We’re three episodes into season 2 of Cleverman, which means it’s time to pop our heads up and see how it’s all going. Are the West brothers still handsome but awful (but not as awful as the white dudes)? Has it fixed its Women Problem? Are there still Significant Birbs?
Category: science fiction
Continuum: SFFH with Asian characteristics
This is not a panel write up; it’s more of a rambling meander of panels I was on and panels I witnessed and thoughts I had along the way. It includes recommendations. But all of it is talking about Asian (mostly Southeast Asian) science fiction, fantasy and horror.
Thanks to Creatrix Tiara (sorry, Adeline coined this term!), I’m referring to Oz-based PoC involved in SFFH as Fae of Colour and I have no regrets. Hopefully you also have no regrets.
Continue reading “Continuum: SFFH with Asian characteristics”
forward facing whiteness
Aren’t you tired of this already? I’m tired of this.
In Conversation: Joyce Chng
Born in Singapore but a global citizen, Joyce Chng writes mainly science fiction and YA. She likes steampunk and tales of transformation/transfiguration. Her fiction has appeared in Crossed Genres, The Apex Book of World SF II, We See A Different Frontier, Cranky Ladies of History, and Accessing The Future. Her YA science fiction trilogy is published by Singapore publisher, Math Paper Press.
Joyce is heading to Perth for Swancon in April, and Steph recently spoke with her about food, privileging experiences, and haunted makanan.
Continue reading “In Conversation: Joyce Chng”
Guests of Honour of colour for Australian cons
We are not the boss of you, or of your SFF con, but we think that Australian cons can do better in finding diverse creators to be guests of honour. (We do not exclude cons we’ve personally chaired from that.) But it’s not uncommon to try to think of a potential guest, and go completely blank. Names, how do they work?
So here is an incomplete list of non-binary, female, and male local and international people of not-whiteness who you could consider inviting to your con.
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Spec Fic at the Singapore Writers Festival
Steph attended two panels on Spec Fic at SWF this last week. There were also two panels on horror, but she was unable to attend those. Under the cut: reading lists, Western-centric publishing, hantu on building sites.
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This Again: “Asian Flavours” in SFF
It was a big weekend, and Liz and Steph were pretty distracted by the AFLGF (and also Steph had a busy Singapore weekend), so somehow we managed to miss the theme of Canberra’s SFF con, Conflux, this year with three white guests:
Three white guests, and the theme ‘Red Fire Monkey.’
Liveblog: Star Trek: The Next Generation – “Death in Winter” by Michael Jan Friedman
Not the usual sort of thing we blog about, not the usual sort of thing I read. But this is special. This, my friends, is the tie-in novel where Captain Picard and Doctor Crusher finally hook up.
And since one of my great regrets in life is that I didn’t liveblog the Voyager novel where Janeway is brought back to life (after being fridged in a TNG novel because Picard didn’t have enough Borg-related angst) and then makes out with Chakotay on the battle bridge, I persuaded Stephanie to let me liveblog it.
(It went like this:
Me: Hey, can I do this?
Her: Sure, why not?
Tricky negotiations required, Picard would be proud.)
[Steph really needs to know more about Janeway and Chakotay making out tbh]
Beyond the cut: a bullet point recounting of the plot, with stream of consciousness digressions and also some gifs.
The invisible women
Last week, The Conversation published an essay titled “Science fiction’s women problem“, by Bronwyn Lovell. It examines women’s past and present place in SF, and looks at issues such as bias against female writers in both publishing and reviewing, and movements like the Sad and Rabid Puppies.
It’s one of those frustrating reads because Liz went in wanting to agree with everything it said, and wound up picking it all apart. Three over-long Facebook comments later, Liz remembered we have a blog.
No Award watches Cleverman 1.05 and 1.06
This week on Cleverman, Liz realises that the time difference whilst Steph was travelling meant she couldn’t frantically text her thoughts to Stephanie; Nerida and Linda continue to be smarter and more competent than the men of the family (sadly, we don’t get to see much of Alinta); Blair makes a truly terrible pun; Kora calls Koen an arse; Sloan continues to be deplorably boring and Steph texts ‘wow WOW’ to Liz quite a lot.
Because we had to wait until Steph’s return to Australia to review these, we’re reviewing them together, plus a season overall.
1.05
Liz: Three renowned Indigenous stage actors out of five.
Steph: Three renowned Indigenous stage actors out of five.
1.06
Liz: Three renowned Indigenous stage actors out of five.
Steph: Three and a half renowned Indigenous stage actors out of five.
no-award.net 