Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 29
April 17, 2016
Glass Slipper Scandal Part 3
New Sheep Might Fly episode update! Listen now on iTunes (or your own favourite podcast app). You can stream, download & follow Sheep Might Fly on Podbean.
GLASS SLIPPER SCANDAL
Charming is a kingdom where fairy tales come true, which has been bad news for its troubled royal family, but good news for the gutter press that thrives on the scandals and gossip provided by their teenage Princes Gone Wild. Kai is a rookie reporter at the Charming Herald. Dennis is a new Royal Hound, charged with protecting the self-destructive princes from disaster.
Disaster arrives in a pumpkin coach… The story of the century is wearing glass slippers… and Castle Charming will never be the same again.
PART 3: DRUNK PRINCE IN GAZEBO SHOCK
In which Dennis loses a prince, Kai finds a scandal, and Ziyi struggles with unsatisfactory hairdressing. Corporal Jack is judging you all very hard right now.
Missed an episode? Catch up:
PART 1: CASTLE CHARMING AFLUTTER FOR AUTUMNAL FLING! (WHO WILL MARRY OUR PRINCES GONE WILD?)
PART 2: PART 2: SMASHING PRINCESSES PARADE IN PUMPKINS!
Sheep Might Fly now has its own Twitter account: @sheepmightfly
and its own Tumblr account: Sheep Might Fly
Follow along for updates, previews and other Sheep Might Fly specific chatter!
Master list of Sheep Might Fly serials.
Support Tansy & Sheep Might Fly at Patreon.
Galactic Suburbia Episode 141
In which we stack up months of Culture Consumed into a glorious spiral tower of dubious structural integrity
Alisa: Lois McMaster Bujold: Modern Master of Science Fiction, Edward James (and a bunch of Lois McMaster Bujold!)
Alex: Radiance, Catherynne M Valente
Tansy: The Winged Histories, Sofia Samatar (reviewed in the latest Cascadia Subduction Zone)
Alisa: Bitch Magazine & Popoganda podcast
Alex: Extra(ordinary) People, Joanna Russ
Tansy: Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire IT’S A NOVELLA
Alex: Once Upon a Time season 1 & Alan Alda at the Press Club
Tansy: Agent Carter; yes all right, Orphan Black
(Tansy is now watching Orphan Black, alert the media! In other news, the silent producer has spoiled himself via the Galactic Suburbia Orphan Black Spoilerifics – you can too! Season One, Season Two)
Skype number: 03 90164171 (within Australia) +613 90164171 (from overseas)
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 and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!
April 10, 2016
Sheep Might Fly: Glass Slipper Scandal Part 2
New Sheep Might Fly episode update! Listen now on iTunes (or your own favourite podcast app). You can stream, download & follow Sheep Might Fly on Podbean.
GLASS SLIPPER SCANDAL
Charming is a kingdom where fairy tales come true, which has been bad news for its troubled royal family, but good news for the gutter press that thrives on the scandals and gossip provided by their teenage Princes Gone Wild. Kai is a rookie reporter at the Charming Herald. Dennis is a new Royal Hound, charged with protecting the self-destructive princes from disaster.
Disaster arrives in a pumpkin coach… The story of the century is wearing glass slippers… and Castle Charming will never be the same again.
PART 2: SMASHING PRINCESSES PARADE IN PUMPKINS!
The princesses start rolling in (literally) for the first event of the Season – and the quills report Live From Castle Charming. Who is the Princess Most Likely To Stab You In Your Sleep?
Missed an episode? Catch up:
PART 1: CASTLE CHARMING AFLUTTER FOR AUTUMNAL FLING! (WHO WILL MARRY OUR PRINCES GONE WILD?)
Master list of Sheep Might Fly serials.
Support Tansy & Sheep Might Fly at Patreon.
April 3, 2016
Sheep Might Fly: Glass Slipper Scandal Part 1
We’re starting a brand new serial on Sheep Might Fly! This is the first of a planned series of several “Castle Charming” stories with these characters.
GLASS SLIPPER SCANDAL
Charming is a kingdom where fairy tales come true, which has been bad news for its troubled royal family, but good news for the gutter press that thrives on the scandals and gossip provided by their teenage Princes Gone Wild. Kai is a rookie reporter at the Charming Herald. Dennis is a new Royal Hound, charged with protecting the self-destructive princes from disaster.
Disaster arrives in a pumpkin coach… The story of the century is wearing glass slippers… and Castle Charming will never be the same again.
Part 1: CASTLE CHARMING AFLUTTER FOR AUTUMNAL FLING! (WHO WILL MARRY OUR PRINCES GONE WILD?)
It’s the first day of the Season! Kai and Dennis start new jobs, as the Charming Herald and the Doghouse batten their hatches for the annual invasion of eligible princesses.
You can listen now to Glass Slipper Scandal: Part 1 on iTunes (or your own favourite podcast app), and also stream, download & follow Sheep Might Fly on Podbean.Master list of Sheep Might Fly serials here on tansyrr.com.
March 31, 2016
The Secret Lives of Friday Links
Two amazing and thought-provoking essays about the changing face of technology:
The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens chronicles the rise and fall of teen entrepreneurs who built effective Tumblr networks and monetised them. Yep, this is what the new generation is doing when you think they’re just ‘spending all their time on the internet:’ dominating their own realms of social media.
At the Toast, a love letter to the era that was Livejournal, a time when we wrote intensely personal diaries for public performance.
Kate Elliott’s tour-de-force essay on Writing Women Characters into Epic Fantasy Without Quotas
Deb Biancotti on the Appeal of Icy, Remote Research Stations. Buy her new book!
Kate Forsyth’s Big Idea post over at Scalzi’s Whatever, on her love on the Rapunzel fairy tale, and the work she put into research for her doctorate. Buy her new book too!
Glenda Larke’s fantastic speech in response to winning the inaugural Sara Douglass Series Award.
Love this bit of historical ephemera: historical female spies who hid their secrets in eggs and artichokes. I WANT THAT THEME ANTHOLOGY!
Junot Diaz and Hilton Als talk masculinity, science fiction, and writing as an act of defiance.
The subversive history of women using thread as ink.
March 30, 2016
This Month on the Blog: March 2016
Friday Links Provides the Recipe
Coming Home To a Pirate Near You! (cover reveal & announcement that my debut novel Splashdance Silver & its sequel Liquid Gold will be published as an omnibus by Fablecroft) Update: the books are now available in the wild, Tehani was selling them at Contact last weekend!
Speaking of the weekend, I was delighted that Cranky Ladies of History and Galactic Suburbia both won Ditmars! Actually I was delighted with all the wins – with an extra shout out to the fabulous Glenda Larke who took out the inaugural Sara Douglass Series Award. Congrats to all finalists and winners!
Random Act of Fiction! The Egyptian Androsphinx
Margaret Brundage & Weird Tales [SF Women of the 20th Century #17] (the sexy pastel covers by a bohemian female artist in the 1930’s that defined the visual style of pulp SF for a generation)
Review: Black Widow #1 by Mark Waid & Chris Samnee
Review: Mockingbird #1 by Chelsea Cain & Kate Niemczyk
Sheep Might Fly podcast updates:
Fake Geek Girl Part 7
Fake Geek Girl Part 8
Fake Geek Girl Part 9
Fake Geek Girl Part 10
Galactic Suburbia podcast updates:
Gentleman Jole & the Red Queen Spoilerific: the Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan Edition
Episode 139: our sixth birthday with cake!
On Tor.com:
I was delighted to be able to do another substantial run of recap/review essays for the latest Marvel-Netflix series, Daredevil Season 2: Matt Murdock is Such a Tool I Can’t Even. My posts included:
Daredevil Is Not Bulletproof (Eps 1 & 2)
Daredevil + Punisher = Vigilante Bros (Eps 3 & 4)
Dating With Daredevil (Eps 5 & 6)
The People Vs Matt Murdock (Eps 7 & 8)
Prisoner: Cell Block Daredevil (Eps 9 & 10)
Daredevil Can’t Hear Ninjas (Or His Own Terrible Life Choices) (Eps 11 & 12)
The Last Stand of Daredevil & Elektra (featuring: the Punisher) (Ep 13)
Elsewhere on the Internet:
The Book Smugglers announced their upcoming Year of the Superhero season of short stories including my “Boy’s Own Superhero Bingo Card”.
GlitterShip podcast my Love & Romanpunk short story about lesbian vampires and 19th century poets, “Lamia Victoriana.”
On the Verity! podcast we review Mark Gatiss’ debut screenplay in the sort-of fan film P.R.O.B.E: The Zero Imperative and examine Rose’s first adventure in outer space with “The End of the World is Unquiet.”
Become a patron of Tansy’s blog and support my online writing at Patreon for as little as $1 a month!
March 27, 2016
Sheep Might Fly: Fake Geek Girl Part 10
New episode of Sheep Might Fly!
You can listen now to Episode 10 on iTunes (or your own favourite podcast app, I hope), and also stream, download & follow Sheep Might Fly here on the Podbean site.
“Fake Geek Girl,” was originally published in Review of Australian Fiction Volume 14, Issue 4. You can buy the issue containing the story (along with a fantastic piece from Stephanie Lai) directly from their website.
Meet Fake Geek Girl, the band that plays nerdy songs at the university bar every Friday night, to a mixture of magical and non-magical students: lead singer Holly writes songs based on her twin sister Hebe’s love of geek culture though she doesn’t really understand it; drummer Sage is an explosive sorcerous genius obsessing over whether Holly’s about to quit the band to go mainstream; shy Juniper only just worked up the nerve to sing her own song in public and keeps a Jane Austen themed diary chronicling the lives and loves of her friends. When the mysterious, privileged Ferd joins their share house, everything starts to unravel…
In Part 10: Hebe and the Library Resource Cupboard of Doom, the sisters are forced to talk about their feelings, Sage is forced to witness the results and admit a few truth bombs of his own, and Holly defends her status as Fake Geek Girl with benefit. (also, she writes a song about it)
This is the last part, the story is now COMPLETE! Thanks so much for listening and tune in next week for a brand new serial, original to the podcast – Glass Slipper Scandal, which is about newspaper hacks, trashy pretty princes, gold-diggers and long-suffering bodyguards in a fairy tale kingdom.
Missed previous episodes? Start from the beginning with Episode 1, Episode 2 or Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, Episode 8, Episode 9.
If you like what you hear on Sheep Might Fly, check out Tansy’s blog at tansyrr.com. Talk to Tansy on Twitter (@tansyrr), or check out her other podcasts: Galactic Suburbia and Verity!
You can become a supporter of Tansy & the Sheep Might Fly podcast at Patreon.
March 21, 2016
Issue #1: Mockingbird
Title: Mockingbird #1 (2016)
Writer: Chelsea Cain
Artist: Kate Niemczyk
The Buzz: Last year, I raved about Chelsea Cain’s Mockingbird one-shot as part of the SHIELD anniversary – and I wasn’t the only one. Mockingbird/Agent 19/Bobbi Morse is a fantastic character with so much potential: scientist, secret agent, martial artist, Avenger. It doesn’t hurt that she is played with great dynamism by Adrienne Palicki on the Agents of SHIELD TV show. Until the recent one-shot, she has never had her own solo series, and I am so glad that Chelsea Cain has snatched Mockingbird to her bosom.
All You Need To Know: Bobbi Morse married Hawkeye (Clint Barton) a million years ago, sometime in the 1970’s, and these banterific spy spouses made a great team… until they didn’t, anymore. With divorce on the cards, it was death that parted them – and a few years (or decades, Marvel time is screwy) later, Hawkeye discovered to his joy and horror that Bobbi never died at all, but was a prisoner of war with the Skrulls (shapechangers who have allowed for all manner of ‘not dead’ storylines).
Caught in the limbo between divorce, marriage and death-did-us-part, the two secret agents tried dating and working together on numerous occasions, to mixed results, before finally splitting for good. Oh, and Bobbi almost died again, but this time was saved by Nick Fury’s chemical experiments, which means she is on the (long) list of people whose biochemistry has been contaminated by that pesky Super Soldier serum. Luckily she’s a biochemist, right? (Sometimes it’s not good to be a biochemist in the Marvel Universe)
In the Agents of SHIELD TV series, as Hawkeye was a movie star and unavailable, they brought in dodgy British mercenary Lance Hunter to be Bobbi’s ‘significant ex.’ These two relationships were declared canon as of last year’s Mockingbird one-shot. This Mockingbird series (or this issue, at least) does not focus on Bobbi’s relationship with either man, though we have been promised both will make appearances later, possibly shirtless.
Story: Another smart, character-centric script from Cain, a New York Times bestselling author who is making the transition to superhero comics brilliantly. This issue revolves around Bobbi and her regular medical check ups, giving glimpses into her crazy life over a long period of time, and the sinister revelation of something nasty going on at SHIELD. The story is funny and sharp and I’m looking forward to finding out what the corgi means, as it seems that the later issues in this first 5-part arc will fill in a lot of the blanks. I really like this! I especially like the non-traditional narrative format, which feels effortless. Can Chelsea Cain write me a She-Hulk series too, and maybe a Zatanna? (Cough, or can we just give her Hawkeye because the current run is making me miserable)
Art: I was really sad that Joelle Jones (from the SHIELD one-shot) didn’t join the team for this, as I adored her bright, pop-art, retro stylings. She does provide a fantastic cover. However, Kate Niemczyk does a great job, here – I like that her Bobbi is solid rather than willowy, and the ongoing visual jokes in the waiting room were fantastic! (I’m assuming many of these are down to Cain as they match her style, but they are certainly conveyed cleverly. There’s definitely a cheeky sense of humour here along with the action sequences and faces-with-character. Nimczyk does well to convey the leaps in time that this issue requires, too, and I look forward to seeing how the later issues follow up the visual aspects of the running gags as well as in the dialogue.
But What Did I Miss?: It’s definitely worth reading last year’s 50 Years of SHIELD: Mockingbird #1 because it was great, but you don’t need to have read it to enjoy this one. (I suspect the portrayal of Lance Hunter in it is going to be relevant later to this series, though) You actually don’t need to have read any of Bobbi’s previous appearances – some of them are really great, don’t get me wrong, but not necessary. More than anything, this issue reminds me of the first issue of the Matt Fraction-David Aja, which felt like the beginning of a graphic novel, and was so different in tone and style to other comics that it stood entirely on its own.
Having said that if you want to catch up, check out the New Avengers: The Reunion trade, followed by Hawkeye & Mockingbird: Ghosts, and then the mini-series Widowmaker. All three of these were written by Jim McCann and drawn by David Lopez, and they form a continuous narrative about how the spy spouses attempt to work together and figure out their relationship after she comes back from the other side of the universe. Widowmaker has them teaming up with Black Widow, which is pretty great! Clint and Bobbi sadly drifted apart once they were no longer in McCann & Lopez’ hands – she has a couple of cute cameo appearances in the Fraction-Aja series, though, which I can’t recommend highly enough.
Would Read Issue 2?: Oh yes! I like that we’re told up front that the first run will be a 5 issue arc, and I’m committed at least for that run. Let’s hope this becomes more than yet another single, enjoyable trade.
Read it if you Like: Spider-Woman, She-Hulk, Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye, Young Avengers, Squirrel Girl, Hellcat, everything good and clever in comics right now. Also, Agents of SHIELD, though this comic will make you wish Agents of SHIELD gave Adrienne Palicki a lot more to do!
Other titles reviewed in 2016:
Hellcat #1
The Adventures of Supergirl #1
Archie #1
Spider-Man #1
Black Widow #1
March 20, 2016
Sheep Might Fly: Fake Geek Girl Part 9 Show Notes
New episode of Sheep Might Fly!
You can listen now to Episode 9 on iTunes (or your own favourite podcast app, I hope), and also stream, download & follow Sheep Might Fly here on the Podbean site.
“Fake Geek Girl,” was originally published in Review of Australian Fiction Volume 14, Issue 4. You can buy the issue containing the story (along with a fantastic piece from Stephanie Lai) directly from their website.
Meet Fake Geek Girl, the band that plays nerdy songs at the university bar every Friday night, to a mixture of magical and non-magical students: lead singer Holly writes songs based on her twin sister Hebe’s love of geek culture though she doesn’t really understand it; drummer Sage is an explosive sorcerous genius obsessing over whether Holly’s about to quit the band to go mainstream; shy Juniper only just worked up the nerve to sing her own song in public and keeps a Jane Austen themed diary chronicling the lives and loves of her friends. When the mysterious, privileged Ferd joins their share house, everything starts to unravel…
In Part 9, A Gentlewitch’s guide to Saving the World, by Miss Juniper Cresswell, Esquire, our girl Juniper outlines her 13 step plan to prevent the band and its internal friendships from a messy implosion. Her secret weapon? Ferdinand Chauvelin. Her other secret weapons? Costume drama and cake.
Missed previous episodes? Start from the beginning with Episode 1, Episode 2 or Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, Episode 8.
If you like what you hear on Sheep Might Fly, check out Tansy’s blog at tansyrr.com. Talk to Tansy on Twitter (@tansyrr), or check out her other podcasts: Galactic Suburbia and Verity!
You can become a supporter of Tansy & the Sheep Might Fly podcast at Patreon.
Galactic Suburbia Episode 139 Show notes
New episode available for streaming or download.
In which all 3 of us celebrate 6 years of Galactic Suburbia with an excellent baby and variable cake. ALISA IS BACK THIS IS NOT A DRILL!
What’s new on the internet?
JK Rowling, Native American “magic” and cultural appropriation.
National Geographic outlines the issues.
An open letter to Jo Rowling on the Native Appropriations blog – why indigenous people are not magical creatures.
Nisi Shawl’s crash course in the history of black science fiction
A list of all the dead lesbian & bisexual female characters on TV and how they died (many spoilers).
Feminist Frequency crowdfunding at Seed & Spark: a series of films about historical women.
Tansy’s “Lamia Victoriana” story from Love & Romanpunk, podcast at GlitterShip.
Also, Tansy’s upcoming superhero story at Book Smugglers – “Boy’s Own Superhero Bingo Card.”
Defying Doomsday coming soon too!
Listen to the end for the GALACTIC SUBURBIA GIVEAWAY – win a copy of The Rebirth of Rapunzel: A Mythic Biography of the Maiden in the Tower by Kate Forsyth, a unique non-fiction collection presenting Kate’s extensive academic research into the ‘Rapunzel’ fairy tale, alongside several other pieces related to fairy tales and folklore. Available soon from Fablecroft.
