I got fan mail today. Perhaps my first piece of Fan Mail ever.(1) It was about “Lester Young…” What a very nice feeling. It made my day. But now I should clear off my desk and grade some essays and exams. With a big grin on my face. 1. I’m not counting comments on the site here, because, although that also makes me happy and is appreciated, comments are not “mail.” I’m not counting emails from reviewers because, while reviewers can be fans, they’re not, er, “civilians” in the way I think of when I think of fans. I’m not …
Category: SF
K-Raelians plus The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World by Thomas M. Disch, and The Men Who Stare At Goats by Jon Ronson
As part of my continuing adventures in figuring out what I want to say in my paper on SF cinema in Korea, this post discusses Raelianism in Korea whilst working through a review of two books on SF and their effects on the world. I’ve just finished reading Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare At Goats, kindly recommended to me by my friend and recent WOTF prizewinner, the lovely and talented Ian McHugh. It goes so well with The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World by Thomas M. Disch — which I finished reading …
Why SF Has Failed to Put Down Roots in Korea, Part I: To Start With, Questions…
I had a post I was going to write, about fantasy, SF, and the demonstrations going on in Seoul these days, but I decided to pitch it as an article idea. The editor to whom I pitched it liked the concept, so I’m binning that post to keep the juice for my article. That leaves me with two things to write this summer about SF and Korea. The article on the protests is a theme I’m putting off limits, but the paper on the general failure of the SF genre to take root in Korea in is something I can, …
I Am Not the Only Asimov’s SF Subscriber in South Korea!
Today the most surprising thing happened! I’m ending off my Anglophone Popular Cultures course with a discussion of SF and its role in (and effect on) Western popular culture. Last week, we watched Blade Runner and there was a panel discussion on The Fifth Element and Brazil. Today, my lecture focused on getting students not to think of SF as an attempt to literally depict the future, and instead to focus on the symbolism or metonymy in SF. (For example, working off Thomas Disch’s wonderful statement, “The car is the hidden meaning of the rocket ship.” (Rough paraphrase, but he …
Asimov’s July ’08 — Fictionwise eMagazine Edition Up
For those living outside of the English-speaking, American-magazine-distributed world who are interested in reading my recently-published story “Lester Young and the Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues” in the July 2008 issue of Asimov’s SF, you might be interested in the Fictionwise eMagazine edition. (There’s DRM, of course, and I don’t usually buy things with DRM myself — though since my subscription copy was sent to the wrong address somehow, and I’m going to have to wait a few more weeks before demanding it be re-sent, along with a couple of other months’ worth of my subscription! But anyway, it’s up, it’s available, …