We forgot to post last week! So this week’s linkspam is a combination of last week and this.
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.
NA’s AFL GF Post
It’s Grand Final week! We also posted about this last year, so I guess this is tradition now.
This year, Stephanie’s team, the Sydney Swans, are playing Liz’s team, the Western Bulldogs. OH WHAT AWKWARDNESS, WHAT POTENTIAL FOR SCHADENFREUDE AND ALSO CATS DRESSED UP IN TEAM GEAR!
steph speaks singlish
Steph is in Singapore and using Singlish like a pro! (It’s easy, cos it’s like Manglish only a bit more different) Because most of our readers are Aussies, and if there’s one thing Aussies love it’s slang, she’s compiled a list of important words she knows/has been learning to use in Singapore.
Liz reads: 4 Australian novels
How amazing is fiction? People just MAKE UP STORIES, which I then buy and read and insert these ideas from other people’s heads into my brain!
Er, yes, I’ve read some Oz fiction lately — two crime novels, two YA. Let’s have a look.
don’t call me linkspam
Madison Avenue: such an amazing, tuneless blip on the Australian music scene. What’s Cheyne Coates up to these days? A “where are they now?” article from last year doesn’t have any answers, but maybe she’s getting singing lessons.
birds of australia: special CASSOWARY DAY post
This Saturday is World Cassowary Day! So Steph (not Liz, obviously) is delighted to bring you a guest post by regular bird guest poster Michael on this magnificent bird. Forgive the tagging – although Hayley couldn’t join us for this post, I can never let go an opportunity to tag something Ornithology’s David and Margaret, and nor should I be expected to. If you’d like to hear more from him, you should follow Michael on twitter.
Statement from Liz: FOR THE RECORD, it was I who suggested that we get Michael and/or Hayley to commemorate World Cassowary Day. I can’t say I’m delighted to share a continent with prehistoric murder birbs, but I respect them and their homicidal ways, and I wish them well. (I also wish they had a whole continent just to themselves, where they can be TERRIFYING in peace, but I understand and acknowledge that my attitude of Birb Separatism is problematic.)`
Continue reading “birds of australia: special CASSOWARY DAY post”
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.
shows we loved: The Pretender
Steph’s FAVOURITE SHOW IN THE WHOLE WORLD, The Pretender, turns 20 today. When Steph was a wee teen, she encountered this show about a genius who was kidnapped and taken away to be an ideas generator in a think tank, and when he grew up he discovered he was doing evil and escaped, and then his childhood bestie was brought in to recapture him.
And did she love it so much that she thinks about it constantly 20 years later? OH, YOU BET.
no-award.net 