The new episode of Galactic Suburbia is up, go download it, stream it, or do whatever it is you crazy kids do with podcasts these days!

In which we save the Tasmanian Devils, take on the Classics, review cars, discover that toy fandom exists, plan to read LOTS of Australian women writers, and Wonder Woman still doesn’t have pants.

News

Coffeeandink on The Erasure of women writers in SF and Fantasy

Mur Lafferty – My Problem With Classics

Open letter to publishers: book bloggers are not your bitches

Kate Gordon’s Devil Auction – help to save the Tasmanian Devils! (kitten pictures with TEETH)

Australian Women Writers Challenge
Sign up now

Jason Nahrung posted a list of the books he plans to read for the challenge – let us know what yours are!

In association with this, Tansy produced a list of award-winning SF/Fantasy books by Australian women.

Please keep sending in your suggestions for a Galactic Suburbia Award – we hope to have a plan for this by our 50th episode and are loving reading the tweets and emails so far.

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We discussed this excellent post by Tobias Buckell: Self Publishing Doesn’t Mean you have to be a Raging Fuck Wad on the recent episode of Galactic Suburbia. I also wanted to link to this great post about political correctness, which responds to some of the same people and issues.

The thing I forgot to add to our running sheet for Galactic Suburbia was the surprise sale of Angus and Robertson in Australia – bookshops, coming back!

The important discussion of how trolling online (which can be far more vicious, threatening and fearmaking than many people believe) affects female bloggers has not only gone viral, it’s gone mainstream, with open discussion on the topic happening in newspaper columns as well as independently. About damn time.

The Nanowrimo thing continues apace, and some of my favourite recent supportive posts on the topic have been by Jim C Hines (see how defly he ducks and weaves to avoid being one of those professional writers who starts out trying to explain politely why Nano isn’t for them and ends up sounding all judgy and patronising about it) and Auntie MJ who is joyful and bouncy as ever.

This take on the recent Steampunky Goodness Three Musketeers movie by Karen Healey is my favourite movie review since Sarah Rees Brennan wrote about Troy. It spoils everything to bits but is so worth it.

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Howie needs a Hat

Hurry over to Podbean or iTunes now to get the new episode! Or just sit back, relax and read the show notes.

News

World Fantasy Awards!

Realms of Fantasy sinks for the third time

Graham Joyce calls BFS Extraordinary General meeting December 9th –

Authors kickstarting their own projects:
Matt Forbeck – 12 novels in 12 months.
Laura Anne Gilman’s novella
CE Murphy’s novella
(mentions also of self publishing projects of Tracy & Laura Hickman, and Liz Williams)
Catherynne Valente’s Omikuji project looking for subscribers in order to keep the project going.
And Tobias Buckell talks about how just because you’re self publishing doesn’t mean you have to be a …

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Alisa: Power and Majesty by Tansy Rayner Roberts, The Courier’s New Bicycle by Kim Westwood

Alex: the Stone Key and The Sending, Isobelle Carmody; I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett; end of Life on Mars S2; This is Not a Game, Walter Jon Williams; Distress, Greg Egan

Tansy: Ally Condie, Matched; Lisa Goldstein, The Uncertain Places; Gail Simone, Secret Six: Six Degrees of Devastation; Geek Tragedy, Nev Fountain

Feedback: well overdue!

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!

The new episode is up here! Go, listen.

In which we fight crime, rail against derailing and read a million books.

News

Our Sisters in Crime, Still Fighting
and
Why the Faux Oppressed Whinge

Ada Lovelace Day

Wonder Woman gets a father (yesthisisnews)

Alisa’s news:
Thief of Lives by Lucy Sussex now available as e-book

Tansy’s news: publishing date for Reign of Beasts
and the Creature Court Fashion Challenge Contest

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Alex: The Fall of Hyperion, Dan Simmons; Yarn, Jon Armstrong; Thief of Lives, Lucy Sussex; Yellow Blue Tibia, Adam Roberts; The Word for World is Forest, Ursula le Guin; Eyes like Stars, Lisa Mantchev

Tansy: The Courier’s New Bicycle, Kim Westwood; Thief of Lives, Lucy Sussex; Catwoman: Crooked Little Town, by Ed Brubaker; Fablecroft blog series On Indie Press wraps up; Sofanauts interviews Paul Cornell; Two Minute Timelord round-table about Season 6 Doctor Who

Alisa: Doctor Who. Shorts: The Book of Phoenix (Excerpted from The Great Book) – Nnedi Okorafor (Clarkesworld March); Younger Women – Karen Fowler (Subterranean Summer), Valley of the Girls – Kelly Link (Subterranean Summer)

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!

Tor.com tells you why you should be watching Fringe in a very non-spoilery-for-the-last-three-seasons way. Alisa and I discussed Olivia and her FBI competence in the recent Galactic Suburbia episode.

Sarah Rees Brennan follows up the #YesGayYA story with a discussion of the Circle of Suck that can happen with the portrayal of minority or diversity issues in fiction, and the various roadblocks to publication.

Paula Guran wrote a moving post about leaving Weird Tales, and posted a link to a fabulous article she wrote about Margaret Brundage, and how sexy artwork of women isn’t necessarily an unfeminist thing. I love Brundage’s pastel women, and really enjoyed the article.

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The new episode is ready to download here!

EPISODE 43

In which Alisa and Tansy look at crimes against superheroines in the DC Universe, the good and the bad of the companions’ journeys in Doctor Who, and why we love Olivia Dunham and her gun. We also plug our own books (yes really!), Tansy is still reading comics, and Alisa confesses that e-books have broken her brain.

No, seriously, she’s broken now.

News

The WSFA SP shortlist (Tehani wooo!)

Death of Sara Douglass

Catwoman & Starfire – this isn’t what empowerment looks like
i09 on a seven-year-old who loves Starfire and her reaction to the new version of the character: “She doesn’t do anything.”
A great webcomic response to the Starfire issue.
Tansy blogged about it too!

DC Comics, Bunker & the Current State of LGBTQ Superheroes
(Tansy would have commented on how Bunker is portrayed as a gay superhero in the Teen Titans but he wasn’t in the first issue!)

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Alisa: Haven, Fringe S4, Doctor Who Season 4?, Ringer, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, A Taste of the Nightlife by Sarah Zettel and one of my new reading projects

Tansy: The Almighty Johnsons, New 52 (Batgirl, Batwoman, Wonder Woman, Superboy, Blue Beetle); Justice League Generation Lost (Part I), Power Girl: A New Beginning

Pet Subject: Indie and E-books
Twelfth Planet Press Website
Twelfth Planet Press E-Store
Wizard’s Tower Bookstore (yay Cheryl)
Tansy is Rocking the Romanpunk on her blog this week in celebration of the e-release of Love and Romanpunk.

Feedback:
Björn is embarking on a quest to read all women authors for a year – and he needs a catchy title to help this become an awesome internet meme. Can you help him? Send us your suggestions and we’ll think of some prizes for the best ones.

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!

For regular listeners/subscribers to Galactic Suburbia who listen through iTunes, this will make exactly no change at all (thank goodness!) but we’ve recently moved over to Podbean which allows us delicious crunchy stats, and also should make it easier for listeners who prefer to download directly. So check out our new Galactic Suburbia site! Kudos to our producer for spending a ridiculously long amount of time uploading every single episode to the new place and making it comfy for us. Still a few details to be ironed out, but it’s lovely to be there.

Meanwhile, I’ve been beetling around my blog, creating a Guide to the various series of posts I have published or have recently been publishing, because sometimes the tags system doesn’t quite cut it. I may have missed some out, but it’s a good start!

Also, though I feel a little embarrassed doing this again so soon, another feminist icon has been saying awesome things about my book Love & Romanpunk on the internet, and I would be remiss if I did not point you towards the stirring words of L. Timmel Duchamp of the fabulous Aqueduct Press. [and speaking of Aqueduct Press, does this not sound like the most intriguing and fun set of submission guidelines?]

Finally, in case you missed it, I guest posted on my Indie Press journey over at Tehani’s Fablecroft blog.

New episode up! Grab it from iTunes, by direct download or stream it on the site.

In which we discuss Orson Scott Card’s Hamlet, the agent who said no way to gay YA, Tansy’s Blake’s 7 dolls, the superhero who fights with her hair, and Alisa works through her issues with Doctor Who.

COME ON IN, EPISODE 42 IS FINE

News

Subterranean Press address email complaints about Hamlet’s Father by Orson Scott Card
And Rain Taxi review that started it

The other big Internet Thing – agent says no gay in YA dystopia please & authors speak out

New podcast – Live and Sassy
Twelfth Planet Press opening for novel submissions

What Culture Have we Consumed?

Alex: Retribution Falls, Chris Wooding; Blake’s 7; Hyperion, Dan Simmons.

Tansy: Torchwood (non spoilery), Justice League comics (the new 52), The Business of Death by Trent Jamieson

Alisa: Podcasts: Locus Roundtable (Gail Carriger and Francesca Myman; Kathleen Goonan, Eileen Gunn and Gary K Wolfe); Eurocon 2011 Gender in SF&F Panel; The Outer Alliance Podcast Episode 11, Season 3 Doctor Who
[Book calling for papers on the topic of race and Doctor Who]

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!

Servalan and her two best men

Last night, while we were recording the latest episode of Galactic Suburbia (don’t panic, it’s not up yet), Alisa sent me into a silent, hand flapping freak out by forwarding a link to a post by feminist SF legend Gwyneth Jones who has read and reviewed several of the Twelve Planets books. Including, you know, MINE.

It’s a very cruel thing to do to a friend while there’s a live microphone, and I think I did very well to keep my head from exploding all over the keyboard.

The full post is here, but I’d like to quote my favourite parts:

“These collections, just four stories in a slim paperback, are an excellent idea, a tasting menu of Australasian female genre writers. Romanpunk has an intriguing twist on the noble vampire and mortal girlfriend* story (see, these vampires are really Lamia, they’re Roman in origin, and very well connected, but they find the C21 street has its uses). Ever wondered why pretty-boy Caligula was such an unmitigated horror in private life? Or why Nero was finally forced to kill his mother? Refreshingly, unlike Buffy, the mortal girlfriend is not allergic to education and actually has a life… ”

and…

“These Australians give me hope for the future of female, and even feminist, writers in sf.”

Gwyneth Jones is one of my heroes, so it’s hard enough to wrap my head around her having read my book, let alone saying lovely things about it, and the series as a whole. (she also had some cool things to say about Sue’s book, and Lucy’s)

A reminder that I’m going to be reading from Love & Romanpunk at the Republic Bar (North Hobart) on Sunday 2nd October from 3pm (I think I’m first up so come early if you want to see me), and will have a few copies of the book there if you haven’t sourced yours yet. No bookings required. If you’d like me to bring along a copy of Siren Beat for you to buy from me, let me know.

You can of course buy a copy direct from the publisher, as well as other books in the Twelve Planets series.