August 22, 2017
Yesterday’s solar eclipse was the first total solar eclipse in the U.S. since 1979, and it was a pretty big deal because of both that and because the path of totality ran from coast to coast — from the Pacific Northwest to the Southeast United States. Such a long path meant plenty of opportunities for eclipse viewing. Trips, buses, hotels,…
June 28, 2017
Star Trek: The Next Generation was the first TV series of which I devoured every episode. So I was stunned when ensign Tasha Yar was killed by a telekinetic entity. I didn’t know characters could die in TV series. I refused to watch any TNG episodes after that — so much for the Enterprise’s continuing mission! — but my friends…
May 23, 2017
Anyone ever read Don Quixote? I promise it isn’t all about tilting at windmills and going on impractical adventures. In fact, in the second half of the story Don Quixote reads the same story we just read. This is metafiction — when an author makes literary characters aware that they’re in a book and they are characters, not people; sometimes…
May 17, 2017
A Taste of Honey (2016) Written by: Kai Ashante Wilson Genre: Fantasy Pages: 100 (Nook) Publisher: Tor/Forge Why I Chose It: Many reasons. That gorgeous cover, for one. The story is about two men of color, and that’s what’s on the cover. (Because publishers whitewashing book covers is a thing.) Also because I haven’t read much fantasy lately. And lastly…
April 25, 2017
With DC’s Wonder Woman finally due to hit theaters on June 2 (after which I will formally change my bio), it’s just not possible to stop thinking of other characters that need their own silver screen treatments. Because come on already. Before I started reading Wonder Woman a few years ago, I was a die-hard Marvel girl. I grew up on…
March 28, 2017
Who doesn’t love a good time-traveling adventure? Although more serious time-travel stories — 12 Monkeys [the film], Ray Bradbury’s classic short story “A Sound of Thunder” (1952), the TV series Continuum (discussed in a prior post) or the film Primer — can break your brain (especially Primer!), time travel has enchanted audiences since H.G. Wells published The Time Machine in the…
February 28, 2017
I’m a sucker for series that only get short runs. I like ruminating about untapped potential, I suppose; the what-ifs and what-could-have-beens make great daydreaming material (and story fodder). Every so often there’s talk of reviving Firefly, Joss Whedon’s beloved 2002 space western series, whose fans often feel was given short shrift by FOX. Firefly’s first season was fourteen episodes…
January 24, 2017
In Celtic mythology, “thin places” are spots where this world and the Otherworld allow inhabitants to cross over. The most famous example is actually Halloween, followed by the tale of Tam Lin, and Cristina Rosetti’s classic poem “Goblin Market.” Halloween, or Samhain (pronounced SAH-ween), took place just after the harvest and was thought to be a time when the boundaries…
December 27, 2016
The Star Wars franchise is finally centralizing women in its storylines, as evidenced by last year’s The Force Awakens and this winter’s smash Rogue One. This got me thinking about all the SF/F television series I’ve enjoyed whose stories are driven by and/or created for women. In no particular order: Bionic Woman. Wonder Woman. Buffy. Haven. Agent Carter (RIP dear…
November 22, 2016
Stories about class struggle are not new. In fact, these plots have been around for a long time, and we’re familiar with most of them: the Matrix trilogy, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Hunger Games, Escape from New York, The Grapes of Wrath, The Outsiders, Jane Eyre, We, Equilibrium, almost any Philip K. Dick story, The Dispossessed, the Divergent series, even The…