Jared Shurin's Blog, page 35

Breaking the Glass Slipper on "15 of the Amazing Women Writing Genre Fiction"

When Breaking the Glass Slipperwas asked to identify some of the issues facing female writers in genre, the very first thing that each of us replied was discoverability.

Why is it that, with the exception of long-established authors, books by women do not seem to be as widely publicised as those authored by men? Our first episode considers best of lists, which certainly play a part in discoverability. They also remain the clearest example of inequality. Why, we wondered, do these lists not fe...

Review Round-up: Narabedla, Cold Silver and A Colder Sun

Three fantasy titles of all shapes and sizes - Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Falcons of Narabedla, Greg James' Under A Colder Sun and Alex Marshall's A Crown for Cold Silver.

Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Falcons of Narabedla (1957)

Mike does radio things in a Government Lab. Electricity happens, and, ker-wham, he's mind-ported to Narabedla, Last of the Rainbow Cities. Mike's consciousness rests in the body of Adric, one of Naradebla's arrogant ruling class. Adric's mind isn't totally gone, but s...

Radio Drama: "Aunt Emmy" (1955)

"Aunt Emmy", first aired November 15, 1955, from the series The Clock.

Thoughts Before Listening

It has sometimes been my wont to believe like the dickens that something is going to be good simply because I think the title is rad. This rarely works out because why would it. I have chosen to listen to Aunt Emmy for exactly this reason. I am stupid.

Thoughts While Listening

Some very self-possessed dude is telling us the difference between country folk and city folk.

Dear dude, I will give yo...

'Nerd History' Storybundle, featuring Irregularity

Delighted to announce that Irregularity is part of this month's 'Nerd History' Storybundle, sitting alongside some rather fascinating works of computing non-fiction.*

Storybundles are fun. You pay what you want. The books are DRM free. You get a ton of reading. And a big ol' cut goes to an awesome charity - in this case, the Computer History Museum. For those counting down the days until Jurassic goes extinct, it is also a nice way to pick upIrregularitybefore it disappears into the ether. (O...

The Definitive and Inarguable Ranking of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the #1 May Surprise You

As calculated by Anne and the One Comic crew (Jon, Bex, Jared).

As with all lists on the internet, this is final and absolute.

Guardians of the Galaxy (1.75) Captain America: Civil War (2) Captain America: Winter Soldier (3) Iron Man 3 (4.25) TIE: Ant Man and Iron Man (5.75) The Avengers (6.5) Thor (8.75) Thor 2 (9.5) Iron Man 2 (10) Captain America (10.25) The Avengers: Age of Ultron (11.25) The Incredible Hulk (11.5) (only two of us had seen it, so that's an average of those grades...

Nerd is the New Black: Civil War

Full disclosure: I've already seen Civil War (twice!), and it's great.

But if you haven't and you want to head to the cinema wearing something that proclaims your Cap vs. Iron Man loyalties, or if you just want to look at some cool Civil War-inspired stuff... well, that's what we're here for.

Let's start with the iconic Cap vs. Iron Man image from the comics, above.

Cool, huh? Etsy has some neatalternatives, like this one from ColourInkStudio.

This diptych from BFoxDesigns:

This extremely...

One Comic and Civil War #1

It's Captain America: Civil War week (here in the UK), so Bex, Jared and Jon are marking the occasion with a One ComicCivil War show.

The first issue of Civil War from 2006 marked the start of the series that saw hero vs hero in an ideological battle; should heroes be registered and licensed by the government, or should they operate freely? If the government defines who is a villain, what's to stop them basing their decision on political grounds? But without regulation, who holds the heroes...

The Killing Joke: We're Not Laughing Any More

Yesterdays release of a trailer for the upcoming animated version of famous Batman story The Killing Joke kicked off much discussion of the source material in various circles.

For a numberreasons more or less this exact discussion surfaces whenever The Killing Joke is in the news. I was particularly aware of yesterdays iteration because well-known comics writer Gail Simone ended up at ground zero for a lot of the Twitter-based debate.

The various strands of conversation that intersected Simon...

Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off! [Updated]

[Updated with the list of 30, plus links!]

Head's up! Pornokitsch is one of the ten blogs participating in this year's Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. Mark Lawrence started this quasi-award last year, and I'm very glad to be one of the bloggers for its second iteration.

You can read more about SPFBO here, and even snaga Storybundle of last year's finalists.

I think SPFBO is a really good thing. I pay (way too much) attention to awards, and although thisisn't one technically, it is also, in...

Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off!

Head's up! Pornokitsch is one of the ten blogs participating in this year's Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off. Mark Lawrence started this quasi-award last year, and I'm very glad to be one of the bloggers for its second iteration.

You can read more about SPFBO here, and even snaga Storybundle of last year's finalists.

I think SPFBO is a really good thing. I pay (way too much) attention to awards, and although thisisn't one technically, it is also, in practice, the most interesting new prize I'...