ladybusiness | Sidetracks - August 11, 2014

Sidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag.

➝ Last week on Lady Business, we posted some recommendations and Jodie wrote a collection of mini-reviews.

➝ The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting for Election and Translation positions. :D

➝ The cover for Nemesis Games, the next book in The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey, has been revealed. The fact that this doesn't come out for probably another year….it's fine. I'm fine! Totally fine.

Completely, 100% fine.

➝ Assorted thoughts on various Hugo things:

I enjoyed many of the stories that I read, and it was a challenge to narrow the shorts down to only five, but the exercise solidified my sense that, in general, I prefer novels. Unless the short story is written in an established fictional universe, or the speculative aspects are pretty firmly grounded in our own world, I have a hard time getting invested enough in the story to care. I'm just as character-driven a reader as I am a writer, so if a story is spending half its word count setting up a fictional universe or a fantastic premise, rather than teaching me who the characters are and why I should find them interesting, it's going to lose me. I also found that I didn't have much patience for the more flowery and/or experimental and/or literary stories. Even more than with a novel, I want a short story to tell me a story first; wowing me with the beauty or cleverness of its language comes second, if at all.

YES KJ AND I FEEL THE SAME ABOUT SHORT STORIES. I'm sorry, short stories. It's not you, it's me. ;____;

➝ Worldcon Business Meeting Motion To Perpetuate US Cultural Dominance? — what the hell are these shenanigans? :| Yes, people proposing that NASFiC attendees get Hugo voting privileges, continue making it harder for me to convince my international friends their voices matter when it comes to this award.

➝ Nice thought about Lucy that didn't occur to me while I was reeling from all the racism.

➝ Also related to a point I made about Lucy and its financial success/failure: Boycotts, "boycotts", and the consumption of media.

➝ Enjoy this timeline of Kevin Feige dodging the question about a female superhero franchise. Someone buy me isthereablackwidowmovieyet.com so I can create a permanent collection of these links with the word "NO" in 30pt Arial Black at the top of the page.

➝ Why We Don't Italicize Spanish. Yep.

➝ Science Fiction and Fantasy 101: Thinking Academically About Genre — I love this! Although I'm sure there'd be a lot of disagreement about where certain books were classified, I find the whole endeavor fascinating (and, probably shamefully, wish there were a guide like this for me now, because I'm lazy). Although, a thing I noticed and couldn't unsee: 100-200 was mixed gender, 300-400 was full of recommendations by women and no men, but the 500-700, described by the OP: "These are the kinds of books that get genre academics climbing the walls with excitement. They’re thoughtful, challenging, sometimes inaccessible texts by masters of the field working at a very high level." No women at all.

➝ 2 ways quotas for women raise quality — When I first read this article, I laughed and laughed and laughed. "QUOTAS RUIN EVERYTHING!" I heard the voices of 100 dudebros yell at me from the past. L O L

➝ Sign ups for A More Diverse Universe are here! All you have to do is review a book by an author of colour in the last two weeks of September.

➝ I was going to link to Ruby Rose Scarlett's period drama post, but Jodie beat me to it. So let me just say that I'm now dying to watch Glorious 39 and Lilies, neither of which I had heard of before.

➝ This is such a lovely essay: Jansson’s Moomins are on ode to kindness.

➝ Michael Cunningham and Ursula Le Guin in conversation. I love her so much.

➝ Lastly, I'm going to express my love for My Real Children via links, since it will probably be a while before I write anything about it myself. Here's Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing, and here's io9.

➝ First, just a quick reminder that our Tumblr project, The Friendship Zone, is open for submissions. We'd love to see any cool gifs, quotes, essay, or vids about female friendship (fictional or nonfictional) that you want to share.

And if you want to contribute to our "Short Business" feature please drop us a line. We cannot possibly cover all the short fiction ever, so if you'd like to help us draw attention to a short story you're excited about (or if you'd like to team read and discuss a short story with me — yay, team projects) then get in touch.

➝ Now, on to links unrelated to Lady Business. Have you seen Comic Con's Geek Couture Fashion Show? All the outfits are great, but my top picks are the Wolverine and Loki inspired creations. Which are your favourites?

➝ Another fashion link — "Pacific Rim" bomber jackets. This film just keeps on giving.

➝ Jessa Crispin is leaving Bookslut. It's not a huge surprise, but just because the news is unsurprising doesn't make it less momentous.

➝ Lee & Low Books continue their Diversity Gap studies. This time they ask "Where's the Diversity, Hollywood?". Their infographic conclusively sums up their answer, and here are the stats:

Among the top 100 domestic grossing films through 2014:
only 8% of films star a protagonist of color
of the 8 protagonists of color, all are men; 6 are played by Will Smith and 1 is a cartoon character (Aladdin)
0% of protagonists are women of color
0% of protagonists are LGBTQ
1% of protagonists are people with a disability

➝ If you fancy a drink after that news why not select your frustration level and crack open a bottle.

➝ When you sober up, go and check out Aarti's list of "Resources for Reading Diversely". Aarti is hosting the "A More Diverse Universe" challenge again this year, and sign ups start on Sunday 10th August.

➝ Another useful resource I discovered this week is The Ultimate Gay YA Reading List. It's a wiki project so you can help the team at Gay YA add to the list and develop it.

➝ A different kind of list now. A Rare Treat talks about five "Hidden Gems of Period Dramas". I had never heard of "Glorious 39" — really want that giant picspam mentioned at the end of this post!

➝ These Chiara Bautista illustrations of a lady and her wolf companion are wondrous.

➝ Lastly, let me share a couple of longer posts that I am saving for when I have the chance to fully digest them:

At The Literary Ominovore, Clare posted "Saturday Morning Opinion: This is All Christopher Nolan's Fault", an opinion I'm already primed to agree with :P

And at Strange Horizons, six writers contribute to a multi-part examination of British SFF — "The State of British SF and Fantasy: A Symposium".

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

readingtheend.pip.verisignlabs.com

I am watching a period drama as we speak! And I extremely much want to watch Glorious 39 -- I read about it a while ago, and the cast was craaaazy. So many actors and actresses I love all in one place at once.

That history of Kevin Feige not committing to anything is...exactly as annoying as I'd have expected. You make the movies, Kevin Feige! Greenlight one where ladies are the main characters! For shit's sake.