Well-Tempered Hyperbole

I know I've been going on a lot about Charles R. Saunders for an author whose books I still haven't read but. Here's a podcast about him! Wizards & Spaceships' "Charles R. Saunders ft. Jon Tattrie" talks about his life, his works, his mysterious death, and the politics that shaped his life, from the Black Power movement to the Vietnam War to bigotry in SFF publishing and to Black Lives Matter. It's really a wide-ranging, fascinating discussion and I hope you'll give it a listen and maybe even share it with people.

Happy Black History Month everyone!

Listen, the world is a fuck and sometimes we just need to talk about silly space shows to distract from *gestures vaguely at the dumpster fire outside*. So if you nerds want a place to talk Starfleet Academy or any related Star Trek stuff you can do so here. Spoiler zone obviously. I'll be up to episode 5 by tonight.

ETA: Just realized I have been calling it Star Trek Academy this whole time, whoops.

 Just finished: Changelog by Rich Larson. I don't have much to add from last week other than, surprise surprise, the last few stories were also amazing. One of the ones towards the end, "You Are Born Exploding," is probably the best one? I don't know which is the best one. It's about a mother whose young son is dying while increasing numbers of people in her seaside town are turning into zombie sea monsters, some of them voluntarily. Look, you can read it for free!

Sequel: An Anthology, edited by Chenise Puchailo. This collection is a sequel to Spud Publishing's first anthology, Debut (okay I find this, and everything about the press, very adorable, like a little middle finger in the face of SEO), and features six new authors and five new illustrators in Canadian genre fiction. I'm just really glad this exists, you guys. It gives me hope. It's like, very scrappy and indie and most of its focus is on the Prairies and interior BC, which is deeply underrepresented in fiction generally and in genre fiction even more so. It's not out yet but it should be launching in the spring.

Currently reading: The Threads That Bind Us by Robin Wolfe. Look, there are about six or seven of you who need to drop whatever you're doing and read this immediately. I'd have binged the entire thing in one night except that I felt like that wouldn't do it justice and I needed to slow down and read it in two nights instead.

This is a collection of twelve memories from queer and trans folks, written in their own words, which Robin then illustrates with symbolic embroidered textile art pieces (and a brief explanation of how the final embroidery relates to the story). It's devastating. The first story is about a teenager taking care of his leather daddy's friends who are dying of AIDS. There are moments of grief, love, and startling joy. It's the kind of thing where I just start directly texting friends who need to read it yesterday.

My only regret here is that the shipping somehow cost more than the book so I bought it in ebook form, which is probably actually better in terms of my seeing the details of the embroidery, but I'm sure the hard copy makes for a stunning physical artifact.

Anyway I am blown away so far and need you to read it so we can scream together.