This most excellent essay, A Sentimental Education: Sex and the Literary Writer, is fascinating in what it has to say about the attitude towards emotional writing in the Literary Sphere – and the association of sex/sentiment in fiction as being not only feminine, but lowbrow or worse, COMMERCIAL.

Speaking of commercial, Jared at Pornokitsch looks at Dragonlance, specifically the original Dragonlance Chronicles, and asks why no one will discuss/admit their massive influence on the fantasy genre. Leaving aside the fact that the writing is… well, not especially good, he does isolate several things that Dragonlance did that were either original or at least in strong opposition to the Tolkien school of fantasy – and suggests that some of the seeds of the grimdark genre can be found here.

I loved Dragonlance, for at least several months of my teen years. And at some point I think I’m going to have to write about the women in the series. Only… I might have to get myself drunk first, to reread the books. Hmm.

Jo Walton talks about escapist reading and why it’s awesome over at Tor.com.

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There is very little in the world that can give me joy like an elegant, arty new edition of an old, beloved book. Check out these pretties. I haven’t been so tempted by cute books since those “embroidered” editions of Black Beauty and The Secret Garden. And, okay, every vintage-style Arthur Ransome edition ever.

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Normally I’d save this one for my Friday Links post but honestly I don’t want it to get lost in the long list of things other people are saying.

This article by Deborah Copaken Kogan, My So-Called ‘Post-Feminist’ Life in Arts and Letters, is simply extraordinary. It may be the most important and soul-kicking thing that I have read since I discovered Joanna Russ.

Upon being shortlisted for the Women’s Prize (formerly the Orange Prize) for her novel The Red Book, Kogan addresses the many and constant criticisms of the existence of the prize itself by calmly examining the many and various ways in which institutionalised sexism have affected her life, from graduation through several careers (war photography, TV news, novelist and writer of memoir) and the many ways in which her reputation and professionalism have been worn away.

The threat of ‘stay silent, don’t speak up, they’ll smear you,’ is a constant theme and now she feels “old” enough, safe enough, confident enough, to say to hell with it, and tell her story anyway.

I consider throwing in the towel. The lack of respectful coverage, the slut-shaming and name-calling, all the girly book covers and not-my-titles despite high literary aspirations, has worn me down, made me question everything: my abilities, my future, my life. This is what sexism does best: it makes you feel crazy for desiring parity and hopeless about ever achieving it.

The Nation

I refused at first to consider this news, because you know we’ve been here before. Blake’s 7 has been teetering on the edge of a remake for the last fifteen years. It’s always come to nothing.

The biggest problem for fans to overcome is the casting issues. Because this isn’t like Battlestar Galactica, not at all. The cast and characters of Blake’s 7 are ingrained deeply into people’s memory of the show. The question of ‘but what about Avon’ is actually kind of confronting to many, because the idea of seeing anyone other than Paul Darrow circa 1978-1981 is hard to wrap your head around.

Luckily for me, I listened to the rebooted version of B7 done for radio back in 2006, and thanks to Daniela Nardini, Colin Salmon and the rest of the excellent cast, I am on board with the fact that these characters can be recast into a new ensemble and everything that was great about them will still be there. (though I wasn’t a fan of their Vila, turns out Michael Keating is the hardest one to replace)

I struggled with the fact that Jenna in the radio version had an American accent, but I think that was largely because everyone around her was British so it felt jarring. The very Scottish Servalan, on the other hand, was surprising and lovely. While I’d love to see an all Brit version of Blake’s 7 for this reboot, it’s pretty unlikely.

However, I’ve figured out how Syfy could turn the new Blake’s 7 into something spectacular that fans would get behind, AND follow the spirit of the original by having an older, more grizzled and battlescarred cast – all they have to do is cast the entire ensemble from the beloved former examples of them getting science fiction very right: that is, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica and Eureka.

Such as for example…

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Turlough was one of my favourites. I’m not sure why especially, except that he brought the snark better than anyone. Tegan would complain and shout a lot, but Turlough got to be witty and elegant in his resistance to the Doctor’s particular brand of virtue and heroism.

“What is it about Earth people that makes them think a futile gesture is a noble one?”

There’s a popular idea that classic Doctor Who companions always start out with pots of characterisation and then gradually descend into bland screaming girls until they are finally written out at the request of the actor. I’m not sure that’s entirely true for any companion at all – it is true that many get stronger scripts to start with than later, but it’s rarely such a linear progression as fans (and perhaps the actors) tend to believe. Sarah Jane’s feminism waxes and wanes rather than sliding in a downward spiral, and the same is true for Nyssa’s scientific know-how, Jo’s spy skills, and so on.

It is rare for extra backstory to develop after a companion’s first appearance – though it did happen to some extent with Ace, and with Tegan. Many companions started out with almost no backstory and… never got any more.

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So, a pretty big thing happened in the last fortnight – the Lizzie Bennet Diaries came to an end. This popular web serial ran for 100 episodes, plus several extra Q&A vids, and a bunch of short spin-offs which explored self-contained, highly relevant side stories.

The premise was a modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, told via the web diary of media student Lizzie Bennet. And it was simply wonderful. The performances were great, the writing was exceptionally clever, and the lampshading of the format only strained in very few places – whenever the audience started to question whether the characters would realistically share so much on camera to an internet audience, the script was usually there in time to provide extra motivation or exceptional circumstance.

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Is there anything more marvellous than a woman who has reached a very great age, and is thoroughly outspoken about what she thinks, feels and has achieved?

I knew nothing about Elizabeth Jane Howard before reading this wonderful interview in the Guardian and now I think she is one of my favourite people. I’ve been meaning to read the Cazalet books this year, and it just became a moral imperative.

Quotable Quotes:

On not being considered as ‘serious’ a writer as many of her male contemporaries:

“I mean, the literary world is dominated by men, isn’t it? They all scratch each other’s backs and understandably they like each other’s books and write about them and they’ve got an inbuilt feeling that none of us can really be very much good.”

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The fact that this isn’t the first time I have given this title to a Friday links post goes to show that it’s not too hard to make sure your superheroines are fully dressed, people! Not if an artist actually cares about the integrity of the character as well as the curve of their panty line.

As far as publishing goes, the big Nightshade Deal and the authors caught in the crossfire is everywhere today. Kudos to Tobias Buckell for summing up the situation and most of the current posts, so I don’t have to do it. Suffice to say, it’s a pretty crappy situation for most people involved.

Connected to this, I was quite sad to see today that Jonathan Strahan’s excellent magazine Eclipse Online (published on the Nightshade website) is closing for pretty obvious reasons. It was a great project which highlighted some very interesting stories and gave a great showcase to the artwork of Australian Kathleen Jennings, who illustrated every piece.

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So, it’s the anniversary year, and after months of Doctor Who fans eying November with extreme skepticism, and burgeoning alarm that maybe, just maybe, Moffat and co are planning a fizzler rather than a blow out, the new series has just been launched along with the epic news that David Tennant and Billie Piper will be back for the 50th Anniversary special in November.

Yes, I did say epic. Because, however we might complain at there not being all the Doctors in there (which we don’t actually know for sure yet) or the lack of Eccleston (again, you never know), the thought of Ten and Eleven capering around each other and finishing each other’s sentences is, um. Pretty awesome. (and if nothing else, maybe a send-off for Ten which is a bit more popular than his last one was?)

But that’s not all we’re getting, of course. Doctor Who has been on front pages for some years now, but this year has brought all manner of news and announcement, from the behind the scenes shots from the docudrama about Year One of the show (Verity! Sydney Newman! William Hartnell!) to the delight at the Big Finish announcement of a multi Classic Doctors audio drama, comics honouring all the Doctors, book releases, toys, costumes, conventions, podcasts… once you actually stop and list all the new Doctor Who STUFF we are getting this year, it’s actually pretty overwhelming.

It’s pretty rare to have a TV show reach a 50th anniversary and let’s face it, we’re getting a hell of a lot more than all the James Bond fans are this year. Plus they don’t have Matt Smith OR David Tennant (yet). But what about previous anniversaries?

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The new episode of Galactic Suburbia is up! We talk about awards and NOTHING ELSE!

In which awards are dissected into itty bitty bits and eaten with relish. Tasty tomato relish.

HUUUUGGGOOOOOOS!

Ditmars

Solstice Awards

This looks like a short podcast, but it isn’t. No culture consumed for you! Which does mean that Alex will have read ALL THE BOOKS by the time we join you again.

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!