Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 12
July 24, 2017
Sheep Might Fly: The Bromancers Episode 10
EPISODE TEN: Sage Can’t Solve All His Problems With Coffee
Sage gets a date, finds someone new to flirt with, endures a possible death threat, and fails to write his new song. But hey, at least it’s raining.
Our favourite witchy rock band, Fake Geek Girl, are road-tripping to a magical music festival in a wi-fi free zone on the same weekend that the season finale of their favourite TV show drops. Can they avoid spoilers? Can Hebe, Holly, Juniper & Sage camp in tents for three days without murdering each other? Can coffee really fix EVERYTHING including missing band members, messy relationship drama and obsessive fan shenanigans?
Friendship is magic, but if you pile too much friendship on top of too much magic over one weekend, the results are bound to be explosive.
If you missed it:
EPISODE ONE: Hebe Plans For Failure
EPISODE TWO: Sage Says 10 out of 10, Would Break Up With Again
EPISODE THREE: True Bromance, Mei-Style
EPISODE FOUR: Hebe Is Unexpectedly House Proud
EPISODE FIVE: Whatever Happened To Miss Juniper Cresswell, gentlewoman and cellist?
EPISODE SIX: Sage To The Rescue!
EPISODE SEVEN: Mei Makes a List!
EPISODE EIGHT: Hebe and the Very Big, Completely Fine No Big Deal
EPISODE NINE: The Secret Diary of Miss Juniper Cresswell, Under New Management
You can listen to the first two Belladonna University stories, Fake Geek Girl & Unmagical Boy Story, right here on Sheep Might Fly.
Fake Geek Girl (Belladonna University #1) is also available as a free ebook.
Unmagical Boy Story (Belladonna University #2) is available for sale from Kindle, Kobo, iBooks & more.
Thanks for listening to Sheep Might Fly. You can sign up to my author newsletter for updates, follow me on Twitter at @tansyrr or @sheepmightfly, find me on Facebook at TansyRRBooks, and if you like this podcast consider supporting me at Patreon where you can receive all kinds of cool rewards and exclusive stories for a small monthly pledge.
See you next week!
July 18, 2017
Justice League Europe #5: Stagg Party
THE PACKAGING: Justice League International trade Vol Five
THE CREATIVE TEAM: Keith Giffen (Plot & Breakdowns), J.M. DeMatteis (Script), Bart Sears (Pencils), Joe Rubenstein (Inks), Gene D’Angelo (Colors), Andy Helfer (Editor)
JUSTICE LEAGUE ROLL CALL: Captain Atom, Metamorpho, Elongated Man (Ralph Dibny), Animal Man, Rocket Red (Dmitri Pushkin), with Catherine Cobert and Sue Dibny in civilian support. (Power Girl & Flash have the month off, clearly)
GUEST STARS: Sapphire Stagg, Simon Stagg, Java, Maxwell Lord, J’onn J’onzz & Oberon
THE STORY: Captain Atom has been summoned to JLA headquarters to answer for his recent military decisions, and instead of being a grown up (and a professional) about it, he acts like a spoilt child and yells at everyone, which means he ends up with more of a dressing down than he probably otherwise would have got.
Wow, he’s such a dick.
Meanwhile, Metamorpho gets emotional whiplash when his wife Sapphire arrives, declaring her love for him. She is shocked to discover that he is alive and has no memory of being married to her, and fills him in on what he missed: mostly that she has married her father’s Neanderthal bodyguard Java, and oh she and Rex (REX, HE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THIS WAS HIS NAME) had a baby of indeterminate gender, though this part is brushed over very quickly.
When Java bursts in to demand the return of his wife, Rex is shocked into all his memories coming back — Java then fights off whichever JLE members are handy, until Simon Stagg arrives to sort out the mess.
THE CHARACTERS: This one is all Metamorpho! I’m glad he has his memories back, but the Staggs always feel like a backdoor pilot to a show no one would want to watch.
Why is Sapphire such an airhead? Why is even Java? Metamorpho is well shot of them all… but his sadness at Sapphire always choosing her dad over him is still a rare moment of emotional vulnerability in our Element Man.
I really liked the use of Catherine in this issue, meeting Sapphire and eavesdropping on the Metamorphosoap. Her banter with Sue is pretty great and for once I don’t want to strangle Ralph, possibly because Wally isn’t around to be his punching bag.
THE COMEDY: It’s all pretty broad humour with lots of shouting, so like any 80’s sitcom, really?
THE ART: OK I still hate Bart Sears’ work, but it’s not quite as bad when Power Girl isn’t around. Sapphire looks almost conventionally attractive, and there are several excellent pages of Captain Atom’s shiny muscles, which are totes Sears’ artistic strong point.
THE KITCHEN SINK: How long do we have to wait for Crimson Fox?
July 17, 2017
Sheep Might Fly: The Bromancers Episode 9
EPISODE NINE: The Secret Diary of Miss Juniper Cresswell, Under New Management
Our favourite witchy rock band, Fake Geek Girl, are road-tripping to a magical music festival in a wi-fi free zone on the same weekend that the season finale of their favourite TV show drops. Can they avoid spoilers? Can Hebe, Holly, Juniper & Sage camp in tents for three days without murdering each other? Can coffee really fix EVERYTHING including missing band members, messy relationship drama and obsessive fan shenanigans?
Friendship is magic, but if you pile too much friendship on top of too much magic over one weekend, the results are bound to be explosive.
If you missed it:
EPISODE ONE: Hebe Plans For Failure
EPISODE TWO: Sage Says 10 out of 10, Would Break Up With Again
EPISODE THREE: True Bromance, Mei-Style
EPISODE FOUR: Hebe Is Unexpectedly House Proud
EPISODE FIVE: Whatever Happened To Miss Juniper Cresswell, gentlewoman and cellist?
EPISODE SIX: Sage To The Rescue!
EPISODE SEVEN: Mei Makes a List!
EPISODE EIGHT: Hebe and the Very Big, Completely Fine No Big Deal
You can listen to the first two Belladonna University stories, Fake Geek Girl & Unmagical Boy Story, right here on Sheep Might Fly.
Fake Geek Girl (Belladonna University #1) is also available as a free ebook.
Unmagical Boy Story (Belladonna University #2) is available for sale from Kindle, Kobo, iBooks & more.
Thanks for listening to Sheep Might Fly. You can sign up to my author newsletter for updates, follow me on Twitter at @tansyrr or @sheepmightfly, find me on Facebook at TansyRRBooks, and if you like this podcast consider supporting me at Patreon where you can receive all kinds of cool rewards and exclusive stories for a small monthly pledge.
See you next week!
July 16, 2017
Galactic Suburbia 170
In which Alisa & Tansy are not Handmaids, and we need a lot of cheerful culture to balance out the darkness.
WHAT’S NEW ON THE INTERNET/WHAT DO WE CARE ABOUT THIS WEEK?
Our Kickstarter for Mother of Invention is Complete: it’s the end but the moment has been prepared for.
Nnedi Okorafor’s amazing African dystopian novel Who Fears Death to be adapted for HBO, produced by GRRM. (and you thought The Handmaid’s Tale was hardcore viewing…)
Radio National Books program Alisa listened to – discussing The Wanderers & the horrible phenomenon of mainstream literary snobbery around science fiction.
CULTURE CONSUMED:
Alisa: The Handmaid’s Tale, Star Trek DS9 Seasons 1-5, Orphan Black S5 eps 1-5
Some Handmaid links:
SBS Streaming Ad Placement Almost as Brutal As Gilead
The Handmaid’s Tale in the Monthly by Elle Hardy
Margaret Atwood herself on Handmaid in the Age of Trump
Tansy: Reign Season 2; Bearly a Lady, Cassandra Khaw; The Dragon with A Chocolate Heart, Stephanie Burgis
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook, support us at Patreon – which now includes access to the ever so exclusive GS Slack – and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
July 11, 2017
Justice League America #29: Nabu In My Mind (August 1989)
THE PACKAGING: JLI trade vol 4
THE CREATIVE TEAM: Keith Giffen (Plot & Breakdowns), J.M. DeMatteis (Script), Ty Templeton (Pencils), Joe Rubenstein (Inks), Gene D’Angelo (Colors), Andy Helfer (Editor) Kevin Dooley (Assistant Editor)
CROSSOVER ALERT: All the references to Kent Nelson/Nabu/Dr Fate probably makes more sense if you’ve read that comic, but honestly he seems super annoying? So not sure why you’d want to
JUSTICE LEAGUE ROLL CALL: J’onn J’onzz the Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern (Guy Gardner,) Fire, Ice, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Mister Miracle (Scott Free) & Big Barda, with Maxwell Lord & Oberon in civilian support.
GUEST STARS: Nabu or Kent or whatever. That dude. Big Barda should probably be in this list too but I refuse to believe she’s not officially on the team.
THE STORY: Kent delves into the mind of Blue Beetle, finding mostly hot ladies and angst walls. He eventually switches bodies with Ted altogether, freaking him out (he wakes up in an old body!) but managing to dispose of the Azrael block while he’s in there.
Booster, who has been kept in quarantine for the duration because everyone’s assuming he has likewise been brainwashed by Queen Bee, gets the same treatment.
Meanwhile, Big Barda embraces her inner Fury, training Fire to use her new flame-on powers. It all goes terribly wrong when Barda’s Mega-Rod is stolen along with her car from in front of JLA headquarters… when she, Fire and Scott track down the weapon, they find it in the hands of an extremely dodgy looking Youf Of Today who promptly blasts all of them to kingdom come. Oh noes!
THE CHARACTERS: Supposedly we’re getting some kind of insight into Blue Beetle’s mind — and possibly Fire too, but instead the characters that get most development here are Big Barda and maybe Booster Gold who gets a rare moment of introspection instead of his usual shallow banter.
THE COMEDY: This one isn’t especially funny mostly because a lot of the humour comes from the antics of Nabu/Kent Nelson who grates on me like I’m cheese.
THE ART: Eh it’s OK. I like Templeton’s drawing of the now iconic Fire in flight, and his skills at light & fire effects also come in strong at the end with the depiction of the mega-rod. His casual Barda lacks a sense of stature. His dudes look kind of goofy, but there’s nothing truly horrendous going on here.
THE KITCHEN SINK: It’s so strange to see a nervous Fire, unaccustomed to how these new powers work. To me, flaming flying Fire was always the standard. This tiny knock to her ego isn’t going to last long, though…
July 10, 2017
Sheep Might Fly: The Bromancers Episode 8
EPISODE EIGHT: Hebe and the Very Big, Completely Fine No Big Deal
Our favourite witchy rock band, Fake Geek Girl, are road-tripping to a magical music festival in a wi-fi free zone on the same weekend that the season finale of their favourite TV show drops. Can they avoid spoilers? Can Hebe, Holly, Juniper & Sage camp in tents for three days without murdering each other? Can coffee really fix EVERYTHING including missing band members, messy relationship drama and obsessive fan shenanigans?
Friendship is magic, but if you pile too much friendship on top of too much magic over one weekend, the results are bound to be explosive.
If you missed it:
EPISODE ONE: Hebe Plans For Failure
EPISODE TWO: Sage Says 10 out of 10, Would Break Up With Again
EPISODE THREE: True Bromance, Mei-Style
EPISODE FOUR: Hebe Is Unexpectedly House Proud
EPISODE FIVE: Whatever Happened To Miss Juniper Cresswell, gentlewoman and cellist?
EPISODE SIX: Sage To The Rescue!
EPISODE SEVEN: Mei Makes a List!
You can listen to the first two Belladonna University stories, Fake Geek Girl & Unmagical Boy Story, right here on Sheep Might Fly.
Fake Geek Girl (Belladonna University #1) is also available as a free ebook.
Unmagical Boy Story (Belladonna University #2) is available for sale from Kindle, Kobo, iBooks & more.
Thanks for listening to Sheep Might Fly. You can sign up to my author newsletter for updates, follow me on Twitter at @tansyrr or @sheepmightfly, find me on Facebook at TansyRRBooks, and if you like this podcast consider supporting me at Patreon where you can receive all kinds of cool rewards and exclusive stories for a small monthly pledge.
See you next week!
July 4, 2017
Sheep Might Fly: The Bromancers Episode 7
EPISODE SEVEN: Mei Makes a List!
Our favourite witchy rock band, Fake Geek Girl, are road-tripping to a magical music festival in a wi-fi free zone on the same weekend that the season finale of their favourite TV show drops. Can they avoid spoilers? Can Hebe, Holly, Juniper & Sage camp in tents for three days without murdering each other? Can coffee really fix EVERYTHING including missing band members, messy relationship drama and obsessive fan shenanigans?
Friendship is magic, but if you pile too much friendship on top of too much magic over one weekend, the results are bound to be explosive.
If you missed it:
EPISODE ONE: Hebe Plans For Failure
EPISODE TWO: Sage Says 10 out of 10, Would Break Up With Again
EPISODE THREE: True Bromance, Mei-Style
EPISODE FOUR: Hebe Is Unexpectedly House Proud
EPISODE FIVE: Whatever Happened To Miss Juniper Cresswell, gentlewoman and cellist?
EPISODE SIX: Sage To The Rescue!
You can listen to the first two Belladonna University stories, Fake Geek Girl & Unmagical Boy Story, right here on Sheep Might Fly.
Fake Geek Girl (Belladonna University #1) is also available as a free ebook.
Unmagical Boy Story (Belladonna University #2) is available for sale from Kindle, Kobo, iBooks & more.
Thanks for listening to Sheep Might Fly. You can sign up to my author newsletter for updates, follow me on Twitter at @tansyrr or @sheepmightfly, find me on Facebook at TansyRRBooks, and if you like this podcast consider supporting me at Patreon where you can receive all kinds of cool rewards and exclusive stories for a small monthly pledge.
See you next week!
July 2, 2017
Emerging from June Victorious With Mermaids
So, that was a month, then.
Quite a month.
With Twelfth Planet Press, I raised $24,000 on Kickstarter to make an extraordinary book! I feel so blessed at the support we received for Mother of Invention, it feels like such a step up in ambition and achievement for Twelfth Planet Press and for me personally. It was huge.
Also in July, I did a bunch of radiotherapy. Which was… not fun, though more of a scheduling nightmare than anything. The people at the hospital were fantastic, my time waiting around for appointments was minimal (my time circling the hospital car park definitely not minimal), and it wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be. Still, 20 appointments in one month! So in addition to everything else going on, I had side effects to manage – some pain, some hair loss, a whole lot of crankiness & skin irritation – and the thing I didn’t quite expect, an overwhelming exhaustion that hit me in the early afternoon every single day that I had treatment. I’ve never taken so many naps in my life. Thank goodness for supportive spouse, helpful friends/family and mostly understanding children. (when I say mostly I mean one was hugely understanding and the other… didn’t completely meltdown every single day about Mummy unavailability but made her Concerns Heard)
I also worked several weeks at the university, travelled to Melbourne, won a couple of Ditmars, attended a high tea, read some books, managed to keep up with at least some of my soccer team manager commitments, was dazzled by Wonder Woman, wept over Doctor Who, and kept up weekly instalments of my fiction podcast, Sheep Might Fly.
Our current serial, The Bromancers, turns out to be a lot more novella than novelette – we’re not even halfway through! So there’s a lot more writing than I was counting on, and I didn’t get much of that done at all in June. Roll on Writing More July.
As well as Writing More in July I’m back working on stuff for the Patreon – sending out Random Post, a Backstage Pass, and the first of the EXCLUSIVE stories to Patreon backers at $2 a month and above. If you’ve been thinking about signing up to support me via Patreon this is a really good month to do it, and you also get access to the many ebooks produced so far including the Castle Charming stories, Fake Geek Girl stories, and the Musketeer Space novel.
I’m also going to be working on my next book (a children’s title!), reviewing more Justice League, attending more soccer matches, surviving yet another 2 weeks of school holidays, and so on. Life rolls on.
BACK TO JUNE. Because the final thing I did in that supremely epic month to celebrate all my trials, tribulations and damned hard work was to get my mermaid hair, which I am ridic pleased with even though I can’t personally see most of it, which means I am constantly flicking it to try and see it in my peripheral vision.
It makes me so happy. It’s so PRETTY. I officially like my hair more than I have in a very long time.
Mermaids are awesome. I recommend them highly.
June 30, 2017
Galactic Suburbia Episode 169
photo credit: Paul Weimer
In Which Alex & Tansy talk awards, culture & promote each other’s projects.Get the episode here!
Continuum & the Ditmars.
Locus Awards: so many winners.
Mother of Invention: last day of Tansy’s Kickstarter campaign! Last chance to pledge!
Luminescent Threads pre-orders open now. The Book Riot review/interview is here!
How has Twelfth Planet Press has impacted on our listeners? Email galacticsuburbia@gmail.com to provide us with your anecdata!
CULTURE CONSUMED
Tansy: GLOW on Netflix
Alex: InCryptid short stories, Seanan McGuire
Tansy: One Con Glory, Sarah Kuhn
Alex: The Girl who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, Catherynne Valente
Tansy: Not Your Sidekick, C.B. Lee; Star Crossed by Barbara Dee
Alex: Agents of SHIELD
Tansy: Valentine, Jodi McAlister (@JodiMcA & #PaceysCreek on Twitter)
REPEAT THE TITLE OF YOUR CULTURE
Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook, support us at Patreon – which now includes access to the ever so exclusive GS Slack – and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
June 26, 2017
Sheep Might Fly: The Bromancers Episode Six
EPISODE SIX: Sage To The Rescue!
Our favourite witchy rock band, Fake Geek Girl, are road-tripping to a magical music festival in a wi-fi free zone on the same weekend that the season finale of their favourite TV show drops. Can they avoid spoilers? Can Hebe, Holly, Juniper & Sage camp in tents for three days without murdering each other? Can coffee really fix EVERYTHING including missing band members, messy relationship drama and obsessive fan shenanigans?
Friendship is magic, but if you pile too much friendship on top of too much magic over one weekend, the results are bound to be explosive.
If you missed it:
EPISODE ONE: Hebe Plans For Failure
EPISODE TWO: Sage Says 10 out of 10, Would Break Up With Again
EPISODE THREE: True Bromance, Mei-Style
EPISODE FOUR: Hebe Is Unexpectedly House Proud
EPISODE FIVE: Whatever Happened To Miss Juniper Cresswell, gentlewoman and cellist?
You can listen to the first two Belladonna University stories, Fake Geek Girl & Unmagical Boy Story, right here on Sheep Might Fly.
Fake Geek Girl (Belladonna University #1) is also available as a free ebook.
Unmagical Boy Story (Belladonna University #2) is available for sale from Kindle, Kobo, iBooks & more.
Thanks for listening to Sheep Might Fly. You can sign up to my author newsletter for updates, follow me on Twitter at @tansyrr or @sheepmightfly, find me on Facebook at TansyRRBooks, and if you like this podcast consider supporting me at Patreon where you can receive all kinds of cool rewards and exclusive stories for a small monthly pledge.
CHECK OUT MOTHER OF INVENTION, CROWDFUNDING NOW ON KICKSTARTER!
See you next week!
