If you’ve been reading my blog long enough, you know my feelings about the way rape is used in most fiction. If you’re unaware or have forgotten, please click over to my post here, my post on ABW, and my post on Jeff Vandermeer’s blog about the subject. The bottom line of each of those [...]
Yesterday the Doctor Who crew announced that they’d chosen the new Doctor Who companion that will take over from Karen Gillian and Arthur Darvill: Jenna-Louise Coleman. Moffat has heaped much praise upon Miss Coleman and said that her energy matches and even exceeds that of Matt Smith, so we should all rejoice. Yet my first [...]
Specifically, the Doctor Who series 3 episodes “Human Nature/The Family of Blood”. Those of you who read my Chicks Dig Time Lords essay know a bit about how I feel about this episode, specifically Martha in this episode, but I’ll give a small bit of explanation and background for those who don’t. In this two-parter, [...]
I meant to post this yesterday, but work things got in the way. Then the ever-wonderful Cleolinda posted the long, long post I was going to write and said everything I was going to say. So I’ll keep mine short. I suggest you click over to Cleolinda’s blog for the full story. Seriously. A few [...]
The latest entry in the Gender Imbalance Hall of Fame appears to be Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction edited by Ian Whates. Of the 21 contributors there are 4 women[1]. You may facepalm now. But, you see, the editor totally knows that this whole gender imbalance thing is a probem. This [...]
Can someone please explain to me how one makes the leap from “We no longer want to honor this person” to “Book burning and censorship“? You people do not even understand what censorship means, do you? And to this asshole who threw up the Heinlein quote: since when was WisCon ever a government or a church? [...]
Dear Outraged Parents, If you think that your Sesame Street-watching toddlers do not know that: a) Breasts exist and b) Women have them, or if you think that seeing a woman’s cleavage will cause them to have inappropriately sexual thoughts instead of recognizing breasts as a source of sustenance (if they even notice that kind of thing at all) [...]
I wish people would stop mischaracterizing what went on during RaceFail as mostly a bunch of name calling and ad hominem attacks online[1]. I really do. Why? Because that’s not how it was[2]. You know what else I wish? I wish people would quit using the scare quotes around the word fail when speaking of [...]
I wanted to expand on some of what I said in my first post a few days ago about not settling for the bare minimum when it comes to charged discussions ignited by Elizabeth Moon’s post and the WisCon troika’s subsequent statement regarding it. I’ve been mulling over this for the past few days, but [...]
There are a few reasons why most of my reactions to Elizabeth Moon’s post and subsequent discussion and developments have been confined to Twitter and Facebook until now. The main one being that I haven’t had a lot of time for posting, and responding to stuff like that takes time. Lots of things going on [...]
It starts with Elizabeth Bear[1] using the word (or tag) ‘deathmarch’ to describe difficulties in moving forward on wordcount with a novel. Apparently the word in the original post here has been removed due to concerns raised in this comment here: The word I want to point out is “deathmarching”. I’m well aware that some [...]
I know that pointing out RoF Fail is a little like kicking a puppy, but you know how it is when Nick Mamatas sends you a link clearly meant to induce blog-worthy rage — you just have to accommodate him. So, LJ user torrain was reading the latest issue of Realms of Fantasy and didn’t get far before the [...]
The Doctor Who season finale was just as mediocre and disappointing as the rest of the season. I don’t know what the hell everyone else is so happy about, except perhaps Steven Moffet’s lackluster turn as head writer has somehow lowered everyone’s bar and they were happy to see anything resembling a moving bit of [...]
I’ve been thinking about writing this post since the Take Back The SciFi Redux panel at WisCon where we talked about media that portrayed rape in a horrid, sketchy way but also mentioned some media that did it well. The latter list was very small, as you can imagine. I’ve railed against the way writers [...]
Late last week as I was getting settled in at WisCon couple of people brought this to my attention: “I probably won’t ever be at WisCon again, sadly, as it used to be one of my favorite cons, but RaceFail has made it very unwelcoming and unsafe for me.” –Jay Lake This was a comment [...]
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I'm a writer, most often committing acts of genre (fantasy, science fiction, and other stretches of the imagination). You can find my short stories in many and various magazines and anthologies and podcasts. In addition to being a writer I also engage in activism and fandom -- often both at once.
