by Sara Crow
Literary Frontiers is a series in the blog
which gives us the chance to offer our perspective on both new and
established science fiction and speculative fiction books. The series
will publish around twice a month, or whenever one of us can finish and
post one of our most recent reading projects.
The selection this time is, appropriately for the Halloween, Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby. Not exactly sci-fi, but can certainly fit into the fantasy/speculative fiction arena, at least with a little wiggling. Horrific urban fantasy? Sure. Okay, so I bent the rules a little because of the season. So sue me.
The review follows after the jump. Just be careful what doors you open: you may not be able to close them again.
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Friday, October 21, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Wonder Woman's Origin: Here We Go Again!
by Sara Crow
According to a post on io9 last
week, DC
Comics will be giving Wonder Woman a father in their November issue, and he will be none
other than the head honcho of one of the most notoriously knotted family trees
in mythological history: Zeus.
Dun, dun, duuuuun... More after the break!
Dun, dun, duuuuun... More after the break!
Friday, September 30, 2011
Literary Frontiers: Oryx and Crake
by Sara Crow
(Find me on Goodreads!)
Literary Frontiers is a brand new series in the blog which gives us the chance to offer our perspective on both new and established science fiction and speculative fiction books. The series will publish around twice a month, or whenever one of us can finish and post one of our most recent reading projects.
The selection for our inaugural post is Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. I'll be making my way through Year of the Flood before the holiday season. Atwood is currently working on her final book in the series, which at this point will be entitled MaddAddam, and we'll be reviewing that title when it's released as well.
The review is available, just for you, after the jump (to Warp?)! Make it so!
(Find me on Goodreads!)
Literary Frontiers is a brand new series in the blog which gives us the chance to offer our perspective on both new and established science fiction and speculative fiction books. The series will publish around twice a month, or whenever one of us can finish and post one of our most recent reading projects.
The selection for our inaugural post is Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. I'll be making my way through Year of the Flood before the holiday season. Atwood is currently working on her final book in the series, which at this point will be entitled MaddAddam, and we'll be reviewing that title when it's released as well.
The review is available, just for you, after the jump (to Warp?)! Make it so!
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Isabel Samaras: The Geeky Glory of the Classic Form
by Sara Crow
While wandering through my favorite quirky odds and ends shop a couple years ago, I glanced at a shelf and had to do a double-take. At first, I thought I'd glimpsed an image of classic art--a renaissance painting whose title dangled on the edges of my memory. It was an image of a lone woman in an outdoor scene, holding a silver platter, a fire dancing on its surface. A goldfinch looks on from a nearby branch. I looked again. This wasn't just any woman--this was the Bride of Frankenstein! At that moment, I fell entirely in love with Isabel Samaras's work and have been crazy about it ever since.
While wandering through my favorite quirky odds and ends shop a couple years ago, I glanced at a shelf and had to do a double-take. At first, I thought I'd glimpsed an image of classic art--a renaissance painting whose title dangled on the edges of my memory. It was an image of a lone woman in an outdoor scene, holding a silver platter, a fire dancing on its surface. A goldfinch looks on from a nearby branch. I looked again. This wasn't just any woman--this was the Bride of Frankenstein! At that moment, I fell entirely in love with Isabel Samaras's work and have been crazy about it ever since.
 |
| This is what I'd seen. Song of the Goldfinch, by Isabel Samaras |
Warning: "Adult" images after the break. You've been warned. So no bitching if you see boobies, 'kay? We're all big kids here.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Be a Woman.
by Sara Crow
Be a Woman.
Oft I’ve heard a gentle mother,
As the twilight hours began,
Pleading with a son, of duty,
Urging him to be a man.
But unto her blue-eyed daughter,
Though with love’s words quite as ready,
Points she out this other duty,
“Strive, my dear, to be a lady.”
What’s a lady? Is it something
Made of hoops, and silks, and airs,
Used to decorate the parlor,
Like the fancy rugs and chairs?
Is it one who wastes on novels
Every feeling that is human?
If ‘tis this to be a lady,
‘Tis not this to be a woman.
Mother, then, unto your daughter,
Speak of something higher, far,
Than to be mere fashion’s lady –
“Woman” is the brighter star.
If ye, in your strong affection,
Urge your son to be a true man,
Urge your daughter no less strongly
To arise and be a woman.
Yes, a woman – brightest model
Of that high and perfect beauty,
Where the mind, and soul, and body,
Blend to work out life’s great duty –
Be a woman – nought is higher
On the gilded list of fame,
On the catalogue of virture,
There’s no brighter, holier name.
Be a woman – on to duty,
Raise the world from all that’s low,
Place high in the social heaven
Virtue’s fair and radiant bow.
Lend thy influence to each effort,
That shall raise our nature’s human.
Be not fashion’s gilded lady,
Be a brave – whole souled – true woman.
[ALPHEUS.
I found this poem while I was doing research for the section of my book that takes place in Topeka. While I was zipping through the microfiche of mid-19th-century newspapers at the Kansas Historical Society, I came across this awesome poem in the Quindaro Chindowan, No. 52, Saturday, June 12, 1858. Yes, 1858. Feminism didn't start in the 20th Century, darlings! ;)
 |
| Clarina Nichols, Associate Editor of the Quindaro Chindowan. |
Oft I’ve heard a gentle mother,
As the twilight hours began,
Pleading with a son, of duty,
Urging him to be a man.
But unto her blue-eyed daughter,
Though with love’s words quite as ready,
Points she out this other duty,
“Strive, my dear, to be a lady.”
What’s a lady? Is it something
Made of hoops, and silks, and airs,
Used to decorate the parlor,
Like the fancy rugs and chairs?
Is it one who wastes on novels
Every feeling that is human?
If ‘tis this to be a lady,
‘Tis not this to be a woman.
Mother, then, unto your daughter,
Speak of something higher, far,
Than to be mere fashion’s lady –
“Woman” is the brighter star.
If ye, in your strong affection,
Urge your son to be a true man,
Urge your daughter no less strongly
To arise and be a woman.
Yes, a woman – brightest model
Of that high and perfect beauty,
Where the mind, and soul, and body,
Blend to work out life’s great duty –
Be a woman – nought is higher
On the gilded list of fame,
On the catalogue of virture,
There’s no brighter, holier name.
Be a woman – on to duty,
Raise the world from all that’s low,
Place high in the social heaven
Virtue’s fair and radiant bow.
Lend thy influence to each effort,
That shall raise our nature’s human.
Be not fashion’s gilded lady,
Be a brave – whole souled – true woman.
[ALPHEUS.
Friday, March 11, 2011
An Auspicious (Monstrous) Anniversary
by Sara Crow
On this date in 1818, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley published her first edition of a novel that would rock the literary world to its core--a book about the monstrous, about being an alien in a human world, and about living a life beholden to an even more monstrous majority.
During the dark and cold summer of 1816, known throughout Europe as "The Year Without a Summer" due to the ash spewed across the globe from the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Tambora halfway across the planet in Indonesia, Shelley and friends were stuck inside at a summer home rented from friends. Shelley's dark tale was written as a part of a contest between herself, her husband, her sister, and their mutual friends, John Polidori (author of "The Vampyre," a concept he actually lifted from Byron's tale that night), and Lord Byron, in an attempt to help them all write through the chill and the rain and avoid their own boredom-induced madness.
Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus recounts the story of Doctor Victor Frankenstein, who discovers the spark of life and uses it to "give birth" to a new form of life with body parts filched from the freshly-dead. Chaos and moral ambiguity ensues.
And no, before you ask, Frankenstein is NOT the name of the monster. So stop calling the Monster Frankenstein, okay? Good. Moving on.
During the dark and cold summer of 1816, known throughout Europe as "The Year Without a Summer" due to the ash spewed across the globe from the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Tambora halfway across the planet in Indonesia, Shelley and friends were stuck inside at a summer home rented from friends. Shelley's dark tale was written as a part of a contest between herself, her husband, her sister, and their mutual friends, John Polidori (author of "The Vampyre," a concept he actually lifted from Byron's tale that night), and Lord Byron, in an attempt to help them all write through the chill and the rain and avoid their own boredom-induced madness.
Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus recounts the story of Doctor Victor Frankenstein, who discovers the spark of life and uses it to "give birth" to a new form of life with body parts filched from the freshly-dead. Chaos and moral ambiguity ensues.
And no, before you ask, Frankenstein is NOT the name of the monster. So stop calling the Monster Frankenstein, okay? Good. Moving on.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
"Born This Way" Offers Sci Fi Geek Gurrl Love to all Little Monsters
by Sara Crow
Lady Gaga has been my “Mommy Monster” since I first saw her video for “Bad Romance,” loaded with enough horror, feminist and silent film references to give a geek like me a complete nerdgasm. Her music has its own fun and strength on its own, but she’s constantly raised the bar with her music videos, usually revealing layers of meaning to her lyrics by the drama playing out in glorious, sublime imagery.
Imagine my delight when I came across Gaga’s newest video, which implants a healthy dose of science fiction on top of her already established cinematic alchemy of classic film and horror/gothic imagery, enlivening the very straightforward message of “Born This Way” with a commentary on the problematic qualities of any utopia, alluding to science fiction masters such as Philip K. Dick and Ursula LeGuin in content and imagery.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
The Alien's Corruption
By Sara Crow
Slightly Behind and to the Left by Claire Light
Slightly Behind and to the Left by Claire Light
Aqueduct Press, 2010
 | ||
| Claire Light, from her bio at the Aqueduct Press website |
Light’s prose throughout this book is infused with an aura of menace and loss. She isn’t afraid to throw her characters into torturous scenarios like a mad scientist trying to see what sort of atrocity will emerge from the next diabolical experiment. She illustrates the feminist struggle for equality as a common conflict across not only gender lines, but across alien worlds as well, creating characters that struggle for much more than survival—they struggle to remain human when endowed with responsibilities of power that give them the opportunity to become monstrous.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Dementia
by Sara
I think it best to start with a shameless plug for my favorite "geek poet." Published prolifically and nominated for the Pulitzer at least twice, Bryan D. Dietrich is a fantastic poet who happens to spend his time delving into the darkness by way of our American mythologies--comics, Lovecraft, and Universal Monsters being among his subject matter.This one is among my many favorites.
The poem, after the jump...
I think it best to start with a shameless plug for my favorite "geek poet." Published prolifically and nominated for the Pulitzer at least twice, Bryan D. Dietrich is a fantastic poet who happens to spend his time delving into the darkness by way of our American mythologies--comics, Lovecraft, and Universal Monsters being among his subject matter.This one is among my many favorites.
The poem, after the jump...
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