Sidetracks - December 1, 2014

[helloladies]

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.

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➝ Short Fiction and Reviewing by calissa touches on some points I made about short fiction. I continue to feel that talking and reviewing short fiction more will create a healthier environment for that short fiction to get discovered and for the venues that publish it to be able to keep doing so. It's not just because I'm too lazy to read that much to find it. That's only maybe 13%, at most 17% of the reason.

➝ Friday Five: 5 Things in Historical Romance I Wantonly Desire to See in Epic Fantasy. A really great post from Jared about what epic fantasy could stand to learn from historical romance. Quick, someone kickstart a fund to have some male fantasy authors read 20 historical romances and then write a new epic fantasy series.

➝ Fence reviews Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott, a book Jodie and I co-reviewed and really enjoyed back in August. The theme I'm getting from all the reviews I'm reading is "MOAR MARIT". Appropriate, Internets. Very appropriate.

➝ This is old news by now, but the Scorpio Races is being adapted. I adored this book and am so pleased I may get to meet Puck and Dove! I AM A SUCKER FOR HORSE STORIES PLEASE LET THIS HAPPEN.

➝ Via hellotailor, James Cameron Talks Avatar Sequels: "They’re gonna be bitchin’. You will shit yourself with your mouth wide open." I am pretty sure this qualifies as the greatest Bonkers White Guy Quote of the year. It's over. Cameron's taken it home, folks. See you next year.

➝ This is my favorite tumblr post from November. I identify deeply with this man.

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➝ Jamie Broadnax, the creator of Black Girl Nerds, writes about about black female protagonists in current programs. I found her thoughts about criticism of Fish Mooney, female mob boss from Gotham, especially interesting.

➝ I saw Interstellar and hated it, so let's have some links about it!

• Interstellar was one of the most boring films I've ever paid to see, and I mostly agree with Noelle Stevenson's assessment of the film.
• Abigail Nussbaum, who liked Interstellar better than me, makes a whole load of points about the political problems of the film; in particular the argument which pits space travel against the necessity of saving Earth (an element of the film I would love to hear Coleen Mondor talk about).
• In their post about Interstellar, The Book Smugglers, who again liked Interstellar better than me, walk through some of the film's problems including its plot holes and weird characterisation choices.
• Clare focuses on the relationship between Murphy & Cooper. I like her interpretation (I really wish I could have seen the film through her eyes), but I also feel that the way Interstellar is built undercuts the importance of its central father daughter relationship, and minimises Murph's importance in the film (if not in her own world). I did love Clare's point about Cooper encouraging Murphy into the science though :D
• And Hello Tailor examines the way the film dresses the future. This is probably my favourite post about Interstellar so far because it gave me a new way of looking at SFF costuming choices.

➝ The Green Carnation Prize 2014 shortlist has been announced, and Laurie Penny's Unspeakable Things made the cut.

➝ Guys Lit Wire has a post up called On the fine art (and frustration) of crafting a diverse book list for teenagers about efforts to add diversity to the Ballou High School wish list every year.

➝ Seanan Mcguire's tweets about why it's important to keep talking about books we love have been collected into a Storify set. I like the way she uses tide pools to illustrate her point.

➝ Clare alerted me to the fact that Channing Tatum's Gambit is getting his own film. Grown up me says 'Rlly, before Storm gets her own film?' but twelve year old me is as excited for this as she was for the first Wolverine film. Sorry/not sorry.

➝ Clare also recently spotlighted a short story called Tomorrow is Waiting in her own links roundup, calling it 'a really sweet take on artificial intelligence involving the Muppets.' Renay, I totally think this sounds like something we should read.

➝ Globe Player launched this month:

Rent or Buy full length HD films of over 50 Shakespeare productions from the Globe, PLUS hours of free interviews about Shakespeare with top actors such as Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellan, Judi Dench, Fiona Shaw, James Earl Jones and many more.

And I don't think there are global restrictions on this. Really hoping this idea will get extended out to other theatres.

➝ Cmdr. Chris Hadfield, reassuring a five-year-old who was worried about the Voyager satellite. So cute :)

➝ And let's end with a cool violin cover of Taylor Swift's Shake it Off (a song I am currently annoying everyone with).