Cinema Fails
Review: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) This installment of the franchise attempts to instill the one thing it absolutely did not, under any...
Men Bad, Women Good - Gender Essentialism in Feminist Science Fiction (copy)
Last year somebody gave me copies of Native Tongue and The Judas Rose, the first two parts of a feminist trilogy by Suzette Haden Elgin. These are reprints...
Apocalypses?
Review: Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace Growing up, I was very much “Not like other girls.” Buffy spoke to me, although that speaking is colored by...
AwesomeCon Prep
After being waitlisted twice, I got my table for AwesomeCon DC (picture is from a prior year). I’ll be selling books in the Author’s Lane segment of Artists’...
Aping Around
Review: Planet of the Apes (2001) So, here’s where I confess my dim memory of the originals. In fact, the only thing I actually remember is the nuke at the...
What Tech Level is Your Fantasy Part 6
And this is the last part, but I’d like to talk about misconceptions about what technology people had. What things were invented well before we think they...
Gender...forget it
Review: The Judas Rose by Suzette Haden Elgin This is book two. I wasn’t given book three and won’t be looking for it. Bluntly, Elgin doubles and triples...
Convention News!
Woot! I’m going to be busy. First of all, I got my invite to be on programming for Balticon and signed up for 24 panels. We’ll see how many I’m eventually...
In Pursuit
Reviews will be light for a while because somebody put off watching panels from last year’s Nebulas and now doesn’t have time to watch much else ;). Review:...
What Tech Level Is Your Fantasy Part 5
So, let’s talk about computers. Which we think of as a very modern thing. Secondary world, Medieval style fantasy doesn’t typically have computers. With one...
Justice for...
Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie Yes, I’m going back a few years, but I finally got around to reading this. I can see why it won all the awards it...
The Sweet Smell of Spring...
Okay, not quite yet, but it is going to be in the 50s next week, which is sit outside and eat taco weather for me. Maybe not for you, but for me it is. Of...
Being Invisible
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 2.9 “The Concrete Jungle” Because of course we have to have an episode called that where New York turns into a literal jungle. Your puns...
What Tech Level Is Your Fantasy Part 4
So, having gone down the clothing rabbithole, let’s talk about domestication. I know I initially said animals, but plants matter too. Let’s start by defining...
Zombie PI
Just one this week, but it’s a fun one. I’m currently reading some random comics from past years’ SPX. Review: Death Warmed Over by Kevin J. Anderson If you...
Happy Valentine's Day
If you don’t have a reason to celebrate, go pet a dog (the original celebration involved dogs). That’s Danny Boy, who chases bears and runs from ermines....
Monkey Do?
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 2.3 “The Rope” Oh dear. Bryce…really hasn’t grasped that he’s a demon now. And is trying to fix things with his daughter. Who hates him...
What Tech Level is your Fantasy Part 3
So, I’m going to start this one with something really important: Clothing. We take clothes for granted (except when we’re that broke) and if we think about...
Peter Pan is Not a Vampire
…but I have a Peter Pan book and a vampire book. Just not at the same time. The statue, by the way, is the Peter Pan statue in Hyde Park. Review: Forgotten...
Farpoint!
By the time you see this, I’ll be at Farpoint. If you’re there, here’s my schedule: Books to Movies - Friday 4:00pm - Belmont Scary Stories to Tell at the...
Ooh ooh ooh?
Marvel’s Hit-Monkey 1.1 “Pilot” I’m tired of the trend of titling pilot episodes pilot. It was amusing the first few times, now it just feels lazy. This...
What Tech Level is Your Fantasy - Part 2
Covered wagon in Tombstone, Arizona Okay, so moving on to some more thoughts on tech in traditional fantasy. I apologize for splitting this across platforms,...
Slow Reading Week
Just one this week, and unfortunately it wasn’t to my taste. I’m now reading “Forgotten” by A Gural…which is definitely better, but still not to my taste....
Welcome Subscribers - Test Message
A swan in a parking place. Okay, so. I apologize for the double email, but this is a test message to make sure the migration worked and for me to get used to...
You Can Never Go Home
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew 1.1 “This Could Be a Real Adventure” So, I do have an issue with this show right from the start. I get it, this is an MG show, and...
What Tech Level Is Your Fantasy? - Part One
Traditionally, secondary fantasy worlds have hovered somewhere between late Medieval and early Renaissance, depending on whether the author or designer wants...
Maybe I Need To Attach A Content Warning...
The first book of the three has parental death and the second lots of animal death. Sorry, guys, just the way it worked out. Next book on my list is called...
Just Letting the Creativity Flow
It’s finally not quite the arctic here. Somebody just showed me a photo of the Baltimore Inner Harbor frozen over. This doesn’t happen particularly often,...
Highway Robbery!
Renegade Nell 1.2 “Tracks Less Well Trod” Nell commits her first act of highway robbery…stealing the stage coach and the people in it’s luggage. At least one...
"Neigh" to Trying This At Home
I’ve been watching Renegade Nell, which has some great horse action in it. Other movies, not so much. So, I decided to go through some stuff you might see in...
Echoes of Waystation
Just one this week. I’m currently working on another YA book, Dragons of Frost and Fang by Rowan Silver. It’s a bit of a tome. Review: Val Vega: Secret...
Winter?
No, the swan didn’t pay for that parking place…I finally got to look at some of the photos from my last trip to the U.K. That’s also not the swan who walked...
Horses Don't Neigh When They Run
The Acolyte 1.5 “Night” This episode has a body count. We meet Mai’s Sith master for real…including seeing his hidden face. There’s lots of lightsaber...
The Mystery of Sleep
Humans do it for 8 hours. Horses do it for 4. Koala bears do it for as much as 22 hours a day. Sleep.Most animals on this planet need it, and we still don’t...
Elephants and a trip to Mercury
Review: The Sun Runners by James Bow I’m going to start by saying I did enjoy this book, but I have three nits to pick. 1. Okay, so the Earth is in full...
Snow and Hot Chocolate
It’s been a hot chocolate kind of week here…the storm wasn’t that bad (Kansas City got nailed, though), but given the quality of snow clearing around here…...
Evil Twins?
Agatha All Along 1.7 “Death’s Hand in Mine” This is the tarot episode I was told about. From my knowledge of tarot, they got it pretty right. My knowledge,...
When Did Humans Start Breeding Mules?
The “humble” mule is living technology. An intentional hybrid between two related species that, ideally, gets the best traits of both. Mules tend to be...
Is it real life or...
Review: It’s Real Life by Paul Levinson This is an expansion of a short story. Here’s where I confess one of the ways in which I’m a bad Brit. I’m not a huge...
Welcome to 2025
Book four is out! Ebook and paperback, and I will hopefully have copies for Farpoint. Book five is finished. I just handed the blurb over to my cover artist...
Witchy Stuff!
Doctor Who: Joy to the World “And even in your world, that is not what a star is, only what it is made of” – Aslan, the Dawn Treader. The Christmas special...
“Ritual Purposes” – How We Misunderstand the Technology of the Past
My degree is in archaeology. It’s remarkably useful for a science fiction writer, because at its heart is the intersection between culture and technology and...
A Selection of Strangeness
Review: The Catalyst by Nat Bickel I’d call this paranormal romance, but the fantasy elements are honestly pretty light. It mostly reads like a contemporary...
Happy New Year
My standard New Year’s blessing is this: May 2025 be better in all ways than 2024. I know quite a few people for whom that is a sadly low bar. Seems that...
What Have You Done, Wanda?
WandaVision 1.7 “Breaking the Fourth Wall” Or rather, the wall around the Hex. Hello, Photon. I’ve been waiting to meet you. Hello, Agatha. I was wondering...
When a Color Gene is a Defect
The latest news on the animal genetics front is that we have found the gene that makes orange cats orange. It’s a deletion mutation (and they all have the...
Happy Holidays!
Merry Christmas. Happy Kwanzaa. Happy Hanukkah. Blessed Yule. You get the picture. Every society that has to deal with winter has some kind of midwinter...
Just Who Is Piotr, Really?
WandaVision 1.4 “We Interrupt This Program” This episode takes place almost entirely outside poor Wanda’s fantasy world. As I suspected, Geraldine is Monica...
“Neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire” – the Holy Roman Empire and the Idea of Elected Royalty
This one is for you Medieval-ish fantasy types. I was thinking earlier today about elected kings. An elective monarchy is often seen as a contradiction in...
Let's Go Fantasy
Review: Shadows of the Sorcerers by Joan Marie Verba This is in the same series as Secrets of the Sorcerers, which I read in the past. It’s a pretty standard...