Kameron Hurley's Blog, page 40

On hitting deadlines, writing a book a year, and subverting the limits of make-believe

For reasons various and sundry, I have just now released a draft of RAPTURE to my editor, agent, and first readers (yes, the book was due 4/30, and I finished it 4/30, but I had to hold onto it due to Boring Business Things).

I’ve been toodling around with it, of course, since I finished it. Throughout that process I’ve been alternately going, “OK, this isn’t so bad,” and “Oh God, this is total shit.”

Last night, after finally releasing my death grip on the draft which no one but me had yet see...

Prometheus: White Dudes Seeding the Universe with their Magical Man-Sperm (Naturally)

NOTE: This post assumes you have already watched Prometheus, so is full of SPOILERS.

In the world of Prometheus, we all came from white dudes, who went around seeding the universe with their magical, life-giving sperm.

It was a fine feat those boys managed, creating whole worlds all on their own. I can’t help but wonder if it’s the secret dream of the filmmakers, to just go on creating whole worlds: movies, books, video games, work places, without the troubling influence of all those annoying f...

What is this Fat Woman Doing on TV?

When I rant about biases and stereotypes and authors’ blindspots, I get the impression that some people think I’m some perfect person without any biases. I’ve talked a lot about my awareness of my own misogyny and racism, but there’s other stuff that creeps up on you too, sometimes when you least expect it.

Bias does not happen in a vacuum. It’s a learned behavior. You eat it every morning with your cornflakes and simply haul it all back up the moment it’s triggered.

This truth hit me especiall...

Becoming Meat

I had to go to the doctor yesterday, which is something I have to do often and have come to hate and resent more than is probably appropriate. I had not been to my endocrinologist for nearly a year and a half, which isn’t to say I haven’t been to the doctor in all that time. I’ve been in for two surgeries and some followups, and been to urgent care twice. Which is probably why I was avoiding my endocrinologist, whom I’m supposed to see every 90 days.

When you go to doctors this often and get i...

They’ll Come for You… Whether You Speak up or Not

During times of great social upheaval, it can often seem safer to say nothing. You get noticed less. You piss off fewer people. You go around making sure the trains run on time. You make your dollars and go home and stuff them in the mattress and keep your head down and hope they don’t come for you.

It’s a silly position, really, because they always come for you.

I think it’s easier to remain neutral on stuff like politics when you think that specific policies won’t affect you. If you aren’t a...

Eat Your Bloody Steak. You’ll Like it: Eight Years of War, and Writing, and Bugs

Last night, J. cooked up a bloody rare steak. It was the first rare steak I’d had in a long time. I’ve been known to prefer my steaks mooing. We raised cows when I was growing up. I’m a happy carnivore.

But as I cut into raw, meaty inside this time, my stomach seized. My gorge rose.

I could not eat it.

When one of my dogs recently came home from a cabin getaway in the woods with a massive tick on her ear, my reaction was not, “Oh, cool!” it was “Wow, that’s incredibly gross. Can we get that thin...

Why Every Book is Not a Great F-Word Manifesto (But Should Be)

I had somebody complain about my post on The Cabin in the Woods, saying that, yanno, not EVERY book or film needs to be some great feminist manifesto. Not every book is ABOUT feminism, they said.

Which kinda made me wonder if they knew what “feminism” meant.

Cause this is all it is, folks: feminism is the revolutionary idea that women are people, and should be treated as such. Every book, regardless of what it thinks it’s about, says something about what the author and/or characters think about...

When did journalism…

When did journalism go from this:

“This thing happened. Here are the factual details of what happened as verified by our in-house reporter. Here is a quote from someone supporting this fact. Here is a quote from someone who explains how this fact will affect your immediate situation. Here are the facts again. Here’s where you can go to get more facts.”

To this?

“So, wow, someone said something! Here are tweets from random people agreeing with them. Here are tweets random people disagreeing with...

The Failure Garden

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where the expectation was that it’d be 60 degrees and raining all the time. This made gardening a pretty easy affair. Most stuff didn’t freeze, and it didn’t get hot enough for tropicals, and the sun came out so rarely that if you skipped a day or two or watering, it was no big deal.

Out here in Ohio, my gardening efforts have been rife with failure. I’ve planted annuals too early in the season, and had them burn in the frost. I’ve planted what I thought wer...

Why your gun-toting chick isn’t feminist, redux: Thoughts on The Cabin in the Woods

Note: Spoilers ahoy

When I walked in to watch The Cabin in the Woods, I expected a total subversion of the genre. I was giddy at the idea of taking all the old horror movie tropes and fucking with them. I looked forward to the blonde who wasn’t stupid, the virgin who totally had a bunch of sex, the jock who spent the whole time doing his homework, the stoner who gave up drugs, and the “Other” who got romantically entangled with the blond. I expected everybody to live, to fight back, to overcom...