I’ve been meaning to read Herland for a while, and when I found it on Project Gutenberg I decided the time had come.
It’s a well-written feminist utopia, not too preachy or infodumpy, and with some excellent sociological observation (as you’d expect, given that the author was a sociologist).
The publishing industry really has no idea what its audience will and won’t relate to.
Originally shared by Steve Turnbull
Very interesting article…
Seeing someone you think of as “like you” represented in media as a person with agency helps you believe in yourself.
But seeing someone you think of as “unlike you” portrayed sympathetically in media can help reduce prejudice.
Both good reasons for increasing diversity in media.
Ehhhhhhh.
I’ve never heard of the author concerned, but I’ve read several of the authors in the anthology he’s knocking, and they write well.
Look for the misplaced apostrophes in his review, which essentially says, “I get to define what SF and space opera are, and this isn’t it. Good try, ladies.”
Originally shared by The Mary Sue
Wow. All the cringes. Just all of them.
In pursuit of my goal to read a dozen books on craft this year, I picked up this one, which I’ve seen recommended in a few places. It’s very well done, clear and helpful, and I got a lot out of it.
My short story “Lock and Key” is up at The Sockdolager.
An alchemist in an Arabian-Nights setting must find out who is attempting to assassinate the Sultan, while avoiding being arrested for it herself.
I’m not a big fan of hard SF. It needs character and plot as well as setting for it to work for me.
The Martian worked for me, really well.
“Will appeal to fans of The Dresden Files” is, in my experience, usually a marketing lie. Not in this case, though. The main character is even a PI in Chicago, though it’s the Chicago of Al Capone – with the difference that the Fae are around, and the detective is one of them.
Simultaneously good noir and good urban fantasy.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18339939-hot-lead-cold-iron
“I have learned how I work best, and that is something that, if you’re going to be a professional writer, you should be noticing: under what circumstances you work at your best, and to not get yourself cornered into writing in a way that doesn’t let you do your best.”
– Ursula K. Le Guin
Originally shared by Self-Rescuing Princess Society
This interview with Ursula K. Le Guin is so fantastic, as one would expect.
I love this response to why she enjoys getting fan mail from 8 year olds: “Well, they tell me how I should have finished the books or what the next Catwings book ought to be or something like that. They have no inhibitions. It’s cool. If I got that from a grown-up, I wouldn’t think it was so cool. I’d say, “Write your own book!” But somebody 8 years old, they identify so passionately with what they read. You can tell. They really are into it.”
I currently have two fictional settings in development along these lines (by which I mean I may get round to writing stories in them someday, and am having fun playing with the ideas).
One is a supers setting, in which a rogue scientist has used the CRISPR/CAS9 gene-modifying technique in scientifically (more-or-less) credible ways to create babies with superpowers. She’s discovered and shut down, but now the government has these babies. They can’t just kill them, and… it would be kind of a waste. How about raising them to be loyal?
No way that could go wrong.
The other setting is a mid-future one, where the answer to “should we do these things?” has become “no” in a post-capitalist society that’s turned away from constant change in favour of the New Stability. Before they reached that point, though, there was a lot of biotinkering, and the results are still around. People just don’t think about them much (like we don’t think about the social and technological changes brought about by industrialism, because we grew up with them).
Originally shared by Eduardo Suastegui
We Can Edit Genomes, Create Synthetic Life, and Remake the World. But Should We?
http://www.popsci.com/we-can-edit-genomes-create-synthetic-life-and-remake-world-but-should-we