Beyond Selidor

This weekend seems to have been filled up mostly with eating.

My friend lucubratae came up to stay with us on Saturday. He's moved from Australia to London to do an MA, and wanted to get out of the city for a day or so for a change of scene. We hung out for a bit in one of the faculty libraries so that he could work on an essay for his coursework, and in the evening we went with Matthias, and several of my medievalist friends to a pub that was having its own Oktoberfest, selling lots of German beers and serving German food instead of its usual menu. The pub was busy and lively, and I almost lost my voice by the end of the night, but a good time was had by all.

Today Matthias and I went to the Cambridge Botanic Gardens for their 'Apple Day'. They had twenty-nine varieties of apples available for tasting and for sale, none of which were varieties I'd ever tried — or even heard of — before. I prefer apples that are really sour, and which have a very crispy texture, and I was able to find a lot that fit these specifications. We bought bags of three different types of apples.

I also came away with a little sampler box of gin — sloe and cherry, lemon, and raspberry — and several jars of chili sauce.

After hearing naye talk about GuerrillaKitch, I'd been keen to find an opportunity to try their bao, and I was fortunate enough to discover that they were at the Apple Day. So Matthias and I each had a chicken bao and shared pad thai chips for lunch. A cup of coffee for me and a cup of perry for Matthias and we were set for the afternoon. Thankfully the weather today has been lovely, and it was the perfect day to wander around the Botanic Gardens and walk around in the sunshine.

On a sadder note, I'd like to remind everyone about the fundraiser for Rochita Loenen-Ruiz. It's still going, although the organisers have met the original goal. They are now leaving it open and attempting to reach various stretch goals. As well as helping out a really wonderful human being during a horrible time in her life, donors gain access to a site full of downloadable goodies, including short stories by Aliette de Bodard, printable colouring sheets by Likhain, poems by Rose Lemberg and Shveta Thakrar, and a short story by Bogi Takács. Donors also go into a draw to win lots of other rewards. Please spread the news about the fundraiser, and donate if you can.

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.

This week's linkpost is early, and somewhat shorter than usual, as I was at a conference during the first half of the week. As I've said before, I build these posts out of interesting stuff that's crossed my path on Twitter (because I follow awesome people who share wonderful things), and while I was at the conference, I wasn't able to pay attention to my Twitter feed. Therefore, fewer links this week.

'Help Ahmed Make', a Google doc where you can sign up to support Ahmed Mohamed. (This was put together by Anil Dash, and was done with the agreement of Ahmed and his family.)

If you're in the US and over 13 years old, you can enter this giveaway to win multicultural books for your school library.

The Book Smugglers have put out a call for submissions for novellas.

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz interviews Tade Thompson about his new book, Making Wolf.

She also talks about experience, empathy, and her ongoing journey as a writer.

Kate Elliott talks about code switching in her YA novel Court of Fives.

I just missed this post by dhampyresa about the Breton Arthurian tradition last week. Read it. It's fantastic. There are great Arthurian recs in the comments, as well.

This is a brilliant post by Athena Andreadis on Ayn Rand.

Jenny Zhang: 'They Pretend To Be Us While Pretending We Don't Exist', on Michael Derrick Hudson's act of yellowface, and racism in publishing more generally.

Aliette de Bodard on colonialism and empire.

Well, it's been a while.

Chinelo Onwualu talks race, speculative fiction, and Afro SF.

Sophia McDougall's new book Space Hostages is out! I have my copy ready to read on my upcoming holiday! There is a book trailer, tumblr post and author interview!

Rather than linking to individual stories and essays, I'd like to simply direct you all to the latest issue of Uncanny Magazine. I've thoroughly enjoyed everything in it so far, in particular E Lily Yu's short story and Natalie Luhrs' column.

Two tables of contents for what look to be excellent anthologies:

To Shape the Dark (ed. Athena Andreadis).

Apex Book of World SF 4 (ed. Mahvesh Murad)

Here are two great Storifies on dealing with rejection, from authors Nalo Hopkinson and Elizabeth Bear, Rachel Manija Brown, Aliette de Bodard, Tobias Buckell, John Chu, Shveta Thakrar, Beth Bernobich, Jeremiah Tolbert and others. Rochita Loenen-Ruiz made both Storifies.

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz has revamped her books blog. The first post is a guest post by editor Didi Chanoch, talking about a new press he's launching.

This is a great interview with Aliette de Bodard.

I really appreciated this column by Renay about gatekeeping, fannish history and the SF 'canon'.

I also appreciated this interview with Kate Elliott.

I also loved Athena Andreadis' thoughts on Mad Max: Fury Road.

More on Fury Road: No Award's guide to Australian slang. That blog is a national treasure.

I hope you are all feeling wonderful.

So. Lots of stuff to get through this week, as my corner of the internet has been particularly full of people doing wonderful, clever and awesome things.

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz had a busy week. Here's Rochita on the uses of anger, her new short story, and being interviewed for Lightspeed magazine's author spotlight.

Catherine Lundoff has had so many submissions to her 'Older Women in SFF' recommendations post that she's had to split it into two. Part one, part two.

I really liked this review of Zen Cho's writing by Naomi Novik.

This review by Sarah Mesle of the most recent episode of Game of Thrones made a lot of points I've been struggling to articulate. Content note for discussion of violence, abuse and rape.

I really appreciated this thoughtful post by Tade Thompson on safety, community and dissent.

Natalie Luhrs makes some really important points here:

This is part of the ongoing conversation about the importance of different voices in our community. About making space for people who have been told–explicitly and implicitly–that what they have to say isn’t worthwhile and that they need to sit down and listen and that someday, maybe, they’ll be allowed to speak.

This list of Best Young Australian novelists looks great, and reflects the Australia that I grew up in. Congratulations to all the winners!

I have to admit that the #hometovote hashtag has been making me cry.

I wrote two longish posts this week. One is over at Wordpress: a review of Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. The other is here at Dreamwidth/LJ, and is a primer to Sophia McDougall's Romanitas trilogy.

My mother is a radio journalist. Her programme this week is on Eurovision, and you can listen to it here (not geoblocked). There are additional features . I am an unashamed Eurovision fan, and as you can see, it runs in the family.

Texts from Hieronymous Bosch made me laugh and laugh.

Happy Friday, everyone.

I was going to devote this week's post to the Hugo Awards situation, but to be honest, I thought better of it. Why waste my energy on the emotionally draining behaviour of a bunch of immature, selfish, cruel, destructive people? I'd rather talk about people who build, create, nurture and share.

At Safe, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz talks about words, actions, and using power for good. It's a post filled with hope and compassion. (Content note for discussion of abusive behaviour.)

Rochita's post refers to this one by Laura Mixon, which comes with a similar content note.

I absolutely adore M Sereno's poetry. Her latest, 'The Eaters, published in Uncanny Magazine, is gorgeous. Amal El-Mohtar reads it aloud here.

BBC Radio 4 is doing a programme featuring extensive interviews with Ursula Le Guin, Ursula Le Guin at 85.

Short stories I read and enjoyed this week include 'Monkey King, Faerie Queen' by Zen Cho (published at Kaleidotrope) and 'Ambergris, or the Sea-Sacrifice' by Rhonda Eikamp (published at Lackington's, illustrated by Likhain).

Over at SF Signal, authors pay tribute to Terry Pratchett and Leonard Nimoy.

Ken Liu discusses his new novel The Grace of Kings at SF Signal.

This round-up post at Ladybusiness has some fabulous short story recommendations.

It's always disorienting for me to see real-life friends and former academic colleagues getting discussed in SF publications.

This is the most Cambridge story ever.

Please spend your weekends being lovely to each other.

To say that all RH did was to utter words is a complete denial of what we are as writers. Words have power, and words wielded in hatred and violence are just as harmful as violence dealt out with fists.

—Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, 'Standing Up and Speaking Truth'

Yes, this is a post on Winterfox/Requires Hate/Benjanun Sriduangkaew. Consider that a content warning for references to abusive behaviour of many kinds. I've put the post behind a cut for that reason.

( Cut for discussion of harassment, abuse and bullying )

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