Beyond Selidor

This week has been absolutely excellent for people saying brilliant, eloquent, important things.

To journey is to be human. To migrate is to be human. Human migration forged the world. Human migration will forge the future, writes Ishtiyak Shukri in 'Losing London'. This was the post of the week for me, and affected me deeply.

We already have the table of contents, but now we have the cover of Athena Andreadis's To Shape The Dark anthology, illustrated beautifully by Eleni Tsami.

I really loved this interview of Aliette de Bodard by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz: I’ve come to realize that “appealing to everybody” is a codeword for bland, unobjectionable stuff; or at the very least for something that doesn’t challenge the reader; and, just as I like to be challenged when I read, I would in turn like to do that to my readers!

Speaking of Aliette de Bodard's writing, she's put 'In Morningstar's Shadow', the prequel short story to The House of Shattered Wings, up online for free. I read it last weekend and loved it.

I liked this essay by Marianne de Pierres on Australian myths in contemporary SF, but I've been worrying away at some of its conclusions for reasons I can't quite articulate. Certainly I appreciate the recognition of Australian writing's emphasis on the dystopian and post-apocalyptic, but I worry about her characterisation of the Australian landscape as universally barren, inhospitable and predatory. Let's just say it is not so to all inhabitants of Australia, and is not represented as such in the stories of all Australians, although it is a really significant theme in Australian literature.

Sophie Masson wrote on authors in a changing publishing landscape. I smiled a little ruefully at this quote:

When my last adult novel, Forest of Dreams, came out in 2001, I was commissioned to write a piece for a newspaper on the historical background of the novel (a paid piece), and reviews of the book appeared in several print publications, despite its being genre fiction. When The Koldun Code, also genre fiction, came out in 2014, I had to write several guest posts for blogs, do interviews for online publications (all unpaid) and reviews only appeared online.

I did not review this book, but I did interview Masson and review several of her YA works for print publications, where I was paid for my work. Now I retweet links to her articles and review things exclusively online for free. Oh, how times have changed!

Authors who are parents have been posting about the experience. There are too many posts to include here, but you can find links to all of them at the #ParentingCreating hashtag.

The latest of Kari Sperring's 'Matrilines' columns, on Evangeline Walton, is up. I've been finding these columns both illuminating - in terms of introducing me to many authors whose work sounds right up my alley - and disheartening, in that almost all of them were entirely new to me, instead of well-known figures in the SF canon.

I found this post by Samantha Shannon on judging a literary award to be a very interesting read.

In a departure from these posts' usual content, I have a music recommendation: CHVRCHES' new album Every Open Eye. It stops my heart, in the best possible way.

Let us not talk of the UK election results - I have no words. Instead, let's talk about something much more pleasant: the return of my weekly linkposts!

Unlike the rest of my corner of the internet, I didn't have a massive problem with Avengers: Age of Ultron. Sophia McDougall and Sonya Taaffe probably get closest to articulating my own feelings on the subject.

Joyce Chng, David Anthony Durham and Kari Sperring (moderated by Vanessa Rose Phin) have some interesting things to say on 'Representing Marginalized Voices in Historical Fiction and Fantasy', at Strange Horizons.

Athena Andreadis talks about the uses and misuses of cultural traumas (in this case, her own, Greek culture) in fiction.

Aliette de Bodard talks about Dorothy Dunnett at Fantasy Book Cafe.

'For the Gardener's Daughter is a fabulous poem by Alyssa Wong, published in Uncanny Magazine.

On Sophie Masson's blog, Adele Geras talks about retelling fairytales.

One of my friends and former academic colleagues has started a blog looking at popular representations of monsters.

The History Girls is not a new blog, but it is new to me. It's the work of a group of women who are historical fiction writers.

Today is pretty grim, so I will leave you with footage of a koala roaming around a rural Victorian hospital.