K.M. Alexander's Blog, page 40
September 10, 2018
Raunch Reviews: Harry Potter
Raunch Reviews is a series about profanity. Not real profanity, but speculative swearing. Authors often try to incorporate original, innovative forms of profanity into our own fantastical works as a way to expand the worlds we build. Sometimes we’re successful. Often we’re not. In this series, I examine the faux-profanity from various works of sci-fi and fantasy, judge their effectiveness, and rate them on an unscientific and purely subjective scale. This is Raunch Reviews, welcome.
[image error]The Author: J. K. Rowling
Work in Question: The Harry Potter Series
The Profanity: “Mudblood”
One of the many duties of successful speculative fiction is to work as a mirror on reality, and ultimately, humanity. Sometimes that mirror can reflect more serious subjects. So, it’s no surprise that something like bigotry would become a topic, even in a series like Harry Potter. While there have been a great many articles written about the successes and failures of the metaphor, the goal here is to examine the word itself.
Enter “mudblood.” It is a slur for a magical person born of parents who have no magic ability of their own. Considered highly offensive, it gets slung around a lot in the series by bullies, villains, and the propaganda arm of the fascist state. Clearly coded like racial profanity, the word is designed to dehumanize (or dewizardize, in this case), and the connotations manifest throughout the series. In fact, the entire story across all seven books largely consists of the titular hero and his pals battling against a villain who believes all of wizardkind should be “pure-bloods.” (We can trace this back to Salazar Slytherin—the goth racist who founded Slytherin House and thought the school should only teach those of pure wizard-blood. Then he left when no one agreed with him. He was basically the Morrissey of Hogwarts.) It’s important to recognize the context of “mudblood” in relation to the overall struggle; it’s not just a word bandied about by meanies, it has plot connotations as well.
As a term, it’s evocative of modern racial profanity. Used within the realm of speculative fiction, it does its part to hold up the mirror, and as faux-profanity it does this effectively.
Score: [image error][image error][image error][image error][image error] (4.5)
Previous Raunch Reviews
“Frak” from Glen A. Larson’s, Ronald D. Moore’s, & David Eick’s Battlestar Galactica
“Jabber” from China Miéville’s Bas-Lag
“Storm it”/”Storms”/”Storming” from Brandon Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archives
Have a suggestion for Raunch Reviews? It can be any made up slang word from a book, television show, or movie. You can email me directly with your recommendation or leave a comment below. I’ll need to spend time with the property before I’ll feel confident reviewing it, so give me a little time. I have a lot of books to read.
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September 3, 2018
August 30, 2018
Quick Hiatus
For the next ten days or so I will be intentionally incommunicado with this blog and the rest of the internet as a whole. Responses to emails and comments will be delayed. Kari-Lise and I will be traveling to New England, where we will be attending a wedding, visiting a National Park, and where I hope to eat a lobster roll (or seven.) I might occasionally post to Instagram, so if you’re not following me over there, feel free.
There are quite a few posts in the hopper (including one already scheduled.) My current plan is to resume normal blog activities around mid-September. If you’re looking for something to read here in the interim, here are a few of my more popular posts over the last few years:
Your Fave is Problematic—That’s Okay
Mapping Resources for Authors (and GMs)
Raunch Reviews: Battlestar Galactica
A Riverboat’s Demise
How Passenger Airships Worked
Hunting The Yellow Sign
Mad Max: Fury Road and the Art of Worldbuilding
August 25, 2018
The Struggle
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Social life? What’s a social life? This week I’m really feeling this animated version of the classic “pick two” puzzle. It comes from illustrator/designer Gal Shir. You can see more of his work at his Dribbble page and at galshir.com.
Okay, back to it: words, writing, chapters.
August 24, 2018
Alive at Once
“The significance of a myth is not easily to be pinned on paper by analytical reasoning. It is at its best when it is presented by a poet who feels rather than makes explicit what his theme portends; who presents it incarnate in the world of history and geography, as our poet has done. Its defender is thus at a disadvantage: unless he is careful, and speaks in parables, he will kill what he is studying by vivisection, and he will be left with a formal or mechanical allegory, and what is more, probably with one that will not work. For myth is alive at once and in all its parts, and dies before it can be dissected.”
August 23, 2018
Visual Inspiration: Filip Dujardin
Often when I share an artist that’s been inspiring to me, it’s usually someone who works as a concept artist. Today’s entry will be a bit of a departure from that. Filip Dujardin is a Belgian photographer who manipulates photos of architecture and cityscapes to create beautiful photomontage works that question the notion of architected spaces.
“I want to play at being an architect. All my creations leave the impression that they could have been built, it’s just that you’ve never seen them.”
—Filip Dujardin
In many ways, I think of my own work—and Lovat in particular—as a love letter to cities. Even if it’s just tangentially. There’s something fascinating about the constructed spaces and interactions that happen within. I love the optimistic concept of the city and the unpleasant realities that dwell in the shadow of that idealism. I find those juxtapositions beautiful. Many of those same themes are present in Dujardin’s work, in particular, his Fictions series. The interplay of form and function both natural and unnatural are warped and distorted, and it gives me pause as a viewer. I’m forced to reflect on the nature of urban environments and our interplay with them as occupants—what they mean, what they remove, how they shape us, and how they distort our experiences and change our perceptions.
I’ve selected some of my favorites below. Click to view them larger.
This is just a tiny sample of Filip Dujardin extensive body of work. You can see much more in his book Fictions and over on his website. (Be sure to check out his Guimaraes series.) If you’re looking to purchase any of his pieces, many are available online at Artspace.com.
If you like Filip Dujardin’s work be sure to check out some of the other artists who I’ve found inspiring in the past. While there’s certainly a theme to the art that inspires me, you’ll find lots of different styles, tones, and moods.
Sebastien Ecosse
Zhichao Cai
Yuri Shwedoff
Jordan Grimmer
Kuldar Leement
Marc Simonetti
Anthony Wolff
Robin Olausson
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August 22, 2018
Well, My Interest is Piqued
I don’t play many video games these days. I find it difficult to get engaged the way I was in the past, so I can’t rightfully call myself a gamer. However, when I saw the recent cinematic trailer for Frogware’s The Sinking City, I can’t deny it caught my attention. It was the right mix of tone, style, and weirdness paired with Lovecraftian cosmic horror. I’ve posted the trailer below so you can check it out for yourself.
How about that setting? The Sinking City currently being billed as an “open world, open story, investigation game inspired by H.P. Lovecraft” and that’s enough to keep me interested. I’m wildly bored with combat-focused titles, so the investigation angle sounds appealing. How about you?
August 18, 2018
Echoes of the Wasteland
A repository of historical ephemera presented chronologically. There are circumstances still waiting to be discovered for those brave enough to peer around the edges of the world. This reality is faceted; each plane a reflection of corrupted shadow and light. Diligence.
Notice: This cache will be updated as necessary. Click on any image to view it larger.
CODA:
Many of these images have been posted on other social media accounts over the last few years and have never fully been assembled into one “master” location. This post has now rectified that oversight and I will continue to update it as necessary. If you’re confused, take heart, my friend, we all begin as colorless novices. I recommend starting here. (Well, start with my books first, then that post.) Ignore the whispers, those are just echoes from the wasteland.
See you soon, roader.
Want to stay in touch with me? Sign up for Dead Drop, my rare and elusive newsletter. Subscribers get news, previews, and notices on my books before anyone else delivered directly to their inbox. I work hard to make sure it’s not spammy and full of interesting and relevant information. SIGN UP TODAY →
August 14, 2018
Farewell Facebook
Today, I clicked delete on my Facebook account. It was a long time coming, and I’m not sad to see it go. Facebook has become a behemoth in the last decade, an irresponsible behemoth that created unethical systems used to preys on its users. Participation felt like a taciturn approval, and I didn’t want to validate that sort of behavior any longer.
For creators, Facebook has changed. A once vibrant landscape has slowly walled creators off onto Pages where our projects and content was no longer seen by the very people who were interested. It began to urging us to “boost posts”—five dollars here or a ten spot there. But boosted posts rarely returned worthwhile engagement. Promoting Pages often yielded poor results—likes and shares from shell accounts generated by click farms. Practices Facebook claims don’t exist, but the evidence says otherwise. I’ve watched friends with thousands and thousands of followers grow frustrated as engagement slipped away and the site became a meaningless money pit.
It was also a distraction. Yet one more place to waste time doing nothing. Over the last few years, I’ve shifted away from social media and doubled down on blogging. I love this blog. Here I control my content. If anyone wants to see what I am working on they just have to visit. I share news, photos, thoughts, and opinions all the time. I get traffic. I get emails from readers. It’s not hidden by algorithms or walled off on some buried Page. It’s all accessible, and that’s glorious. It’s the old web, sure, but it’s reliable.
Things can always change. Microsoft isn’t the same company it was in the 90s. Apple isn’t the same company it was in the late-80s. Facebook ten years from now will be different than it is today. Under new leadership perhaps Facebook could turn things around quickly, but in the meantime, I’m not holding my breath, and I’m not wasting my time. I got books to write.
Want to stay in touch with me? Sign up for Dead Drop, my rare and elusive newsletter. Subscribers get news, previews, and notices on my books before anyone else delivered directly to their inbox. I work hard to make sure it’s not spammy and full of interesting and relevant information. SIGN UP TODAY →
August 10, 2018
The Creative Spirit at Work
I quite enjoyed this delightful little video that accompanied Gareth Smit’s article in the New Yorker regarding “The Odd Literary Paraphernalia of the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection.” It’s worth a watch and a read on a pleasant Friday afternoon.
