Graphic Novel Review: Library Wars Vol. 1 by Kiiro Yumi and Hiro Arikawa

Every time I attend a convention, I come back with a little something extra in my collections. For anime conventions, this usually means I leave with a lot of manga and candy. Such is the story of how I came into the possession of the first volume of Kiiro Yumi's Library Wars (thanks MegaCon!).  Unfortunately, the journey did not end with the desired result.  While the premise of Library Wars is an amusing one, the narrative and world lack any sense of continuity, leaving a story that feels both strained and nonsensical.  Library Wars is a prime example of what manga looks like when it goes horribly wrong.

Iku Kasahara is a soldier in training for the Library Forces who has always dreamed of becoming a member of the elite Library Defense Force.  In a world where the government actively seeks to

A Science Fiction Thesis Fragment: Some Tobias Buckell Love

I have been inspired by a friend to post something from my academic work in hopes that it will bore you to tears.  Then again, the fragment I plan to post is about science fiction; more particularly, it's about the work of Tobias Buckell, who I spent half of my thesis talking about.

Here you go:

The cultural and racial fragmentation of the postcolony perhaps highlights the liberative potential of outer space precisely because cultural ownership has been a particularly problematic notion in the postcolony—the European fragment, as I‘ve already pointed out, continuously attempts to (re)formulate itself as the center of knowledge, which makes attempts to separate oneself difficult in the geographically limited Earth.

In Ragamuffin, this is made possible by two spatial orientations: the first is the positing of Caribbean peoples as the last, real threat to the Satrapy, making them no longer the secondary figures they had been formerly in a world dominated by western politics. The second is in the flourishing of human ingenuity in Caribbean spaces, where they are able to not only break themselves from the hold of the Satrapy, but also from a wider postcolonial past. These ideas are interwoven throughout the novel, represented best by the character of Nashara. She is a prime example of human ingenuity at work, since her very biology has been rewritten as threat to the Satrapy and its allies. She has sacrificed her womb in order to become a digital bomb capable of self-replicating over the lamina (a kind of super information network that connects ships together). In so doing, she ceases to be fully human, quickly becoming a series of digital copies; but it also means that she is representative of what the opening of geographical space has achieved for her people (Buckell 105). They are no longer contained in small, resource dependent islands, but on worlds of their own. Chimson is one such world:

"We took Chimson from them with our bare hands,"Nashara said. "And even though they shut us away from the rest of humanity, it was still a glorious thing….You should see what ideas and people flourished as we all jammed together. It must have been like Earth before the pacification, with all those billions of minds so close together." (Buckell 30)

The Satrapy‘s pension for cutting off its problematic group subjects like diseased limbs, however, proves to be their undoing; it is only through containment that the people of Chimson are able to grow. This process also mirrors the isolationist—or, perhaps, isolation-izing—policies of the old history, which colonialists used not only to limit the potential for aggression and resistance against colonial power—through aggression, imprisonment, and even abandonment—but also to enact economic warfare against indigenous and even former colonial powers—primarily through capitalist exploitation models. It also signals a wider deprivationary political process through which prison camps, serfdom, deportation, and other legal frames are used to deny access to the opening offered by greater access to geographic space (Gottmann 117). But much as galactic empires and even spaceships are defamiliarized spaces or objects, the notion of containment on a planetary scale within Ragamuffin signals the (post)colonial past through radical expansion amidst radical reduction, defamiliarizing our perceptions of the past and present while at the same time embedding their symbols and signals within an imaginary landscape. Because ―access to physical space is at the foundation of all [regulation] of human behavior,‖ the containment of that space determines an individual‘s freedom (Gottmann 117). For postcolonial peoples, space is undeniably central to interaction: ―location is causally significant; it shapes our experiences and our ways of knowing‖ and ―limits the possibilities
available to us, since it helps frame our choices by organizing the habitual patterns through which we perceive ourselves and our world‖ (Mohanty 110). Buckell, however, presents a narrative which disentangles the problematics of ownership in a (post)colonialist world by changing the very dynamics under which such a system functions: the people of Chimson are not stripped of their land, but are instead subjugated or denied access to the enlarged (interstellar) colonial system (Satrapic space). The location, then, is one which has already begun severing the lines of an underlying colonialism which informs the social stratification of the novel.

Don't say I never gave you nothing.  Feel free to lambaste me with your criticisms in the comments.

P.S.:  My thesis has been accepted and I should have one of those MA degrees shortly.  I am quite excited to mount that sucker on my wall, after which I will bother you with pictures of my degrees.  Why?  Because I'm egotistical like that.  Deal with it.

Budgetary Woes: The Crazy World of Grad School and My Stupid Ideas

(This post is a temporary aside.  Don't worry.  You'll have science fiction and fantasy nonsense again soon.  I promise.  Three manga reviews are coming up, plus my thoughts on the first three episodes of A Game of Thrones from HBO will hit the waves next week.  For now, enjoy this random nonsense about my life.)

I am an occasional idiot, depending on who you ask (some might say I'm a frequent idiot, but that's really not relevant to this post).  Graduate school has taught me a number of rather amusing things:  the value of green tea, good conversation, and budgeting.  It's the last of these that has me rather perplexed this summer, since I, in fact, did a piss poor job of budgeting, leaving me in a rather compromised position for July.  The issue isn't that I won't have enough money, just that I won't have it in time.  It's a fun predicament.  I'd love to tell you all about how we grad students don't get paid much, but you already know that, either because you are a grad student, you've been one, or you have friends who are or have been.

But I don't want to get into that.  The purpose of this post is to lambaste you all with my ridiculous get-rich-quick schemes, after which you are free to say "yeah, that's dumb" and "don't do it."

The ideas are as follows (after the fold):

The Skiffy and Fanty Show #3.4 is Live! (Brain Batteries and Star Wars Sexism)

A new episode with an amusing topic:  brain batteries, FBI blunders, and the oddness of the representations of women in the Star Wars universe.  We share a few laughs, shed a few tears, and generally have a good time.

Feel free to check out the episode!

Also:  help us pick the next Torture Cinema movie; if you haven't voted already, please do so here.  You'll be torturing us for your own amusement.  We promise!

Mr. Library: What Have You Got Checked Out?

We all know that libraries are under attack these days, and I intend to do my part to show their importance by checking out books (because I have some delusion that using the library is somehow recorded and then sent to evil government people who are forced to reconsider cutting library funds because people actually use the library).

Here's what I currently have checked out:

1.  Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (DVD)
2. Ghostbusters (DVD)(it was awesome)
3. Once Upon a Time in the West (DVD)
4. Mythologies by Roland Barthes
5. Globalization and Utopia:  Critical Essays edited by Patrick Hayden and Chamsy el-Ojeili
6. The Search For Philip K. Dick by Anne R. Dick
7. A Companion to The Crying of Lot 49 by J. Kerry Grant
8. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
9. Alone Against Tomorrow:  Stories of Alienation and Speculative Fiction by Harlan Ellison
10. American War Poetry:  An Anthology edited by Lorrie Goldensohn
11. Carrying the Darkness:  the Poetry of the Vietnam War edited by W. D. Ehrhart
12. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
13. Postmodern American Poetry:  a Norton Anthology edited by Paul Hoover
14. The Postmoderns:  the New American Poetry Revised edited by Donald Allen
15. The Sunset Limited:  a Novel in Dramatic Form by Cormac McCarthy
16. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
17. A History of Literary Criticism:  from Plato to the Present by M. A. R. Habib
18. Nanyo-Orientalism:  Japanese Representations of the Pacific by Naoto Sudo
19. Teaching Literature by Elaine Showalter

That's one hell of a list, don't you think?  I had others checked out a few weeks ago, but decided to return them.  I'm hoping to work through most of these this month.  You won't hear anything about them, though, since most of them aren't of interest to you all (postmodern poetry is hardly SF/F).

In the interest of prying into your lives, though, I want to know what books you currently have checked out from the library.  Family's count (I'm looking at you, Jen)!

Adam's First Pro-Sale -- "Resolution" -- Congrats, Buddy!

In the interest in plugging things for friends, I would like to point you all to my friend Adam's first ever pro publication over at AE!  The story is called "Resolution," the publication of which Adam has to thank me, since I critiqued the hell out of it.  Or maybe I'm exaggerating my involvement...

In any case, check out the story and let Adam know what you think on his blog!

Congrats, man!

Genre Walking: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Walkers and Joggers Club!

Genre Walking started on Twitter with Jason Sanford and Fabio Fernandes.  One of them responded to a tweet I put up about the amount of walking I've done since keeping track on April 8th; moments later, we had an idea:  let's create a little group of SF/F folks who are walking, jogging, or running and track how many miles we're doing.  Think of it like those "green on campus" movements where faculty and students try to carpool, use the bus, and walk instead of driving by themselves.

The cool thing about Genre Walking, though, is that anyone can join.  And it's easy.  All you have to do is say "I'm in" on this blog, on my Twitter account, or with the #genrewalking hashtag on Twitter.  Then:  record your miles!  And how do you do that?  On our handy dandy Genre Walking entry form!  It's that simple.

If you want to see how everyone is doing, you can go here.  I'll add names to the side list as they become available.

Now get your butt out the door and start walking!

Video Found: Another Earth (Trailer)

2011 is shaping up to be a very interesting year for science fiction dramas.  I'm liking it.  Epic scifi is great, but sometimes it's just as good to sit down with a film that makes you think.  Hopefully Another Earth will be one of those films.

Here's the trailer (after the fold):

Guest Post and Giveaway: "The Cost of Magic Systems" by Christopher Hoare

(Giveaway info will be at the very end of this post.)

I’d like to discuss some aspects of magic in fantasy novels, specifically how the magic in my novel Rast both differs from and coincides with that used as a plot device in other novels.

First, in my novel, magic is described as a power active in a particular place; the magic kingdom of Rast, ruled by a Drogar, the sorcerer king. But later developments reveal that there is also another realm where magic is mastered, Easderly, where cousins of the sorcerer king reside, and from where a daughter has to be sent to be mother of a future sorcerer king. This is similar to the treatment in other works as well as folklore, where special places exist where magic happens – in Fairie or Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter. In fact, the latter work has a fairy princess necessary to bear a future magic king – clearly testimony to the power of magic’s distant influences, because I’d never heard of that novel before researching for this blog post.

In this discussion I will assume (drearily lacking any sense of wonder) that in both the reader and

Promo Bits: Soft Apocalypse by Will McIntosh

I figured this would be of interest to you guys:

Soft Apocalypse is the extraordinary debut novel by Will McIntosh. It follows the journey of a tribe of formerly middle class Americans as they struggle to find a place for themselves and their children in a new, dangerous world. A world that still carries the ghostly echoes of their previous lives.

What happens when resources become scarce and society starts to crumble? As the competition for resources pulls America's previously stable society apart, the "New Normal" is a Soft Apocalypse. This is how our world ends; with a whimper instead of a bang.

Soft Apocalypse is a must read and available now! For a sneak peak at the first two chapters, click here.

Here's the cover image (after the fold):

The Forgotten Pilot: My Foray Into Scriptwriting For Animated Shorts

Last night I posted something unusual on my Twitter account:  the script for a pilot episode of an animated miniseries I wanted to do with some friends way back when I was still trying to write comics.  The show was called "Cheese and Crackers" and featured exaggerated versions of myself and people I knew (mainly my friends).  It was also a geeky show, with copious references to geek culture, from video games to science fiction movies.  At least, that was the intention, since I only wrote one episode:  "A Long Time Ago."

And guess what?  I'm putting it up on my blog for everyone to read.  If you'd like to see what kind of weirdness I was writing before this blog ever appeared in your Google searches, then all you have to do is click here.  That will take you to the Google Doc with the script.

Now lay it on me:  what do you think?

The Skiffy and Fanty Show #3.3 is Live! (Torture Cinema Meets Alone in the Dark)

It's time for another review of a truly awful movie.  We're moving things around right now because we're trying to fit in some interviews, which may or may not work in our favor.  Don't expect Torture Cinema editions to come so close to each other again, though.

If the title doesn't give it away, though, the latest episode is on Alone in the Dark, which may be one of Uwe Boll's best films (whatever that means).  Feel free to tune in and let us know what you think!

Syllabus Woes: That American Lit Class I'm Teaching

If you don't follow me on Twitter, then you don't know that I've been putting together a syllabus for a Survey in American Literature course for Summer B (the second 6-week chunk of the University of Florida's summer "semester").  Picking texts has been difficult because the course is so short; showing students some of the movements, forms, and styles of American literature without overloading the course with too much reading is a daunting task.  The sad truth is that many books in the last thirty years that I would love to teach are simply too long to justify teaching them in a 6-week course.

So far, I'm semi-firm on the following works:

Good vs. Evil and the Simple World That Never Was

(Or the Problem of Absolutes in Fantasy Literature)

Good vs. evil.  It forms the basis of our religions and fills the narratives of our stories, myths, legends, and day-to-day conversations.  But the more I look at the world, the more I get the sense that such a simple dichotomy never existed.  Nothing is ever so simple as "good vs. evil."  There are always tugs and pulls from other parties, some of which are so torn between the good and evil spectrums that they seem to reflect a strange and un-containable neutralism.

Some people, however, aren't interested in those tugs and pulls.  They want to see the world in

The Reviewer Matters: On the NYT Review of "A Game of Thrones"

If you haven't seen the blogosphere throwing a fit yet about this New York Times review of the TV adaptation of "A Game of Thrones," then prepare yourself.  It was bound to happen that some hack of that lovely "literary" culture would come along to talk about something they barely understand:  this time A Game of Thrones and fantasy in general.  Some choice quotes, though, are:

The bigger question, though, is: What is “Game of Thrones” doing on HBO? The series claims as one of its executive producers the screenwriter and best-selling author David Benioff, whose excellent script for Spike Lee’s post-9/11 meditation, “25th Hour,” did not suggest a writer with Middle Earth proclivities. Five years ago, however, Mr. Benioff began reading George R. R. Martin’s series of books, “A Song of Ice and Fire,” fell in love and sought to adapt “Game of Thrones,” one of the installments.

(Because we all know that no non-genre writer could possibly fall in love with a genre property and suddenly want to be involved in genre things, right?)

And:

A Disturbing Vision of Womanhood

Teaching is a strange thing.  

Last semester, I taught a small unit on the women's rights movement, during the course of which I discovered some rather strange and/or disturbing things about how young people (in Florida, I should add) view women's rights and women in general.  Most views are understandable:  they don't quite understand what the feminist writers I present them with are complaining about; after all, they live in a world that doesn't feel like the places Dale Spender and others were talking about, even though, as I try to point out to them, things aren't as good as they want to think they are (women still get paid less than men and high-power positions are still dominated by men even though it appears that more women are attending college).  But it's crucial to explain to these students that things are not as they should be -- that equality does not yet exist.  Most of them are simply ignorant, as we all are at 17 or 18 years old.  They just don't know what the real world is like in the United States, and you can't blame them for not understanding Dale Spender's irritation or why feminists (those evil, dirty feminists) are still fighting for things like pay, rights, and so on.

But then there are those with views that make me wonder about the world in which we are raising

An Amazing(ly Poignant) Gift

One of my friends from England recently tried to send me a present thinking it was my birthday (this was a month or so back).  It obviously hasn't been my birthday since October, but I'll never say no to presents.  There were some concerns over the chocolate in the package, as they are banned by some arcane U.S. law because the little toys inside cause babies to choke when their lazy ass parents don't monitor what their kids are munching on....

Anyway.  We had about given up on the gift ever arriving, but then I checked my mail today and discovered this (after the fold):

Dark Jenny Giveaway Winner

The winner is...drum roll please!

Carraka

Congrats, Carr!  You'll receive a PM from me shortly!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go do this thing they call "homework."

Video Found: Little Girl Joins the Dark Side

I don't have kids, but I can tell you this:  if the child in the below video were mine, I would be so proud of her!



Absolutely adorable, don't you think?

The Skiffy and Fanty Show #3.2 is Live! (The Newsies, Atlantis, and Gender Problems)

It's out and it's semi-intense.  This week we talk about upcoming movies, some stupid things being done to libraries, stupid male gamers, and some gender issues in the SF/F reviewing community.

Feel free to check out the episode and let us know what you think.  The question of the week will be up on Friday!

Video Found: The Aurors (Harry Potter)

Sometimes I think people who post independent productions online, even if they are fake (like the video below), should be running Hollywood.  I mean, who wouldn't want to see a T.V. show based on the Harry Potter universe!  I sure as hell would want to see The Aurors made real.  Wouldn't you?

Here's the video (after the fold):

What did I tell you? Awesome, right?

Video Found: A Video Game Quintet (Stop Playing Homework and Do Your Video Games)

It has a monster of a title, but it's so geeky and wonderful you have to watch it.  I love it when classical instrumentalists do their own renditions of video games.  It shows immense respect for the source material (the music and the games) and it's just plain old fun.

Here's the video (after the fold; pay attention to the middle bit -- very clever):

Poll Results (and My Thoughts): Do you think the $0.99 ebook will hurt authors?

Another poll down with some very interesting results. Here's what you all had to say:

• 50% of you said they will hurt authors.
• 0% of you said maybe.
• 50% of you said no.

That's a very interesting divide.  People are very sure of themselves.

I'm one of those sure people.  I think the $0.99 ebook will hurt authors, but not because it will hurt publishers.  My problem with the $0.99 ebook is that it limits the ability for authors to make a living off their work and further erodes the potential for midlist authors (however you want to define that category in this new digital age) to fit within that "living writers" group.  Midlist authors have been well served by digital publishing, particularly as it pertains to self-publishing.  Being able to make 70% on a $2.99 book means they make a lot more money than they would with some traditional publishers provided they maintain that "midlist" status.  That's a good thing.  Let the big fellas handle the bestselling authors and let the smaller guys take their work to the digital stream to make a living too.

Maybe the $0.99 ebook will prove beneficial for midlist authors.  I certainly hope so.  Their numbers might go up, they might end up making more money in the long run, and so on.  But if not, what we'll end up with is a new price-point that consumers will demand.  There's nothing wrong with a demand, but part of the reason for keeping ebooks reasonably priced (in both directions) is to set a standard for consumers that is good for everyone else too.  I don't much care for the agency model in terms of its implementation, but it does give publishers more control over their properties.  Amazon's ebook model gives many writers more control over theirs (sort of).  All these models are useful, and need to be played with, manipulated, changed, and so on until we come up with something that is good for everyone.  I don't think the $0.99 ebook is necessarily a good thing for everyone.  It's good for a few, sure.  Amanda Hocking and others are bringing in huge sales and money from using that model.  But they are a minority that will always exist.  The rest will have to contend with increasing their sales by quite a bit to reach the same monetary level as before.

But, again, I could be very wrong.  I hope I'm wrong.  $0.99 ebooks are far more likely to sell than $7 ones.  Let's hope what is happening right now turns out for the best.

What are your extended thoughts on this issue?

Book Review: The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

Readers will remember Kate DiCamillo as the author of the adorable Tale of Despereaux, which was turned into a computer animated film in 2008 (which I had the pleasure of seeing and enjoying).  The Magician's Elephant is a less expansive narrative, but one which attempts to reach into the heart of the human condition through the figure of the child.  It is a story which looks at the moral complications of lies, the power of loyalty, and the desire and safety found in the family unit (even if that unit is broken).

The Magician's Elephant is about Peter Augustus Duchene, a young boy who has lost his entire family and who has been adopted by an ill and disgruntled soldier (Vilna Lutz) who wants Peter to grow up to be just like him.  But when Peter spends Vilna's grocery money on a fortuneteller, he

Video Found: Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (Trailer)

It's been a while since I have been excited about a kung fu movie, but this one looks pretty damn awesome.  Detective Dee has great style, can be described vaguely as Chinese steampunk, and takes itself seriously enough to contain some good acting.  What more could you ask for?

See the trailer for yourself (after the fold):

Giveaway: Dark Jenny by Alex Bledsoe

Apparently I have an extra copy of Dark Jenny to hand off to one lucky reader.  This is good news for one of you.  The ways to enter are at the bottom of this post (and they're really easy ways).

First things first, about the book:

Alex Bledsoe’s novels featuring detective Eddie LaCrosse have drawn rave reviews for their ingenious blend of classic fantasy and hard-boiled detective fiction. Now with Dark Jenny, Bledsoe returns with an all-new tale of intrigue and murder. . . .

For twenty-five gold pieces a day, plus expenses, Eddie LaCrosse will take on most any case. But the unexpected delivery of a coffin in the dead of winter forces LaCrosse to look back at a bygone chapter in his past—and the premeditated murder of a dream.

Ruled by the noble King Marcus Drake, the island kingdom of Grand Braun is an oasis of peace and justice in an imperfect world. At least until the beautiful Queen Jennifer is accused of adultery and murder. In the wrong castle at the wrong time, Eddie finds himself drafted at sword’s point to solve the mystery. With time running out, and powerful nobles all too eager to pin the murder on Eddie himself, he must untangle a tangled web of palace intrigues, buried secrets, and bewitching women—before the entire kingdom erupts into civil war.

Murder, mystery, and magic—just another day on the job for Eddie LaCrosse.

I reviewed the book here.

Now for the ways you can enter:

Can Science Fiction Survive the Future?

I've been thinking a lot about this question lately.  It has nothing to do with the publishing industry, sales, or anything like that (at least, not directly).  What I'm really curious about is the ability for science fiction to be science fiction as time progresses:  will we always have science fiction, or will it die because the genre ceases to have a setting which sets it apart from the present enough to make it recognizable as a distinct genre?  Since I don't consider alternate history to be science fiction (it fits in its own genre, in my mind), there is a very real possibility that our future will make setting SF in a radically different environment (a defamiliarized zone, to link this whole discussion to Fredric Jameson) near impossible.

Or will it?  Would we still consider books about alien encounters science fiction even if the means to travel between worlds becomes relatively simple?  Or would such stories become fantasies?

When I first began thinking about this question, it occurred to me that many of the definitions we use to describe SF, even in a fairly general sense -- such as Darko Suvin's "cognitive estrangement" or Fredric Jameson's own manipulation of that concept -- become obsolete as the present encroaches on the allegorical past/present/future commonly associated with SF.  How can something be SF if it represents our immediate reality?  That, to me, seems more like mimetic/realistic fiction than anything else.  How do we define a genre like "SF" when it is indistinguishable from realistic fiction?

These are the kinds of questions I'm curious about.  Maybe you all will join in and give me your thoughts.  Comment away.