tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8158504952448295512024-03-05T01:22:21.219-05:00Girl's Guide to Sci-FiGirls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.comBlogger138125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-73449810491412301432020-01-05T10:56:00.000-05:002020-01-05T10:56:20.180-05:00Thank The Maker: Decade <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A new decade, a new lease on science fiction life - </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px;">This is Girl's Guide to Sci-Fi, saying 'Hello' after an </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">extended
sabbatical from reading, living, writing science fiction.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A year of continuous detective novels interspersed with more of the same while satisfying in a safe, doldrums kind of way abruptly stopped
when I wandered up to my third-floor bookcase, reached around the towering
stacks of Christies and come downstairs with my number one. </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">ChapterHouse: Dune, Frank Herbert's 6th in his Dune series before his death continues to capture my interest whole-heartedly. Oddly, the 6th is not
regarded as his best work with many Dune readers unable to hurtle past the
behemoth that is God Emperor of Dune. Does a reader need to like the
protagonist to enjoy a book? A fair question, especially if you are going to
delve into the Dune-Universe, move past Muad'Dib to discover and equally hate
the true destroyer/saviour of humanity, his son Leto II. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But this isn't a discussion of my darling Dune - this is the relaunch of <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.com/2012/02/in-beginning-there-was-dune.html" target="_blank">Girl's Guide to Sci-Fi.</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times","serif"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5VNK_gqkR1spEH1Ubqc1xJWow3MEBtmdHGLNp0_ib-bk8QULnSN-eqHlGFGP_aRxwXiNYfYNelmgTSAS6go4dK1n6ecEO-FqOQxtlDICXYGOuoZmJT-Qqo0JRaZQVWb8f541WjV1q84V/s1600/download.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="184" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5VNK_gqkR1spEH1Ubqc1xJWow3MEBtmdHGLNp0_ib-bk8QULnSN-eqHlGFGP_aRxwXiNYfYNelmgTSAS6go4dK1n6ecEO-FqOQxtlDICXYGOuoZmJT-Qqo0JRaZQVWb8f541WjV1q84V/s400/download.jpeg" width="268" /></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I feel reborn having turned the crackly, brittle pages of my 25-year-old
copy of <a href="https://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.com/2012/12/top-6-for-now.html" target="_blank">Chapterhouse: Dune</a>. By 2018, I had burnt out on sci-fi, especially the
American slant that peppers annual bestseller lists and award ceremonies. On
the hunt for new perspectives on old tropes, my interest waned as sci-fi
became more a chore and less a joy. Combine a return to work after four years of stay-at-home-Mom life, there was
little time to write, to research, to read, to be a geek.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Science Fiction ignites my imagination, challenges me to alter my perspective, to
expound on life, to be fully present in my reading journey. With 2020, and a
small stack of sci-fi books waiting on my bedside table, I feel a return to
myself. I am reader, a geeky science fiction nerd who has returned to herself. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The final question of course is,</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px;"> what book launched this new decade of science fiction reading? Just an epic little poetic love story </span><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/books/this-is-how-you-lose-the-time-war-1.5214675" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 18px;" target="_blank">This Is How You Lose The Time War</a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"> that has me befuddled with it's beautiful madness. </span></span></div>
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Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-74575373224540298782018-08-19T10:28:00.001-04:002018-08-19T18:19:06.367-04:00Lemonade Easy: A Review of Rogue Protocol, Martha Wells<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">It's</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;"> early - the sun having risen hours before still looms lightly
in the sky, casting a waning summer glow to the trees beyond my windowpane. The
house sleeps around me while I quietly sip my coffee, glancing to the splayed
edition of the next Murderbot chronicle. There is something about summer
reading that catches my eye - the books need to be quick, something I can
plunge in and out from without distraction. Summer is my mental cleansing
months - reading becomes a purely pleasurable experience reliant on whodunits
and easy sci-fi. Sure, there was that intense moment when I drank up the The
Three Body Problem, flailing in the deep end of conjecture and wonder, but
mostly my summer has been lemonade-accompanied easy-reading. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><a href="http://www.marthawells.com/murderbot3.htm"><span style="color: blue;">Rogue Protocol</span></a>, third in The Murderbot Diaries
by <a href="http://www.marthawells.com/"><span style="color: blue;">Martha
Wells </span></a>has our favourite anti-social, soap-opera loving SecUnit
in mid-transport trying to hitch the right ride to Milu system. Having
successfully hacked its system, living beyond the confines of a SecUnit's
strict protocols, Murderbot had, for a brief period been living the rogue life
- performing security for Company contracts, all while being a willing sentient
individual with a heart. Constructs, SecUnits live outside humanity acting as
the boogieman, the scary enforcer who will keep you safe, killing when
necessary. Owned and operated by large corporations, SecUnits are treated as
property, controlled by software to ensure public safety but more accurately
the corporate bottom line. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyc1xv-PwWcq_YJIFjWR4uFlyNEOAESjbTIt8PK0O3QKtz610sAoOJZVOUwrgaaNfhV0cA-xwz8fjd-7Vkx-Az-RLZxUsLz6LevldcnxSPzjWrgeANPH1qf1x-S5pG6VzENl2k2qbCyToU/s1600/download.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyc1xv-PwWcq_YJIFjWR4uFlyNEOAESjbTIt8PK0O3QKtz610sAoOJZVOUwrgaaNfhV0cA-xwz8fjd-7Vkx-Az-RLZxUsLz6LevldcnxSPzjWrgeANPH1qf1x-S5pG6VzENl2k2qbCyToU/s400/download.jpeg" width="265" /></a><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">In the first novella, <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.com/2018/01/murderbot-review-of-all-systems-red.html"><span style="color: blue;">All Systems Red</span></a>, Murderbot inadvertently
entangles itself with a group of scientists who are meant never to leave
off-planet alive. To save the team and itself, Murderbot casts off it's mask of
indenture, so beginning it's crusade for justice against GrayCris.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">I am having a whoop of good
time following this slightly depressed, socially awkward cyborg
reluctantly embrace its humanity. Will Murderbot find closure by slowly
peeling away its layers of discontent and sadness? Martha Wells has captured
the unique dilemma of a creature not quite human but very much a part of
humanity. Although Murderbot has enjoyed endless hours stuffed into cargo
holds, watching hours of streamed entertainment it is becoming more obvious
this is more a coping strategy rather than a life-choice. When he meets a
Bot named Miki whose child-like innocence reveals a touching relationship of
trust with it's human owner, Murderbot is overwhelmed with a complex
mixture of anger and longing. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">The Murderbot Diaries
unpack the psychological complexity of the reluctant hero. Remarkably it
is the relationships with the operating systems of elevators, ships, drones,
cameras and the varying models of Bots that bring life to these novellas. There
is something quite delightful about a Ship so bored by its
massive intellect that it force friendship's Murderbot into
entertaining it as it successfully instructs Murderbot how to be less scary. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">While the future of The Murderbot Diaries is seemingly far from our present day
there are elements that ring true. That smart fridge in your kitchen that pings
you with milk expiration messages could very well be judging your
dietary decisions. The future is much closer than we believe - be kind to our future robot overlords.</span></div>
</div>
Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-51435170193773362422018-05-10T14:30:00.000-04:002018-05-12T08:29:55.122-04:00Mothers: A thank you<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">The world is soft again. Newly born lime green leaves dance in the
wind, giving vibrancy to the very air I breathe. I drink in the green, as
I walk my boy to school, </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 18px;">melancholy</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;"> because he doesn't want to hold my hand. It's a
bittersweet blessing, these days in which he claims his independence, his
personal space, his instance of his very self. My husband and I worked parent
hard to arrive at this moment, and yet all I want is to hold his hand all the
way as we discuss red tulips, Pokémon cards all intermixed with
deeper questions regarding friendship and trust.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnh31LlQtMRIkYJhAo-2ibChpa4TImoKJAK7o27MKoMFPtDFbhdIrfP34v-Nz8izYl7U2_z-szcPVpqDRy7L11zmXwQ494jekwpzP7ZDrFMP68F1ahF2JmkcSljPxjuC6PTV2f52TspLPB/s1600/IMG_2059.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnh31LlQtMRIkYJhAo-2ibChpa4TImoKJAK7o27MKoMFPtDFbhdIrfP34v-Nz8izYl7U2_z-szcPVpqDRy7L11zmXwQ494jekwpzP7ZDrFMP68F1ahF2JmkcSljPxjuC6PTV2f52TspLPB/s320/IMG_2059.JPG" width="240" /></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">He is my world and my world is walking to his future.
How can these past eight years hold me hostage, keeping my heart beating at a
faster pace, all-consumed by this child's bright blue eyes, his dark curly lashes. He
is gorgeous, complicated. He has made me more compassionate, fierce. He draws
out my best and my very worst. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">This is motherhood.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Books continue to be my nemesis this spring, I can't seen to
catch the science fiction bug, preferring to read current
"literature" that oozes human drama backlit sadly in Florida without
a generational ship in sight. Without a book I feel slightly less than, similar
to visions of my future motherhood-self wondering how I will survive
when the little hugs, cuddles and quick handholds disappear completely. How
does my mother bear it as she looks at me? Is she trying to capture an image of
her baby from 46 years ago in the woman I am today? Do we as mothers ever stop
looking for our babies? </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Under the guise of safety, I will grab his hand this Mother's Day
as we slowly walk to our favourite second-hand bookstore. It is gloriously
dusty with rising piles of fiction. The very hazardous leanings beg you to stay
just a little longer, entice you to buy just one more book. We will meet his
Dad in the park to play soccer as I sit on bench, bask in my motherhood and
thank the stars for these past 8 years. </span></div>
</div>
Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-20301668180564975302018-04-23T17:05:00.002-04:002018-04-26T16:17:01.009-04:00Worth My Time: A Review of Artemis by Andy Weir<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12pt;">Only 8 a.m. and the kid has wandered outside
eager to embrace the first sunny spring day. I can feel the smack of the
soccer ball being smashed up against the fence wondering when the 20something
neighbours will kindly request him to lie in a little longer. It's been a
long haul here with ice storms in mid-April and dreary winter coats
decorating hooks that should be drying raincoats. The thermometer rose to a
balmy 10 C degrees yesterday. Pandemonium as people flung themselves onto
sidewalks in a disarray of toques with shorts intent on feeling wind that
promised not to freeze their grins in place. </span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
The annual hosing of the deck took place at 2. A momentous occasion in this
household, topped with the first BBQ and a bevy or two, winter's last vestiges
washed quietly away. Lawn chairs magically appeared as a strong desire to just
sit and read until the sun slowly made it's way West settled down up on
me. Summer is all about a tree, a good bench and a book. Day-dreaming of green
things, I flipped through <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-5-worst-scenes-from-andy-weirs-new-book-artemis/2017/11/30/49017944-c896-11e7-8321-481fd63f174d_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8683eef4c0c0"><span style="color: purple;">Artemis</span></a>, Andy Weir's sophomore novel desperate
to read one developed sentence. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";"><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFctZyj64UVVPOAAHvW0lQXvE4-MXZUM980dV3GafJ3wE9hdzi-CxgjvjhjrGCMjOvB_syvvaZssAIJ0pN34v_Nmks92KtzMoJJU6LAE0C5bCfVrcL8c0BF3X9Znk-Mx5Zx3YRmOeuc1pE/s1600/download.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="182" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFctZyj64UVVPOAAHvW0lQXvE4-MXZUM980dV3GafJ3wE9hdzi-CxgjvjhjrGCMjOvB_syvvaZssAIJ0pN34v_Nmks92KtzMoJJU6LAE0C5bCfVrcL8c0BF3X9Znk-Mx5Zx3YRmOeuc1pE/s400/download.jpeg" width="262" /></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
I gave up when the protagonist found it necessary to disguise herself as a
prostitute. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";"><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
Jazz Bashira immigrated with her father to the Moon city of Artemis at the age
of 6. She was a sweet child, quick, and full of promise to someday work along
side her father as welder. That was then. Wandering the corridors of Artemis we
quickly discover that her place in this small town is not favourable. Renting a
single coffin bed in one of the poorer areas Jazz works as a porter, fixated on
increasing her self-worth and fortune side shuffling as a smuggler. Delivering
the latest contraband cigars to the richest man in town, Jazz is offered a job
that would answer all her dreams.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";"><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
My annoyance of this book has me stopped in my writing tracks. I could discuss
the paradigm of the frontier town. It's wiliness to work outside of the
law to produce a productive economy, even society. If I was bothered, I could
unpack Jazz herself, unconsciously clothing herself as a tough woman running
from her past mistakes into new ones, all the while simply wanting love and
acceptance. I could chip away at the idea of Moon city, one of Sci-Fi’s oldest
and enduring tropes. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica";"><u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I won't,
however the book isn't worth my time. </span></div>
</div>
Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-43698085658370222612018-04-15T13:16:00.002-04:002018-04-16T07:28:36.393-04:00Rebooting My Sci-Fi Brain<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">Like my breakfast pairing
of coffee with jellybeans my recent reading weeks have been everything but
ordinary. Months of disenchantment with my book piles, I have rambled through
March/April holding resolute to obscure Agatha Christie short stories. With the
myriad of choice in science fiction why do I shipwreck myself on Mystery Island
so frequently? </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">The finalists for the <a href="http://www.thehugoawards.org/2018/03/2018-1943-hugo-award-finalists-announced/#more-3163" target="_blank">The Hugo Awards</a> rather
than pique my interest has me grasping for <a href="http://www.lewiscarroll.org/"><span style="color: blue;">Lewis Carroll</span></a>'s <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/dec/23/review-lewis-carroll-alice-s-adventures-in-wonderland">Alice's Adventures in Wonderland</a> </span>like a talisman
of literary inspiration. Sorry but not sorry, American popular speculative
fiction is all that I am desperate to avoid. For years my reading lists have
been peppered by <a href="https://www.clarkeaward.com/" target="_blank">Clarke</a> nominations, sprinkled on top with a few solid Canadian
writers, all the while patiently waiting to see what springs from <a href="http://www.thekitschies.com/" target="_blank">The Kitschies</a>. </span></span></div>
<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">Has my geeky love
for science fiction finally run dry? If I am not this girl, the Mom in
the playground buried deep in a space operatic adventure lost to the nuances of
daily life, then who am I? There is nothing direr than a reader without a
reading purpose. As a sub-species, the 'bookless' reader mopes through the hours
of the day, bewildered, definitely rattled, awash in loneliness. "I have
nothing to read!" bounces through the reader's soul pounding in the
necessity to share the desperation to anyone in visual proximity. An annoyance
of the sub-species, the lamentations serve purpose, drawing forth
recommendations and driving the species to visit second-hand bookstores,
library stacks and internet lists which feed the publishing system,
completing the circle of reading life.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">I am everything and nothing
without a book. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--></span></a><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">So
what indeed, as I lament on the beaches of Mystery Island have I
succumbed to read? </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">There was that fortuitous
moment when I grabbed a second-hand copy of <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/why-i-love-the-great-gatsby-by-f-scott-fitzgerald-1.2021751"><span style="color: blue;">The Great Gatsby</span></a>, acclimatizing myself to the grandeur of the American Dream, wondering if we all just stopped the
pursuit what our world would become. Nick Carraway's glimpse into the
privileged heart, accessible only as a second-hand friend, serving as narrator
reflects to us the decadence that was post-war New-York. The Jazz
Age beat continuously, striving to forget The Great War masking the depths of
grief through a haze of booze, drugs and seemingly endless rising of
fortunes. Through the veils of wealth, the agony of the human heart is revealed in all its petty, fragile glory. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">This is novel stimulated my reading brain, pursued me to grab non-fiction books on psychology, on
parenting, led me to Lewis Carroll, willed me to read current best-selling
authors found in airport magazine stands. Stranded on Mystery Island has
quieted my SF genre heart, permitting me to explore and just read. </span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-48666655810414672172018-03-23T12:28:00.001-04:002018-03-23T12:33:47.981-04:00Revisit: A Review of A Wrinkle in Time, <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Succumbing to trend, I am revisiting an old classic.The newly released Hollywood film adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time has led me to my third floor bookcase in search of my dusty copy. I must somehow identify with this book again, erase the earwig of Oprah hearing a voice in the universe, and properly evaluate my perspective without popular distractions.</span> The probability of me watching the film is slight having a phobia of movies ruining a good book - This is I desperately staying on topic without addressing every adaptation of Dune. Are not books to be imagined? Truly, the printed word in essence is enough? </span><br />
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was one of those children who at breakfast would prop a book up against the milk carton, even read the carton for those dire days when a book was not at hand. <a href="https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/books/james-and-the-giant-peach-by-roald-dahl-1368980/">James and the Giant Peach</a> defined me, as did Crunchy chocolate bars, salt n' vinegar chips and cream soda pop. The definition of young girl's heart beats deep with junk food specializations, a deep love of purple and her favourite book. My elementary years were spent laughing riotously along with the hijinks being had at <a href="http://www.scholastic.ca/books/view/macdonald-hall-1-this-cant-be-happening-at-macdonald-hall">Macdonald Hall</a>, visualizing what could possibly be through the <a href="http://www.narnia.com/us/books/">wardrobe</a> and sleuthing along with <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/333755/nancy-drew-56-the-thirteenth-pearl-by-carolyn-keene/">Nancy</a>. And yet, my reading self somehow never came across Madeleine L'Engle's The Time Quintet. Surely, someone failed me in my past and so I righted this wrong reading A Wrinkle in Time in my late 30s and promptly forgetting it. This</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> gap in memory lures me back, that and Oprah and Reese, let us not forget Reese. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Where is Mr. Murry? Two years of town gossip, and still his family insists he hasn't left them for another woman. Sporting another black eye, Meg returns home from school. If it isn't defending her absentee father then it's the snide remarks about her baby brother Charles Wallace, Meg's young life is full of turmoil. That night</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> listening to the howls of a storm thrash against the old farmhouse, Meg retreats to the safely of the kitchen for a glass of cocoa. As expected, Charles Wallace, her baby brother of merely four is waiting not only for her but her mother. As the three set upon their midnight snacks, a witch appears, having blown off course by the storm. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Any critique of a cherished children's book is fraught with complications. Our childhood books encapsulate our dreams, memories and wonder. Any revisit of a classic could possibly unhinge the magical quality the book once held. I read <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/remarkable-influence-wrinkle-in-time-180967509/">A Wrinkle in Time</a> with soft eyes, careful in my harsh science fiction gaze, hoping to realign with my 10-year-old self. Is the story of Meg, Charles Wallace and their friend Calvin an allegoric tale of the importance of family, an identification of self, or a multi-faceted exploration of the space time continuum, questioning the role of God and our place in the universe? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With many a science fiction book I open, time travel to the fifth dimension has less to do with the physics and much more to do with our humanity. The alien qualities of Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, even Aunt Beast provide the main characters with the tools to find the inherent truths to life. A Wrinkle in Time is in essence a story about love. Although my adult self found the reading flat, less opulent in fantastic descriptors than I enjoy, A Wrinkle in Time continues to shine. It revels in the splendour of possibilities, all while speaking with intention to children. </span><br />
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Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-792237706357373432018-01-26T21:57:00.001-05:002018-01-27T09:21:25.211-05:00Not Okay: A Discussion of Grief and the Books That Helped<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Serendipitous factors always deliver the right book to the top of my reading stack. <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://wordfest.com/news/review-of-a-man-called-ove-by-fredrik-backman/">A Man Called Ove</a></span> by Fredrik Backman, followed by <a href="http://www.loismetzger.com/">Lois Metzger's</a> YA novel, <a href="http://blackbirdreview.org/2016/05/change-places-with-me-review/">Change Places With Me</a> encapsulate the intensity of grief. Ove, a curmudgeon, surly enough to claim king of the cranky old man castle woke one Tuesday morning without purpose. This is a funny, odd book about an odd, funny man who doggedly attempts to quiet his mourning widower's heart. In </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Change Places With Me we swing to the teenager, lost without her father, freezing the pain, and subsequently herself. Rose, or is it Clara sleeps in late, childishly giddy with wanting to explore the wonders of her world. As we walk along her high school hallways, we as with Rose begin to notice that not all is what it seems. Ove, and Rose have lost someone, as they meander through and around their anguish, they reluctantly embrace their sorrows, learning to live again. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A great writer died on Monday. And while I have
read only one of her books, Ursula Le Guin’s passing has left me glum. Not delusional regarding my role in her life, the emotions conjured by her death honour my melancholy as I
continue to walk the road of my grief. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Eugene Everett Best died
September 16, 2016 - it took me, his daughter one year to arrive at my own season
of sorrow.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The autumn of 2017, the acceptance of my loss filled me with
oppressing heartache. Anxiety crept in like a cancer, holding me hostage as I
cried alone, looking out my living room window as the leaves gradually turned from green
to orange. School morning drop-offs, I circled the blocks of my downtown
neighbourhood, gasping for breath, attempting to lay back
claim to my lungs that seemed imprisoned in spinning fear. I continued to
maintain a shell of normality, keeping fit, smiling when deemed appropriate,
willing to laugh, to crack the joke, drink that coffee even when the bitterness
rang to the bottom of my toes. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I began to question happiness, intently curious if
the emotion was achievable once one’s heart exploded. Surely the serenity permeating from my acquaintances, friends and strangers was an abnormality conjured by their own dismay? Gradually, I began to substantiate my life in two fractured parts: the Holly with a father,
and the Holly Without.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Holly Without transitioned to
the beginning flurries of winter with a scream locked at the top of her throat.
That siren of sadness needed to escape but the shame of not feeling better kept
it at bay. When someone dies, people legitimately want to ease the burden of
the bereaved; flowers sent, casseroles made, hugs given all within an
acceptable period that too quickly closes. Time, as the adage claims does
not heal. Each second the clock ticks is a reminder of how long it has
been since I last spoke with my Dad. Time was a curse, not the conceived
Band-Aid that everyone assumed it to be. And then the day came, as
days do come to pass when the barriers crashed down around me, and I confessed
to my mother, standing on a bustling city street, that I was not okay.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I wasn’t okay. The very utterance of the word
unhinged the scream, and I willingly wanted to make myself whole again. Where
to start, counselling was a startling daunting process that I barely could
navigate, books on mourning, prescribed reading
torture. Eventually I honed my circle for help into a tighter, more
malleable process by cloaking myself in honesty. I began to share my truth.
Confessing myself as not okay, unhinged some friendships; sadness is an emotion
few of us are willing to be comfortable with, let alone allow in a friend. The
loss of a few people in my life gradually made room for me to find myself. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica";">We all have our story of grief, our moments of not being okay. I am a daughter, eternally grateful for my father's love, finally able to walk down my own road to happiness. Sad days come, but they no longer define me.</span></span></div>
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Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-27213314893534875752018-01-12T14:19:00.000-05:002018-01-12T14:24:33.606-05:00Murderbot: A Review of All Systems Red, Martha Wells<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">There is no better adjective for
today but disgusting. The rain gods must surely love Toronto as they have
showered down their love for 24 hrs. My kitchen view expands out onto a dreary,
grey-soaked winter day, snow banks depressingly vanquished, debris sadly on
display all the while the mercury plummets. We have been promised an ice palace
by this evening, one that no one wishes to enter, least of all visit by
car. Standing outside my library branch, damp and windswept my thoughts
jumbled from the morning argument with child regarding appropriate garments to
Murderbots. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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K. Dick</a> award for science fiction novels published in the United
States for the previous year were released. A living breathing paradox, my very
geeky science fiction proclivities extend not to the conventions, awards and
publishing houses that make what I love available. Indeed, <a href="https://www.clarkeaward.com/award-winners/">Arthur C. Clarke</a> and
the tantalizing lists that have come out of <a href="http://www.thekitschies.com/">The Kitschies</a> have only recently
piqued my interests, giving momentum to my recent year's reading piles. Sorry
for the dis Hugo, but this girl is just not into you. Yet, here I sit having
read one of the nominees, debating whether to continue with my planned review,
feeling slightly annoyed that an award has deemed it reading worthy. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
<a href="https://www.tor.com/2017/05/01/book-reviews-all-systems-red-by-martha-wells/" target="_blank">All Systems Red</a> by <a href="http://www.marthawells.com/murderbot1.htm" target="_blank">Martha Wells</a> is an adequately satisfying
read for a novella, providing enough world building to enrich the reader's
imagination but brief enough to encapsulate a mood fully. Truthfully, the
time spent between waiting for the second book of a trilogy to arrive
through the library hold system can be a bleak experience. The pull of the
first novel is so complete that any book read in the interim can be lost, used
mostly as filler. Not so is the case with All Systems Red, the confessions of
government SecUnit gone rogue, who darkly refers to himself/herself as
Murderbot. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
This is a future in which sentient constructs of synthetic and organic
parts exist to fulfill specific societal roles. Not quite a robot,
defiantly not human, our Murderbot is in security, owned and hired out to
protect the corporation's contractual obligations for myriad of clientele. On
an unexplored planet, Murderbot contentedly streams hours of hacked
entertainment feeds, successfully convincing the small survey team it
works for that it is a focused, professional SecUnit. Things begin to unravel
as it becomes clear that someone wishes them all harm. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
The Murderbot Diaries have an Isaac Asimov, 'I, Robot' quality, interlaced with
a twang of Philip K. Dick's 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep'. Because it
is a novella, information that would normally develop is eluded to, giving All
Systems Red a real-time perspective. We meet Murderbot, speculate on his/her
existence, and surmise that Murderbot is more than the constructed parts he/she
presents to the world. Martha Wells has created a powerfully humane sentient
being, alarmingly alien yet complex enough that we want to be his/her friend. I
look forward to the movie that hopefully will spawn from this little gem of a
book. I have a deep desire to see a meaningfully deep science fiction film,
sprinkled with murder and mayhem. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-8205215362134406372018-01-06T19:21:00.000-05:002018-01-07T09:09:56.433-05:00Art Installation: A Review of Illuminae, Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">The morning sunbeam that
brightened my yoga practise while cheerful was ineffective in bringing warmth.
Canada has frozen over as has my toes, little stubborn icicles refusing to
believe in green leaves, soft winds. A fan of extreme weather patterns, the -36
wind-chill does little to squash my winter love. If we are going to do this
season, might as well do it with gusto. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">The tree continues -
ornaments catching my favour attempt to convince me to extend their reign for
one more day. January 6th has always been our tree-tossing day. Yet, with the
furnace roaring, the hubby playing Zelda and the kid heading back to school on Monday,
what harm could a little extended sparkle cause? A diluted Christmas, with
barely an attempt to formulate a<a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/12/this-girls-wish-list-2016.html" target="_blank"> book list</a>, Santa still left me a little parcel
of science fiction wonder under the tree. Gleefully happy that my hubby
continues to understand my intense desire to read over the holidays, I cracked
open my first book of 2018 on New Year's Day.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcvRPF5AhUy4CGw5IwsOq9A4SPcbfUR_L_flkqGp4RJW0DI9KBiLJLVxe7Sfr63LznwGifMSpTaUpB3iFIWXmeNpb6n5Z-1WT2HHuLVWRmCHaPstOOj8wRE5drezpBnU7KDMKMEu_9ioX-/s1600/download+%25281%2529.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="181" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcvRPF5AhUy4CGw5IwsOq9A4SPcbfUR_L_flkqGp4RJW0DI9KBiLJLVxe7Sfr63LznwGifMSpTaUpB3iFIWXmeNpb6n5Z-1WT2HHuLVWRmCHaPstOOj8wRE5drezpBnU7KDMKMEu_9ioX-/s400/download+%25281%2529.jpeg" width="260" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">And what an
adventure, <a href="http://www.thebooksmugglers.com/2015/11/joint-review-illuminae-by-amie-kaufman-and-jay-kristoff.html"><span style="color: blue;">Illuminae</span></a> by <a href="http://amiekaufman.com/books/the-illuminae-files/illuminae/"><span style="color: blue;">Amie Kaufman</span></a> and Jay Kristoff brought me
right back to those wonderful feelings of 2012 when I read <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2013/01/read-of-year-review-of-leviathan-wakes.html"><span style="color: blue;">Leviathan Wakes</span></a>. We all have those book moments
we wish we could relive. Understanding the genius of War and Peace,
experiencing the encompassing thrill of Dune, wanting nothing more to live
in a peach with James and his insect friends. With every book cover I crack,
anticipation rises as I hope for vomit zombies. After all, don't we all just
want to curl up during the holidays reading about the coming end of the universe?
Maybe, that is just I but to win my heart, gift this girl a good space operatic
adventure that throws all the tropes right in my face.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">A small
illegal mining operation on the planet Kerenza has been violently attacked by the mega
corporation Beitech. Our hero Kady, having just broken up with her boyfriend
Ezra, watches her world explode. Her transition from survivor, to refuge to
conscripted reluctant hero moves at the speed of light. As the last shuttle bay doors close, the beitech battleship
Lincoln pursues the small fleet of survivors aboard the freighter
Copernicus, science ship Hypatia and their crippled saviour, the battle carrier
Alexander. There can be no survivors to report this take-over. Plague virus, psychopathic A.I, a battle cruiser on
the hunt smashes us with detail. This is a ride that will
not let you go. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Dare I say, </span><a href="http://www.speculativeherald.com/2015/10/08/review-illuminae-by-amie-kaufman-jay-kristoff/" style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="color: blue;">Illuminae</span></a><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> is so much more than a science
fiction book, it is an art installation. Beitech's crimes against Kerenza are
catalogued through hacked emails, medical and classified military reports,
sensor arrays, and diagnostics of battlecarrier Alexander's corrupt A.I.,
AIDEN. Nothing seemingly new, as SF has been doing this technique of
world-building since the 60s but the sheer audacity to publish a SF
story with the soul of EE. Cummings is bold. Holding Illuminae in your hands,
having to turn the pages upside down to read battle text, you feel immersed more effectively than tradition paragraphs. Sheepishly, my first
wayward thought as I opened its illustrative pages was it wasn't my thing -
dialogue heavy this had to be a pseudo attempt at science fiction. Thankfully, the plot is a grabber. The initial design began to fade to quickly becoming an increasing important element to the dramatics of the book. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I prefer my science fiction served up one way: prose. How wrong
I was. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
2018 began with a work of art, how exciting this year is turning out to be. </span></span></div>
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Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-1586194744788151952017-11-16T14:38:00.001-05:002017-11-16T16:23:43.017-05:00Global Warming Made Good: A Review of New York 2140, Kim Stanley Robinson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "" serif "" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Trundling down the street,
ineffectively bundled for the sharp Arctic wind that has stolen my city's
breath, I am returning a book. Kim Stanley Robinson's ecologically new future
behemoth, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/kim-stanley-robinsons-latest-novel-imagines-life-in-an-underwater-new-york">New
York 2140</a> made a satisfying boom as I dropped it at the library
counter. Nary an eyebrow rose, even though the thunk reverberated through the
quiet space, ending an intense reading relationship that had enclosed me for
nearly two full weeks. Surely a bookmark was in order, some small
acknowledgement of my commitment to lugging this beast to the play park, the
bath, and the karate dojo. Nothing though, not even a hi-five, it was all so anti-climatic
that my time spent felt somewhat lost, never wasted but definitely ill defined.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi17zXwk_0gsx9s-j9IM6BJr4D0eUM-QVOKvFBkycL8UvZvis-gvlEeN5wyq7rHRiHd9F9eGYMjATWWpijHVGG4d89xOCYFEl1BOkVEf9oWLNekFkcGm6IFoYQlmKF6ljCJZA8eaS1CvMyH/s1600/download.jpeg"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-no-proof: yes; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75" coordsize="21600,21600"
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "" serif "" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
Global Warming has fulfilled its ultimate destiny, ice caps have melted, and
sea levels have risen resulting in two confirmed pulses of global mass
destruction. Every species is in crisis - humans ever adaptable have created
new waterproofing technology to hold the waters at bay, for now. New York has
been baptized Super Venice - an island, existence precariously determinant upon
the tides. Lower Manhattan has sunk, streets and avenues now canals with Upper
Manhattan home to the ultra-rich, safe behind newly constructed towers that
rise ever higher. The 1% continues to flourish all the while the globe strains
to find placement in this flooded world. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiepikiwu-W_1030VUUrHwx6HVD2fkpBb-CJu7Nj4PSbVUBIA7zScEYYsHM8Vz_d_cCKE58zNQiF1rukH2GVq_9Ua28IVanXImPugz10t9Z_qJizSfpWZlZ5bC3s6wzfC_dRs9IuQLrbX_9/s1600/download.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="277" data-original-width="182" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiepikiwu-W_1030VUUrHwx6HVD2fkpBb-CJu7Nj4PSbVUBIA7zScEYYsHM8Vz_d_cCKE58zNQiF1rukH2GVq_9Ua28IVanXImPugz10t9Z_qJizSfpWZlZ5bC3s6wzfC_dRs9IuQLrbX_9/s400/download.jpeg" width="261" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "" serif "" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
Is this science fiction, near future dystopian or a love-letter to New York? New
York 2140 is Kim Stanley Robinson's first truly character driven novel. A
world-builder, Robinson weaves words to assimilate an atmosphere that few in
science fiction properly master. An image from his <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2013/02/home-review-of-2312.html" target="_blank">2312</a> novel of Mercury's expansive
city, Terminator revolving on tracks around the planet, keeping just shy of the
coming deadly sunrise, lives deep in my imagination. The best of generational
space odyssey has <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/06/science-fiction-review-of-aurora-kim.html" target="_blank">Aurora</a> top of my list. </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "" serif "" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br />
I have always loved Robinson's plot lines, hated his characters. Red Mars, the
book that brought SF infamy to his door, sits forlornly on a side-table because
my annoyance for the protagonist cannot surpass my general curiosity. Can world
building sustain a novel or novels as with Kim Stanley Robinson's catalogue of
work? </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "" serif "" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">New York 2140 worked as an
entertaining read because the city became the star. Without the highly
developed backdrop, the human elements of the story would lie flat, despite me
liking everyone. It is more a question of time relevance. In recent years, the
Canadian city I call home experience stretches of snowless winter months, cool
summers, and unseasonably hot autumns. Global warming is not my future it is my
present. Reading a novel so close to my reality unsettled my complicity. Good
science fiction should be unnerving, a talisman of the times, even a beacon for
what may come. I internally debate whether New York 2140 is simply an okay book wrapped in glitzy gift wrap or something greater, something ever more complex. </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue";"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I am a Kim Stanley Robinson fan,
convoluted, but none the less, a fan. His books are remembered years later, a metric that many a book I read fails to accomplish. New York 2140 is easily </span><span style="font-size: 18px;">readable, and undeniably relatable whether you like it, is something I am curious to discover. </span></span></div>
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Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-38342180046581739922017-10-28T18:43:00.002-04:002017-10-29T08:55:35.401-04:00Nothing Like A Good Zombie Book - A Review of World War Z, Max Brooks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">In less than forty minutes, my house will be engulfed with
the sounds of banging, snarling and foundational shifting bumps that could
easily be the zombie apocalypse we all have been waiting for, or a
pre-arranged little boys' playdate. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQcJQp-2-Rr9d9UZBxSSZwV1f3weFT9QCaSMwVmwXMCXUSaU7AOZEHbHivY_yIu5WXyrRp4Sz_05tuM-kyeRfacvQufKMT5LGZuttMr6r5jMqEUvVneP2YDTgJ4DwIMCWQ9ECqvf7gyCLv/s1600/download.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="184" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQcJQp-2-Rr9d9UZBxSSZwV1f3weFT9QCaSMwVmwXMCXUSaU7AOZEHbHivY_yIu5WXyrRp4Sz_05tuM-kyeRfacvQufKMT5LGZuttMr6r5jMqEUvVneP2YDTgJ4DwIMCWQ9ECqvf7gyCLv/s400/download.jpeg" width="269" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 13.5pt;">Motherless, smoking gleefully as I taught English deep in the
heart of rural Japan, I would sneer fabulously at the state of child
rearing. Playdate I would exclaim, are for parents without lives, attempting to
pander to the fear of the unknown, the proverbial bogeyman that haunted
the bushes. This was the early 2000’s; I had soaked up enough X-File conspiracies to slightly jade my naivety as I boarded a plane for a job that I was completely unqualified for. The
life of an overseas English language teacher is a complex pattern of terrorized
moments of grammatical uncertainties, couched in a westernized, idolized
bravado. I had no business teaching. Every child under the age of 6 who walked
through my classroom door was adeptly aware of this fact, taking full
advantage of the language barrier to barrage me with insults. It was a
wonderful time. </span></div>
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horde of an afternoon playdate begins to unfold around me, I reconcile with my
younger self. Arranged play is completely deranged. Gathering like-minded
maniacs into an enclosed space leads to tears, drinking and silent swearing.
The solemn nod of the parental collective grieves with me, as I circumnavigate
my dilemma. Short-sighted decisions that align child whims to adult
time-lines will only breed the zombie armies. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue";"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">It's true; <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/zaki-hasan/zakis-review-iworld-war-z_b_3518078.html" target="_blank">World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War</a> by Max Brooks has seeped into my
mundane perspective. I walk autumnal streets, unhinged with ghoulish
daydreams of macabre fingers snatching at my ankles while I skip through the fallen
leaves. A composite diary of the human condition, World War Z documents a
global war for survival. Imagine, a zombie shuffling down your street, now blossom this slightly horrific image to millions of infected, animated undead, relentless in their individualized search for flesh. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue";"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">With zombies dragging through my dreams, I wake speculating if humanity's drive for modernity has unhinged our global future. Heady stuff for a zombie book I admit, but any true dystopian story-line should fester our fantasies, spawning layers of unease. War Z effectuates all that we fear. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue";"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue";"><span style="font-size: 18px;">World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War lives up to this girl's idea of a zombie book. </span></span></div>
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Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-17441154376931684722017-10-16T14:40:00.000-04:002017-10-17T11:26:28.146-04:00Forever Books: A Review of Summerlong, Peter S. Beagle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Eighty-nine dollars of credit at the local science fiction bookstore, and this girl has no idea what to buy. Heart-wrenchingly annoying, my inability to commit to book-buying has brought me to this rather frazzled day. A library soul, the concept of a forever-book seems a tad sinful. What if I bring home something I hate, or worse, never read again. That 'never to be read again' tagline beats deep down in my reading-heart, sighing for every sentence lost in time, and memory. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKOZVzYaNwZePthCXTPNHd0q6vzcAZvjBsrIrqefUs4U_vj4rYtCowvR-JUB4JqfUC6eaTP9_HH4MQK-fzoVtc2TY7SGqBBBZF1kkf4vJY1boyRr8tBGXvUrSg8f4criNMgh049iF49izx/s1600/download.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="181" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKOZVzYaNwZePthCXTPNHd0q6vzcAZvjBsrIrqefUs4U_vj4rYtCowvR-JUB4JqfUC6eaTP9_HH4MQK-fzoVtc2TY7SGqBBBZF1kkf4vJY1boyRr8tBGXvUrSg8f4criNMgh049iF49izx/s400/download.jpeg" width="259" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My home library has some duds - annoying hard-covers that have bullied themselves onto the shelves, smugly gathering dust, showcasing lack of purpose. I stare them down monthly, ready to trek them all off to the second-hand bookstore to retract, overwhelmed with ownership guilt. And so they sit, as do I, contemplating readable-worthy book purchasing while the sun slowly glints through the fall foliage and the winds gather momentum. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am longing for <a href="http://www.fantasyliterature.com/author-interviews/peter-s-beagle/" target="_blank">Summerlong</a> by Peter S Beagle. This is a book I had no intention of walking home with, but having surmised that the clerk may indeed be someone of merit, I bought it based on her recommendations. The walk home from the bookstore was grey. Spring had yet to bud, and my reading inclinations swayed to more science fiction hearty fair than <a href="http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=80025473&PlayContext=kidsarea&trkid=13462036&nscl=1&tctx=1%2C2%2Cd870d30d-dfb7-4d45-9ed4-48dcd55271be-99998295#videoId=70296343&trackId=13912682" target="_blank">Summerlong</a>'s fantastical promises. And yet I brought this little bound beauty home, to be promptly forgotten until this September. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Situated on small island outside of Seattle, Abe and Joanna live their quiet lives, happily unmarried, weathering life's problems together. Until that day, walking into their favourite restaurant they meet Lioness and waltz into a fairy-tale. As with fairy-tales there is the light and the dark - what we hold dear, can be lost and from that loss, creation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.locusmag.com/2007/Issue07_Beagle.html" target="_blank">Peter S. Beagle</a> wrote the most acclaimed fantasy novel of our times, <a href="http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/reviews/the-last-unicorn-by-peter-s-beagle/" target="_blank">The Last Unicorn</a> in 1968. Not a fantasy reader, my curiosity had me summoning the book through the library system to sit down one afternoon, to be thoroughly stunned. There are few first chapters written that attain a level of wonder found in The Last Unicorn. But this is my ode to Summerlong, a book forgotten, that brought me great joy as the Toronto September temperatures soared, and my summer seemed to last forever. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Summerlong, Beagle's most recent and more accessible novel is perfection. Every word has purpose, each tangled detail sculpts the characters into being, each chapter reflects the complexity of life. There are few authors who can properly assimilate the world of myth and gods into present day fiction without the story becoming overwhelmingly supernatural. The unimaginative becomes real - that what modern civilization has lost is summoned forth in Summerlong. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A gem, something to be cherished, re-read and shared, Peter S. Beagle's Summerlong proudly sits on my book-shelf. </span></div>
Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-18492872388102065492017-10-09T10:35:00.001-04:002017-10-09T10:35:17.262-04:00What goes well with turkey: Review of Sleeping Giants, Sylvain Neuvel<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Facing a second turkey dinner at 3 this afternoon, my perspective towards life is rather tilted. Dare I admit that the very last thing I wish to do is trundle off in a car for 2 hrs to eat said bird? Even more accurate do I dare admit that in fact, I will gladly sit in said car for those very 2 hrs, just so I can eat another turkey dinner. What is worse, showcasing gluttony or restraint? Like so many Canadians on this weekend, we buck up the courage, find semi-decent comfy pants and pull the dining chair up to a highly orchestrated dinner, circumnavigating familial undercurrents and (un) necessary glasses of wine. Yes, Thanksgiving Monday is upon me. What the hell am I going to read?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">This past September has been a fury of reading activity. Having spent the summer nose deep in whodunits, I gleefully jumped into my geeky persona, reading all the sci-fi things. A friend recently asked me as a non-science fiction reader, where should she start? Enduringly difficult, I stumbled trying to dissimulate the genre into a tightly bound reference guide that she could dip her reading toes into without feeling sullied by the experience. Seriously, when she dropped Phillip K Dick as a starting point, I almost walked into a tree from dismay - of all the places to start, start current, I say, or at least with Herbert. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmzCF4KHCYmquDBazBmgXzs1WVb2XC3q2UN9pIACKQ2bpWfx1yTY3xYSR8x_55ltHPaEAYOOXVAspylKztELcA-wv1a5yNtytg0Tkf3WZJUSHkFOApX7hpsVHcy9AJZl1wgShtXMCO-ROJ/s1600/517ftObdF2L._SX327_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="329" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmzCF4KHCYmquDBazBmgXzs1WVb2XC3q2UN9pIACKQ2bpWfx1yTY3xYSR8x_55ltHPaEAYOOXVAspylKztELcA-wv1a5yNtytg0Tkf3WZJUSHkFOApX7hpsVHcy9AJZl1wgShtXMCO-ROJ/s320/517ftObdF2L._SX327_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="210" /></a><span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Looking for a fully engaging, fast-paced science fiction story that takes place on present day Earth, try Sylvain Neuvel's Sleeping Giants. A young girl falls into a hole in the forest to wake nestled in the palm of an enormous glowing hand. Exploring the classic aliens-as-gods science fiction trope, Neuvel's <a href="http://www.thethemisfiles.com/" target="_blank">The Themis Files</a> left me anxiously waiting for May, 2018 when the final novel in the trilogy is to be released. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The story reveals itself dramatically through interviews and press releases. The ability to literally tear through a book in a day is highly probable and somewhat satisfying. If there is ever a book to disengage from the turkey doldrums it is this. Whether I like this trilogy is debated, as there are key elements to the plot and characters that have left me unhappy. Yet, I leave my final review to the third book, gladly basking in the manic reading fury that captured my imagination. Not every book needs to be Dune, sometimes being entertained is enough.</span></div>
Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-53257129135916662082017-09-02T17:09:00.000-04:002017-09-05T14:00:32.158-04:00The Burden of Einstein: A Review of The Lost Time Accidents, John Wray<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Eight degrees celsius and summer isn't even embarrassed enough to send an apologetic bouquet of flowers. Waking to October weather on only the second day of September has left me less than - while these past months have simultaneously streamed by in a slow, molasses drippy way I am befuddled this Labour Day long weekend. With school out, and a kid at home, summer has literally been walks to the park but after 8 glorious weeks of those very walks, one more weekend spent cavorting on the monkey bars seems anything but awesome. So what to do, in a city this size surely there are options - The Canadian National Exhibition, an air show, ComicCon, a busker festival. On paper, all are tantalizing amazing until you realize that with you will be thousands of other human beings, clamouring to make this last summer moment the very best. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We are staying home. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The kiddo just snuck by with a butter knife, a chunk of ice in a tupperware container and a mission. Normally, I would be on that before he even opened the freezer door but this weekend, the last weekend before school a parent needs a pair of ignore lenses. Fun fact, a seven-year-old talks all day. Adorable, until you realize that by talk I refer to the information that only a parent can love or at least visualize inspiring for approximately 4 weeks. By week 5, you are buying a bike, securing a helmet and instructing road safety. By the middle of next week, the verbatim that drove me to the gin will retrospectively be missed. Currently, as the alarming sounds of ice being chipped in the master bedroom echoes throughout the house, I acquiesce to all the little boy shenanigans. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnwaLa4VMiQtPmd-yi_lj-UUjGHPP9H759Qh08nLhQZiT0ydNOmUodq4x9hqD7vsR2d8st0lX1e9zFhGFodYK8Z4sGk7WF4vs5KpRxSwzvEYcVUiYt54kjxQ09PJRLWmoEwIxn7h17HWC5/s1600/download.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="279" data-original-width="181" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnwaLa4VMiQtPmd-yi_lj-UUjGHPP9H759Qh08nLhQZiT0ydNOmUodq4x9hqD7vsR2d8st0lX1e9zFhGFodYK8Z4sGk7WF4vs5KpRxSwzvEYcVUiYt54kjxQ09PJRLWmoEwIxn7h17HWC5/s400/download.jpeg" width="259" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With the inevitable questions of how summer was spent and what was read pass through the school ground parental greetings, I surmise yet again my reading pile will have little relevance but to a few. As with every summer, I hang my geeky cloak to done my Nancy Drew cardigan. My science fiction reading life has become a full-time passion thus a vacation from the weird is not only appreciated but required. True, dipping into the worlds of murder might seem just as odd, the classic whodunnit is this girl's idea of relaxation. Having spent six months grappling with a review for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/books/review/the-lost-time-accidents-by-john-wray.html?mcubz=1">The Lost Time Accidents</a> by John Wray and spectacularly failing, slipping into the life of a Venetian police commissioner seems irresistible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's not like I disliked the<a href="https://couchtomoon.wordpress.com/2017/05/01/the-lost-time-accidents-by-john-wray/"> The Lost Time Accidents</a>, yet here I sit incapable of solidifying my opinions of a book that kept me irksomely engaged. John Wray plays with time, history and the inevitable fear of being on the wrong side of both. What if your entire family life pursuit was for naught? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We open with Waldermar 'Waldy' Tolliver lost outside of time, perplexingly stranded in his eccentric Aunts' New York apartment pondering and successfully leading the readers to question what the lost time accidents are. And it is this that we are pushed back and forth through history, early 20th century Vienna to present day periodically slipping out of the time stream to grapple with the Tolliver's extensive family secrets. I</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t is a complicated plot, a novel thick with beautiful prose that inevitably weighs the reader down. Yet I twisted gladly along, gathering more clues, meeting new members of the Tolliver clan, triumphantly understanding the lost time accidents to suddenly finish the book in complete bafflement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Inevitably, the book becomes too complicated. Excited to read a novel that spans across decades, taking us into the heart of Vienna, drawing down into the darkness of World War II all the while exploring time itself promised to be the perfect read. Yet it failed somehow, maybe the truths of the universe can only be properly surmised through the purity of mathematics. </span></div>
Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-29504530934278373272017-05-06T18:36:00.002-04:002017-05-06T19:06:41.193-04:00Transformation: A Review of Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As our resident Elm is tussled by rainy wind, I have been contemplating the process of transformation. When I quit my nine to fiver, announcing publicly that my time was now my own, I focused intensely on the present. That first summer before the little one entered school stretches out into one long sunny joy bubble. It was a celebration of life one unbothered by schedules or boxed into quick week-end activities. My decision to quit was less a knee-jerk response to an unhappy work-life, rather it was the fulcrum of a life plan the hubby and I embarked on the moment we became naive parents. When the child entered school I would be home. It wasn't a secret, I voiced it loudly, yet the moment it became a reality shock, fear and even anger started to whisper about me. The corporate reactions were generally easy to unravel, and as I dropped that last bundle of files off at my director's office I felt unhinged with happiness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And then the questions started to bounce around me from all corners of my social sphere - But what do you do all day? </span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiixaO91ESrvwZOisdnGFlBJdktSxVlh8eI1KM2RrRY8020u7FaNxV2lbg0pSB9sjXNpbtUiwWePSZaR0bv7SRkA-5S_WD3wQSBcI2TWcjo-jW5RzGOhQCoNpIAh9Q1-TAkeUXFOjPHeiKc/s1600/25499718.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiixaO91ESrvwZOisdnGFlBJdktSxVlh8eI1KM2RrRY8020u7FaNxV2lbg0pSB9sjXNpbtUiwWePSZaR0bv7SRkA-5S_WD3wQSBcI2TWcjo-jW5RzGOhQCoNpIAh9Q1-TAkeUXFOjPHeiKc/s400/25499718.jpg" width="260" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bewilderingly, being a Mom wasn't an adequate reply. Passively aggressive, that query haunted my thoughts, undermining my sense of self. I spun stories of writing ambitions, quickly adding the tagline that I used to work. Walks home from the playground, grateful for the time invested with my son were tinged with embarrassment. What did, I do all day?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> those first few months piled up into a year, and that year has now become three, I know not only who I am, but why being a Mom will always be enough. The moment I realized that the answer I sought was an impossibility, I was released. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Margaret Atwood while being interviewed on the CBC radio program, </span><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/radio/popup/audio/listen.html?autoPlay=true&clipIds=&mediaIds=937178179895&contentarea=radio&subsection1=radio1&subsection2=entertainment&subsection3=Q&contenttype=audio&title=2017/05/05/1.4097042-these-are-old-human-themes-margaret-atwood-on-the-enduring-power-of-the-handmaids-tale&contentid=1.4097042" style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Q</a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> discussed how once a novel is published, it's no longer in the writer's hands but in the hands of the reader's, subjective to a myriad of interpretations. How I spend my day, or even navigate my way through motherhood has little to do with anyone but those within my family capsule. I write my own life, how you wish to value it is completely within your own realm. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Navigating the writing world, I marvel at how far I had to emotionally go to finally become myself. High-school defined me as the resident poet, shipped off to day camps to hone my skills, crafting essays stamped with acceptance by all my teachers. Weaving together words to create a tapestry of stories is my concept of art. I agonize in word choice, despair in trite sentiments, ponder better ways to connect my life to that spider book I just read. My complete adoration of the written word manifests itself through <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/">Thank the Maker,</a> it was time to accept who I am, a writer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">First crack at the SF genre, and Adrian Tchaikovsky walks away in 2016 with the <a href="http://www.tor.com/2016/08/24/arthur-c-clarke-award-2016-winner-adrian-tchaikovsky-children-of-time/">Arthur C. Clarke</a> - Britain's premier SF award for <a href="http://thebookplank.blogspot.ca/2015/06/book-review-children-of-time.html">Children in Time</a>. The hubby has voiced his wonder how I connect motherhood to sci-fi, admittedly it can be an interesting process. By page 58, Children of Time had traipsed me across two thousand years, destroying Earth, marooning my thoughts with a lone scientist above a terraformed planet that consequentially is crawling with spiders budding into sentience. The obvious connections seemed lacking as I woke, overwhelmed with spider societal dreams, pondering the transformation of living nightmares into accepting images of alien speciation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Earth is a husk - pulverized by war, no longer a safe harbour for humanity. Those who have survived the ice age, try to glean information from ancient technology that highlighted homo sapiens progressive golden age. The spaceships follow star charts, desperate in the belief that a new home will be found. And a new home is found, unfortunately it is occupied.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Children of Time is a master work of science fiction. A hefty tome, it seamlessly navigates from spiders to humans, mirroring each species transformations of survival. Adrian Tchaikovsky has tackled evolution successfully, wrapping it all up in a neat bow with eight legs. Of late, I have come to love a well-written Arc book - human expansion aboard multi-generational space ships designed solely for species longevity. What with the spiders, and a desperate ship of Earth's children trying to survive, you have a juggernaut of a novel. It will turn your perceptions of intelligence on end, revealing the wonders of life, the need to protect our only home. Children of Time is unapologetically science fiction. It is fun, easily readable, highly engaging, a good read for any long weekend. </span></div>
Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-53902453374868021142017-03-28T14:18:00.001-04:002017-03-28T14:18:14.241-04:00So, It's Weird: A Review of The Destructives, Matthew De Abaitua<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With the child suddenly invited to evening events, we, his parents, have discovered the 5:30 dinner date. Maybe this is how the early bird special spun out of control - tired parents, wanting to drink they buns off but unwilling to sacrifice sleep. At our most recent pre-sunset hot date, I attempted to describe <a href="http://csff-anglia.co.uk/clarke-shadow-jury/watching-the-destructives/">The Destructives</a>. Even with the table sprinkled with half empty cocktails, my husband's vacant stare had less to do with the upended bevies and everything to do with my weirdness. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I am weirdo. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">I enjoy 9:00 p.m bedtimes, hours of bench sitting, an aversion to movie-watching, a lust for Survivor and an overarching desire to read really weird shit.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSPDfwIZTOFXjCJ5CjppaA1sMETCAa97jvyFQEbUhPIWHMi7hHN5vrWvZ4QdLhI1kwEUNFkvUhj02FcXj2xxg9HfsGGEidGFeUbUyOebtFYBQRo8kbpespHfMqom9dcR00kVfziYJoz77V/s1600/download+%25281%2529.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSPDfwIZTOFXjCJ5CjppaA1sMETCAa97jvyFQEbUhPIWHMi7hHN5vrWvZ4QdLhI1kwEUNFkvUhj02FcXj2xxg9HfsGGEidGFeUbUyOebtFYBQRo8kbpespHfMqom9dcR00kVfziYJoz77V/s400/download+%25281%2529.jpeg" width="262" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2017/03/perspective-review-of-central-station.html">shadowing</a> of the <a href="http://csff-anglia.co.uk/clarke-shadow-jury/announcing-the-shadow-clarke-2017-an-introduction-and-a-manifesto/">shadow jury </a>for the <a href="https://www.clarkeaward.com/">Arthur C. Clarke </a>award has created a conundrum. <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/">Thank the Maker </a>at its design heart is to persuade my small tribe of friends to read science fiction. I read, it's my lot in life and yet 99% of those I call dear dislike SF. As I cloak myself in the shadows of the Clarke award, the intentions of my posts move further from being actualized. No one, beyond a handful of right-minded nutters who I have managed to befriend are going to read any of these shadow books. How does one argue to the non-geeks that the hive-minded, city-wide jellyfish, living in the underground oceans of Europa that so happens to be humanity's key to survival is something they need to read on about? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have had my moments with <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/04/yearning-for-mystical-review-of-darker.html">magic</a>, <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2013/01/word-of-week-dragons.html">dragons</a>, <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2014/07/things-review-of-ocean-at-end-of-lane.html">lyrical</a>, <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2014/05/all-of-things-review-of-farthing.html">historical alternative</a>, <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/07/beauty-review-of-station-eleven-emily.html">dystopian futures </a>but what sings true for this girl are the novels that go beyond my expectations - dangling science all the while blatantly ignoring known universal truths. Discovering an author willing to explore the boundaries of science fiction is the pulse that keeps the genre alive. Only science fiction can expand perceptions of humanity by alienating ourselves, deconstructing that what we hold dear, all in the hopes of coming closer to the meaning of life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Plus, space ships are cool. You know it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The question begs to be asked, is <a href="http://www.harrybravado.com/">Matthew De Abaitua</a>'s novel, The Destructives worth reading? The third installment of a lose, stand-alone type of trilogy, <a href="http://www.sffworld.com/2016/04/matthew-de-abaitua-interview-2/">The Destructives</a> finds humankind blunted, falling slowly into extinction as AI evolves as the dominant species. The world economy has been disrupted by a single loop (gif) of a mother hugging her teenage daughter. The Seizure is decades in the past, AI has decamped to the Sun, and our protagonist, Theodore Drown is working as professor at the University of the Moon. An anthropological expert on Pre-Seizure culture, Theodore is asked to investigate an archive of data. What follows is an epic tale of weirdness that frankly has left me incapable of properly expressing without dropping down some serious spoilers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Highly engaging novel, definitely perplexing, The Destructives is inescapably sci-fi. If you don't like weird shit, this weirdness is not for you. </span></div>
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Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-81914037676148793072017-03-13T14:44:00.003-04:002017-03-13T14:44:29.216-04:00Perspective: A Review of Central Station, Lavie Tidhar<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My grade 11 Social Studies teacher once assigned a behavioural anthropologic essay from the viewpoint of an alien visiting Earth for only one day. What would resonate? Would alien observations of our daily interactions at high school devise an elaborate synopsis that we, as a race were uniquely programmed to respond to the sound of a bell? The furious scurryings, combined with anxiety to be late, surely humans must be bell responsive. I marvel upon the exercise's unique ability to showcase perspective, observations and facts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Although, memory fails me regarding my original hypotheses, I currently would assert weather as the mundane provocateur. Find me a Canadian that has not been educated on the fine art of weather chatting. A recent visit to a small town in the Okanogan found me chatting with a a complete stranger about the heat. The act of him stopping in the middle of street to lean out of his window to jaw on about the humidity might seem alarming, for us Canucks it is simply the sweet charm of living up here. Don't want to come across as rude, go on about the rain.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Snowflakes swirl beyond my living room window. And while this scene would bring endless joy to my winter heart, I cringe as the snow begins to mound. Like Lavie Tidhar's novel, <a href="http://www.locusmag.com/Reviews/2016/05/gary-k-wolfe-reviews-lavie-tidhar-3/">Central Station</a>, perspective is the name of this game. My annual pilgrimage to the <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/04/poolside-cactus-girls-at-kingfisher.html">Sonoran desert</a> looms, yet the current snow event parked over the north-east threatens my near future visit with cacti, the sun and my Mom. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kKE9OAuMVdiiaRLKObe0THwyPv1r5g56-eneKofeQvm6o0BjEy2ZoGiYai-T1LavRvLIUUimjt7Zbyq3UZwobR40uQlsO3porC9-muzCqLej6cbKl7fwIt92En_rk4xi_RW2cL9g8tLs/s1600/download.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kKE9OAuMVdiiaRLKObe0THwyPv1r5g56-eneKofeQvm6o0BjEy2ZoGiYai-T1LavRvLIUUimjt7Zbyq3UZwobR40uQlsO3porC9-muzCqLej6cbKl7fwIt92En_rk4xi_RW2cL9g8tLs/s400/download.jpeg" width="259" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://lavietidhar.wordpress.com/central-station/">Central Station</a> by <a href="https://lavietidhar.wordpress.com/">Lavie Tidhar</a> is <i>the</i> space story I had yet to read. Humanity has taken to the skies, terraforming the Moon, living subterraneanly on Mars, expanding beyond our current global vantage point. The Conversation, a vast, complex virtual force that can be traced back to the internet is as necessary as air to survive. History is dense, wars long forgotten continue to haunt the darkened alleyways in the form of abandoned cyborg soldiers - once humankind's heroes now their collective embarrassment. Babies are designed. Earth's horizon is marred by gigantic space stations - each a towering city, affecting localized weather patterns, breeding new religions, all the while offering the stars. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>" A worldwide diaspora has left a quarter of a million people at the foot of a space station. Cultures collide in real life and virtual reality. The city is a weed, its growth left unchecked. Life is cheap and data is cheaper."</b> - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Central Station, Lavie Tidhar</span></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Lavie Tidhar has created a far-reaching fantastical future that feels concurrently alarmingly exotic yet satisfyingly familiar. Within a short timespan we peak into the lives of an interwoven group of people, all, searching. The story of life, the need for acceptance, the desires and sorrows of the heart remain true, whatever the century. This is the story of the every man, woman, robot, sentient creature, data-vampire, that falls in love, finds religion, eventually losing both all the while managing to survive. It is the story of family - the need to remember and the cost of holding too dear to that very past. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: helvetica neue, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Central Station breathes new life into the genre - more so thanks to it's non-American slant, bringing this SF story to Tel Aviv, highlighting Judaic culture, mingling the elements of the migrant. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Central Station is not an everyday space story, just as this does not appear to be your average snow storm. </span></div>
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Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-24865417289302987562017-01-17T17:05:00.000-05:002017-01-17T18:26:36.645-05:00So Many Things: A Review of The Thing Itself, Adam Roberts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's gross outside - grey, rainy, cold, the perfect day for writing. Yet here I sit, barely able to cohesively construct a single sentence delaying this post with tedious chores. Once in awhile a book comes my way that seems impossible to review. With bashful chagrin, I simply might not be wily enough to express what the hell is going on in <a href="http://www.tor.com/2015/12/17/book-reviews-the-thing-itself-by-adam-roberts/">The Thing Itself</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Megan from </span><a href="https://couchtomoon.wordpress.com/tag/the-thing-itself/" style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Couch to Moon </a> <span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">insisted that </span><a href="http://www.adamroberts.com/" style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Adam Roberts</a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> novel is the book I needed to read. Not one to ever ignore that lady's perception of a good read, I put it on my reading gift list this past holiday season. With a no-book buying policy, Christmas has become that day in December when books seem to fall from reading heaven. It is a glorious day made complete because of my husband's willingness to buy his geeky wife all her nerdy SF books. It's nice having a husband support your geeky ways, even knowing his life is in jeopardy if he were to crack a book spine or leave a copy splayed open. Our happy marriage hinges upon good book care and a willingness to hear each other's relationship with UFOs. He, being the intense believer, scanning the internet for new sightings and me, the woman who has agreed to move to Newfoundland the moment the invasion begins. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But what about Kant....</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6MV2-uavzFCs6o4nPONdVvse24aWxwlElscsKYDRSdSnppWFDLvMoVI0ed5s6O30HsmL-ey449jqZPpvLQeqTHrEb-Q1hZU7FJJ1WL5NNoOaiIgzS49P7IZaTaG8IEYDheJifKQyRzkvT/s1600/download.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6MV2-uavzFCs6o4nPONdVvse24aWxwlElscsKYDRSdSnppWFDLvMoVI0ed5s6O30HsmL-ey449jqZPpvLQeqTHrEb-Q1hZU7FJJ1WL5NNoOaiIgzS49P7IZaTaG8IEYDheJifKQyRzkvT/s400/download.jpeg" width="265" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Much to my puzzlement The Thing Itself's cover and synopsis desperately attempt to align to the cinematic horror, The Thing. Not surprisingly, The Thing so happens to be my husband's worst nightmare having imprinted a deep hatred for snow and psychotic aliens on him as a wee lad. Let me be clear, the novel is not an ode to the movie - for that read Peter Watts short story, <a href="http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/">The Things</a>. Then once you have read that nightmare, drink some herbal tea while watching The Wizard of Oz. You will need a yellow-brick road to pull you from out of your catatonic state of terror. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Thing Itself familiarly opens to a research station in Antartica with two astrophysicists on a long-term contract to monitor SETI. This has got to be about The Thing, how can it not! But here is the thing, Adam Roberts may happen to be one of the best writers I have read in years. By relying upon the reader's attachment to the film, he masterfully displays Kant's theory of reality. It's brilliant but only conceivable once you have read the book. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But really, what about Kant...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantmeta/">Immaniel Kant</a>, an 18th century philosopher argued that humanities perception of reality is constructed by the mind. Space and time is not an objective universal constant but a reflection of our sensibilities. The world as itself is independent of these concepts and nearly impossible for humanity to even properly discern. It is heady stuff, not one for this girl to in any way proclaim proper understanding. Thankfully, Kant's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason">The Critique of Pure Reason</a> entwined with the <a href="http://www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/fermi-paradox">Fermi Paradox</a> is entertainingly confined within a possible first contact/suspense story. The very thing itself becomes slightly less murky because Adam Roberts is a writing genius.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I like this book quite a bit, so much that I believe that it is the book you need in your life. Have you ever wondered why SF readers enjoy SF so much? The Thing Itself quantifies all that is exciting in current science fiction. While I most definitely am getting beyond myself, The Thing Itself is this girl's read of 2017.</span><br />
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Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-67104625175605301362017-01-03T14:20:00.000-05:002017-01-03T14:20:28.091-05:00Exploration: A Review of 2016<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A walk through the neighbourhood, combined with an excursion to the local outdoor rink for family night skating, 2017 has been all of the things. As I climbed into bed on New Year's Eve, satisfyingly ignoring the festivities beyond my window, I woke to sun. 2016 was anything but kind to my family, the passing of my father left me emotionally stranded on a frozen, cracked lake. Incapable of expressing the abyss, I found solace in my family, gathering joy as I witnessed my son bounce through his weeks to Christmas. Although this new year will be my first without Dad, I see limitless avenues of happiness to explore. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR1LbUURGnLy3S83cU12FbO8plzvZWFR8Xf4nHEqlJW8p5nG1gxueQqtHZWWNL-hI5QYElaAd86jQDNrEbuHbJVziJ5cX6DVgtbf3sVqoXZjO16kHToW5KcAk-8JReoOWbZbI3V2BB605e/s1600/download+%25281%2529.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR1LbUURGnLy3S83cU12FbO8plzvZWFR8Xf4nHEqlJW8p5nG1gxueQqtHZWWNL-hI5QYElaAd86jQDNrEbuHbJVziJ5cX6DVgtbf3sVqoXZjO16kHToW5KcAk-8JReoOWbZbI3V2BB605e/s400/download+%25281%2529.jpeg" width="266" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Finding purchase when your world tips askew can lend itself to new beginnings. My 2016 was a mismatch of personal goals wanting to get fit all the while reading and writing. My 50 novel reading channel was smashed by October with a final tally of 68. Site visits to <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/" target="_blank">Thank the Maker</a> soared even with a lacklustre showing of only 21 reviews.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I became an <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/07/the-rabbit-hole-review-of-honor.html" target="_blank">Honor Harrington</a> fan, obsessed over the generational ship in <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/06/science-fiction-review-of-aurora-kim.html" target="_blank">Aurora </a>by Kim Stanly Robinson and swam in the poetry that is <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/07/beauty-review-of-station-eleven-emily.html" target="_blank">Station 11</a>. I wholeheartedly jumped on the bandwagon with <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/02/buckets-review-of-fifth-season-n-k.html" target="_blank">The Fifth Season</a>, and <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/02/hi-five-review-of-aftermath-chuck-wendig.html" target="_blank">Aftermath</a>. But with all my dalliances with the popular novel, I sank deeply into the odd, extravagantly rich world found in <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/08/enigma-review-of-radiance-catherynne-m.html" target="_blank">Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I finally read <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/12/the-novel-to-gift-review-of-left-hand.html" target="_blank">Ursula's K Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness</a>, and continue to chastise myself for all the years wasted by not opening this book. We all have moments where we could relive a reading moment: Dune, War and Peace and now, The Left Hand of Darkness are mine. 2016 began with the YA apocalyptic novel, <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/01/ringing-in-2016-with-salvation-review.html" target="_blank">Archivist Wasp,</a> and closed with <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/12/trove-review-of-gracekeepers-kirsty.html" target="_blank">The GraceKeepers</a>; two novels dancing within a dystopian future, seeking salvation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sitting with my copy of <a href="https://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/wofp.html" target="_blank">Women of Futures Past</a> I begin my 2017 reading year with the women of science fiction. Kristine Kathryn Rusch's introductory essay, Invisible Women was an awakening experience. Having never attended a 'con' nor dipped my toes into recent Hugo controversies, I was unaware of the struggles women writers have in being recognized. My space operatic tendencies entwined for a love of time travel books, results in me reading primarily female writers. I obviously live in a sheltered, reading world, one at which Bujold, Baker, Willis, Lord, Atwood, Lee, Walton, McCaffrey reign.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With the slow unfolding of all that 2017 will be, here is to the women of science fiction: we are the readers, the writers, the buyers, the bloggers, the editors, the publishers. We are science fiction. Find the time this year to rejoice in all our womanly yet geeky tendencies. Start your journey with the reading of the short story Angel by <a href="http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/pat-cadigan-a-retrospective/" target="_blank">Pat Cadigan</a>. It's compact, engaging creepiness will leave you wondering who else you haven't explored. </span><br />
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Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-81573949274436019942016-12-30T17:04:00.004-05:002016-12-31T09:43:20.696-05:00Trove: A Review of The GraceKeepers, Kirsty Logan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Christmas has passed and while still lit, the tree is less the glamour lady she was, having a slightly bowed expressions to her overall evergreen demeanor. Boxing Day's slothfully delightful hours have slipped into the sweet spot of the holidays. It is the holiday stretch, days have lost their significance, New Year's given little thought. Thankfully, NYE has been a home affair for years, having had enough of trying to find the right party, the right food, the right sparkle. Who needs sparkle when you can be safely secure in your PJs drinking champagne, while reading a fabulous book?</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizu5YtbGjUuxTo9vHhHfu-9bnFrxFva4Obq4ruGKStZaZW-Q0HCVowwacJ1bN7S3E__uxZSp6iaCQVTKMbyH4b9PGbCzG4XrNfcKmBzydLrULIGtBF92fGzELxMOMMIgnttJS6TnAQDO8s/s1600/23012481.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizu5YtbGjUuxTo9vHhHfu-9bnFrxFva4Obq4ruGKStZaZW-Q0HCVowwacJ1bN7S3E__uxZSp6iaCQVTKMbyH4b9PGbCzG4XrNfcKmBzydLrULIGtBF92fGzELxMOMMIgnttJS6TnAQDO8s/s400/23012481.jpg" width="285" /></a>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This Christmas book haul was an extravagant affair. The tower under the tree has pushed its way into the first bough of decorations self-proclaiming itself as the pretties thing on and under the canopy. Dragon-esque with smugness for my new trove, I quickly immersed myself into the bound fantastical worlds.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As a convoy of little boats, the circus circumnavigates a flooded world. Historically, sea levels rose, submerging nations, obscuring cities, dividing humanity into damplings (those of the sea) and <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/05/17/407447412/the-gracekeepers-sets-damplings-against-the-landlockers" target="_blank">landlockers</a>. Sustaining a paltry existence through illusion, glitter, and shock the crew of the thirteen member crew strive to find emotional and physical security. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.kirstylogan.com/" style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Kirsty Logan</a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'s debut novel, </span><a href="https://couchtomoon.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/the-gracekeepers-2015-by-kirsty-logan/" style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">The GraceKeepers</a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> draws breath from the subversive clown culture of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Gaulier" target="_blank">buffoon</a>. But this is not a clown story - it is the story of loss and of resurrection. While North, the bear girl dances with danger each night relying upon love to keep her beast bridled, Callanish, a Gracekeeper longs for forgiveness. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A keeper of the dead, Callanish tends to her birds, acting as medium between the living and the dead. Gracekeepers and clowns provide a service to their fractured world. Seeped in fearful superstition, damplings and landlockers are reliant upon these two types of intermediaries to release them from the bindings of their own nightmares. As humanity begins a new journey, evolving with the sea, the two young women hope to survive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Gracekeepers is a delight. I could not have asked for a more poetically beautiful novel to read as my last for 2016. </span></div>
Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-16093532277922243462016-12-21T14:27:00.000-05:002016-12-21T16:17:48.324-05:00Vintage Nightcap: A Review of My Name is Legion, Roger Zelazny<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A Christmas hum vibrates through the house. Our tree glows with expansive warmth as it absorbs the heart-tugging memories of past holidays. In my house, the holiday is not a holiday without the notorious cheeseball to sanctify the blessed day. <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2014/12/all-you-want-for-christmas-jo-walton.html" target="_blank">Cheeseball</a>, a disturbingly delicious concoction of old cheddar, onions, cream cheese, spices processed into a gelatinous ball has altered the course of many a January's fitness regime. My husband's first Christmas with my side of the family found him ill-prepared to the lure of the cheeseball, falling deep into a spellbinding love that, to this day bedazzles him. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As I gather the ingredients for the making of the ball, I marvel at my December reading propensities. A very vintage month, Ursula K. Le Guin's masterwork, <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/12/the-novel-to-gift-review-of-left-hand.html" target="_blank">The Left Hand of Darkness</a> soothed my reluctance to read old SF. <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2015/06/putting-sf-in-sf-review-of-foundation.html" target="_blank">Asimov</a> aside, I place full blame on <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2015/08/perspective-review-of-moon-is-harsh.html" target="_blank">Heinlein</a>. I just do not like that guy, hence the complete ignorance of decades of worthwhile books, and acknowledgements for amazing writers. I bow my head not only in shame but in attempt to unclog the food processor that is bravely attempting to whirl cream cheese together with cheddar. A Christmas miracle is happening folks.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy1P_6aIo8DhyphenhyphenpqPXMSYcBgKPgwSVFcwNTDHcCYc5AaQJEDzgooC2MEUg3ErtzmFY3u6tgZI4oZtb4GGWmbzPiAF4rlp-Csf0dxG2q8ocZ4x3NI8OIgm2-JKL9vI5N8f5ZOk9tCP3cW3Y1/s1600/download.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy1P_6aIo8DhyphenhyphenpqPXMSYcBgKPgwSVFcwNTDHcCYc5AaQJEDzgooC2MEUg3ErtzmFY3u6tgZI4oZtb4GGWmbzPiAF4rlp-Csf0dxG2q8ocZ4x3NI8OIgm2-JKL9vI5N8f5ZOk9tCP3cW3Y1/s400/download.jpeg" width="238" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Legion_(short_story_collection)" target="_blank">My Name is Legion</a> may have the best cover of any science fiction book in the history of science fiction. Behold the 1970s conception of robotic, SF horror! Unashamed to admit that this book came home because of this robot (for goodness sakes, look at it!), I happily discovered the three novellas within highly entertaining. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Eerily, the stories foreshadow the creation of a computer network designed to unify the global economy by tracking every aspect of a person's life. Questioning the loss of privacy, our protagonist has the opportunity to destroy his data card, placing him off-grid. Nameless, and untraceable our hero trains himself as an agent-for-hire, willing to commit unspeakable acts, all in the guise of rectitude. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As the stories wind in upon themselves, the reader begins to question the protagonist's role. Who is working for the betterment of society? The perception of Big Brother, is murky and surprisingly modern in the way Zelazny approaches this quandary. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ending my reading year off with a vintage nightcap, I look to the unexplored possibilities of 2017. May our near future be a creation of our own making, bursting with joy and kindness.</span></div>
Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-63558305683916617902016-12-15T16:30:00.001-05:002016-12-15T16:32:35.198-05:00This Girl's Wish List - 2016<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The self-inflicted multi-layered assemble I donned on the school outdoor field trip yesterday had little effect on combatting an encroaching sinus infection. E</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">very Canadian knows if the sun shines brilliantly on a December day, it be cold outside. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Winter's harsh beauty has materialized in southern Ontario, leaving many scrambling for adequate toques, parkas and excuses to stay home. My entire life has been snow-themed, be it Nova Scotian towering heaps of shovelled snow, -40 Yukon nights lit up by the northern lights, to prairie blizzards that tried to steal not only your breath but your soul. There is little I find not thrilling about this time of year especially with December representing winter's golden moment. The month is a little ball of cold happiness amongst the long stretch of frozen roads, future potholes and a deep longing for the green of regrowth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nestled within my little snow globe of happiness are my books. <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2014/12/all-you-want-for-christmas-jo-walton.html" target="_blank">Past years</a> have hallmarked some <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2014/01/sunny-yellow-bookcase-review-of-among.html" target="_blank">incredible novels,</a> all arriving under the tree, thanks to Santa. And as I look out onto a city buzzing with Thursday activity, immune to the frigid snap in the breeze, I wonder what little gems will be wrapped up this year. 2016 will not be recorded in the annals of this girl's reading history as wondrous. The passing of my dear Dad left me quite beyond the ability to concentrate. Thankfully <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2016/08/to-each-our-mysterious-own-review-of.html" target="_blank">the whodunnits</a> saw me through, bringing glimpse of joy during great moments of sadness. Laughing as my husband and I try to unsuccessfully straighten our Christmas tree, I take heart knowing I am doing exactly what Dad hoped, being me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course, to be me, a list is in order. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg40ySKVYLX17hZog5UZ34c3YZ4bYQIPhrZ-j_DklQyWjkkjioEbVJD2mouKvO5bpgArSFDMWMWCLjU5A5gq8K872RceTGRZePSK0BtIRYH-S0IFD1k5Vgm-iXdyYBjyBwIovTP0QcWF6Jw/s1600/download+%25284%2529.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg40ySKVYLX17hZog5UZ34c3YZ4bYQIPhrZ-j_DklQyWjkkjioEbVJD2mouKvO5bpgArSFDMWMWCLjU5A5gq8K872RceTGRZePSK0BtIRYH-S0IFD1k5Vgm-iXdyYBjyBwIovTP0QcWF6Jw/s200/download+%25284%2529.jpeg" width="129" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Unwilling to scourge the internet for 'best of' recommendations that inevitability reflect commercial sales I went to the Mothership, Megan at <a href="https://couchtomoon.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">From Couch to Moon</a>. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My source for all things SF worthy, I take note, when this lady likes a book, going as far as sourcing most of my 2015's </span><a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2015/12/this-girls-wish-list-2015.html" style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">This Girl's Reading Wish List</a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> from her blog. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Megan is the SF boss lady we all need in our lives, thus I humbly link you to her post, <a href="https://couchtomoon.wordpress.com/2016/12/14/the-best-sf-i-read-this-year/" target="_blank">The Best SF I Read This Year</a>. This is the sweet nectar of heaven, a gift of gifts, which frankly has left me gleeful with reading anticipation. What with <a href="https://couchtomoon.wordpress.com/2016/12/14/the-best-sf-i-read-this-year/comment-page-1/#comment-9484" target="_blank">this</a> list, and <a href="http://www.tor.com/2016/12/08/book-reviews-babylons-ashes-by-james-s-a-corey/" target="_blank">Babylon's Ashes</a>, James S. A. Corey's new installment to <a href="http://girlsguidetoscifi.blogspot.ca/2015/12/this-girls-read-of-2015-nemesis-games.html" target="_blank">The Expanse </a>series, reading life is looking snowstorm rosy.</span></div>
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Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-13122139785939454092016-12-10T09:39:00.004-05:002016-12-10T09:47:51.811-05:00The Novel to Gift: A Review of The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The after-school playground hour is one of mindless observations intermixed with moments of delightful correspondence. While many a conversation trips over the trappings of parenthood some wind down the science fiction path to life. Although the majority of my friends have little proclivity to explore the genre, there are a few like-minded space odyssey aficionados at my kid's school. Okay, there are two.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Recent months, an updated version of the chain mail has been circulating through social media: send a book to a stranger, in return receive a plethora of new titles in the mail. Smitten, my SF friend (one of the two) was discussing the merits of joining, questioning what book to gift. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Intrigued, speculations rose: a novel could not be too popular, nor too polarizing, somewhat enlightening, and most definitely captivating. Making my way home, my wee one in tow, my head swam with book gifting possibilities.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A book snob who rarely branches beyond my personal havens of science fiction, and mysteries, the probability of me participating in a book exchange is zero. Further hindering the issue is my two year library-only policy that has curbed all notions of ownership. While I would love to read 50 new titles, the thrill of them arriving by mail is slightly daunting. Simply unable to release reading control to a group of strangers, I began to formulate a list of books that any SF geek would be jubilant in receiving, whittling down the list to one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.tor.com/2009/06/08/the-poetry-of-anthropology-ursula-le-guins-the-left-hand-of-darkness/" target="_blank">Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness</a> is acclaimed as one of the best science fiction novels written, and while it may seem slightly antiquated under the microscope of 2016 with its androgynous, feminist perspective, in 1970 it was a landmark release. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Genly Ai, an envoy of Ekumen, a loose confederacy of planets has been sent to Gethem (Winter) to negotiate a peaceful allegiance. Accustomed to the utopian 'Gene Roddenbary' vision of planet federations, Winter's fractioned nations with varying degrees of governmental representations, surprisingly feels modern in its accurateness. Seeped in ethnocentricity's, the social consciences is brutally unaware of their small role in the universe. Genly Ai struggles to lobby his way to a seemingly random King's ear to discover after a year of hardship that not only is his mission but his life is in jeopardy. A</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> fugitive, lost on a planet whose entire cultural identity opposes his very sense of self, Genly Ai must negotiate his way through a myriad of physical and social adversities, relying upon someone he most certainly should not trust. </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Left Hand of Darkness is an extraneous reading experience. Woven from two opposing perspectives, the reader's complete emersion is necessary. Thankfully, Ursula K. Le Guin is one of a few writers whose creative control concurrently questions social norms while offering an engaging page turner. This is a dense book, deep with layered world-building, taking on a legendary status within the science fiction literary world. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jan/03/sciencefictionfantasyandhorror.ursulakleguin" target="_blank">The Left Hand of Darkness </a> is science fiction at it's very best. </span></div>
Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-80686011411876983462016-11-08T11:16:00.002-05:002016-11-09T20:19:31.731-05:00Friends: A Review of All The Birds In The Sky, Charlie Jane Anders<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Operatic singing meanders down the staircase from my child's room as he negotiates his world through lego, all while the hubby smugly slumbers. As the house dances with the rhythms of Tuesday morning, my thoughts slip to friendship. My particular slant to friend bonding is a response to the giggles; if you can follow my joke, and even better, best it, I am yours. While I accumulate new peeps, and meander out of the lives of others, only a few have ever been like-minded readers. Not that someone I adore must shine their geek light as brightly as I, but it is rather odd that my overarching passion for SF books has always been a solo pursuit. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Always is so defiant in it's absoluteness that as I finish <a href="http://www.tor.com/2015/07/21/excerpt-all-the-birds-in-the-sky-charlie-jane-anders-chapter-1/" target="_blank">All The Birds In The Sky</a> by<a href="http://allthebirdsinthesky.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"> Charlie Jane Anders</a>, I realize that my proclivity to fantastical tales is thanks in large part to a teacher friend. The life of an ELS instructor is an odd bag of crazy; the love affair with the place fluctuates from intensely hateful to achingly glorious. Self-perceived as the outsider, colleagues become fast friends, even family within weeks of meeting. Hence my clandestine friendship with a punk-ass girl from Portland, who brought the fun to a small, Japanese rice-village but a wide appreciation for American surrealistic lit. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Remarkably there was a time that I had not read Katherine Dunn's <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/03/geek-love/" target="_blank">Geek Love</a>, John Kennedy Toole's posthumous delight, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-a-confederacy-of-dunces-by-john-kennedy-toole-7600573.html" target="_blank"> A Confederacy of Dunces</a>, or the poetic compactness of<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Nordan" target="_blank"> Lewis Nordan's, Lightening Song.</a> Transecting my life for less than a year, this friend directed me down a path of reading that honed my appreciation of novels like All The Birds In The Sky.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Informed she is a witch at a young age, Patricia progresses through the humiliations of teenage-hood despairing in her inability to unlock her full potential. Was that night she was lost in the woods talking to the birds real, or was it her imagination trying to escape her tragic childhood? Lawrence in the meantime lives a life of constant degradation, the classic nerd, he is bullied relentlessly, eventually creating a portable time machine that pushes him into the future by 2 seconds. The small victory of avoiding the moment the egg was too spatter provides his only respite. Reluctant friends, Patricia and Lawrence move through their high school days trying to salvage some dignity from the vitriol that is slung their way. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The harbinger of the apocalypse, All The Birds In The Sky masquerades as a coming of age story. Patricia and Lawrence shall bring forth the end of days and so they most die. Charlie Jane Anders has the talented ability to weave words into a tapestry of images. This novel ensnarled me, reluctantly unfolding, inspiring my imagination, even questioning my perceptions, all the while firmly entertaining me. It should be rightly shelved with all the fantastically mundane American lit that I have come to love. There is something quite satisfying reading a novel that puts the reader slightly on edge, slightly unhinged as the story begins to reveal itself. <a href="http://www.sfreviews.net/cjanders_all_the_birds.html" target="_blank">All The Birds In The Sky</a> dystopian message is akin to <a href="https://goo.gl/yUYYfB" target="_blank">Margaret Atwood's</a> deeply disturbing <a href="https://goo.gl/UDq99I" target="_blank">MaddAddam</a> trilogy, simply offered in a softer package.</span></div>
Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-815850495244829551.post-55784149448749327772016-10-23T10:33:00.002-04:002016-10-23T11:17:32.501-04:00Return to Magic: A Review of Harry Potter and The Cursed Child<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjseAGyFTadMjhia-jcG7w2G1hwyqRJI1BjoiRXsF5jRic08dAV89u52fh9-KvZlcsKSZczoYuicCKeUJC1OBWgk4Jj6TleoO9gGgbdo_weznMp24Yx9tCrLBREMg5y9N9oadftr20P2fpo/s1600/download.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjseAGyFTadMjhia-jcG7w2G1hwyqRJI1BjoiRXsF5jRic08dAV89u52fh9-KvZlcsKSZczoYuicCKeUJC1OBWgk4Jj6TleoO9gGgbdo_weznMp24Yx9tCrLBREMg5y9N9oadftr20P2fpo/s400/download.jpeg" width="265" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The house is quiet. The son and hubby have vacated to hockey school, leaving me with a 20 pound turkey in the oven, a cup of honey-sweetened coffee and level of contentment only comprehended by a parent who is home alone. The 20 pound bird have you frozen in thought, late for Canadian, too early for American Thanksgiving? There is little point of having turkey without the leftovers, thus the roasting of the bird while I sit in my writing chair, looking out onto a perfect fallish day, feeling less saddened.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As I move along the mourning path, I realize my journey is a transformation. While the essence of me remains, my life will forever progress without the consistency that was my father. Somewhat adrift, the childhood shores of my past are no longer an isthmus of my present but an island of happiness. As friends who have wandered this winding track have forewarned me, you never really heal but life propels you down new avenues, leading to new joys. This past week I actively sought out the sun, revelling in my family moments, enjoying the hilarity that is us three. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This girl's happiness stems around a few core items; park benches, leaves on trees, a funny hubby and books. Cramming my loaned copy of <a href="https://www.harrypottertheplay.com/" target="_blank">Harry Potter and the Cursed Child </a>into my purse on Friday was the clearest indicator that my world was returning to it's normal levels of weirdness. What grown woman actively arranges her day around a hard cover book? </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While I may have the glorious bragging rights of being a representative of the generation of kids that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_Things_(TV_series)" target="_blank">Strange Things</a> actively attempts to capture through film, my Harry Potter fandom is through the guise of adulthood. Early in my 30s, entrenched in my oversees teaching adventures, I consumed the first three of the series while navigating the windy streets of Istanbul. My copies over the years have slowly</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> been replaced to a lovely bound set that now sits on the bookshelf, waiting for that moment when the little boy in this house begins his magical adventure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/08/harry-potter-cursed-child-conversation/" target="_blank">Harry Potter and the Cursed Child</a> is a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/jun/11/jack-thorne-trusted-jk-rowling-theatre-scriptwriter-harry-potter-play" target="_blank">Jack Thorne</a> screenplay; as such, it is slightly removed from the core 7, all the while maintaining the essence of J.K. Rowling's incredible vision. Clearly blessed by the author, the story advances the lives of the heroes into adulthood and all it's trepidatious meanderings that comes with parenthood. We are introduced to Albus Severus Potter, middle child of Harry and Ginny, troubled tween, reluctant to navigate the future that seems so clearly laid out for him, who finds solace with his only friend. Their adventures takes us down the winding, dark paths that we come to expect with the Harry Potter universe. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYoUkmYXJqASZO5Ov5E8CmZsICZqgq6dIX-rrajJrbrabRNfr9FZQCD_h852o2CQfNONDfFx2pAQaUvLs4E0eviWdv3x0HhVpJXjWAMSIPZkM9Ihi3SOje9okStZEDnVZXblHcCAZP4dva/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYoUkmYXJqASZO5Ov5E8CmZsICZqgq6dIX-rrajJrbrabRNfr9FZQCD_h852o2CQfNONDfFx2pAQaUvLs4E0eviWdv3x0HhVpJXjWAMSIPZkM9Ihi3SOje9okStZEDnVZXblHcCAZP4dva/s320/images.jpeg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Because Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a script, I was torn as a reader, spending half my time envisioning the play, the other living in a illusionary world. I was not able to rectify the story as a play, wanting Rowling's jovial, abundant words to expand the dialogue into a techno-coloured extravaganza of imagery. Even though my wants were purely a reflection of a reader's desire to sink into a good book, the script still easily sucked me down into <a href="https://www.pottermore.com/explore-the-story/harry-potter" target="_blank">Pottermore</a>. I am fan, and thus the target buyer for this play bound book hence leaving me with a slight tinge of regret. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As a play, Harry Potter and Cursed Child is alive. An offering of delights for the theatre, somewhat childish and predictable but still a must to see. Having now read the script, I have burst that theatrical bubble. The play when it most certainly will sweep through North America will offer less a thrill for me, because I have unveiled it's plot secrets and secured my own perceptions on it's design. Sometimes, a play should just be a play, perfect in it's purpose, not masquerading as a book, unwilling to compromise, keeping the Potter fans queued outside the theatre, and not as it has happened, the bookstore. </span></div>
Girls Guide to SciFihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06194691875062761067noreply@blogger.com0