Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 137

Friday Links in Spaaaaace!

Bitch Magazine brought me two gems this week: a takedown of the "she's crazy so we're supposed to hate her" trope in pop culture with particular reference to Terri in Glee, and a profile of the eternally awesome Wednesday Addams.

Ms Magazine, meanwhile, brought to our attention the sterling work of Geena Davis and her institute who have been investigating the dire representation of girls and women in kids TV/movies. (Thanks to Rowena Cory Daniells for this link) Hard data, people! It's not just Pixar letting the side down, and I think it's especially important that they are focusing on the effect this has on boys as well as girls.

You all know by now that I am utterly obsessed with the cosplaying Gender Bent Justice League - now find out a little more about the women who came up with the idea, and their fabulously supportive male friends.

While we're talking about subversive visual imagery, check out this body positive colouring book by Nicole Lorenz: Fat Ladies in Spaaaaace!

Juliet McKenna on the representation of women in fantasy: a very in depth and thoughtful post which makes me wonder why the hell I haven't read her books already.

In other 'why the hell haven't I read her books already' news, the wonderful Kate Elliott is interviewed at Tor.com.

PublishAmerica announce they're going to stalk JK Rowling on YOUR behalf, for a price…

Angry Robot announces Worldbuilder, a creative commons plan to expand the fictional worlds of their authors. i'm skeptical about this one – I'm all for not harassing fanfic writers, but the idea of commissioning fanfic for a work that hasn't been published yet is a whole different ballgame. Still, will be interesting to see the results!

Galactic Suburbia Episode 39 Show Notes

New episode up on iTunes! (downloadable version coming tomorrow)

EPISODE 39

In which we defend Mary Sues everywhere, point at superheroes with their pants down, plan a Hugo Twitterparti and reveal which of the three of us is secretly a hardcore horror fan. But most importantly, Alex is watching Blake's 7 completely unspoiled and she loves Avon the best, hooray!

News

The Mary Sue Conversation:

Zoe Marriott

Sarah Rees Brennan

Holly Black

Elizabeth Bear

"Sometimes a book is about a female character because there are female people in the world."

What if Male Superheroes posed like Wonder Woman?

Gender Bent Justice League

Bonus, superheroes without pants (except Wonder Woman):

Cat Valente steps down from Apex Magazine as fiction editor, Lynne M Thomas steps up.

Alex wants to be in Reno.

Watch the Hugos!

Join @GalacticSuburbs in whatever the right time zone is and Twitterparti the Hugos with us!

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Alisa – The Hunger Games, Life on Mars UK, The Women's Hour Podcast, Doctor Who

Tansy - Lords & Ladies, Terry Pratchett; Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, Rob Shearman; Rob on the Big Finish Podcast, Xena & the mystical pregnancy

Alex - Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi; Blake's 7; Across the Universe, Beth Revis.

Featured Feedback:

Grant Watson (as well as our producer) pointed out to Tansy that Jason Todd died in "A Death in the Family" and not "The Killing Joke." She is very sorry.

Kirstyn McDermott took us to task over our dismissive attitude to horror, and we decided to address her concerns and chew over our complicated relationship with the darker side of spec fic.

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don't forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

Agathon 4. The Man in the Brown Suit (1924)

Tansy and Kathryn have taken the challenge to read every book written by Agatha Christie, in order of publication and we're blogging as we go along. We're calling it the Agathon! As a warning, there may be spoilers.

4 – The Man in the Brown Suit (1924)

Featuring: Anne Beddingfield, Colonel Race



TANSY SAYS:

This is another of those books which actually isn't a classic murder mystery – or what we think of, I guess, when we say 'Agatha Christie mystery'. It's another of those adventure-spy-flapper-thriller-romances like The Secret Adversary. I rather like them – suspense without all that dreary grit and manly upper lip. Can we call them jollysuspenses?

I like Anne as a narrator a lot, and it's a little sad that this is her only outing. I did however, adore Colonel Race with a fiery passion, and I'm not sure I can forgive her for running off and marrying that weird passive aggressive 'hero' instead. All this might have something to do with the fact that whenever I read 'Colonel Race' my brain substituted 'Colonel Brandon' and so all I could see was Alan Rickman in Sense & Sensibility. Who, by the way? GOT THE GIRL. Still, apparently there is much Colonel Race to come. Here's hoping he gets his own romance at some point.

Anne is definitely of the Tuppence mould of heroines – a girl on her own who goes out in search of Adventure. I loved the fact that she was obviously educated, smart and literate (with a fine vocabulary) and yet also quite endearingly dumb as a stone. The idea of spending her entire inheritance on a random cruise ship to South Africa in the hope of solving a crime is audacious and I liked her from that moment.

Also, and this is hugely spoilery, so beware, but the use of the dual narrative with the diaries of Sir Eustace Pedlar was incredibly well done. Nothing in the diaries were lies (well I don't think so, but I wasn't committed enough to go back and check), but there was a lot omitted, including of course the fact that he was totally the villain of the story. I think Anne's obvious sympathy for him (which is honest) and the fact that he gave her permission to use those diary entries were really good touches that allowed Christie to get away with the trick. And of course this is her flirting with the idea that I believe will be important later on – making the murderer the least likely person, and even the narrator himself.

Mrs Blair was a great supporting character – I liked her a lot, and got a kick out of the fact that in the 1980's movie, she was played by Rue McClanahan. Great casting!

The plot was of course very complex. I found myself a lot less interested once we got off the ship – that was the setting that most appealed to me, and I missed it when we hopped off at the other end. My favourite twist in the tale was the many identities of Chichester/Pettigrew/Minks, particularly how the running joke of Sir Eustace wanting a pretty secretary was turned into a key plot device. Sir Eustace himself is an excellent villain, especially because things he said when we thought he was a lovable buffoon suddenly take on this hugely sinister edge when we realise the truth – and because he is exactly the same character before and after the reveal.

KATHRYN SAYS:

I'm not sure I love Anne Bedingfield as much as I loved Tuppence, but I certainly ADMIRE someone who will spend the entirety of their measley inheritance on a one way ticket to Cape Town**. Freak'n A. I am someone who as yet has never travelled anywhere without all my accommodation being sorted, let alone across the world with no extra money! Anyway, I digress. I feel like I'm starting to feel a repetitive by saying that once again we do not have a typical Agatha Christie novel. True, we're only at book 4. Is she still finding her way? Do I have serious misconceptions about what an Agatha Christie novel actually involves?

I did love the structure of this book with excerpts of Sir Eustace's diary interspersed with Anne's narrative and, as Tansy has pointed out, it hints at some of the future narrative structures that Christie uses to shield her murderer. To me, this book has three definite stages, or acts: the prelude in London, hijinks on the ship and then a rather dashing section in Africa. I felt the most focussed section of the story was the ship hijinks, but the section in Africa also intrigued me. Yes, it is rather fractured – people heading off in cars and trains and doubling back, kidnapping, and stops for ice cream sodas along the way. However once everyone settles, there is some really interesting description of scenery from Cape Town to Rhodesia, and then again of riots in Johannesburg. I did wonder if Christie write this from first hand knowledge, and according to Wikipedia (yay) the book does have some parallels to incidents and settings of a round-the-world work trip taken by Christie with her first husband, Archie Christie, in 1922. Perhaps this is why this book was written when it was.

Again this Christie novel ends with LOVE, however it is not as satisfactory as previous outings. Anne's love interest is perhaps a bit too manly and tortured for my liking – where's the fun in that?

**First Class ticket, mind you – though I do appreciate a young woman travelling alone could probably have not gone second class in 1924!

COMING SOON

Poirot Investigates (1924)

Short Stories.

5. The Secret of Chimneys (1925)

Anthony Cade, Superintendent Battle

6. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)

Hercule Poirot

Coping With Your First Kill [Xena Rewatch 3.5-3.8]

Sorry, this is a long one! I might have to start doing one post per episode if they get any longer…

3.5 – Gabrielle's Hope.

Yes, it's been a long time between drinks. I think I put this one off because it's a very emotionally tough episode, and one I never particularly enjoyed. Apart from anything, there are – violence and pregnancy and baby themes in this one. When it comes to SF/fantasy TV, that's rarely a good thing.

The episode opens with a moment of deep hurt/comfort. Gabrielle is disturbed by dreams of her first kill from the previous episode – and has turned the whole thing around in her head so her victim was a sweet, innocent flower as opposed to a calculating religious obsessive who tricked Gabrielle into taking her life. Gab's reaction is not just emotional, but physical – she keeps feeling nauseated. Xena is certain this is a normal part of the healing process.

But then things start getting screwy. Banshees attack them, only to profess worship of Gabrielle. Villagers gather, determined to burn Gabrielle as a witch… and, oh yes. She has food cravings. Weird, icky food cravings.

Can anyone else see where this is going?

Yes, Gabrielle is great with child – one of those speedy demon babies who whips through the system in under 24 hours (oh, the STRETCH MARKS) and isn't going to stick around long. Unlike Deanna Troi in Star Trek: Next Gen though, this one is going to have long, long ramifications.

[Note to all, the review for this ep was written a million years ago, or possibly about six months, but it ties in beautifully with the discussion we had on the last Galactic Suburbia about mystical pregnancy, so yay!]

There's some general running and shouting, and the convenient appearance of a bunch of knights who rescue Gabrielle and Xena (excuse me? Really, rescuing?) and offer them sanctuary while Gabrielle produces the little cutie pie. Who is of course absolutely adorable, and for once there's a good reason for a recently born baby on TV to look like a six month old nappy commercial.

It's all fine and good until people start dying.

[I don't normally spoil the end of the episode but I totally am this time, has to be done. if it's any consolation, it's a really stupid ending]

This, sadly, is the big problem I have with the episode. It doesn't make sense. The whole thing leads towards the powerful final scene, in which Xena chases down Gabrielle, determined to kill her baby, and Gabrielle flees from her, only to turn around at the last moment, pretending she has thrown her own baby over the cliff and that really, Xena was right all along.

It makes no sense. No sense at all.

For a start, we never see the baby become a demon. We see some knights mysteriously dead, and we see Xena staring accusingly at the baby, but really, we see NOTHING but circumstantial evidence. It's a really cute, innocent looking baby. Also, only a few episodes ago, Xena was insane. Sure, her hair is Exceptionally Tidy in this episode, but I'm lost as to how we are supposed to believe that Xena is in the right. I'm even MORE lost as to how we're supposed to believe that Gabrielle is willing to let her baby float down a river in a literal moses basket in order to kiss up to Xena again. To give the baby a chance to get away, sure, but… how can she forgive Xena for putting her in that situation?

I know that the two of them doing unforgiveable things to each other is kind of the point of this episode, but this one doesn't work hard enough to convince me that these two women, who love and trust each other so very much, could get it so wrong. It all comes down to the baby. We need some flashing red eyes and CGI alien teeth, thank you very much, and it all would have been fine.

One of the rare occasions where the Xena script doesn't make up for the failure of the special effects.



3.6 – The Debt, Part I

This is one of those epic much-with-flashbacks stories which meld Xena's past with her present. Possibly one of the best ever stories, and one which I used to rewatch multiple times. However I'm suspecting that it suffers from coming straight after the rather awful Gabrielle's Hope. Luckily for me, I accidentally took a six month hiatus.

The opening scene is lovely – it shows a Xena and Gabrielle who are bowed but unbroken by recent events, and launches into a classic fight scene within a minute or so. The only problem is the same one from the previous episode: the show has not actually made it clear whether Gabrielle gave up her baby because she agreed with Xena that Hope was evil, or if she did it to protect the "innocent" baby from a psychotic Xena. It kind of makes a difference, and this is one instance where we have too much subtext and not enough, you know, TEXT.

Taken on its own, the story works far better and I would personally have liked to see it set before the Britain stories, so that THIS was the first betrayal between our heroines.

Yep, there's another betrayal coming up. And I will spoil the whole story, again, because what happens right at the end of The Debt is hugely significant to the rest of the season.

Xena has been summoned to Chin on a mission which she attempts to fulfill on her own. When Gabrielle challenges her, she admits she doesn't want Gabrielle there because she is going to kill someone called the Green Dragon.

We're back in flashbackland, the back story here following on directly from Caesar's betrayal back in Destiny. We see Xena and her Official Warlording Doingses across the plains of "Chin" and get introduced to Borias, her beautifully moustached lover (first mentioned back in Orphan of War, father to Xena's son).

Borias turns out to be glamorous and a little bit evil, but draws the line at killing prisoners in order to foreshadow the fact that he's going to be all soppy about centaurs someday. Xena is clearly the baddest of this duo, because her hair is extremely messy, and she doesn't bother to wash her face. She conceals her messy hair beneath a coin veil, which is fooling no one when she screams 'killemall!' at the camera, not for the first time. Sadly this version of Evil Xena is also a bit dumb, and there are times when she embarrasses her boyfriend with her thoughtless, fiery displays of random badassery.

We're introduced to a tale of political machinations, yurts and steamy groping on horseback. An interesting detail is that Xena still uses a cane after the great legsmash Caesar inflicted upon her – it's not evident in the early scenes until one where Borias pushes her off her horse to keep his barbarian girlfriend from stuffing up his delicate attempts at diplomacy, and throws her cane after her.

The story kicks into gear when we are introduced to Lao Ma, the wife of one of the Chin kings whom Borias is trying to deal with. It looks at first as if she might be there to get between the two romantically, but in fact we're building up to a far more interesting relationship, that between the wild, savage and deeply angry Xena, and the cool, controlled and civilised Lao Ma.

(Xena, furious at what she sees as flirtation between Borias and Lao Ma, flings a knife at the dinner table, only inches from Lao Ma's fingertips. "That's my piece of meat you're reaching for," she growls. "You're wrong," Lao Ma replies calmly. "I don't eat meat.")

The twist is that when Xena later attacks Lao Ma, she discovers that the elegant, dispassionate older woman is actually a NINJA QUEEN OF NINJANESS. Who also has a magical punch that can chuck you through walls. Oh, yeah, baby. Xena has found herself a new teacher.

The indispersed scenes of Gabrielle being judgy about Xena's past, and even the steamy scenes between Xena and Borias, are all pretty much window dressing. This story is about who Xena was, and it's fascinating to see the shape of the Xena we know in this wild, younger self. In one scene, for instance, she crashes a horse through the paper windows of a house, cuts off the flow of blood to a warrior's brain, and cheerily informs him of this fact, then lets him die.

It's surprising to realise how little Lao Ma actually appears in this first episode, as she's all I remembered of it. Every scene she is in is marvellous, though: she is a beautiful, complex and deeply intelligent woman, played with great subtlety. We see her save a Xena who is at her lowest point: barefoot, disabled and hunted by men she has wronged… and we learn a little of where Lao Ma herself comes from, a former courtesan who is now a wife of great power, status and inner peace.

Back in the present day, the cliffhanger to this episode is brilliant and startling, as Gabrielle (who still only knows half the story, but is horrified at the thought her friend would return to her wicked ways) betrays Xena to her would-be murder victim, the Green Dragon: a very young man who happens to be the Emperor of Chin.

3.7 – The Debt, Part II

More alternate history Chinese shenanigans here, with Xena floating around in an utterly disgusting waterlogged prison, and Gabrielle gussied up in silks, pleading for her friend's freedom (the fact that she's shocked at Xena having to face consequences for trying to kill the Emperor is the weak spot of the episode). Honestly, I'm just counting the minutes until we get more Lao Ma flashbacks – what she taught Wild Hair Xena, and what she failed to teach her.

We also learn about a far more toxic influence of the past, in getting to know the young Green Dragon – as a child, kidnapped by Nasty Xena, he learned the true nature of evil (apparently it's awesome) and steered his life accordingly. OMG, Batman created the Joker!

As with M'Lila in Destiny, the tragedy to this story of friendship is that Lao Ma's improving influence on the troubled Evil Xena is doomed to fail (she cannot save Xena because that's Hercules' job, exactly ten years later] and that it is only in retrospect that Good Xena can entirely appreciate what she was offered by this woman. At the time, all she knew was that Leo Ma was teaching her better and more effective ways to kill, to control her anger, and to appreciate precision over brute force.

In prison, in the present day, Xena discovers that Lao Ma was executed by the Emperor, and is devastated. It's sad for the audience too, that Lao Ma didn't get a chance to get to know this Xena, who is far more her equal and someone she could have been proud of.

We learn that Chinese warriors can also demonstrate explosive powers of the mind, and Xena struggles to learn this too – it's the first time that our very physical hero experiments with magic of some kind, but not the last.

It's also, quite explicitly, a love story. Whether or not the love between Lao Ma and Xena is platonic or romantic, it is openly discussed, and can be read either way. The coyness of this show when it comes to girl-girl sensuality continues to be an oddity to me, when looking at it with post-Torchwood-&-HBO lenses. It makes me wonder what subtle (or less than subtle) differences might be wrought on the story if it were made today, with an openly bisexual heroine and her non-monogamous adventures. It's almost surprising to not see the sixty second slo-mo nudey women having sex (sometimes with each other) scene which HBO or Starz would have added to each episode, as a matter of course.

The coyness, however, also leads to some gorgeously subtle scenes which imply romance, such as that in the first part of The Debt where Lao Ma kissed Xena underwater to put extra air in her lungs and keep her hidden, or the one in this episode where Lao Ma heals Xena's leg with many slow, sensual hand movements. If that scene in Buffy where Tara and Willow do stuff with magic and breathe heavily a lot over a rose is a sex scene, then so is this one. Also: mood lighting, and a silk wrapping dance. And later, a floating-through-the-air-in-big-frocks scene. Though that one is followed up pretty quickly by a rekindling of Xena's relationship with Borias, just in case anyone got funny ideas!

It's only a shame that in a story which hangs on Gabrielle's love for Xena and her determination to save her from becoming her old villainous self, that Gabrielle herself is written badly (there's one quite awful scene in which she tries to beat Xena into a promise to never be naughty again), and every scene with her in it is a disappointment in comparison to the luminous flashbacks. Lines like "my reverence for life kept a brutal tyrant in power" don't really help – though it is actually a really important learning experience for her.

The Debt works as a sequel to Destiny in all senses of the word – it climaxes with Xena bound to a wooden Chinese letter reminiscent of Caesar's crucifixion, only this time, with the assistance of Lao Ma's memory, she is not beaten but frees herself with nothing but her own skills and body. Our Xena has reclaimed her past, and herself.

Only… no. There's one final betrayal, and this one's a beauty. SPOILER SPOILER. In the final scene, Xena tries to appeal to the humanity in the "Green Dragon," but is gutted by his cruel taunts about Lao Ma. She is stunned and angry to realise that he knew all along that she was his mother. The episode closes with Xena and Gabrielle sweetly discussing how good it is that she took the moral high road and didn't kill him.

Except of course, what's this? Is there a hair clip stuck into his brain? Oh, Xena.

If only this was the sort of show where our heroines telling appalling porkies to each other would in some way come back to bite them in some sort of… arc thing. Of stories. An… arcstoryish. Nah. Let's have a random slapstick episode and forget about it for a while!

3.8 – King of Assassins

Gina Torres, you say?

Bruce Campbell, Ted Raimi and GINA FREAKING TORRES AS CLEOPATRA, YOU SAY?

Well, all righty then.

This is on the whole a fairly innocuous Xena-lite comedy episode which sets up the enjoyable pairing of Autolycus and Joxer, who previously used to take turns being the comic foil to whichever of the lead actresses was least in need of a holiday.

Gina Torres makes a fabulous Cleopatra in the little time she has on screen, and it's a shame they didn't bring her back to do something more substantial with that role – even more disappointing that when Cleopatra does finally return, she is played by a white actress, in order that Xena can more convincingly take her place. The visible diversity on screen in Xena continues, however, to be one of the show's strengths, particularly when it comes to iconic historical women. As with Helen of Troy and even Boadicea, it's nice to see them choose something other than the "obvious" young Hollywood blonde waif type of actress.

The inclusion of Joxer's evil assassin brother Jett (also played by Ted Raimi) is mostly here for the laughs and the comedy of misunderstandings, but I think it builds very nicely on the quiet tragedy of Joxer's backstory, the unloved bumbling son of a family of ruthless warlords. And of course Raimi plays the dual role with pitch-perfect timing, especially the scenes where the two brothers talk to each other, and those where they are attempting to impersonate each other – even the heights of arch comedy, there are moments of genuine emotion there.

The tiny scene at the end where Cleopatra and Xena meet only shows what might have been in an episode that gave both of them far more to do. The chemistry between both actresses is electric, and borders on flirtation – which is of course undercut by Cleopatra snogging Autolycus ten seconds later, because proving girls are not into other girls is what his character is basically here for.

It only occurs to me just now that we don't ever get a real Xena-Cleopatra story in which the two characters get significant interaction. Boo!

====



CHAKRAM STATISTICS:

People who want romance with Xena: 12

People Xena allows to romance her: 7 (yes, I'm damn well counting Lao Ma)

Xena dead lovers: 3 (ditto)

Gabrielle dead boyfriends: 2/7

"Adorable" children: 32

Babies: 5

Babies tossed humorously in the air during fight scenes: 6

Xena doppelgangers: 3

Xena sings at a funeral: 3

Xena dies: 3

Gabrielle dies: 3

Characters brought back from the dead (including ghosts and visits to the Underworld): 21

Ares loses his powers and goes all to pieces about it: 1

Xena or Gabrielle earns money: 2 (including barbarian gold)

Xena or Gabrielle spends money (or claims to have money to spend): 6

Out of the Pantheon: Morpheus, Ares, Hera, the Titans, Hades, Celesta, Charon, the Fates, Bacchus, Aphrodite, Cupid, Poseidon, the Furies, Discord

The Celebrity Red Carpet of the Ancient World: Pandora, Prometheus, Hercules, Iolaus, Sisyphus, Helen of Troy, Paris, Deiphobus, Menelaus, Euripides, Homer, Autolycus, Meleager, Oracle of Delphi, David, Goliath, Orpheus, Julius Caesar, Brutus, Ulysses, Penelope, Cecrops, Boadicea, Cleopatra

Random piece of awesomeness: Dudes, Jacqueline Kim who played Lao Ma was also Mr Sulu's daughter!

Previous Xena Rewatch Posts:

Warlord is a Lady Tonight

I Don't Work For Money

Amazon Wanna Take A Ride?

Go To Tartarus!

Swashbuckle and Shams

Death In A Chainmail Bikini

Full Moon It Must Be Xena

How Do You Mortals Get From Day to Day?

The Future is Archaeologists

Divide and Conquer

My Sword is Always Ready to Pleasure You

Hide the Hestian Virgins!

Lunatic with Lethal Combat Skills

Friday Links are Too Perfect To Be Believable

One of the key points of Joanna Russ' How to Suppress Women's Writing which really struck a chord with us at Galactic Suburbia was the way that female authors are so often assumed to have written a single book, with the rest of her backlist quietly ignored. (yes, this sometimes happens to male authors too, but not to the same massive degree) Vintage Classics are duly releasing 14 of the novels written by Stella Gibbons, who is famous for writing Cold Comfort Farm. I'd never heard of these, and Westwood has already leaped on to my to read list.

Holly Black has added to the 'Mary Sue does not mean what you think it means' discussion with a great post: Ladies, Ladies, Ladies. Her driving point is that a Mary Sue was a character inserted into someone else's canon, and every time you stick that label on a female protagonist, you're basically saying that she doesn't belong in her own story. It's also horrible how often wish fulfilment is ascribed to female authors (she wants to be her oh so perfect heroine, she wants to shag/marry her amazing hero) because that takes so much away from the perception of her as a writer.

She wrote it, but look what (who) she wrote about.

Ah, Joanna Russ. If only there was a week where quoting you was inappropriate.

Helen Razer at the Age interviews Karen Healey and others about this weekend's female superhero conference at Monash. Jealous!!

Great post at Feministe about the invisible women at tech conferences, and arguments people make against bothering to include female speakers.

Such-heights has written a substantial post looking at how both of the modern Doctor Who showrunners have handled such issues as gender, disability and race – what I like about it especially is that she isn't trying to make RTD out as a hero at Moffat's expense or vice versa. Shockingly, she acknowledges the successes and failings of both! Ditto, she looks at how the various female companions have been handled, without an agenda about how much she hates or loves them.

Bitch Magazine has been running a fabulous series of blog posts by Jess McCabe about women in detective fiction, Murder She Blogged. They're all good, but my favourites are: Detectives in Distress, Class and Fashion in Miss Marple, and the First Female Detectives.

At Tiger Beatdown, What Do You Mean When You Say You Want Strong Female Characters?

Podcast of The Week: Locus presents Karen Burnham and Karen Lord in Conversation. Two intelligent women compare their science backgrounds and discuss, among other things, communication and linguisitcs, Greg Egan, Ursula K Le Guin, the double standards involved in 'hard' vs. 'soft' SF, & how silly it is to try to write 'pure' science fiction without social structures, politics and personality being relevant, because the actual practice of science is hugely influenced by those things.

This vid is for Zeft! And because you can never have too much Joanna Lumley, or Victoria Wood, or in fact just about every working comedian in the UK.

"You can't talk now, the music has started!"

"But we haven't finished the scene yet…"

"You'll soon get used to our ways."

[does in fact contain many, many spoilers for season one]

It's a Jungle In Here

Jem turns two today! Sadly she has come down with a horrible virus and is not feeling very festive.

Luckily, to cheer her up, she has a sister and some new friends.

Also, cake.

This is what Feminist SF looks like: Big Finish, and Gallifrey

I know, I know. You're sick of me raving about how good Big Finish is. But this isn't a review, as such. There are some comments that regularly get thrown at feminist critics: you're so negative, it's all about tearing people down, why don't you ever give cookies when we get it right? (It was particularly tragi-amusing to hear these comments in reaction to Nicola Griffiths proposing the Russ pledge, which is entirely positive)

So this is me talking about a bunch of blokes who get it so, so right.

There's a thing I've been noticing, and I was reminded of it again recently while listening my way through season two of Gallifrey, an audio series produced by Big Finish. This series, now into its fourth season, has been produced on and off over the last decade, and was intended by its creators to be an SF version of The West Wing – political drama set on the Doctor's home planet of Gallifrey.

Our protagonists are Romana, the Lord President, and her alien bodyguard Leela, who comes from a primitive warrior culture. Both characters are played by the same actresses, Lalla Ward and Louise Jamieson, who portrayed them in 1970′s Doctor Who as companions to the Fourth Doctor. I always thought this series was an awesome idea, taking two really interesting characters and giving them a further life than Doctor Who itself allowed them. But then I listened to a story which involved a plot point where the two characters had their brain patterns crossed over – so that Leela suddenly had the President's cool, ruthless and logical way of thinking, while Romana was overwhelmed with the instincts and uncontrollable emotions of the Sevateem warrior.

And it suddenly occurred to me – how often in science fiction do we get a story in which the two main characters are women, and in which the main conflict between them is how very different they are in personality? Never mind science fiction, actually, how often do we get that in STORIES? YA is probably the only genre where this might be a regular occurence. What Gallifrey does is demonstrate that you can tell interesting, crunchy science fiction stories in which the most important characters happen to be women (most importantly, more than one woman), without it necessarily having to be a story about traditionally female concerns.

A regular character gets killed off in season two, in a very underplayed sort of way at first, which seemed to cut off a plotline in mid-stream. I was shocked and confused by this, waiting for the reveal that it was a fake out. Instead, the reveal was something important about that death, something which rocked the most important relationship in the show: the friendship and alliance between Romana and Leela. Only then did I realise what had happened. The character had been women-in-refrigeratored, his own burgeoning plotline sacrificed to further the story of the women.

Hell, yes!

This is not an isolated incident. As you all know, I've been inhaling Big Finish audio plays at a rate of knots all year, and it has interested me how much I am adoring them considering that the majority are written and directed by men. I have a solid history of finding it easier to love works written by women, and I'm not convinced that it's just my love of Doctor Who that's making me love Big Finish so hard.

The fact is, they're all a great big bunch of lefty feminists.

From edge to edge, the Big Finish back catalogue is packed with choices that empower their female characters. Almost every story features awesome women having science fictional adventures. Their biggest spin-off series is that of Bernice Summerfield, a character who was devised for the New Adventures original novels in the 90′s and has been marvellously brought to life by actress Lisa Bowerman (who is also now one of BF's rare female directors). I'm up to season 6 of Benny's adventures, which have reached (I think) 11 seasons all up. Here we have an older female character who is irreverent, brave, flawed, funny and sexually unapologetic, who bombs around the universe digging up (and just as often, blowing up) alien artefacts, getting involved with other people's wars, travelling through time, and flitting from comedy to angsty drama at the flick of a switch. We also get to see her as a mother, balancing the needs of her family with the work that she loves. I adore her, far more than I ever did in the novels, where she pretty much only made sense to me if Paul Cornell or Kate Orman was writing her.

Other spin off series are also centred around female characters: Sarah Jane (before she got her own show on TV), UNIT, with protagonist Emily Chaudhry front and centre, and Iris Wildthyme (which I haven't listened to yet), a vibrant and frenetic character who started life in the 90′s novels and is very much a counterpart to the Doctor. Even the male-male duo of Jago and Litefoot recently added Leela to their regular cast…

In the main range as well as the spin offs, the female companions of Big Finish tend to get a better run at their characters than in the original classic series – even characters I loved (and I loved most of them) were often hard done by, whether it was in lack of character development, lousy and unconvincing romances, weak introductions, or weak closing stories. Peri's awful not-dead-married-a-warlord rebooted exit is made so much better by the existence of "Peri and the Piscon Paradox." Susan being abandoned on Earth by her grandfather because he thinks he knows she wants to get married, and the way her reunion with him in the Five Doctors glossed over this is made better by "An Earthly Child" and the finale two parter of the Lucie Miller series. Leela's utterly bizarre selection of Andred as a marriage partner in the last 5 seconds of The Invasion of Time makes a world of sense in Gallifrey.

Even characters who were just plain awesome in the original show – such as Ace – get to show new dimensions to themselves, or develop further than in the show. In the original Doctor Who, Ace was going to be written out in her third season. In Big Finish, they not only addressed that lost storyline in a story (Thin Ice) which allowed her to call out the Doctor on thinking he knows better than her what her future should hold, but they gave her a fully realised future. Ace has become an adult over the years, and while the novels in the 90′s reflected her adulthood by giving her mirrorshades, an occasional sex life and a whole lot of anger issues, the Big Finish plays have dealt with her more subtly. By pairing Ace with Hex, a young male companion who also transcends gender stereotypes, she gets to develop as a mentor character. The contrasts between these two only make them more interesting – if they hit a war zone (as happens quite a bit), Ace is going to join the side of the rebels and start shooting/stabbing, while Hex is going to run to the nearest ambulance and volunteer to help the wounded. She's tough as nails, he's full of squishy feelings. This interaction is reflected in New Who, with Amy and Rory – in Vampires of Venice she runs towards the scream, he runs away from it. But unlike Amy and Rory, Ace's character is never weakened in order to give Hex his hero moments. She is always the hero, and he is the one who deals with the domestic stuff – or he demonstrates heroics through quiet, less obvious acts of bravery, while she's up on the battlements.

Throughout all the Big Finish plays, we find some great and diverse supporting characters, often written as women without there being a specific need for this in the plot. I've particularly appreciated the portrayal of women in the military and in positions of leadership throughout the universe. Also, as in Gallifrey, we often get multiple women driving the story, and getting the opportunity to work together.

What I wanted to highlight with this post is that while a few scripts are written or directed by women (I love Jacqueline Rayner's work, for instance, particularly the first season of Bernice Summerfield which she adapted from existing works, and I'm desperate to get my hands on her tie-in novel The Squire's Crystal), the large majority of the Big Finish team are men. Not just the writers and directors, but the producers, designers and people in charge of commissioning the work. A big old bunch of men, creating science fictional stories for an audience which is largely perceived (as, true or not, Doctor Who core fandom is certainly perceived) as also being male. And yet this apparent massive sausagefest cares about women. They produce stories which assume that women are equally interesting people to men, and that you don't have to stop once you've got one well-written woman in the cast. You can add two or three, and if you write them well enough, men are still going to enjoy the stories because, you know, they're full of people who are written well and doing exciting things. Maybe even (gasp) the stories are BETTER because they have a wider variety of characters in them, who are all treated like people.

Also, those women? They can be played by actresses who are 40 and 50 and 60 and they are still interesting. Even the young ones are interesting. It doesn't matter whether they fit into skimpy outfits or not, because no one cares about what they're wearing, or how hot they are. If Peri and Erimem get dressed up for a party, we only hear about what they're wearing if is a) funny b) revealing of character or c) relevant to the actual plot. Likewise, if there's a shower scene, or a bed scene, or a swimming scene, it's because it's necessary, not because it's a good excuse to show the actress naked. It's almost as if you can have women in science fiction without their primary job viewers in by the sheer power of their sexiness.

I know, right?

I'd love to see Big Finish include more female writers, directors, etc. but there's no denying that what they're doing right now is really, really good. It shows the way. It demonstrates quite clearly that there is every reason for a writer (male or female) to produce science fiction that treats women (or gay people, or non-white people, etc.) like they are people, regardless of whether their imagined core audience is mostly male, mostly female, or mostly time-travelling green aliens in crinolines and rollerskates.

[Does it have to be said that if you are treating all your characters as "people" without consideration of gender, race, culture, etc. and you just happen to end up with a full cast of fit white guys with maybe one woman in a) a healing role or b) a sexy outfit, you could be doing better? Thought not.]

If only the predominantly male teams behind so many SF TV shows, films & comics could demonstrate something similar.

Galactic Suburbia 38

New episode up! Grab it from iTunes, by direct download or stream it on the site.

EPISODE 38

In which none of your fearless podcasters are impregnated by mysterious aliens for the duration of a single episode, nor do any of us experience a rapidly accelerated pregnancy or give birth to an otherworldly demon/alien/vampire. Also: Batgirl, Bujold and a cranky feminist rant or two.

News

Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award – given to a living writer for the first time, Katherine MacLean.



Mythopoeic Awards

World Fantasy, of course!

World SF Travel Fund raising money to send Charles A Tan to WFC



The Mystical Pregnancy trope - torture porn? Reproductive terrorism, exploiting women for being female.

Violent degradation of women's bodies for plot.

Vote For Top-100 Science Fiction, Fantasy Titles

Swedish Writing Fairy crunches the numbers

Andromeda's Offering Issue 1 – new fanzine to "open up new female voices in SF, raise the awareness of female SF writers and share ideas."

(you can find them on Facebook apparently)

Where are the women in the new DC Comics?

newsy report

proper interview with Batgirl crusader

SF Signal Episode 70 – 6 men talk about their favourite podcasts and illustrate what we mean by gender disparity in SF gatekeeping

Alisa makes reference to recent Mind Meld

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Alisa – Passage by Connie Willis; Red Glove by Holly Black; The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang;

Alex - Diplomatic Immunity and Cryoburn, Bujold; Chicks Dig Time Lords, ed. Lynne Thomas; The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell; Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal (http://wp.me/p11HLi-Nf); Songs of the Earth, Elspeth Cooper (abandoned). SF Squeecast.

Tansy – Glenda Larke-Stormlord Rising; Malinda Lo-Huntress; Penni Russon-Only, Ever, Always

Feedback

lovely review at Hoyden About Town

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don't forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!

Friday Links is not the name on my credit card

The concerning attitude of Google+ to the use of pseudonymous online identities (not to mention legal names which don't conform to a narrow western standard of normality) has been raging across the internet all week. A couple of great posts summing up the problems and fears associated with this, from Tiger Beatdown and Feminist SF – the Blog!

I've been following with great interest the 'Batgirl asks DC where the women are' story that emerged from Comicon, and it's very cool to see issues like this making mainstream news. It's absolutely worth reading the substantial Interview With Batgirl which discusses the conversations that happened across several panels at the convention, with many personal observations from the caped crusader in question.

Meanwhile, Jim C Hines discusses the arrival of a black/Hispanic Spiderman in the Marvel Ultimates series, and some of the awful racist comments which sprang up in response to the announcement. (I particularly like the comment thread to this post where someone referred to this as a publicity stunt comparable to DC's lesbian Batwoman, and someone else points out how awesome that character turned out to be, proving that an active push towards diversity in comics can in fact have fabulous results that are enjoyed by a wide range of readers… not ALL the comments are that enlightening, though, of course)

Sarah Rees Brennan follows up on some insightful Twitter discussions about how worrying it is that it's not seen as appropriate or acceptable for female fictional characters (especially in YA) to have confidence in themselves (and of course that this reflects social attitudes in real life). Ladies, Don't Let Anyone Tell You You're Not Awesome.

Speaking of women who are awesome, Tamora Pierce has produced one of her occasional splendid rants, this one about some truly awful TV programs, and how the phrase 'female empowerment' is often used by men to justify quite insulting and degrading sexism.

Cecil Castellucci wrote an inspiring and revealing essay about her life as a Star Wars obsessive, and how even the gradual and dramatic betrayals of George Lucas over the years have not (entirely) taken that away from her.

Blue Milk wrote an account of a workshop she did with her daughters 5 & 6 year old classmates on sexism and gender assumptions – this is a fascinating piece, and I was particularly taken with the idea of teaching them to analyse what toy catalogues are really trying to sell them. It's never too early to start Media Studies!!

The Angriest reviews Mary Shelley's Mathilda, which sounds very cool – and it serves as a reminder (we need these a lot, apparently) that so many famous women writers of the past wrote more than one book. Really, truly.

Mari Ness, who impressed me so much with her epic readthrough of all the Oz books on Tor.com, is now turning her attention to Edith Nesbit, one of the most important British children's authors and fantasists of all time. The first two posts are up, on The Treasure-Seekers and The Would-be-goods. No fantasy yet, but she'll get there.

Dropping back to Comicon briefly, check out this gallery of cosplay highlights, including my old favourites, the genderbending Justice League.

Meanwhile, over at Body Impolitic, we have a very cute drawn tutorial on How To Draw Realistic Tits, for those comic artists who might want to include some realism in their work. It's an elegant little piece which shows through line art and minimal text how physics, gravity and reality actually affect breasts, and it speaks of many many years of ranting at power cleavage.

A little personal plug: Last Friday, there was a brilliant, lengthy and dare I say crunchy review of Galactic Suburbia up at Hoyden About Town. We're so proud to be Friday Hoydens!

Also don't forget the World SF Travel Fund is still open to donations – over $4000 raised! Just a little under $2000 to go…

While I'm plugging away, the much-anticipated Ood Cast second album, Dirty Little Geeks, is available now for free download. It contains 27 trock songs of awesomeness, written and performed on their podcast over the last year, all about Doctor Who and fandom. These people are crazy talented, the music has been filked from a variety of contemporary & classic songs with great skill, and nothing is too irreverent when it comes to the Whoverse.

Listen to track 17, Dirty little Geeks

And while we're talking trock, Chameleon Circuit also have their even-longer-awaited second album of original trock songs out, Still Got Legs (available from iTunes), and it was worth the wait!

Send Charles A Tan to World Fantasy Con 2011!

Lavie Tidhar, Cheryl Morgan and a bunch of other international SF personalities have done a fabulous thing by setting up a World SF travel fund to help one person a year travel from a remote corner of the world to a major SF event. The inaugural recipient will be Charles A Tan, who was recently nominated for a World Fantasy Award – hopefully this fund will enable him to attend the convention. Please consider donating: there are some great booky rewards up for grabs, and it's a wonderful cause.

Charles is one of those tireless people who throws bucketfuls of energy into our community – while he has edited small press projects, he is mostly visible for the work he does to promote the work of others. He blogs all over the place, but his own particular corner of the internet is Bibliophile Stalker, an essential daily source for links about what people are saying about our field on the internet. His passion is World SF, and helping to bring awareness to science fiction from countries (such as his own Philippines) which don't have the huge SF communities and publishing infrastructures of the US or UK.

I know that I have personally really appreciated not only Charles' promotion of my books (indie press and mainstream-published titles alike) in the last year, but also the perspective he brings to issues such as ebook piracy and copyright. He's a cheery presence on Twitter every day as well as the many blogs he frequents, and I look forward to hearing him tweet from World Fantasy Convention!