Brian’s post — and Roboseyo’s comment appended to it — reminded me of a subject I haven’t yet posted about but have sometimes thought of discussing here. That is, the way SF authors imagine the future of the English language. This is a subject of particular interest to me, since I’m kind of working my way over to looking at SF in non-Anglophone societies, where the role of English-as-medium and English-as-culture impacts what non-Anglophones do (or don’t do) with SF as a literary genre. Of course, for a long time, many Anglophone writers simply assumed that the dominance of America …
Category: SF
Global SF Project… Just an Idea, For Now, But…
A friend’s recent post (on a mailing list, so no link) has me thinking about the fact I’m in a slump in terms of sending out stories and even in terms of writing. The last semester just really took it out of me. Between the stress of considering hunting for a new job, getting my freelance gig done, staying on top of my classes, and dealing with personal stuff, there’s been little energy or brain-space left over for writing. Which drives home to me the importance of priorities. What’s more important: freelance gigs, or writing? What’s more important: making each …
F&SF International Subscription Discount Deal
If you haven’t tried The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction because you’ve living abroad and didn’t want to buy Fictionwise eMagazine editions because of the DRM (edit, see below), they’ve got an international subscription special on now. (Until mid-December.) I haven’t read the magazine in a while, or (shame) even caught up on the issues from when I was subscribed (I need to make myself less busy, I know), but those avid genre fans out there might consider it a good way to try it out. (Then again, if you’re in Korea, you’ll notice that 20% off doesn’t even …
Stuff Going On
Well, lots of things going on… in a personal sense, too, though I’m not ready to blog my recent news. Instead: There’s some great fiction online that I need to link to. For now, just one story: the wonderfully nastyglee party that is Tina Connolly’s “A Day Out, with Stereoscopes” is up at Birkensnake. I’ve a copy of the zine, actually, and it’s lovely. You could do worse than to subscribe. Tina has a talent for mixing the cute with the horrifying. Ever heard of Drapetomania? It’s this disease that can be summed up as “longing to be free and …
Zombies and Sociobiology
Some might remember me posting a link regarding a call for papers on the zombie for an interdisciplinary collection? Well, today (Hallowe’en!) is the deadline, and even though I’m a good half-day ahead of the recipient, I got it tidied up and decided to send it off now. The gist of my proposal is that zombies work in a couple of ways: on one level, zombies are the ultimate tabula rasa — they don’t speak or seem to think, their motivations or internal experience (whatever it may be) is inscrutable, and thus they can be seen as figures for everything …