Sidetracks - March 9, 2015

[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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➝ I bookmarked it when it was first announced and then got busy, but I'm not surprised to see that the Kickstarter for The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal has funded. Amazing! I was, predictably, too slow for the backer level I wanted.

➝ Kate Elliott has written an amazing piece about writing women in fiction, Writing Women Characters as Human Beings. It's fantastic.

➝ My most recent column went up at Strange Horizons, where I discussed my first outing as a fan editor: Communities: Adventures in Anthology Curation.

➝ SL Huang wrote Nobody's Sidekick: Intersectionality in Protagonists, about seeing diverse protagonists, who fall along multiple identity lines, in media. Super great.

➝ Via umadoshi, Sex Criminals may be adapted for television. I loved Sex Criminals and it would be so cool to see it get TV treatment.

➝ Also via umadoshi, an excellent article by Genevieve Valentine, Won't they? The power (and pitfalls) of 'shipping'. (Everyone knows that her new book, Persona, comes out THIS WEEK, right? :D)

➝ From Cecily, a collection of excellent short fiction: Short and Sublime: February 2015 Round-Up

➝ Cora did a round up and analysis of reviews and responses to Jupiter Ascending. I, hilariously, lost my temper about one specific reaction to this film on tumblr, and fall solidly on the side of "this film is good fun and I didn't need it to change the face of SF for me to love it."

Although I continue to be confused by the reviewers who said the plot doesn't make sense? The plot is basically…The Matrix, in space, with more animal hybrids. Legit question mark over this, unless they mean "make sense" in the "all these dropped threads/plot holes bemuse me" way.

Book Acquisitions

Added TBR: You Deserve a Drink: Boozy Misadventures and Tales of Debauchery by Mamrie Hart, Nova by Margaret Fortune

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➝ Amma Asante talks about getting her second film Belle out in the world. It sounds like it was quite a slog.

➝ British fans of The 100, I bring you news from America. Clarke has been confirmed as a bisexual character in canon. laynemorgan talks about their reaction to the confirmation. I can't wait for this episode to get to Britain, especially as she's being paired with Lexa.

➝ Noelle Stevenson is reviving Runaways. Time for me to catch up on those collected editions I own.

➝ How octopuses have sex. You're welcome.

➝ At The Guardian, Sunili Govinnage talks about not reading white authors for a year:

'I feel as if my decision brought home just how white my reading world was. For whatever the reason and context, it took me until I was 30 years old to learn that Octavia E. Butler existed—how embarrassing! I’m not blaming anyone or anything for this travesty, and we all know late is better than never...but I think we can do better.I shouldn’t have needed to undertake a 12-month project to discover world class authors.'

Note: Govinnage is more of a fan of that Ben Okri article than other commentators and you might want to read Sofia Samatar's Storified tweets for another perspective.

➝ If that post leaves you wanting a recs list, We Need Diverse Books has a list of 2015 YA by chromatic authors.

➝ Merc Rustard, the author of the excellent Hugo eligible story "How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps" wrote "Exponentially Hoping", an essay about neutrosis and non-binary identity, as part of Jim C. Hines' Invisible 2 series.

➝ Chris Riddell and other authors explain why they can't live without books.

➝ And here's a cool book I didn't know existed — The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers:

The crew of the Wayfarer, a wormhole-building spaceship, get the job offer of a lifetime: the chance to build a hyperspace tunnel at the centre of the galaxy. The journey will be time-consuming and difficult, but the pay is enough to endure any discomfort. All they have to do is survive the long trip through war-torn interstellar space without endangering any of the fragile alliances that keep the galaxy peaceful. But every crewmember has a secret to hide, and they’ll soon discover that space may be vast, but spaceships are very small indeed.

It sounds very much like a Renay book.

Comments

[readingtheend.pip.verisignlabs.com]

That Genevieve Valentine article is indeed delightful -- which is about what I'd have expected from her! And it reminded me that I need to catch up with Phryne Fisher, having only seen the first episode of the first season. (But I loved it! The clothes!)

[renay]

I've only started recently reading her nonfiction writing. I've been missing out!