Francesca T. Barbini's Blog, page 13

C4P: Lorianne Reuser - Rape as Narrative in GoT

Luna's first Call for Papers, 'Gender Identity and Sexuality in Fantasy and Science Fiction' will be released on Wednesday the 9th of August. Explore the ten brilliant papers you will find in the book.Today, we would like to introduce you to Lorianne Reuser​, (Canada) English Literature, Greek and Roman studies. Researcher. She is presenting the paper: "Subversion, Sex and Violence: Rape as Narrative Tool In ‘A Song Of Ice And Fire’".Lorianne says:"Sexual violence is a pervasive part of American media, from news reports to prime time soap operas to cable programming. The concept of female body as object is entrenched in the visual imagery of popular culture, and the violated female body acts as a versatile narrative tool. Using previous critical scholarship on feminism and rape culture, along with essay collections devoted to George R.R. Martin’s books and the ensuing HBO adaptation, I will examine the pervasive threat of sexual violence, with a focus on instances of rape, in Martin’s and HBO’s Westeros. In examining three controversial scenes of rape from the television adaptation -- namely those of Daenerys, Sansa, and Cersei -- and how they act in dialogue with the source text, I will explore how Martin uses rape as a means to subvert the type of fantasy that he calls a ‘Disneyland Middle Ages’, and concurrently how those specific scenes struggle to escape the tropes of current rape culture and its damaging effects on women and their experiences."Follow Lorianne on Twitter.Pre-order 'Gender Identity and Sexuality in Fantasy and Science Fiction' now!

Steampunk Writers: Fábio Fernandes

Today we would like you to meet Fábio Fernandes, one of the "Steampunk Writers Around the World" authors. Fábio has contributed the short story "EL ALFÉREZ DE HIERRO", one of the stories you will be able to read in Spanish.Above, you can see Jay Johnstone's image created for this particular story. Jay is also responsible for creating the cover of the anthology.Fábio Fernandes lives in São Paulo, Brazil. He has published two books so far, an essay on William Gibson’s fiction, A Construção do Imaginário Cyber, and a cyberpunk novel, Os Dias da Peste (both in Portuguese). Also a translator, he is responsible for the translation to Brazilian Portuguese of several SF novels, including Neuromancer, Snow Crash, and A Clockwork Orange. His short stories have been published online in Brazil, Portugal, Romania, the UK, New Zealand, and USA, and also in Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded and Southern Fried Weirdness: Reconstruction (2011), The Apex Book of World SF, Vol 2, Stories for Chip. Co-edited (with Djibril al-Ayad) the postco anthology We See a Different Frontier. Graduate of Clarion West, class of 2013. Slush reader for Hugo Award-winner Clarkesworld Magazine. You can pre-order your copy on our website, through your usual outlets, or even pick up a copy in Helsinki, during the Worldcon!We leave you with a little teaser of Fábio Fernandes' story. Enjoy!EL ALFÉREZ DE HIERROSentado frente a la larga mesa de escritorio, el hombre lee. Es tarde y solo la luz de la lámpara le hace compañía. No tiene esposa y los pocos esclavos que posee ya se han ido a dormir.Mantener la atención en la lectura es difícil. Los pensamientos vuelan lejos. “Cuando la cabeza no obedece, el cuerpo padece,” acostumbraba a decir su padre, ya fallecido. Él piensa en su padre. Y eso fortalece su volunta. Su concentración aumenta.

C4P: Rostislav Kůrka - The Magical Way Forward

Luna's first Call for Papers, 'Gender Identity and Sexuality in Fantasy and Science Fiction' will be released on Wednesday the 9th of August. Explore the ten brilliant papers you will find in the book.Today, we would like to introduce you to Rostislav Kůrka, (Czech Republic/ Finland) MA Theology. Researcher, Writer. He is presenting the paper: "The Magical Way Forward? Recent Changes in Gender Representation in Magic: The Gathering Card Game".Rostislav says:"This paper focuses on the portrayal of gender in the story of “Magic: The Gathering” card game. Recently, growing focus on the story itself has been accompanied by a notable shift in the way characters of different genders have been represented. Using particular cases from Magic’s recent story blocks, the aim of this paper is to pinpoint and evaluate the trends in this development, both quantitative (in terms of female/male/non-binary ratio of characters appearing in the story) and qualitative (the roles these characters take on). Roles of characters belonging to sexual orientation minorities are also discussed."Pre-order 'Gender Identity and Sexuality in Fantasy and Science Fiction' now!

Steampunk Writers: Josué Ramos

Today we would like you to meet Josué Ramos, one of the "Steampunk Writers Around the World" authors. Josué has contributed the short story "The history of your heart" which is also present in the anthology in its original Spanish version, as "La historia de tu corazón".Above, you can see Jay Johnstone's image created for this particular story. Jay is also responsible for creating the cover of the anthology.Josué Ramos won a few awards as a writer of science fiction, horror and historic tales. In 2006, he won the first place on the Premis literaris Constanti 2006 Històries de la História. That year, he started to write his first novel, La ultima conspiración, which was published later. Since then, he published tales online and in science fiction and literature magazines. One of them, “The mechanical flower”, was included in The Best of Spanish Steampunk anthology, published by Ediciones Nevsky. "Asimo” was selected as one of the best science fiction tales of the year 2009 in Spain, and was published published by the Spanish Association of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Terror on the anthology Fabricantes de Suenos 2009. Then, he started to write and promote Steampunk literature online and in blogs, forums and conventions. He was one of the organizers of the EuroSteamCon in Spain and he was writer in the international magazine El Investigador. Since 2012, he published two Steampunk novels, Ecos de voces lejanas and Lendaria; and the greenpunk novel Páramos Lejanos. He also edited the series of four anthologies Acronos, with Paulo César Ramírez Villaseñor; and Chikara, greenpunk anthology in tribute to Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, with Giny Valrís. He is the administrator, both in Spanish and English, of the web MundoSteampunk.Net.You can pre-order your copy on our website, through your usual outlets, or even pick up a copy in Helsinki, during the Worldcon!You can hear all about the anthology and Josué's involvement from the man himself. Here are two links, one in Spanish and one in English.We leave you with a little teaser, in both languages, of Josué Ramos' story. Enjoy!THE STORY OF YOUR HEARTHe could see him inside the casket, defenceless and dead, and couldn’t force himself to stand closer. He wanted to touch him. But he kept his hands in his pocket, ashamed.“We’re going to incinerate him in an hour,” the employee mumbled without looking up, his eyes hidden by his hat.“Can you give me a few minutes alone with him, please?”“Sure, of course. All the time you need. Are you family?”“I’m his father.”LA HISTORIA DE TU CORAZÓNPodía verlo dentro de la caja, inerme, muerto, y no podía evitar mantenerse lejos. Quería tocarlo. Pero se guardaba las manos en los bolsillos, avergonzado.‘Vamos a incinerarlo dentro de una hora,’ murmuró el funcionario encargado del cuerpo, sin levantar la vista de bajo su sombrero.‘¿Puede darme un momento a solas con él, por favor?’‘Sí, claro. El tiempo que haga falta. ¿Es familiar?’‘Soy su padre.’

'One Cog Turning' Ready to Launch! Interview with Anthony Laken.

Anthony Laken's debut novel, One Cog Turning, is a Steampunk adventure that kicks some punch - seriously. It makes you think you're safe only to jab you in the kidney when you least expect it. The book will be launched at Edge-Lit 6 in Derby, on the 15th of July 2017. To win your free copy of One Cog Turning follow our Twitter or Facebook page and paste "Send me OCT!" on our wall! And now let's hear it from the man himself.KL: What was the first thing you ever wrote, fiction-wise, and how old were you? AL: The first thing I wrote with a storyline was a gag comic about a bandit kidney bean. My family loved it, and I got a taste for sharing stories. I was pretty prolific during primary school—my teachers even let me write during maths!—and I wrote a series of adventures about three boys called Mark, Luke and Tom. These were probably my first works of pure fiction.KL: Did you know you wanted to be a writer when you were young? Or did it happen by chance? AL: I’m not sure if I wanted to be a writer from my youth, but I have always wanted to tell stories. Comics were a huge part of my childhood, and for a while, I wanted to create them. Then I got into videogames and developed the itch to be involved in that process too. For all of these things I was still writing in some form: storylines, scripts and scenarios. I kept creating, dreaming up worlds, but it wasn’t until my short story, Harix, was chosen for Luna Press’s Beyond Realities 2015 anthology, that I realised I just might be able to make a go at this “writing” lark!KL: One Cog Turning is quite a substantial first novel. You had to juggle several characters and story lines in it. How do you approach the 'writing a novel' process? AL: If I’d have known how complicated One Cog Turning would turn out to be, I probably wouldn’t have started! Thankfully I was full of the unbound optimism only inexperience can generate. I did have a beginning, middle and an end, and that gave me anchor points. Everything in between was pure "seat of my pants". Said pants have since needed to be disposed of…KL:  One Cog Turning is an adventure with Steampunk overtones. Were you consciously writing a Steampunk novel, or did it sneak up on you? AL: The steampunk elements were a bit of a surprise!  Initially, I wanted to set the novel in a period akin to the enlightenment, where big ideas in philosophy and engineering were being dreamed up, but maybe not integrated into society yet. In the end, the lure of copper, gears and steam proved too much!KL: Imagine you had to pack three books to take with you on a one-way trip to Mars. What would they be? AL: The first book I would choose is Catch 22. It is my favourite novel of all time, the dark humour and cyclical traps the characters find themselves in never fails to entertain. The second book would have to be The Fellowship of the Ring. I know, I know—it’s a cliché, but it inspired my love for the epic and is another book I’ve read countless times. My final book would be The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. This book drew me back into the world of fantasy literature and to me epitomises the genre at its best. It inspired me to write seriously, and without it, there would be no One Cog Turning.KL: What are you writing at the moment? AL: I am currently halfway through the final novel of the trilogy which One Cog Turning opens. My characters are a noisy bunch and won’t let me rest till their whole story is told. Hopefully, when I’m done they’ll give it a rest…only for a bit, though!Pre-order One Cog Turning now!

Steampunk Writers Around The World: Kevin Steil

Kevin Steil, also known as the Airship Ambassador, is responsible for the organising of ‘Steampunk Hands around the World’ project. One of the by-products of this interesting venture is the bilingual Steampunk anthology, half in Spanish half in English, "Steampunk Writers around the World" published by Luna Press Publishing. The book has just been announced and will be released on the 4th of August 2017, in time for Worldcon 2017. Pre-orders are open now for both paperback and e-book version.In the course of the next few weeks, we will introduce you to the writers of this tremendous anthology and their stories. Each of the stories has a unique image created by Luna artist Jay Johnstone, who has also created the cover for the book.Let's start with Kevin Steil. In the book you will be able to read his introduction as well.A while back, Kevin was asked to tell us more about this fascinating multicultural project. here is what he said."This is another project which started out which such a tiny, simple idea. I was instant messaging with my friend, Josue’ Ramos, of MundoSteampunk in Spain, and I thought how great it was that technology enabled us to not only stay in touch but also talk real time. And then I thought how great it was to have a steampunk friend nearly on the other side of the planet, and that we could share our passion for steampunk with each other as creators. We were reaching our steampunk hands out around the work to shake in friendship and collaboration.Those feelings were worth sharing, as well as encouraging other steampunks to meet each other and learn more about steampunk in other countries. Steampunk is more than just what we experience at home, or locally. It’s more than the regional conventions. It’s truly global and I hoped that this project would make it easier for people to experience that. From what I’ve seen over the years, people bring not only their own personal outlook and choices, but they also bring their local and regional culture and society into their expression of steampunk.First, I thought I’d write a blog post basically saying that, then I thought maybe I could round up a few other steampunk friends to write something. I figured maybe I’d get ten people, tops, and maybe we could all post the same day. That would be cool, right?In the end, several dozen people expressed interesting in writing up something, and we posted for the entire month of February. It has been so educational and rewarding to see the different perceptions and expressions of steampunk from literally around the world. There is so much inspiration to draw on, and people are so amazingly creative. I wish I spoke every language or had a Universal Translator so I could visit with all of these great steampunks everywhere."Pre-orders are now open!

C4P: Juliet McKenna - The Myth of Meritocracy

Luna's first Call for Papers, 'Gender Identity and Sexuality in Fantasy and Science Fiction' will be released on Wednesday the 9th of August. Explore the ten brilliant papers you will find in the book.Today, we would like to introduce you to Juliet McKenna (UK) Greek and Roman history and literature. Epic fantasy writer. She is presenting the paper: "The Myth of Meritocracy and the Reality of the Leaky Pipe and Other Obstacles in Science Fiction & Fantasy".Juliet says:"It was initially assumed that increased female entry into careers such as law, medicine and higher education would naturally result in more equal representation at the higher levels over time. This has been proven not to be the case. This paper will consider what evidence from such research is equally applicable to lack of diversity in genre publishing, and what factors might be specific to SF&F."Follow Juliet on Twitter.Pre-order 'Gender Identity and Sexuality in Fantasy and Science Fiction' now!

Steampunk Writers Around The World: Pre-Order Now!

The Luna family strikes again! These 11 magnificent authors have produced a truly global Steampunk anthology: "Steampunk Writers Around the World - Vol I". From the moment this collaboration started, we knew it would be a very special and unusual project for Luna. For starters, it is bilingual, half in Spanish and half in English. The cover artwork is by Luna artist Jay Johnstone. Jay has also created individual images for each of the stories, reflecting their unique cultural setting.Here are the stories you will find in the anthology: FOREWORD By Kevin SteilTHE STORY OF YOUR HEART By Josué Ramos - SpainEL ALFÉREZ DE HIERRO By Fábio Fernandes - Brazil HEIRS By Marcus R. Gilman - Germany PÓLVORA Y VAPOR By Aníbal J. Rosario Planas - Puerto Rico PROVIDENCE IN THE PACIFIC By Ray Dean - HawaiiLAS CADENAS INFINITAS By César Santivañez - Peru THE SWARM By Milton Davis - AfricaLA HISTORIA DE TU CORAZÓN By Josué Ramos - SpainUNMADE By Suna Dasi - Scotland/India LA MALDICIÓN DE LA ESPINA By Elaine Vilar Madruga - Cuba THE GOLDEN APPLE By Petra Slováková - Czech RepublicCUAUHTLIPOCA, EL ÁGUILA HUMEANTE By Paulo César Ramírez Villaseñor - MexicoOver the course of the next few weeks we will further introduce you to these authors, their stories and their passion for Steampunk.Stay tuned and pre-order the anthology now! 

C4P: Alina Hadîmbu - Female Characters in Blockbuster Franchises

Luna's first Call for Papers, 'Gender Identity and Sexuality in Fantasy and Science Fiction' will be released on Wednesday the 9th of August. Explore the ten brilliant papers you will find in the book.Today, we would like to introduce you to Alina Hadîmbu (Romania), MA in Comparative Literature and Cultural Anthropology. Writer.She is presenting the paper: "Newly Added Female Characters to Blockbuster Franchises. Gender Balancing in Otherwise Male-Dominated Fictional Worlds or a Greater Purpose?".Alina says:"With gender equality being one of the most sensitive topics of the 21st century, the world of fantasy and fiction on the silver screen has seen a surge in the number of female characters in leading roles. The main question is: are these characters added solely for the purpose of having a balanced male/female count and screen time, or is there more? Do these newly added female characters bring a solid contribution, change destinies, change the world perhaps, or are they only inscribed for more traditional roles (for example, serving as love interests)? Two very recent examples serve to show that such female characters are far from lacking in substance. We will have an in-depth look at the creation and mission of Rey, the new leading character in the latest Star Wars trilogy, and Tauriel, a non-canonical heroine added to The Hobbit film adaptations based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s books. This paper will explore their personalities, purpose and interactions with other characters, as well as their impact on the unfolding events, as presented in their respective high-grossing films."Pre-order 'Gender Identity and Sexuality in Fantasy and Science Fiction' now!

C4P: Hazel Butler - Badass Bisexual Babes

Luna's first Call for Papers, 'Gender Identity and Sexuality in Fantasy and Science Fiction' will be released on Wednesday the 9th of August. Explore the ten brilliant papers you will find in the book.Today, we introduce you to Hazel Butler (UK). She is presenting the paper: "Badass Bisexual Babes: Shameless Titillation or Empowered Characters Embracing their True Selves and Sexuality?".Hazel says:"The twenty-first century is increasingly accepting of the full spectrum of gender identities, sexuality, and sexual preference. We see an increasing number of characters in Fantasy who embrace different aspects of this spectrum. Their validity as representations of the LGBTQS community can be brought into question, however, by characters whose sexual expression is less a reflection of true diversity, and more an attempt to titillate audiences with same-sex action while keeping main characters ‘straight at heart’ to preserve the mainstream appeal of central romantic relationships. This study will examine a number of notable examples of bisexual characters in Fantasy and consider whether their gender identities and sexuality, as portrayed, are a genuine reflection of a more diverse approach to characterisation, or a cheap trick to boost ratings and gain publicity."You can follow Hazel on Twitter.Pre-order 'Gender Identity and Sexuality in Fantasy and Science Fiction' now!