Welcome back to another week at Speculative Chic! The holidays are officially in gear, with a freshly wrapped Thanksgiving, Black Friday’s recent end, a forthcoming Cyber Monday, and all the major December holidays coming in one right after the other. This time of year can go by so fast, so don’t forget to take some time for yourself and relax. Get caught up on the things that give you pleasure — like another Weekly Roundup! 😊
Monday
Our special guest this week in the house of MFT is Tim Major, author of the upcoming novel Snakeskins, as well as a brand-new story collection, And the Houselights Dim. In this edition, Major shares his genre favorites: we’re talking Czech animation, Estonian fairy tales with strange guardians, deliciously terrible 1950s SF-horror, a compelling featurette with fangs, and the bewitching combo of Dietrich and von Sternberg. There’s all sorts of weird and wonderful in this week’s post, so check it out!
Tuesday
Ronya‘s got a special post for the holiday season (and beyond!) to prep you for those awkward moments when friends, family, and total strangers may question your geek credentials and the things you love. How can you cope? Ronya’s assembled the best videos from the web to help you reaffirm your geek status — you know what you love, and that’s enough. For some validation and laughs, look no further.
Wednesday
Kendra reviews The Rules and Regulations for Mediating Myths and Magic by F.T. Lukens, a fantasy tale featuring a college student taking on a bizarre job, getting kidnapped by the mermaids of Lake Michigan, and is plunged into a world where myths and legends are real…all while trying to deal with unrequited love, of course. For Kendra’s take on this lovingly eccentric book, dive in here.
Thursday
Did you have a Happy Thankgsiving? We sure hope so! And now that turkey dinner has come and gone, the next thing on everyone’s minds is holiday shopping! So we’ve delivered you a special Roundtable featuring our wishlists for this holiday season. From the practical to the impossible, we’ve asked for all sorts of things. Take a look! What do you want this year?
Friday
Nicole reviews Alexandra Christo’s standalone YA fantasy To Kill a Kingdom, a dark and murderous take on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, where sirens and humans are bitter enemies. In this telling, Lira, princess of the sirens, has collected the hearts of seventeen human princes. But when Lira is forced to kill one of her own kind, her mother, the Sea Queen, punishes Lira by turning her into a human. And…there’s the eighteenth heart to collect. For Nicole’s verdict on this fairy tale revision, read on.
Book Club
It’s creeping ever-closer to the new year, and that means a new book club! We’re making some exciting changes, and while we’re officially relaunching in 2020, you can get started on reading now! For January, Shara is hosting This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone; I’m hosting Jeremy C. Shipp’s The Atrocities for February, and Kendra is hosting An Illusion of Thieves by Cate Glass. Are you getting excited? We definitely are!
Speaking of excited, I’m so happy that season three of The Dragon Prince is on Netflix! Usually Netflix Originals launch the same date worldwide, but not always, so I was worried there’d be a wait for me in Japan, but it’s finally here! I’ve kept away from social media to avoid spoilers — as soon as I saw one of my authors scream on Twitter “MY FAVORITE SHIP IS CANON!” I put myself on Twitter blackout. But it’s been a while between seasons so I’ve started a rewatch from the very first episode. I watch it in Japanese first and then in English to help with my language study, and am delighted to report that the same seiyū (voice actor) for All Might in Boku no Hero Academia plays King Harrow! I love listening for other familiar voices from anime to pop up in there, and I can’t wait to see the new characters for the third season. If you’re Dragon Prince fans, I’d like to know with a comment below. With that, we’ll see you next time!
Hmm…with last week’s Prince Lotor and this week’s Runaan, I seem to have a thing for animated elven men with long white hair and purple skin. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
No Comments