt government, or werewolf army?

I dream of the day when the chosen one is actually a group of specialized, highly-trained witches who must use their complementary powers at the same exact time to defeat the dragon. Alternatively, maybe the chosen one could be a 70-year-old scientist who has spent the last 40 years studying the virus that has wiped out the last three attempts at permanent human colonies on Europa and who only now is ready to test his vaccine for it on human subjects.

At this point, I’d prefer to watch conflict build up slowly over years than see any more characters jump into the fray before they fully understand what’s going on or have had any training in what they’re about to accomplish.

2. Everyone Gets a Love Triangle

No, I am not against romantic storylines in general. There is definitely a time and place for them, and many stories would be far poorer without them.

With that being said, I’d be happy to never read about another love triangle again. This kind of stuff yanks me out of the plot every time it happens because of how confusing and strange I find it to be.

Please let characters be polyamorous, asexual, or totally uninterested in falling in love until the last zombie has been destroyed and humanity has once again begun to enjoy luxuries like healthy food, deodorant, regular baths, and not running in terror for their lives every day.

I would be thrilled to read about any of these scenarios. What I’d like to avoid, though, is anyone wringing their hands about which love interest to pick when there are far more urgent matter at hand.

For example, how terrible must all of the characters smell after running away from zombies for weeks and eating nothing but stale candy bars and potato chips out of vending machines?( I’m mostly joking here, but I think about practical matters like bad breath and body odour when a character in this sort of story suddenly starts mooning over someone who also probably hasn’t seen a toothbrush or loofah since sometime last month).

There are so many interesting things to say about outsmarting zombies, navigating a spaceship, or figuring out how to placate a fairy after you’ve unintentionally angered her and all of her relatives. These sources of conflict are a thousand times more compelling to me than wondering which love interest the main character will pick when he or she is still trying to figure out how to survive the night or which end of the sword you should be poking the bad guys with.

3. Aliens Are Always Smarter Than Us

There are only a few non-human species on Earth that can be described as intelligent: elephants, dolphins, and certain species of apes come to mind here.

We have no idea what life is really like on other planets or if it exists, but sometimes I wonder what humanity would do if we discovered something that wasn’t a little green man who could learn to speak English.

How would we treat an alien species if it was about as intelligent and willing to communicate with us as is the average cat? What if they were intelligent but it was in a way that wasn’t particularly compatible with human intelligence? Would we still be interested in a species if we couldn’t figure out their language or they couldn’t figure out ours?

These are the kinds of questions I think about every time I watch science fiction movies about humans making contact with new species from other planets.

4. Humans Are the Good Guys

Speaking of aliens, why are humans always the good guys when our species get into conflicts with each other?

Humanity honestly doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to treating new cultures and societies fairly. While I hope that would change if we ever met intelligent and communicative beings from another planet, I think there’s a fairly decent chance that at least some humans would try to take advantage of them for personal or political gain.

No, I’m not saying that eery single human needs to be fighting for the dark side. Wouldn’t it be interesting to read a book or watch a movie about someone who noticed this happening and who tried to warn the aliens before one of our governments passed a law saying it was okay to mistreat visitors from other planets, though? The conflict between your duty to your species and your duty to protect innocent visitors who are going to be horribly abused for potentially many generations to come if you don’t speak out and fight for them right now would keep me glued to my seat.

It would also help the scifi genre return to the kinds of social messages that used to be much more common in it. Science fiction isn’t just about coming up with flashy ideas for new technology or imagining what life could be like in a few hundred years. It can also be about getting people to think critically about the decisions they make in their real life that can help or hurt the most vulnerable members of our society.

5. Nobody Spills the Beans

I shake my head every time a vast conspiracy is revealed that has existed for decades and required thousands or even millions of people to play along with it.

It’s hard enough to get five people to agree on what kind of pizza to order or to keep excited relatives from sharing the news when you tell them that you’re pregnant, have finally finished writing your book, or recently got a promotion!

Secrets only work if they’re kept by a small number of highly motivated people. Even then, it is very easy for one of them to spring a leak with someone they deeply trust.

Unless the character exist in a universe where the Powers That Be purposefully limit the intelligence of most people while they’re still in the womb, these things should either somewhat common knowledge or only known by a handful of characters in the entire universe.

I would love it if more books understood all of these rules. If you have any recommendations for stories that do, let me know on Twitter!

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February 23, 2017 · 10:10 am

5 More Modern Scifi Books You Should Be Reading

Last month I recommended five modern science fiction books that I really enjoyed to my readers. Today I decided to write a follow-up post so that I can recommend even more great reads to you! Who knows? Maybe this will become a series on this blog. We will see what happens in the future.

The Passage by Justin Cronin.

What is it about?

A virus turns humans into vampires so quickly that our species is now on the brink of extinction.

An FBI agent suddenly finds himself in charge of keeping an abandoned child safe in a world where no child is safe anymore.

Humanity must adjust to this new world, so the rest of the plot is about how that happens over a long period of time and what happens when the precautions people take to protect themselves begin to fail.

Why should you read it?

This is one of the most suspenseful and action-packed books I’ve read in a long time. Dividing it up into sections that told different pieces of the same story was a good idea. In some ways, it was sort of like three novellas set in the same universe one because each section was focused on such a specific part of the storyline.

One of the other things I appreciated about it was that the vampires weren’t misunderstood, secretly romantic, or anyone’s boyfriend. They were violent, dangerous, ugly, and menacing. This black-and-white approach to the genre was refreshing. I really like it when monsters act like monsters.

Oryx and Crake  by Margaret Atwood

What is it about?

It’s a dystopia set in the near future. Jimmy, a man who thinks he’s the last living human on earth, is grieving the loss of his friends Oryx and Crake.

His only companions are the Children of Crake, a small group of genetically-modified, human-like creatures who are about as intelligent as the average 7-year-old child. They think of him as a messenger from their creator and obey his every command.

The plot thickens when Jimmy runs into his old friends and realizes that he isn’t alone after all.

This is the first book in her MaddAddam trilogy. If you like it, the next two books in the series are just as excellent.

Why should you read it?

The first thing that drew me into the plot were all of the flashbacks to life right before society collapsed. Your social class determines everything from what kind of school you’re allowed to attend to how much food you have to whether or not you survive in this society. It is a very rigid system that’s basically impossible to escape.

The Children of Crake weren’t the only genetically modified creatures in this universe. In fact, they weren’t even the most interesting ones!

I also enjoyed the storytelling. This is something I’d especially recommend to anyone who has read a lot of science fiction or who is already a fan of Margaret Atwood’s writing in general. She plays around with this genre in some pretty spectacular ways.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie 

What is it about?

This is a collection of interviews done with people of all ages and backgrounds who survived the zombie apocalypse many years after humanity more or less won the war.

Patient Zero’s experiences are included early on. Most zombie fiction doesn’t bother showing where the virus comes from or how it started to spread, so I was fascinated by this section.

Another interview is with a feral child who somehow escaped being attacked and then survived alone in the woods for years before finally being rescued. Despite being much older now, this witness will always remain a small child as far as their mental understanding of the world goes.

There is also a dog who was trained to fight the zombies as part of a military strike against them. That interview was obviously done with one of the humans who worked with the dog, of course, but it was fascinating to see how such a partnership was created and why it functioned so well.

Why should you read it?

Regardless of whether you hated or loved the movie that shares the same name, this book is nothing like that film. The only thing they share in common is their title.

I loved the interviews because they covered the civilian, military, and medical sides to the story. Some characters saw and fought multiple zombies. Others had more sheltered experiences because of the nature of the work they did or where they happened to be when the outbreak began.

This reminded me of the oral histories I’ve read about real historical events. One person’s perspective can’t tell you the whole story, but you’ll learn a lot about what happened and what was possibly a myth or a misunderstanding if you interview many people and compare their memories.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

What is it about?

The title gives away much of the plot. Harry August is a man who keeps living the same lifetime over and over again.

No matter what he does or where he goes, every death that finds him only brings him back to the day of his birth.

This isn’t to say that every single lifetime of his is exactly the same, though. He makes different choices every time that lead to happier (or sadder!) outcomes later on in life.

Why should you read it?

Reincarnation is fascinating.

I’m also intrigued by the idea of reliving your life in order to correct mistakes that you made in it. Would things be better or worse if you hypothetically took back those cruel words you spat at someone, or never travelled to the place where that awful thing happened, or ordered a salad instead of the shrimp special on your twenty-third birthday that gave you life-threatening food poisoning the last time around?

11/22/63 by Stephen King

What is it about?

A high school English teacher named Jake who travels back through time to attempt to stop the assassination of President Kennedy.

Like The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, trying the change the past is much harder than it looks. Every time Jake changes one thing, the universe does its best to thwart him and restore time to the way it originally was.

Why should you check it out?

This isn’t your typical Stephen King tale. There are no monsters, demons, or gory plot twists. As much as I occasionally enjoy his pulpier work, this is a wonderfully mature and complex story that I’d recommend to people regardless of whether or not they’re already a fan of this author’s writing style.

This is one of those rare cases where I’d recommended watching the TV show by the same name just as much as I’d recommended reading it.

Is it cheating to admit that I’m not entirely sure I finished the book when I tried it a few years ago?  It’s been so long ago that I can’t remember for sure, but I love the TV show so much that I’m now planning to give the original story another try. Sometimes it takes me a few tries to read all the way through a full-length novel, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

This is the kind of story that excels on the small screen because of how much it depends on small details. In this case, visualizing those little details was much easier for me to do by watching it unfold one episode at a time. You may want to try both and see which one appeals to you most.

Happy reading!

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