Sable Aradia's Blog, page 44
March 7, 2018
The Hated Ones: We Just Wanna Have Fun
By Bluestockings
As I settle in for a cup of tea and a good old fashion hate-watching of Fifty Shades of Grey, I’m absolutely shocked and appalled and genuinely disturbed by what’s happening in the gaming community just North of our town of Toronto. While I had no intention of getting involved, shit happens. Two years ago I got involved when asked about safety tools and making a con inclusive. Several women organizers spoke up. We were told to tone it down, we were dismissed, and we were shouted down by con attendees who hated the idea of changing their ways to accommodate a safer space.
Silenced, we women departed. Until a lovely person wrote an article about the sexism she experienced at this convention. The con organizer posted it to the group (which was awesome) and then promptly everything fell apart. The behaviours from 2016 happened again. Deleting of messages that weren’t supportive of the con. 24 hour banning of those who were saying harassment was happening. Silencing. We were beginning to give up. The organizer walked away until today, letting the group go wild in his absence.
Read the full article on Bluestocking’s Organic Gaming.
March 6, 2018
Honey, Let the Real Gamers Play
By Misty Vander
‘Shh. Breathe.’
I exhaled a breath of stale air into the crowded lobby of the local hotel. My partner sensed my hesitation beside me and squeezed my hand encouragingly. With a small tug, he urged me onwards. “Let’s go, I don’t want to be around these neckbeards any longer than I have to,” he teased. I know, not a very kind way to refer to a wonderful community of tabletop gamers, especially when his partner is one of them, but I knew he was just trying to ease my nerves.
Walking into the entrance, I was immediately greeted by an older woman at the entrance booth. My partner paid our entrance fees, we got small, golden tokens that we could use to preregister for one game each.
Ignoring the hair standing on the back of my neck, the fear creeping up my arms, the imaginary breath and whispers of a strange man in my ear, I crept over to the table with lists of the games being run we could preregister for. After scanning the papers, I immediately noted my LGS Head DM’s name. I immediately pre-registered for it, not releasing upon seeing his name that I released my death grip on my partner’s hand. He was thankful for it though he was looking incredibly uncomfortable already by the thriving social environment.
Read the full article at Aspiring Halfling.
March 5, 2018
Kameron Hurley: What I’ve Learned About Being a Writer
By Kameron Hurley
You will fail more than you succeed. You will remember the failures more often than the successes.
The people who believe in you now will believe in you always. Get rid of everyone else.
Readers will love your work. They will think this means they love you. They will be wrong, but do not correct them. You will no longer be yourself when you’re among readers, but an amalgamation of their perceptions of you based on your work and the pixels that make up your face. After a while, even your oldest friends will see you this way.
Pick one person you can be yourself with. It will be the person who doesn’t live-tweet your breakdown.
Read the full article at Locus Magazine.
March 4, 2018
Book Review: Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Read for the Military Spec-Fic Reading Challenge, the Second Best Reading Challenge, and the Space Opera Reading Challenge.
This book was nominated for the Hugo and Locus Awards 2006.
I really, really liked this book! It’s kind of like the bridge between Starship Troopers (a relatively cheerful take on future wars with aliens) and The Forever War (a rather dark look at the same subject.) If you like Military Space Opera, you couldn’t go wrong to read these three books, and throw Ender’s Game in on top of it. I think this one will remind us vintage sci-fi fans of the other two, but Scalzi has some different things to say.
The theme is the real magic of what’s going on here. The protagonist of this novel, John Perry, turned 75 and, like many senior citizens do at that age, he joined up with the space infantry. The deal? You get a new body capable of fighting aliens, presumably resetting your lifespan to a younger starting point. The trade? It’s WAR. Attrition is scary. You will probably die within the decade. Would you take the trade?
John Perry is not a youth, either. He’s a man who’s lived a full and productive life. He has lots of memories and experiences, and I can’t help but feel he and his wife, Kathy, might be a bit autobiographical (loosely based on Scalzi and his own wife).
Being middle aged myself, I find myself wondering if the characters are a bit more like middle aged people than old people per se. On the other hand, how do you communicate “old” in the future? I give Scalzi a nod for doing a great job of capturing the fullness of life experience without dating his story with pop culture references.
There’s also some turns and twists when we encounter Perry’s polar opposites; clone soldiers. Here my best comparison would be the issues raised by Lois McMaster Bujold in her Vorkosigan Saga books in regards to the clones on Jackson’s Whole.
I think the differences between Heinlein’s, Haldeman’s, Card’s and Scalzi’s takes on future space war can be summed up in how they start. Heinlein’s space soldiers volunteer as young people to get the right to vote and participate in the politics of their society; or, like the protagonist, to find themselves. Haldeman’s space soldiers are promising young people who are drafted. Card’s are children who are drafted. Scalzi’s space soldiers are volunteers, but let’s face it: when death must happen within a few years, it’s nearly extortion to make that kind of offer. “You have a terminal illness that will kill you in five to ten years, and we know that’s a fact. On the other hand, if you go to war for us, we can fix that.” Powerful incentive.
Heinlein and Card were trying to say something about society and ethics. Haldeman was trying to say something about death. Scalzi is trying to say something about life.
Extra kudos: Scalzi’s aliens are magnificent. They have completely different societies and biological makeups from us, some of which is utterly incomprehensible from a human standpoint.
I hope that in the subsequent books in the series, Scalzi will explore some of the deeply troubling ethical questions that have come up, which I can’t share because they’d be spoilers.
All in all, I see why it is frequently compared to these other books (not so much Ender’s Game usually, but the other two): it reads a lot like a good Heinlein novel, only it’s like if Heinlein were writing a grown-up version instead of a juvenile. I enjoyed it a lot!
March 3, 2018
Books, Authors, Double Standards and Snobbery
I am perpetually frustrated by the disdain that many have for Indie authors. Indie artists, musicians, and filmmakers are applauded for daring to step out, break the mould and do their own thing in defiance of the industries that are perceived to have grown too big, too powerful, too rich.
Nobody hesitates to go to a doctor or lawyer who owns their own practice. People don’t think twice about having their car serviced by a mechanic who runs a local garage. They’re independent practitioners within their industry, too. Let’s face it, there are some shonky ones out there – in any industry – but they are the vast minority, and their behaviour should never be used as the yardstick by which all others are measured.
So why is the double standard against Indie authors still not only acceptable, but so widely endorsed?
I won’t deny that I’ve picked up two…
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March 2, 2018
31 Essential Science Fiction Terms And Where They Came From
By Lauren Davis
There are so many words and phrases that we use in science fiction—and even science—without giving it much thought. But where did we get terms like “death ray,” “terraforming,” “hive mind,” “telepathy,” and “parallel universe”?
Read the full article at io9.com.
March 1, 2018
Putting Down Roots in Space
By Michael Johnson
Plants grow just about everywhere on Earth, and are able to adapt to extreme conditions ranging from drought to disease. Spaceflight, however, exposes plants to stresses not found anywhere on their home planet. Growing plants aboard the International Space Station provides a unique opportunity to study how plants adapt to microgravity, and a team of researchers recently published results in “PLOS One” concerning plant adaptations at the genetic level.
Read the full article at NASA.
February 28, 2018
Happy Hobbit Birthday: Sci-fi Roundtable Giveaway!
My birthday’s coming up, so I’d like to offer you all a hobbit birthday present!
I’m taking part in a massive giveaway with my compatriots in the Sci-fi Roundtable, a group of authors banding together for mutual support. Starting March 3, we’ll be giving away a whole whack of our books! Just sign up for my newsletter to get all the details!
February 27, 2018
Fighting Erasure: Women SF Writers of the 1970s, A Through F
By James Davis Nicoll
You may have been annoyed by recurrent comments from a certain surprisingly flammable Waterloo-region reviewer. He complains about the erasure from SF memory of women writing SF back in the 1970s—but has that reviewer ever bother to name names? Suggest books? I think not. It is time to confront the erasure directly. Forward! Excelsior!
In an attempt to keep this list to a manageable length, I will focus on women authors who first published in the 1970s. That means skipping some significant authors who were already active at the time. I also reserve the right to cheat a bit by including a few works published after the 1970s. I am also going to break this list into several installments, beginning with A through F. Which should tell you just how many women have been erased. Whole binders full of women.
Read the full article at Tor.com.
February 26, 2018
Book Review: Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I love Dexter. Dexter is a guilty pleasure. I read him when I want something that isn’t too cerebral. That being said, the thought that goes into these thrillers, and the study of psychopathy that the author has engaged in to make his character convincing, is fantastic.
I don’t want to get into the specifics of the plot of this particular novel, other than to say that it’s ambiguous as always, and there were a few surprises, even in this easy-to-digest, simple-language book.
Is Dexter good or evil? If he’s good, that completely rejects the argument that “good” is something you sense and feel and know. I believe that, so I find it challenging. On the other hand, Dexter is clearly mental ill, so is it a “good” action for a person to make his madness work in a way that nobody would object to?
On the other hand, Dexter, despite the fact that he murders serial killers, is a psychopath who tortures his victims as he murders them. Surely we don’t believe that people deserve to die in such horrible ways, especially if we believe in the sanctity of all life – which I do.
Well worth reading just for the ethical challenge, but it’s also a good thriller, with character interactions and an entertaining internal voice that makes you laugh even as you contemplate the deep issues at the heart of the plot.
