Amy H. Sturgis's Blog, page 146

Several Geektastic Reasons to Smile

I'm up to my eyeballs in work, but there are so many geeky reasons to smile at the moment, I just had to share the happiness...

* Yesterday was one of my favorite personal holidays, made all the more enjoyable because I never know the exact day it will occur. It was the first Starbucks pumpkin latte of the season. Autumn is on its gorgeous way! Come soon, dear fall!

* Today is the seventy-sixth birthday of the late, great Buddy Holly. Here, enjoy a song on me...



* Tonight, while lecturing on Edgar Allan Poe and his C. Auguste Dupin, I'll get to point out one of my happiest geek-girl moments of this year: spotting the apt genre tribute Moffat-n-Gatiss worked into the Sherlock episode "A Scandal in Belgravia." Whose portrait hangs on Sherlock's bedroom wall? Edgar Allan Poe's, fittingly enough. (Screencap or it didn't happen.)

* Tomorrow, Rupert Graves guest stars on Doctor Who. Enough said.

* Sunday, I'm to be interviewed by the kind folks at the MuggleNet Academia podcast. This will be difficult to do if I spontaneously combust the night before thanks to the Graves-on-Who goodness, so I'll try to keep it together. It won't be easy, though, I suspect.


“It is simple enough as you explain it,” I said, smiling. “You remind me of Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories.”
- Watson to Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

Happy September!

Apologies for being so quiet! This past week scarcely left me time to breathe.

Tremendous thanks to those of you who attended my "The Hunger Games and the Science Fiction Tradition" online lecture yesterday, and thanks to Tony C. Smith of StarShipSofa for inviting me to do it. I had a fantastic time, and I appreciate the terrific audience!

Neil Gaiman has joined the Unchained Tour, and I have tickets! I really look forward to seeing this.




I have a few quick items of personal news:

The forthcoming 2013 collection Lois McMaster Bujold: Essays on a Modern Master of Science Fiction and Fantasy (which includes my essay "From Both Sides Now: Lois McMaster Bujold and the Fan Fiction Phenomenon") now has a cover.
Emilie Flygare-Carlen's haunting Gothic classic The Magic Goblet: A Swedish Tale, which I edited for Valancourt Books, is now available for Kindle readers.
My essay "Are Americans Vikings or Indians?: What Dueling Origin Myths from the 19th Century Tell Us about Ourselves" will appear in the next issue of Reason Magazine.
Happy belated birthday to marthawells , and happy early birthday wishes to aragornlover , alii_s , beatonna , and agameofthree . May all of you enjoy many happy returns of the day!

Departing summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling.
- William Wordsworth, "September"

Happy 122th Birthday, H.P. Lovecraft!

Happy 122th birthday, H.P. Lovecraft!

"There are probably seven persons, in all, who really like my work; and they are enough.... Pleasure to me is wonder—the unexplored, the unexpected, the thing that is hidden and the changeless thing that lurks behind superficial mutability. To trace the remote in the immediate; the eternal in the ephemeral; the past in the present; the infinite in the finite; these are to me the springs of delight and beauty. Like the late Mr. Wilde, 'I live in terror of not being misunderstood.'"
- Lovecraft, "The Defence Remains Open!" (April 1921)

The New Semester, It Draws Nigh!

Hi there! Happy Friday, everyone!

1. Tremendous thanks to all of you who took part in my . (It's still open, if you wish to participate.) I really appreciate your feedback! My countdown will indeed be appearing here in October, and I truly hope you enjoy it.

2. Students from five different continents are enrolled for my "Science Fiction, Part 1: From Modern Beginnings through the Golden Age" course for Mythgard Institute, and I couldn't be more thrilled! Registration is still open for this class, and it's also still open for my one-time live lecture event on "The Hunger Games and the Science Fiction Tradition."

3. Happy early birthday to roo2 , darthsindel1981 , ceosanna , amygrech , dormannheim , super_chik , dement1a , and funkyturtle . May all of you enjoy many happy returns of the day, my friends!


The Fall 2012 semester begins for me next week, so I feel the need to get my ducks in a row.

What I'm Teaching - Fall 2012

"Science Fiction, Part 1: From Modern Beginnings through the Golden Age" for Mythgard Institute
"100 Years of Literature about Single-Sex Worlds" for Lenoir-Rhyne University
Where I'll Be - Fall 2012

"The Hunger Games and the Science Fiction Tradition," a live "Looking Back on Genre History" HoloDeck lecture sponsored by StarShipSofa, online event
2012 Free Minds Film Festival at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
Talk: " The Trail of Tears: They Knew It Was Wrong and The Soviet Story" (appearing virtually)
The McConnell Center at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky
Talk: "The Trail of Tears through Cherokee Eyes"
(Also directing student seminars on 1) "The Politics of The Hunger Games" and 2) The Road to Serfdom)
Potterfest 2012: A Harry Potter Celebration at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina
Talk: "Finding Dumbledore's Mother: Harry Potter's (Native) American Context"
Catawba County Executives Club Meeting in Hickory, North Carolina
Talk: "'I Take My Life in My Hand': A Tale of Two Cherokees and the Trail of Tears"
Broken Arrow Senior High Homecoming in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma (receiving the Great Graduate Award from The Broken Arrow High School Alumni Association)



"If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?"
- Steven Wright

Snergs, the Sourcebook for The Hobbit! (My Narration)

Pssst! All fans of The Hobbit! And lovers of fantasy, in general...

My latest offering for "Project Kaitlyn" (stories for my niece) is an unabridged reading of The Marvellous Land of Snergs (1927) by E.A. Wyke-Smith, which J.R.R. Tolkien read to his children and acknowledged as a sourcebook for his The Hobbit. This is a most clever and delightful story. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Take Tolkien’s: “I should like to register my own love and my children’s love of E.A. Wyke-Smith’s Marvellous Land of Snergs...”



Please feel welcome to download this. If you listen, I hope you enjoy! The entire narration is a seven-ish hours long.


Here are the files to download:
Part 1: here or here
Part 2: here or here
Part 3: here or here
Part 4: here or here
Part 5: here or here
Part 6: here or here
Part 7: here or here
Part 8: here or here

Poll Time!

Happy early birthday to lucybun , baka_kit , gabrielle_h , onegoat , mbranesf , and roo2 . May you all have wonderful days and terrific years to come.

At the rate at which the weeks are flying past, October will be here before we know it. Since I'm the anal, pre-planning sort, and I have an action-packed fall season before me, I thought I'd look ahead and post this poll.

FYI, for those of you who don't know, for the last six years I've had a tradition of turning this blog into a month-long celebration of Halloween, posting a "spooky post" every day in October. You can see my past October posts here.

(Note: If you're not on LiveJournal and can't vote via the ticky-boxes, you're welcome to leave a comment!)

View Poll: Ye Olde Octoberish Poll

Thanks for your feedback!

"Mellonta Tauta" by Edgar Allan Poe (My Narration)

I'm back from a most productive and enjoyable experience in DC, and I'll be catching up shortly.

In the meantime, a quick note: as I've been compiling a list of unabridged audio versions of the texts assigned in my upcoming "Science Fiction, Part 1" seminar for my students, I discovered that there's not a convenient and free reading of Edgar Allan Poe's wickedly satirical and clever 1859 short story "Mellonta Tauta" online. (The title translates as "These things are in the future" -- an appropriate sentiment, as the story is set in the year 2848.) I decided to remedy this and record my own.

Here, free for adoption, is my narration of Poe's "Mellonta Tauta." If you listen, I hope you enjoy!


Last but certainly not least, happy birthday to febobe , and happy early birthday to ghani_atreides , gamgeefest , and janissa11 ! May all of you enjoy a brilliant day and a wonderful year to come, my friends.


Talking of drag-ropes -- our own, it seems, has this moment knocked a man overboard from one of the small magnetic propellers that swarm in ocean below us -- a boat of about six thousand tons, and, from all accounts, shamefully crowded. These diminutive barques should be prohibited from carrying more than a definite number of passengers. The man, of course, was not permitted to get on board again, and was soon out of sight, he and his life-preserver. I rejoice, my dear friend, that we live in an age so enlightened that no such a thing as an individual is supposed to exist. It is the mass for which the true Humanity cares.
- "Mellonta Tauta," Edgar Allan Poe

News and Gratuitous Niece Picspam

Hi there! *waves* Lots of interesting things are afoot. I can only make brief mention of a couple of them at present, as I'm getting ready to head off to D.C. to give a talk on U.S. American Indian policy at the Cato Institute. It's a super-fast trip; I'll be back straightaway!

Brief notes of interest...

* It's official: The Hobbit will be three films instead of two.

* Happy birthday to Harry Potter (and J.K. Rowling)!

* The Hunger Games: Catching Fire casting offers one great surprise after another. Wiress? Beetee? Plutarch Heavensbee? Brilliant!


I'll leave you with gratuitous picspam of my precious niece. Here's Kaitlyn enjoying her new wading pool. I love her sassypants expression. If I could choose a caption for this photo, it would be...

"No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die." *insert baby Kaitlyn giggles here* (See why they don't let me near the family album?)




"I should like to know about risks, out-of-pocket expenses, time required and remuneration, and so forth" - by which he meant: "What am I going to get out of it? and am I going to come back alive?" - The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles.

So many fantastic people were born on or around this day. Happy birthday wishes to agentxpndble , arymetore , caster121 , and syrcleoftrees ! And happy early birthday wishes to ghislainem70 , tudorpumpkin , xjenavivex , lizziebelle , zmaddoc , supermusicmad , and wiccagirl24 . May all of you enjoy a brilliant day, my dear friends, and a fabulous year to come!

A few quick items:

* I was offline much of yesterday due to a fun series of thunderstorms. I'm catching up now!

* Reason Papers: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Normative Studies has published (online and for free) a very special issue, Imagining Better: Philosophical Issues in Harry Potter , edited by Carrie-Ann Biondi and including essays by some terrific scholars, several of whom I'm glad to call friends as well as colleagues. You don't want to miss these essays if you're a student or fan of Harry Potter. Check out this brilliant issue and/or download it here!

* Speaking of the wonderful agentxpndble , whose birthday is today, she's the mistress of two great websites, including CI5 Addict (for The Professionals) and...



* This month I'm part of a four-person scholarly roundtable dialogue on "Liberty, Commerce, and Literature" featured at Cato Unbound here. The other participants are literary critics Sarah Skwire and Frederick Turner and Heinlein biographer William H. Patterson, Jr.


And last, the new Hobbit video blog. Two words: Beorn's Hall! \o/



"I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led. And through the air. I am he that walks unseen. I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number. I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water. I came from the end of bag, but no bag went over me. I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am Ring-winner and Luckwearer; and I am Barrel-rider."
- Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

Stories of King Arthur's Knights (My Narration)

As you may know, I have a brilliant and beautiful new niece. As you may not know, she's half a continent away. Thank goodness we live in the era of electronic photos and videos and live Skype chats! I realized that, if I lived close to Kaitlyn, what I'd want to do most is read to her. So I've decided to do that anyway. With what I'm calling "Project Kaitlyn," I'm recording my narration of stories I'd most like to share with her (especially those with a fantasy or science fiction flavor), and my family will play them for her. Just in case anyone else is interested, I'll share those recordings here, too.

My first full, unabridged book narration for "Project Kaitlyn" is Stories of King Arthur's Knights Told to the Children by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor.

Here's my narration. If you'd like it, please help yourself!

"Chapter 1: Geraint and Enid"
"Chapter 2: Lancelot and Elaine"
"Chapter 3: Pelleas and Ettarde"
"Chapter 4: Gareth and Lynette"
"Chapter 5: Sir Gallahad and the Sacred Cup"
"Chapter 6: The Death of King Arthur"

I'm quite excited about the next texts I've got lined up to record. More soon.



Note: Since one of the goals of this is for Kaitlyn to hear and recognize me, I've kept my own accent for this narration. Not exactly authentic to the source material, I know. I do, however, use different voices for the characters.