Friday Links Mansplains to the Masses
by Aviv Or
I love you, Tehani, but sending us this link first thing in the morning? Meant I started my day feeling rageful and cranky.(it's a Salon article by some bloke about how Jennifer Weiner is too rich and successful to be allowed to complain about ingrained sexism in the literary world, and poor male authors struggle more despite having a whole bunch of admittedly sweet gender-based privileges)
Luckily, before I had to turn my squishy pre-breakfast brain into some kind of 'well your face is stupid' riposte, John Scalzi did it for me. Cheers, John! Some of the comments (on both posts) are, well, you know, but overall I feel now like I have the renewed strength to go on with my Friday without spending the whole morning typing furiously at you all. Hooray!
In other Scalzi news, he also wrote a post about the general awesomeness of Starship Troopers the movie, which I stand behind entirely.
That post is part of Tor's theme week on military SF, which also includes this post by the incredibly well read Jo Walton, about women in the world of Miles Vorkosigan (and Lois McMaster Bujold).
the new Galactic Suburbia is up, and we're on to Episode 51 before I come to terms with us hitting the big 50. There's a bunch of links there, which I won't repeat. Check in particularly to hear me squee about the upcoming World's Finest comic, featuring the Helena Wayne Huntress and her Earth 2 best friend Power Girl. Hooray, my favourite versions of both characters! Also nice to see Nicola Scott with another DC gig, doing the art for new title Earth 2.
Robin Hobb pays tribute to the influence of Anne McCaffrey. I've kind of been collecting these, as I think the importance and influence of many (female, you know it!) writers in this genre of ours gets overlooked, or forgotten.
I've been enjoying Paul Cornell's Casual Friday posts, and this one is especially good because he plugs Outland! I also thought he had some smart things to say about authors blogging about their eligible works for awards, and how that isn't the same as campaigning.
The Mary Sue reports that a Sweet Valley High musical is in development. WE ALL NEED THIS MOVIE IN OUR LIVES!
A snarky recap/parody of The Wedding of River Song, an episode I love no less for reading this post.
One of the more interesting posts about Irene Adler I have come across in recent weeks – I think Ragnell puts her finger on why the character has become so problematic in retellings of modern Sherlock Holmes stories, and it's free of the kind of bile I have seen elsewhere on the internets.
(for the record I really liked A Scandal in Belgravia, but I completely support those people who felt uncomfortable or enraged by some of the story choices surrounding Irene Adler, not just because that camp includes some of my best friends. I have the benefit at least of having no preconceptions about the character, and thus no disappointment, and I kind of thought she was awesome, but other responses are valid. On the other hand if anyone tries to tell me Mrs Hudson was not a fabulous feminist icon in that episode I will fight to the death)
Speaking of Sherlock, which I won't speak about TOO much because of that whole not screened in Australia yet thing, I only just found out about John Watson's blog! Go check it out – but don't read the ones which are episode summaries if you haven't seen the episodes yet!
We're getting ready for our ROR workshop – a week of critiquing, industry chat and maybe a bit of holiday too! Rowena talks about it on the ROR blog.
A roundtable on SF and YA including our own Tehani Wessely along with some more well known names – a good read with much crunchy thought-provoking material!
