July 14, 2017
Five episodes down; five episodes to go. “Ease for Idle Millionaires” marks the halfway point of Orphan Black’s final season, and it brings things to a rather clarifying point, indeed. Without getting into spoilers, I think it’s rather safe to say we better understand P.T. Westmorland and how he wants to achieve his goals. I think it’s also safe to…
July 14, 2017
Last month, we talked about finding a series or a franchise and falling in love with it until one day, there’s a turning point; suddenly, we just don’t love it as much as we used to, and we jump ship. But that got us thinking… what happens when that turning point happens at the end of the series, when it’s…
July 13, 2017
Island of Exiles (2017) Written by: Erica Cameron Genre: Young Adult Fantasy Pages: 400 (Trade Paperback) Series: Book One of The Ryogan Chronicles Publisher: Entangled Teen Why I Chose It: I heard this one described as the kind of young adult fantasy we really need in the market, with things like a strong female protagonist and great magic. Granted it…
July 13, 2017
If you haven’t watched Sense8 before, this post will be something of a spoiler in that I’ll be talking about the world the show has created (in the Welcome to Your Cluster section) as well as the characters as human beings (or variations of). I’ll also make general reference to the plot but I won’t talk about specific plot lines, and…
July 12, 2017
Once upon a time in the late 20th century, Keyes and Howard met on a Final Fantasy message forum. Today, they’ve been married for almost eight years. They have a massive collection of Final Fantasy games and games that should be Final Fantasy games (Bravely Default, Bravely Second) and still get nostalgic for things like Fat Chocobos and Black Mages. But neither…
July 12, 2017
The Bone Witch (2017) Written by: Rin Chupeco Genre: Fantasy Pages: 432 pages (Kindle) Series: The Bone Witch, Book 1 Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire Why I Chose This: From the second I heard about this book I knew I had to have it. Necromancers have a special place in my heart and the story of a young dark magic user raising…
July 11, 2017
Welcome back to Sound Off!, a semi-regular column where members of Speculative Chic gather together to chat about the latest BIG THING in entertainment. This time, reload your web-shooters and discuss Spider-Man: Homecoming, which premiered in the United States on Friday, July 7, 2017. Sound Off! is meant to be a reaction, but not necessarily a review. After all, while we are all…
July 11, 2017
This Month On Changing the Map As we’ve discussed in previous columns, the upside of using fantastic fiction as a forum for feminist thinking is that readers are so immersed in a strange world that they don’t realize they’re learning something important. The downside? That whatever an author might write about women and their struggles may seem dated and irrelevant…
July 10, 2017
They might not be raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens, but that doesn’t mean that we love them any less. Welcome to the new and improved version of My Favorite Things, a weekly column where we grab someone in speculative circles to gab about the greatest in geek. This week, we welcome one of Speculative Chic’s favorite writers, the…
July 7, 2017
Welcome back to Orphan Black‘s Final Trip. After the Hendrix-centric episode in “Beneath Her Heart,” we got to find out what the rest of the clones have been up to in “Let the Children and Childbearers Toil.” Unlike the previous two episodes, at first glance there didn’t appear to be any major moments. Yet as I was sitting back and…