The GS Team: Alex, Alisa, Tansy and our Producer (AKA Gentlemen's Auxilary)

Yesterday Galactic Suburbia put up a Very Special podcast, announcing the honours list and winner of the inaugural Galactic Suburbia Award.

After much discussion, and wanting in particular to create something that wasn’t already out there in the multitudinous world of spec fic awards, we came up with this definition:

The Galactic Suburbia Award: for activism and/ or communication that advances the feminist conversation in the field of speculative fiction in 2011

We didn’t put links to the honours list and winner as show notes to the podcast, because we wanted our regular listeners to have at least SOME sense of anticipation as they listened, but now it’s well and truly out there, so here is the list:

Honours List

Carrie Goldman and her daughter Katie, for sharing their story about how Katie was bullied at school for liking Star Wars, and opening up a massive worldwide conversation about gender binaries and gender-related bullying among very young children.

Cheryl Morgan for Female Invisibility Bingo, associated blogging and podcasting, and basically fighting the good fight

Helen Merrick, for the Feminism article on the SF Encyclopedia

Jim C Hines for “Jane C Hines” and associated blogging, raising awareness of feminist issues in the SF/Fantasy publishing field.

Julia Rios, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond for Episode 11 of the Outer Alliance podcast (The Writer and the Critic special episode)

L. Timmel Duchamp – for continuing to raise issues of importance on the Ambling Down the Aqueduct blog and various Aqueduct Press projects

Michelle Lee for the blog post “A 7-year-old girl responds to DC Comics’ sexed-up reboot of Starfire”

Winner

Nicola Griffith – for the Russ Pledge, and associated blogging

The winner will receive a Deepings Doll hand-painted figurine of a suffragette with a Galactic Suburbia placard, hand-painted by Jilli Roberts of Pendlerook Designs. (Tansy’s very talented mother!) Each Deepings Doll is individual, so the one each winner will receive (we do plan to make this an annual tradition) will be unique.

If you have ideas for our Honours list for 2012, please email us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com or tweet @galacticsuburbs

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It’s been lovely to see such a positive response from our honourees and winner. Already, Nicola Griffith, Cheryl Morgan and Timmi Duchamp have posted the award details on their blogs with gracious commentary. We at Galactic Suburbia had a great time chewing over what our award should be, and what we wanted to celebrate in the SF community.

Pretty sure everyone on the internet has seen the latest feminist post by Jim C Hines, this time with him putting his male body through the bizarre poses displayed by women on various fantasy covers. Needless to say, he hurt himself in the attempt.

Malinda Lo riffs off a Kate Elliott post, talking about being a woman writer and still having to actively check your manuscripts to make sure the female characters are not being screwed over. I do this too! Did I accidentally kill off all the women in my book? Oh, crap. Rewrite!

NK Jemisin talks about why her editor, Devi Pillai of Orbit Books, should be considered for the Hugo race – she had me at ‘Paradol Protectorate’!

A lovely article about cosplaying the TARDIS, bringing steampunk into her design, and just how female the TARDIS is anyway. The cosplay/crossplay phenomenon as a feminist statement is something I never fail to find interesting, and the fannish craft evident in this post is awesome. I say this as someone who is planning to make two birthday cakes next week – a TARDIS and a Time Vortex.

Speaking of which, 3D TARDIS cookies are the best use I can think of for 3D printers…

The Guardian looks at the outpourings of mancrush inspired by the return of Thierry Henry to the Arsenal and questions why football is so institutionally anti-gay when, quite frankly, even the straightest of fannish football blokes are set all aflutter by certain men in certain shorts, scoring certain goals. It’s actually a slightly more serious article than I suggest here, and worth reading.

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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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I’ve been hunting for a new addictive, fluffy manga series since Fruits Basket came to an end, and this article about the new translations and releases of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon and Codename Sailor V was very enticing. I’m going in!

Also I’ve had a great time recently reading and discussing comics, and particularly discovering how many of my friends secretly love the Keith Giffen Justice League era. After my complaints at the ‘big guns’ style of Justice League, Cranky Nick sent me a link to this brilliant comic strip which sums it all up for me. Love it!

For those looking for an update on the #YesGayYA controversy (which seems to have mostly died down now) Cleolinda posted a brilliant survey and summary of the main points of what happened and what was said. It’s a very even-handed, non-accusatory post, which she felt compelled to write when she saw the situation being described inappropriately as “a hoax.” I also liked Julia Rios’ take on it, from the Outer Alliance blog. Foz Meadows uses this issue as a jumping off point to talk about the heartbreak that happens when kids become aware of being discriminated against, regardless of the specific form of bigotry.

Speaking of YA, this older post that Tehani pointed me towards asked the question ‘how dark are YA covers really?’ after that other YA controversy from earlier this year, and has some great visuals to illustrate the answers.

Seanan Maguire wrote a powerful and important post about the divide between rich and poor when e-books are concerned. This is something I’ve been thinking for a while, whenever people gleefully predict the ‘death of print books’. Australia is a country where it’s possible to be in “information-poverty” regardless of your financial situation, and so it’s far more obvious from here that e-technologies, however wonderful, are not available to everyone. Seanan writes about the issue beautifully, and I think it’s an essay that needs more exposure.

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Jem demands extra Amy Pond content in all of Mummy's blog posts

Meanwhile, Narrelle M Harris, self-reprinter, discusses that other kind of indie press, and whether self-publishing is actually all about vanity.

Jason Nahrung has been on fire lately with some brilliant posts about our changing industry, and I particularly liked this one: Putting the eeeeee in e-books.

Meanwhile the Stella Prize for women was officially launched. Is it too much to hope that a spec fic writer wins it in the early years? Alisa, get publishing!

Aliette de Bodard wrote a marvellous rant which examines the way that US storytelling tropes are so ingrained in global culture that they basically dictate what is considered good and bad writing. I think this is a very important topic and one that bears further discussion.

Ellen Datlow is angry about the portrayal of older women in fiction, and challenged writers to do better.

Juliet McKenna has a challenge of her own, for us all to promote equality in genre writing and reviewing. Kudos to SFX for publishing this piece which criticises their own practices as well as those of the industry as a whole.

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So school is back! I’ve been lucky enough to be able to shift most of my workload to, well, now, so that the last several weeks of the summer holiday were all Mummying all the time. Now, of course, I have to go from nought to typing maniac in 60 seconds, and I’m not *entirely* sure I remember how to do it. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, here is a delicious mix of tidbits from the internet over the last week or so and some great things I’ve been listening to while catching up on the housework, supervising trampoline time, and sewing an Alice in Wonderland wallhanging.

Ben Peek wrote a post which completely blindsided me, about an author who embodies perseverance, “the one who to me sucked up the bad times and pushed through them, and the one who should stand as an example for new authors…“ The twist is, it’s me!

N.K. Jemisin writes about gender assumptions/associations surrounding epic fantasy, and why anything that deviates from the masculine norms of the genre are seen as suspect. There are some brilliant, intelligent comments about gender, romance and the male gaze. Lovely stuff.

Alisa posts about Twelfth Planet Press award eligibilities for the coming awards season. Have you nominated for the stuff you can nominate for yet? Don’t forget that all of us who were at Aussiecon can nominate for the Hugos this year. Would be lovely to have some Aussie names on that ballot.

This amazing, powerful post by Juliet Jacques about being a trans woman and a football fan really affected me, to the point where I read through her whole year’s worth of columns about transition. I can really recommend these for anyone looking to educate and inform themselves about some of the issues affecting people trying to transition. I found it a real eye opener, and she’s an entertaining and funny writer with it. Plus, football fan!

Jim Hines had some pointed things to say about the ‘self publishing ebooks is totally the way to make a career sing like a canary’ people and the way that ‘ebooks are the future’ so often gets turned into a bashing of commercial publishers and their methods.

So that’s the links done. Now for the listening…

The latest Salon Futura podcast has a great round table discussion about small press publishing featuring our own Alisa Krasnostein (plus Sean Wallace and L. Timmel Duchamp) – those of you mourning the lack of a Galactic Suburbia episode this week (sorry, we’ll be back with all guns blazing next week!) may like to check it out. There’s also a cool interview with Ann VanderMeer about her editorship of Weird Tales which was great to hear, especially the bit where they both start talking about Peter M Ball and unicorns.

My Big Finish obsession has been continuing apace. I have been relistening to all my Ace and Hex plays, and really enjoying the first two seasons of the 8th Doctor and Lucie Miller, which were designed to fit the tone of New Who a bit more firmly than the monthly series. They’re fast paced, funny and character-crunchy 50 minute episodes, with some fantastic casting. The whole first season is great, though the quirky Horror of Glam Rock (featuring Bernard Cribbins before he joined RTD’s Who crew) by Paul Magrs is a stand out, as is the exceptional two part finale, Human Resources.

I’m currently on the finale of the second season, which features a return of the Sisterhood of Karn and (quite possibly) Morbius, though I haven’t yet heard him with my own ears. The standouts for this season were Max Warp, a quite stunningly outrageous Top Gear parody with spaceships and Graeme Garden, and the comedy-romance-tragedy of The Zygon Who Fell To Earth (featuring Tim Brooke Taylor and Steven Pacey), but I also really loved the creative anachronisms of Dead London and the splendid historical heist story Grand Theft Cosmos. The return of the Headhunter, who is officially my favourite female villain of Doctor Who’s history, was a cause for much glee.

Elsewhere, I also discovered the Big Finish Comedy Podcast, which was released fairly recently as a limited series of 5 minute episodes to promote the Mervyn Stone mystery novels by Nev Fountain, which revolve around a script editor of a defunct cult sci-fi show of the late 80′s, who also solves crimes. The podcast is a great introduction to the character and his world, and over the course of about half an hour of bite sized, highly entertaining interviews (the conceit is that this is a DVD extra for “Vixens from the Void”) presents and solves the mystery of who killed the actor who played the quirky translator robot Babel J. It’s very funny, featuring among other things the note-perfect tones of Nicola Bryant, and absolutely free.

There is more, I expect, but I’m sleepy, and it’s school tomorrow!

New Episode now available for streaming, direct download or from iTunes!

In which we work, play, shake up our format a little (gasp!) and cover the life & death of magazines, the changing face of the industry, respect for non fiction, sexual harassment, rants, reboots and as usual, books, books and more books. Also a few sneaky clues about what Twelfth Planet Press is publishing next year!

News

Realms of Fantasy is back, again…

Escape Pod Expands:
“We have been pushing to expand what Escape Pod does, adding an SF blog and distributing our stories via magazine format. We’re also becoming a pro market, and hope to keep paying our authors pro rates well into 2011 if the donations make it possible.”

Cheryl Morgan talks about paying for reviews as semipro

On the Cooks Source scandal and seeing stuff on the internet as ‘public domain’

Jim C Hines on reporting sexual harassment in SF/F

Old men complaining? When you get older, do you by consequence lose your sense of wonder? Just simply because you’ve read everything? And is/should all SF be aimed/written for the 60 year old man?
Jason Sanford responds

New Buffy Reboot

New Friend of the Podcast: The Writer & the Critic (Mondy & Kirstyn)

Rambly Discussion
Books that aren’t marketed as being a part of a series…
Publishing, deadlines, and attitudes thereto…
Chat, rants and backpedalling…

What Culture have we Consumed?
Alex: Blameless, Gail Carriger; The Devil in Mr Pussy, Paul Haines; Women of Other Worlds, ed. Helen Merrick and Tess Williams; Bold as Love, Gwyneth Jones; Day of the Triffids (2009 BBC production)
Alisa: works too hard, and also FRINGE
Tansy: To Write Like a Woman, Joanna Russ; Marianne, the Magus & the Manticore by Sheri S Tepper; Sourdough & Other Stories, Angela Slatter; China Mountain Zhang, Maureen McHugh, Mists of Avalon movie

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

Shiny #6 is out! With, among other things, the latest Dirk Flinthart short story within.

This is sadly the final issue of Shiny, a labour of love for those of us involved. I was very pleased with the issues I had editorial input in (1-3), enjoyed reading issue 4 as a civilian, and was very proud to be published in issue 5 with “Like Us,” one of the two Shiny stories that scored an Aurealis Award nomination last year.

Back issues of the ezine are available here.

Elsewhere on the internet, Connie Willis talks about Blackout and All Clear.

The always smart and eloquent Kate Harding talks about the problematic aspects of Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign.

Jim C Hines, who impresses me more and more each time I read his blog, has some valuable thoughts on the representation of masculinity and men in our society.

Charles Tan did a great post about some of the misconceptions about the Amazon v. Macmillan situation.

Deb Biancotti’s A Book of Endings received an awesome review at Strange Horizons.

Ticonderoga will be publishing collections by two great Australian writers in time for Aussiecon 4: Kaaron Warren and Angela Slatter.

Oh, and that reminds me that we are hosting the Australian Speculative Carnival at Ripping Ozzie Reads on the 15th – drop me a line or a comment if you have any blog posts to rec!

I’ve had a tab open to this post by Jim C Hines on Girly Books and gender stereotyping all week, pretty sure that I wanted to say something about it, but not sure what.

I understand his bafflement at male readers being hesitant to pick up his new books, the ones with girls on the cover. I remember the almost physical blow I felt the first time an acquaintance told me to my face that he wasn’t going to read my books because he didn’t read anything with female protagonists. (ten years later I’m still going, seriously? Seriously?)

Looking at Hines’ covers, which are gorgeous, it occurs to me how unusual they are in the fantasy genre. Having a female character on the cover, even a female and no male character, is not that unusual – but three women, with no man in sight? I can’t think of another fantasy cover ever that has had such a composition.

Fantasy fiction is not short of female characters, even memorable and important female characters, but it’s hard to escape the fact that so many of the sourceworks, the deeply respected historical texts that helped to form people’s idea of fantasy fiction, tend to place female characters in a vacuum.

From fairy tales through the pulp stories and Tolkien to the epic fantasies of the 1980′s – whether women are crunchy protagonists and point-of-view characters or cardboard love-interests and prizes, what they most have in common is feminine isolation. The princess’s most important relationship is with her potential prince, and her value is often calculated on how well she gets along with male characters. Often this is well meaning – an awesome female character stands out very effectively when surrounded by blokes. Also her awesomeness is often created by an unflattering contrast with other women – she is special, they are drips.

(I do this too, I’m horrified to realise, most of my female relationships in novels are based on conflict, and the best friendships represented are male-female)

These traditions bleed through to modern storytelling, and I can think of so few examples of fantasy fiction which has an emphasis on family or friendship relationships or even teamwork between women. I have to admit, when I first heard about Hines’ Stepsister Scheme my first thoughts were very cynical, that the idea of fairy tale princesses ganging up together and kicking arse/fighting crime was a bit of an old cliche. But thinking about it again – no, it isn’t. It’s horribly original. There just aren’t that many fantasy stories out there that are predominantly about women – and women plural, not just one really great woman.
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