Craig Laurance Gidney's Blog, page 34

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan: A dreamlike travelogue

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Winner of this year’s Lambda Literary Award in the SF/H/F Category

Beautifully written, with a meandering plot.

The story moved slowly and the dramatic tension was in the doldrums. The lapidary prose and the elegiac mood is what propels this novel forward, rather than a proper plot. The worldbuilding was vague, both a strength and a weakness. (It suffers from the Planet of White People syndrome issue; seriously, where are the POC?) The characters were well drawn but some POVs were unneccesary and didn’t really reveal anything. (Why, for instance, is there a whole chapter from the point of view of the messenger, or from one of the clowns? They add nothing to the story). I feel the author missed opportunities to build suspense; the plot only takes place in the last 20 pages or so. It is better to take this book as a dreamlike travelogue than full-fledged novel. I’m looking forward to Logan’s next book.

Filed under: Book Reviews, Uncategorized Tagged: kirsty logan, lambda literary, queer fantastika

EVENT: Queer Speculative Fiction Reading in Philadelphia This Friday

Come out to hear Carmen Maria Machado, Tom Cardamone and myself read at the oldest GLBTQ bookstore in the country.

I plan to read from the queerest section of my illustrated chapbook THE NECTAR OF NIGHTMARES. And I will have a few copies of ltd. edition (now SOLD OUT) on hand.

 

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: carmen maria machado, giovanni's room, Tom Cardamone

A magnificent tribute to Tanith Lee

It has been a year since Tanith Lee passed away. She died on May 24. I just read a stunning tribute to her by a fan on Tumblr.

Take a moment to read A Year Without Tanith Lee

Tanith used to correspond to me every now and then. I will share a brief note she sent me along with a copy of her then new release TURQUOISELLE. She sent both because I was recuperating from a minor surgery. She was kind as she was talented.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Tanith Lee, tumblr

SIGNAL BOOST: Sibling Rivalry Press Crowdfund

My pals at Sibling Rivalry Press are running an Indiegogo funding campaign to raise the profile of the press. This small, indie LGBTQ publisher has a proven track record,releasing  books that have won awards;  the debut collections of emerging poets Saeed Jones and Ocean Vuong are among SRP’s notable publications. They are doing important and exciting work.

Sibling Rivalry Press founder Bryan Borland says:

With our mission and vision in place, it’s time to look to the future, and the future starts now. Thanks to the wonderful people at McSweeney’s and Heyday Books, two successful publishing ventures who’ve walked a similar path, we’ve mapped out a plan to shift the publishing operations of SRP, the for-profit company, to the nonprofit Sibling Rivalry Press Foundation. The road starts today as we partner with Fractured Atlas and Indiegogo to begin accepting tax-deductible donations to support the books we publish, and we’ve secured a matching donation of 25K if we can raise the same amount over the summer.

If you are able, please contribute. You can learn more directly from SRP!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/disturb-and-enrapture#/

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: bryan borland, crowdfunding, indie publisher, sibling rivalry press

Recap of Sci-Fi Alien(ation) Panel on GeeksOut

There’s a good summary of the  panel I was on last month (about bigotry in Speculative  Fiction, the puppy factions, etc.) over at the GeeksOut blog. The piece highlights the points made by my co-panelists, Andre Carrington and Jennifer Marie Brissett.

From the article:

Keeping the topic of literary awards going, Craig Laurance Gidney took the first deep dive into the 2015 Hugo Controversy. He opened his remarks by reading an excerpt from Sad Puppies leader Brad R. Torgersen, in which Torgersen admonishes today’s Science Fiction for containing too much subtext. He glamorizes the days when books with spaceships on the cover were just books about space adventure, and not allegories for slavery or other things he’d rather not think about. Gidney then tore into this short-sighted logic for its fundamental flaw: there has always been subtext in Speculative Fiction.

Be sure to check out the rest of the article here.

 

Filed under: Uncategorized

On the Hugo Award unpleasantness.

The Rabid Puppy brigade have gamed the Hugos again. At least this time, there was some humor involved—see the Chuck Tingle entry. But for the most part, it’s underwhelming and sigh-inducing, rather than shocking and hateful. I’m reminded of a quote that Toni Morrison made about racism (see below), though you could substitute just about any bigotry/ism in for racism.

I’m just going to focus on creating my weird, diversity filled fictional worlds, and reading and supporting the same. The Puppies’ antics are just a distraction. So much good fiction—some of it written by Straight White Men, no less– is coming out now. We are in a Golden Age, with tons of stories and many unique voices being heard, both in the large and indie presses.

Let’s keep our focus there, and away from immature provocateurs.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: bigotry, hugo awards, speculative fiction, toni morrison

Interview with Matthew Kressel, Author of “King of Shards”

My interview with Matthew Kressel, author of King of Shards, the first in a series of fantasy novels inspired by Jewish mythology, is now up at the Washington Independent Review of Books. Matthew has always been a cheerleader of my own work, so I was pleased to do the interview and give his book exposure.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Interviews, matthew kressel, washington independent review of books

A signal boost for Rosarium Publishing

There’s a lot of talk about diversity in publishing. Local-to-me publisher (in nearby Greenbelt, MD) Rosarium is actually doing it. In addition to publishing the critically acclaimed Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism & Beyond and Stories for Chip, (a Samuel R Delany tribute) anthologies they also publish comics and art books from a world-wide myriad of voices.

During my last appearance, at the CUNY Graduate Center, where I spoke about racism and homophobia in the speculative fiction community, I didn’t have a chance to highlight the various presses that are bringing diverse voices to publishing and speculative storytelling. Rosarium exemplifies that ideal.

In a few short years, Rosarium Publishing has produced some awesome and provocative material. They are currently running an Indiegogo campaign, which closes in 8 days, to raise the profile of the company and fund various exciting projects.

You can learn about it here.

 

Filed under: Publishing, Uncategorized Tagged: crowdfunding, diverse books, rosarium publishing

The Agony and the agony: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A tale of two novels

A Little Life starts out as a bildungsroman. Its milleu, of 4 highly educated, multiracial people more or less on the gay side of the Kinsey scale is witty and rings true. It’s a mélange of workplace struggles, fabulous soirees, bad apartments and sexual experimentation. Then, about 200 pages in, it turns into a Lemony Snicket-styled book for adults, full of abuse and suffering. The two modes of storytelling, however, don’t mesh. Yanagihara’s scene setting is so meticulous—down to describing what people eat and their apartments—that the intrusion of Dickensian (heading towards Grand Guginol) excessive suffering is odd.

****SPOILERS****

Mind you, the writing about self-loathing and self-harm is powerful and ghastly and gorgeous. It just doesn’t seem to belong to the first conception of the novel. Furthermore, the history of the lead character, Jude, is downright surreal. I had a hard time believing that a pugilistic lawyer who made enough money to live in a Soho warehouse with a private swimming pool, who was also a master baker and sang lieder and had a post graduate degree in pure mathematics came from such ghoulish circumstances—a foundling raised by pedophilic monks, then a child sex slave, then a teenage hustler, and finally, a victim of a Silence of the Lambs styled sicko. Oh, he also suffers from blistering pain that requires him to use a wheelchair sometimes, and he cuts himself to ribbons with regular frequency. My problem wasn’t with the hopelessness of the story, which some people call “tragedy porn”. It was with the logistics. The problem is, in Yanagihira’s complex, detailed novel, there wasn’t a single scene of Jude learning how to bake or being a lawyer, so you don’t really see how he is supposed to pull off the Tough Lawyer by day/wounded self-destructive boy with the thorn in side by night balancing act. Also unbelievable was the patience his enabling friends had for Jude. I know real life people who are a whole lot less damaged than Jude who try people’s patience. Only his friend JB is strong enough not to put up with his crap—and JB is painted in a bad light.

Despite the flaws, A Little Life did keep me reading. The prose was great if a little overwrought sometimes, and was even suspenseful. I think that there is a great novel within this messy first draft.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: a little life, hanya yanagihara

Sci-Fi Alien(ation): Diversity Under Attack Panel at CUNY Graduate Center

Photo by Sam J. Miller

 

This past Friday, Dr. Andre Carrington, Jennifer Marie Brissett and I discussed the issues of racism, homophobia and diversity in the Speculative Fiction community on a panel at the CUNY Graduate Center. We covered the Hugo Award unpleasantness, access to publishing and instances of racism and homophobia both as authors and as fans. The classroom was full, and people had to be turned away! The audience and the panelists were lively and engaged. You can watch the video here. Thanks to people who came out and to Dr. Philip Kadish for arranging this panel!

 

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Andre Carringon, CUNY, diversity, hugo awards, Jennifer Marie Brissett, racism in speculiative fiction