July 17, 2018
Dystopias have been a part of the map since the start of the 20th century – a grim set of countries and worlds lying under a gray fog, ready to remind us of our potential follies. If utopias are our dreams, dystopias are our nightmare realms. Regular dystopian fiction focuses on the Everyman. If a feminist utopia imagines a…
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June 19, 2018
There are many tour guides to the map of speculative fiction – that wondrous realm of space, time, and horror, and more than a few writers who function as both guides and gods, creating and leading tour groups. From J.R.R. Tolkien, to Gary K. Wolfe, from C.S. Lewis to Farah Mendlesohn, these (sometimes grizzled and serious, sometimes light and amusing)…
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May 15, 2018
There’s a magical side to the element of sexuality that can be found only in fantasy. These lands include (drum roll, please) the mystical land of Imajica, Embassytown, and … Oz. Oz? Surely, I jest. The fluid nature of sexuality is usually the provenance of science fiction – from Ursula’s K. LeGuin (The Left Hand of Darkness), through the 90’s…
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April 19, 2018
The weather outside is, quite frankly, frightful. You’ve seen all the memes about the general ick most of the country seems to be enduring. Since we seem to be skipping spring, let me propose a warm, idyllic escape, where the ocean is endless, warm, inviting; where the world is ordered, in balance, and where few men are in sight. Let’s…
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March 20, 2018
The science fiction map is vast and expansive, a giant tome that many have struggled to contain and define. It extends not only to known planets of our own solar system — Mars, for example, which was colonized by Burroughs and Kim Stanley Robinson — to entire sub-universes as big as our reality. Asimov’s Foundation series occupies a vast swath,…
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February 20, 2018
At the tip-top of the gothic house, an attic looms. This particular attic does not entrap Mrs. Rochester, though it’s a close relation to the upper level of the House of Usher. No, in this MOIST attic, four children — the Dollangangers (Cathy, Chris, Carrie, and Corey) — are held captive by their evil grandmother for the primal sin of…
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January 16, 2018
New Orleans-style Southern Gothic, where moisture blooms on your skin, where heat sits like a wet comforter on the trees, and the air smells of magnolia blossoms and rotting garbage. New Orleans, where the city dances, voodoo permeates, and vampires and witches prowl the street, along with their mortal prey. New Orleans. I’ve never been.
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December 12, 2017
The holiday season is upon us. The longest night and the shortest day looms closer, and America feels like it’s a tinsel-wrapped pine tree, awfully close to open flames. So, screw that. Let’s go somewhere else, somewhere in the quintessential British countryside, the fertile home of so many children’s novels. Who hasn’t spent time on a river with a water…
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November 14, 2017
What do you do when the world you love is tainted by the unforgivable sins of the creator? How do I talk about Darkover and its place on the speculative fiction map? Do I relegate Darkover, a world I loved (with some of the strongest females and female societies created) to the nether ends of the universe? Do I hope…
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