Jonah Sutton-Morse
It seems kinda important at that in our world a butterfly flapping its wings can lead to a hurricane, and in speculative fiction it more or less can’t. Any recommended reading about the lack of Chaos Theory in fiction?
Hard Times Coming
(Re-watched Le Guin’s speech today & figured someone else’s might want to as well)
Quakerism & SFF - continuing to noodle
I do actually need to figure out out how to say something about believing in individual transformation that can be both total and immediate, and the potential for worldly transformation that can be total, if neither immediate nor through any clear mechanism other than a lot of individual transformations, and how SFF sees essentially the reverse
Overcast has added 2024 stats and yes but also anyone have some recommendations for geeky deep dives that aren’t helmed by white guys?
On (SFF Book) Reviews
Charlie Jane Anders has some thoughts about reviews, and then Roseanna Pendlebury has some additional correctives or additions because, well, reviews aren’t for authors, they are for readers, and so figuring out whether a book should be bought or not is actually not all there is too a review.
And yes but also
One thing about “reviews are for readers” is that readers can actually … learn how to be readers, and how to be better readers. Hopefully we are trying to do that, at least some of the time. So my own preferences when reading a review (which, yes, I need to get back into doing more, but even though this is the season of making resolutions, I’m not going to step on that guilt rake right now), is to read something that I can apply to something else that I’m reading. Ideally, even if I never read the book under review, the review will make me think about why I decide to pick it up, or not, or notice something about some other book I’m reading, or make me more mindful in the future, or in some other way, regardless of the actual subject of the review, impact me as a reader with every new book I read. (Yes, small goals)
And yes, there’s something about “who is writing reviews and in what venue” and having someone who hasn’t had a book blog or other contribution to whatever the SFF discourse is in basically years comment on a reviewer who’s doing “thoughtful, directed, insightful critique” among the unpaid blogs and zines (I am so glad that such things still exist! Were it not for my wariness of making myself feel guilty for failing, I would aspire to rejoin these ranks), who is in turn commenting on the thoughts of someone who has a paid and structured gig at a major publication with an audience primarily not of deeply involved SFF people inevitably means that we all have different things to say.
And yes but also, this thing, about how the point of a review is that it should better me as a readerer, regardless of whether I ever read the book, is my thing to say, and so I shall (or I suppose, and so I have)
This post on making gatherings and spaces parent inclusive is very good. slingshotcollective.org/dont-forg… via shellsinanorange.blog
Agreed to be backup Recording Clerk for my Meeting earlier this year, and had to actually perform my duties today. Actually went rather well, I think. We were generally in unity with the basics of what we were doing, but there were some needles to thread about the how and why and wording.
I think I just updated a very vanilla Drupal site to a new version, so I’m pretty sure I’m super powered now.
In case anyone wants a good podcast on the history of trans kids by Jules Gill-Peterson, focused around her amicus brief for Skrmetti - overcast.fm/+AAP0KkHG…
Sat down to write yesterday and was reminded that writing is hard, and also that clearing the brush of “here is a text under considerationion and the things that made it stick out” and “here is my theology that made those things stick out” in order to to productively rub them together is also hard
One thing that The Writer and the Critic captures about Saint of Bright Doors that I’m grateful for is mentioning that there are a few sections (like Fetter just getting stuck in a wierd prison camp) that shouldn’t work, but totally do. overcast.fm/+AAA8yJAp…
For most of my life, I could go days or weeks without thinking about how society perceives me. For at least the past year, I’ve been acutely aware of being the parent of a trans kid every day. It’s exhausting. So I guess now that I’m in my 40s, I get to learn more of what my country is.
Second round, 5-year old figured out “double yellow” to turn around and taking a more circuitous route in order to get to zap a couple extra ice towers.
Thinking about a biblical and Quaker exhortation to “be not conformed to the patterns of the world” and how that might productively wrap up with some SFF and perhaps some nonfictionion I’ve been reading recently. Noodling an essay, now just need to find the energy to put it together.
We keep the sheep away from the goat feeding bowls because otherwise they push the goats away, but Phobos had company today
Starting Nicola Griffith’s “Menewood”. Really enjoyed both “Hild” and “Spear” and so far “Menewood” is also pulling me in. I like the size of it - small personal interactions, hinting at larger patterns, and the importance ofe off of filling in unknowns with careful guesses.
When the Corrie’s introduce Barrett’s Privateers as an actual 18th Century song, I wonder if they’re sincere? Probably, and that’s a pretty profound comment on knowledge in the last 50 years
A few preliminary thoughts on Kai Ashante Wilson's "Sorceror of the Wildeeps"
I just finished re-reading “Sorceror of the Wildeeps” which remains excellent. I’m not sure I’m up to an organized review, but I definitely have thoughts.
One of the first intrusions early in the book is the language and dialect of the “brothers” who guard the caravan. Some use AAVE, some french-inflected, and the eponymous sorceror uses highly organized/scientific language to discuss apparent magic (Clarke’s sufficiently advanced technology, etc.). One thing about this is simply the way that it transgresses expectations of the fantasy genre.
Another is that it acknowledges the size of the world. I recently listened to the album of “Come from Away” and in that musical, which at least tries to position itself as a based in a small & isolated community in Newfoundland “Welcome to the Rock if you Come from Away / You probably Understand about a half of what we say”, but turns out to have a older jewish man who’s hidden his identity for his whole life. It seems to me that there’s something really useful to mix together things like dominant culture, reparative readings to understand what’s actually going on with dominant culture, understanding history and the ways that it’s hidden but also lives in real bodies (and coming back to “Wildeeps” also in family structures). “Wildeeps” seems to me to be one of the best representations of how melting pots of history both mix cultural influences and form their own culture and society, in ways that I’d like to unpack more.
I recently read Sofia Samatar’s “The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain”, much of which I loved, but which along with “Wildeeps” ends with a character transcending the limitations of their existence in a way that I found pretty dissatisfying in “Practice” specifically because in that book it seemed to suggest it would change or threaten systems, while in “Wildeeps” that individual transcendance specifically isn’t positioned as a threat to systems. That seems more honest.
I’d like to engage with “Wildeeps” more as a Quaker (not that I think Wilson is, but I am). Damane has moments of aversion to violence and respect and love for individuals which really resonated with me.
Similarly, thinking about how the story starts pretty linear, but ends up as we travel through the magical land of the Wildeeps moving backwards and forwards throught the history of the world and also the history of Damane’s life seems really interesting. I’m not sure if there’s much more I could say beyond “look at how the narrative structure of the book parallels the structure of the story being told and encourages the reader to fill in gaps and reconsider assumptions and traditions in ways that “Wildeeps” sits uneasily within and comments on traditions … very meta, and quite excellent”
There’s a moment in the relationship between Demane and the Captain where it’s clear that the Captain is both in love with Demane and grateful that he turned out to be kind because the captain’s love isn’t directly about that, and it made me realize how entirely unprepared I am to actually comment on and think about relationships in fiction (and also real life, because this is one of those moments that feels like it’s absolutely one which happens today), and makes me wonder if I can’t even really think about that besides acknowledging and realizing I don’t know what to do with it or how to situate it in the rest of the book, maybe I’m not really able to say anything substantive or coherent about “Wildeeps”.
Anyway, some scattered thoughts before my kids wake up and the day escapes me.
