June 16, 2020
The great thing about the metaphorical map of speculative fiction is the sheer variety of landscape. Some stories are great mountain ranges, enormous peaks of books that you ascend, book after book, hiking over hundreds of thousands of words. And then there’s the land of Anthologia, located in the realm of Short Fiction, where you can take a stroll, or…
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May 19, 2020
Today we shall gird our swords and prepare our spells as we journey through vengeful and vindictively verdant forests effused with purple passions under the tutelage of the most seductive, skilled, and practically perfect leader of the land of Joiry, none other than Jirel herself. Jirel, arrogant, beautiful, and skilled, has a wide background in defeating demons while looking impeccable,…
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April 21, 2020
Today, let’s sail through the Icy Seas, around the Poles of the world, to the Blazing World, whereupon we shall frolic with the Bear-Men, and the Fox-Men, and those wise beings of a Grass-Green Complexion — let us journey to a Fiery Sphere of feminism. “Mad Madge,” aka Margaret Cavendish, forged the path in 1666 for all writers of science…
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March 18, 2020
How do you get to the wondrous realms of speculative fiction? Why, you open a door and fall into another world, or pass through a gateway, one of which is the “The Jane Yolen Memorial Gateway to the West” — the arch through which you step, tentatively at first, elated but nervous, into the map. There are many entrances, both…
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February 21, 2020
Everyone who knows me knows that I am entranced by Bowie — have been ever since I heard “Starman.” In junior high my two favorite pop stars were John Denver (one could not escape John Denver in Colorado in the ’70s) and Bowie. I saw Labyrinth on the big screen, on opening day, because in my nerd world there was…
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February 18, 2020
Examining the weird/gothic landscape through eyes firmly embedded with set of rainbow lenses, Tanith Lee erected severely Weird Gothic Towers and Spires throughout the map, starting with her debut novel, The Dragon Hoard in 1971. Her edifices are constructed using the building blocks of fairy tales, myths, standard fantasy, vampires, and just plain strangeness, and are adorned in proper Gothic…
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January 21, 2020
Some writers create worlds on the map, others universes, or lands of imagination. Today we’re taking a road trip on the Connie Willis Scenic Parkway, with stops in the Country of Awards, including the states of Nebula, Hugo, and Locus, among others.
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November 19, 2019
Smack dab in the middle of the speculative fiction universe, lies a parochial planetary empire, somewhere to the right of the Cyteen System in firm Space Opera territories, lies Barrayar. Ruled by an emperor, Barrayar is primitive, patriarchal, and flat out backwards in the viewpoint of one of its most famous ladies — Countess Vorkosigan — Captain Cordelia Naismith of…
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October 15, 2019
The journey of the White Witch to the Beast’s Garden is a fraught and perilous trek through the beginnings of the realm of Faery, starting out at the dawn of humanity, with the first feminist fairy tale, that of the Animal Bride/Groom, in which, according to noted folklorist Terri Windling, “a human man or woman is married to an animal,…
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September 17, 2019
The Journey thus far….. In our quest for urban fantasy, we have hitherto journeyed only through the realm of fairy and its migration into the cities of Minneapolis and Newford. But how did we arrive in St. Louis? Well, the master of the city, Jean-Claude, invited us, we gave consent, and followed him and his lover, Anita Blake down from…
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