You know what fascinates me? Sex, gender roles and relationships. The way things like sexual fantasies my reflect or feed into ideas about gender roles and vice versa. I've been thinking about it lately thanks to things like the recent debacle over women ruining scifi , a recent post about small trends in romance novels , discussions about the relationships in Twilight , yaoi, and more. ...

Robert Holdstock

Liz Hand posted notice at Inferior4plus1 that Robert Holdstock has passed away due to an e-coli infection. http://community.livejournal.com/theinferior4/577490.html I greatly admired his novel The Hollowing . He was a terrific writer, and had a unique take on history and mythology in his fiction. I'd met him briefly a few times through the years. He seemed a nice person. I'm very...

Bad Sex in Fiction Awards

Thanks to lizhand and her recent post for this little gem. The bad sex factor: extracts from the prize shortlist Strictly for readers of a robust disposition, here are some of the passages highlighted for particular attention by the judges of the Literary Review's 2009 bad sex in fiction prize. Gravid tremulousness! Read! Read them all!

Indoors with Brian Aldiss

Check out this "little book of mini-sagas" from Brian Aldiss on his website:  http://bit.ly/44LUpF .  Aldiss recently published his long-awaited novel Walcot , which he mentions briefly toward the end of a long interview I did with him (and posted right here!) some years ago about his excellent and very dark dystopian novel, Harm .  I can't wait to read Walcot !  And one of these ...

Inhuman

   Go over to pgdf posting in theinferior4 and follow the links he gives to the amazing robots being built in Boston, which include a plan for a squishy robot -- soft-bodied and able to contract like a leech, but with legs like a millipede. No prototype on that one, but theo thers are up and (literally) running.  Very Uncanny Valley.  Comic, nightmarish, and wonderful all at ...

Poepoepoepoe

  Git on over to Liz Hand's post on The Inferior 4 community --   community.livejournal.com/theinferior4/    -- and read all about our Poe appearance at the Bowker Auditorium at the University of Massachusetts.  Here's more info:   www.masslive.com/hampfrank/republican/index.ssf  

Stone Cold Classic: Popeye “Sinbad The Sailor”

All of the original Ub Iwerks “Popeye” cartoons lapsed into Public Domain before the film industry stooges bribed Congress to extend copyright indefinitely. These cartoons were vastly superior to the later Popeye retreads, which are still under copyright. Paul Di Filippo reminded me that a lot of these are available on Youtube these days. And “Sinbad The Sailor” holds a special place in my ...

Woot!

Squeeee! Elizabeth Hand's working on a follow up to fantastic Generation Loss ! Here's a snippit from her recent post discussing her research into the book. Tales from Topographic Berserkers The things we do for Art: I've spent the last few weeks listening to an almost exclusively Norwegian Black Metal soundtrack, trying to educate myself to this intense and often intensely strange music,...

Delicious LiveJournal Links for 10-1-2009

No, I Will Not Molest Your Kids A reaction to the extreme care some people now take. (tags: children Child_abuse society ) Marmaduke meets Cthulhu! (tags: comics funny cthulhu ) An Artificial Heart That Doesn't Beat "You put this in cattle and they stand up and moo and eat and wonder why everyone is looking at them so weird," says William ...

ну что, не ждали?

Свинья и голубь. Басня. Благодаря любезному приглашению dimbl4 , оказались с barros ом на предпремьере Луны. Ну что, Шепард был прав . dkluger , ты будешь смеяться, но «Последний выход Шейлока» я передам urus_hay только сегодня. Двухлетний, что ли, склероз получается? Встречались тем временем, конечно, неоднократно, но то книжку забывал, то, даже взяв, ...