10 good reasons not to feel guilty about reducing book buying in 2012

The soccer season has started, and for once I’m not talking about Arsenal, which has been elating and frustrating me in equal measure since last September, but about young Raeli, kicking off for another season, this time in the Under 7′s. The good news is, her spikes still fit, which was something of a relief because I don’t have the cash to buy her new ones.

In the mean time, I have LINKS for you.

My honey sent me an email this week saying ‘you are a superhero’. Which, OBVIOUSLY. But it turned out he was referring to this, an article about how curating the internet is becoming more and more important, and the people who do this work are, well, superheroes. I have to say, I like the term ‘curators’ as it feels a lot less elitist than ‘gatekeepers’. Though of course, ‘doorbitch’ is still my favourite. HEAR ME, INTERNET? I AM YOUR DOORBITCH.

At the Intergalactic Academy, a great post by Phoebe about a current trend to discredit/challenge the genre credentials of teen dystopia novels because they also have romance in them and thus might SNEAKILY be contaminated with girl germs. Only, of course, she says it better or I wouldn’t be linking to her. I know we don’t read the comments but some important discussion did happen in these – in particular, addressing one of Phoebe’s key points about how you probably shouldn’t be refiling these books as ‘romance’ without knowing something about the romance genre, and it’s actually a bit more complicated than “I SUSPECT THIS IS A KISSING BOOK!”

Sarah Rees Brennan MARPLES UP with a great Sleuth Thursday post, this one about, of course, the one and only Miss Marple. K and I are going to have to read our Agatha Christies a lot faster, because I am now officially craving some serious Marpling. MARPLE IS NOW A VERB, LIVE WITH IT.

Maureen Johnson attempts to explain what the current Amazon vs Apple (and other publishers) court case is really all about. As might be expected, she’s more entertaining than all the online newspapers rolled up and smoked.

Teresa Jusino posts about geek girls, “geek girls” and gamer girls. Damn those girl germs, they get everywhere, don’t they? In particular, she points to a number of male geek celebrities and how their geekdom is celebrated, not questioned and challenged in minute detail.

The Mary Sue announces that it turns out, creating a great actiony cartoon with a female lead is not all that offputting to boys. I haven’t even seen this thing yet and I can TELL that Korra rules, purely from Tumblr. So glad that many people agree.

This post, The Shame Game, about being overweight and a gamer (girl) and the massive double standard that exists in the general perception of gamers who are fat vs. gamers who are not fat (which sadly is pretty similar to the double standard that exists IN THE WORLD about people based on their weight) is actually a lot more inspiring than the first half of this sentence makes it sound. Because it’s about being true to yourself and not letting the shit get to you. And cosplaying whoever the hell you want to.

I am sad to discover that many people are dismissing and getting angry about the upcoming series Elementary before it has even screened – and that a lot of that anger has moved very quickly from defensiveness of their beloved Sherlock to some quite nasty and offensive opinions orbiting the casting of Lucy Liu as Joan Watson. Strangely, instead of accepting this casting as an interesting and innovative way of reinterpreting the classic story differently, many people are quick to call it homophobic (?) and a betrayal of canon (??). I am reminded of the wave of hatred surrounding the genderbending casting of Katee Sackoff as Starbuck, which lasted right up until fandom actually watched the show for five minutes, realised she was awesome, and pretended the whole thing never happened.

Anyway, the casting of Lucy Liu as Watson shouldn’t need to be defended, but it does apparently, and here’s a fantastic post which does exactly that. I rolled my eyes with everyone else at the idea that the US were doing their own modern Sherlock, because COME ON, and that casting a woman of colour in the role of Watson was the only thing that made me think it might actually be INTERESTING. Also she wears coats beautifully, and that’s basically what you need in a Watson.

Speaking of people being arses on the internet, Emily Asher-Perrin has written a snarky and heartfelt post pleading with Hollywood media to stop using THAT PIC of women (the butt shot) and the comments are… yikes. Wow. I don’t know why I expect Tor’s readership to be progressive (though frankly I expect that of everything on my RSS feed, and am often disappointed) but I found it both interesting and confronting how many men felt the need to explain to Emily that she is wrong, that she is too outraged or angry, and that their right to be sexually excited by movie posters is more important than any harm it might do. Sadly a whole bunch of women jumped in also to assure everyone that they are not offended by butts. Emily has been a champion, dealing calmly with wave after wave of entitlement.

The repeated use of the word ‘outrage’ in the comments (ie saying that Emily’s outrage is unwarranted) is what I found particularly interesting, because I didn’t read the post as being particularly angry at all. There’s hardly any exclamation marks! And even if she was outraged (rather than world-weary and sarcastic about a repeated patten she doesn’t like) why are so many people keen to tell her that it’s not acceptable? I often don’t agree with people, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to dictate to them how THEY should feel.

So all that is pretty depressing, let’s find a few inspiring posts to finish up with!

Sean the Blogonaut (who I’m starting to think needs an ‘awesome’ somewhere in his string of names, has written a guest post over at the AWW blog about his ongoing journey in raising his own consciousness, after discovering to his alarm that he was a lot more subconciously skewed towards reading male writers than he had imagined. Oh, and he’s completed the Aus Women Writers Reading Challenge, yay Sean!

The Mary Sue reports on a gender mishap on the internet, where an enthusiastic comic artist produced a comic that he thought was funny, but misrepresented female gamers and their experience quite badly. Women complained, he realised he was wrong, and he apologised graciously. JOB DONE. This is a lesson in how to do it, people.

N.K. Jemisin writes a post about her own sexism (cos we all have it, people, to lesser or greater degrees!) and how her early love of SF and Fantasy was guided by an ingrained idea of ‘girl stuff’ being lesser.

Margery Allingham, at work

I linked to this once already but I think it bears repeating: I appear on Jim C Hines’ blog, talking about my first novel publication.

Over on Doctor Her I finished up my series (for now at least) looking at Domesticating the Doctor with Marrying the Ponds.

A half-worked-out story idea about the concept of “lady novelists” and some mad Google fu led to my creation of this Pinterest board: Lady Novelists. I started out looking at 1920′s-1930′s era of women and then went a bit off book to add all kinds of people. I became fascinated with the images that came up for searches of particular authors – and when I only chose one picture to represent each (occasionally I picked a couple) I tried very much to find pictures that showed them at work – at the typewriter, holding books or public speaking. I was quite selective, trying not to automatically pic the most glamorous or smiley picture, but one that represented that writer’s personality. Except Nancy Mitford, of course, for who the glam pictures are just so calculated! And of course, some of them like Margaret Mitchell are glamorous while working. I also tried not to automatically go for an image of the author in her early career when I could put in a picture of a more interesting older woman. Miles Franklin, for instance, is so often depicted as a very young woman rather than the adorable dotty lady she seems to have become in later life.

I also took some new Deepings Dolls pictures that I’ll be putting up over the next week or two. Since my library was all clean and tidy from my photographer visit (heh) I used it as the base for this series of pictures, playing with books themselves as backgrounds. In this case, for Reader, I Married Him I used my aged and beloved copy of Jane Eyre (hate the novel, love the book) as a backdrop for a fake wedding album for a very happy example of our ‘nostalgia bride and groom.

A very positive review of Beyond Binary at i09 – doesn’t mention my story at all (sniff) but it’s great to see such a positive reaction to this book, which I’m very proud to be part of.

Our Sean (yes, he’s ours!) has interviewed New Zealand fantasy author Helen Lowe for Galactic Chat.

A lovely, witty review of Love and Romanpunk – again, I’ve been so pleased at the critical reception for this book, and so very proud of it. I am always interested in the way that readers pick a favourite from the collection (there’s something about the four story suite in particular, I think, that makes people pick out one sweetie over the rest).

Over at Doctor Her, I’m back on the Domesticating the Doctor kick with a short essay about Human Nature/Family of Blood and the Doctor vs. Domesticity. Next one will tackle the Ponds, really truly, I’m not avoiding it or anything!

As usual every other week, Galactic Suburbia has peeled out some of my best & crunchiest links. But that’s okay, still plenty to go around! You don’t mind the mostly frivolous, right? Well, not entirely frivolous.

The Bitch Magazine series looking at maternity issues in pop culture is continuing to produce some gems like this post about the myth of almost-certain-death-in-childbirth that we see in historical drama.

Sherwood Smith muses on the difference between metafiction and fanfiction.

Deb Biancotti wraps up her excellent On Burnout series of Blog Briefs.

An interview with Australian manga writer-artist Queenie Chan.

The question of why comics by women are becoming more, not less scarce, is tackled with the question of whether comics by women are bad for business?

Foz Meadows drops by Ripping Ozzie Reads to talk about revisiting old ideas, and sometimes you have to wait for an idea to be ready to turn into a book.

Another Dalek Game classic from Kathleen Jennings with “Dalek’s Thesaurus.” I love the reminiscences about books she includes with these pictures. Is it embarrassing for me to reveal that I only discovered the difference between ordinary thesauri and Roget’s Thesaurus ABOUT SIX WEEKS AGO?

At Tor.com, a comprehensive, modern and feminist review of Stephen King’s It, still the only one of his books that I have ever read. And I loved it, horribly. Loved the stupid movie too, for at least a year. Martha Kent from Smallville will always be Bev for me. I thought the discussion of the icky? not icky? justified? not justified? sex scene in the book was particularly interesting, in the comments as well as the review. (and yes, my view of this book as an adult and parent is totally different to what it was – I think I would rather walk on broken glass than re-read it now).

Shout out for a new Facebook community to promote and discuss Australian women writers and reviews of their work.

And while Joss Whedon has been whetting our appetite for the second most geeky version of Much Ado About Nothing, let’s not forger that David Tennant does Shakespeare too!

And more besides, because the current graphic novel fetish has taken hold and I have been binge-ordering at my local library, as well as borrowing and buying a bunch of titles. Then there’s the fact that this is Get It Read month For Last Short Story, and there’s Tiptree reading, and stuff for Galactic Suburbia, and books to review for ASif and you know, other books I want to read!

I walked into a bookshop today to look for someone (who wasn’t working that day) and walked out with Marianne de Pierres’ Angel Arias, and the new Merridy Eastman. Honestly I want to just download them directly into my head.

I’m halfway through reading Trent Jamieson’s Roil, and a Catwoman trade, and Gwyneth Jones’ new collection, because one book at a time is just not enough.

Oh, and I recently posted reviews at Last Short Story of Eclipse 4, and Subterranean’s Spring and Fall Issues.

And over at Deborah Biancotti’s blog, I contribute to a great series of (super short) guest posts about creative burnout, how to avoid it, and how to deal with it when it hits you smack in the face. I recommend checking out the whole series!

Here they are, then.

Matrons of Awesome: 50 Women of Ancient Rome

Introduction
Part I – The Raptae
Part II – Republican Mothers
Part III – Republican Vixens
Part IV – Good and Evil at the End of the Republic
Part V – Romana Princeps
Part VI: Imperial Daughters and Many Small Islands
Part VII: Sex, Scandal and Bloodshed
Part VIII – Agrippina
Part IX – Forgotten Daughters, Brigitte Bardot, and Claudian Goddesses
Part X – Flavian Ladies
Part XI – Trajan’s Matrons
Part XII – Good Wives and the Gladiators
Part XIII – Between the Dynasties
Part XIV – A Surfeit of Julias
Part XV – Saint Helena

and while we’re at it, some silly ones:

Rocking the Romanpunk, one fanvid at a time.

Kermit Tours the Romanpunk
Mark Antony Strips the Romanpunk
Cleopatra Sings the Romanpunk
Brutus and Cassius Slash the Romanpunk
Bad Emperors Dance the Romanpunk
Supersizers Eat the Romanpunk

and don’t forget all this was an excuse for me to talk about my book, Love and Romanpunk…

Love and Romanpunk is an e-book now!

Love and Romanpunk is Kindled

Sneak peeks at the stories in Love and Romanpunk

In closing I’d like to give a shout out to Doctor Who, which managed in its season finale to totally out-romanpunk me, even more than last year. And last year gave me Roman autons, the Last Centurion and River Song as Cleopatra! (Two years before that it was Donna speaking Latin, Vesuvius and Karen Gillan as a soothsayer) Hard to beat Winston Churchill as Caesar on a mammoth, though.

Sigh. If only they could have afforded a mammoth.

Meanwhile Bitch Magazine is doing a new blog series which looks at the portrayal of pregnancy, childbirth and early childhood/parenthood in TVland. I have Strong Opinions on this topic, so looking forward to reading what they have to say.

Tehani posted this link about which comic book superheroines deserve their own movies. Which is all very well, but let’s face it, Hollywood has badly let down the female superhero (and not the other way around). I can’t help thinking their stories would be better served by taking visuals out of the equation and going straight to the novel.

So if anyone wants to hire me to write a Huntress novel, I’m available! Or Wonder Woman, come to that…

Gail Simone tweeted this article which looks at two different kinds of representation of race in current DC Comics, comparing the Static Shock approach (he just happens to be black, yanno) with the Firestom approach (actual discussion of racial issues in the text). It’s a thoughtful piece, and I think demonstrates that both approaches have value, and it’s important to have both kinds of representation of race in stories – if all stories with characters of colour were about race, or all stories with characters of colour were NOT about race, we would have a real problem.

I do love it when people point out that these things are not either/or!

Jo Anderton, whose debut novel Debris (Angry Robot) I loved when she sent it to me for blurbage (it’s about magical architects! and magical garbage collectors! And it has technology mixed in with magic, plus a professional heroine who is flawed and cranky and acquires a TEAM, and has sex without it having to be her true love!) has done an interview over at Rowena’s blog.

The Indie Publishing (from pro perspective) posts are continuing in abundance at Tehani’s blog. Shaun Tan is her latest guest, and I thoroughly recommend his love letter to the Australian SF small press, with some insights into how working for Aurealis and Eidolon led to his later, dazzling career.

Nisi Shawl talks about queer themes (and often the lack thereof) in steampunk, over at Tor.com with the brilliantly-titled article ‘The Steampunk That Dare Not Speak Its Name‘.

Some Tansy-specific links: Kylie Chan’s recent reading including some lovely comments about Power & Majesty; Sean the Blogonaut did a great review of Love and Romanpunk as an e-book; you can find me guesting on the Book Nut podcast, talking about children’s and YA fiction; and I am excited to be reading at the Reading Room exhibit at the Tas Museum in Hobart this Sunday.

Strange Horizons have found their fundraiser slowgoing this year, I think, possibly because the Kickstarter phenomenon means that many of us have reached donation fatigue. But it’s the last week for donations, and such a good publication that many of us take for granted. If you like what they publish and you haven’t donated yet, please head over there – or help out with passing the word. There are some wonderful prizes up for grabs, including my own trilogy and an entire subscription to the Twelve Planets. And bonus prize draws all this week!

The final of season 6 of Doctor Who screens tomorrow in Australia – and sure I’ve already seen it (romanpunk for the win!) and love it to bits, but I now get to watch it with Raeli and see if she can wrap her head around all the anachronisms and timey plot twists. I’ve enjoyed this season very much, and luckily for me I like River Song a lot, and have enjoyed getting to see a whole lot of different sides to her in the arc stories this year – I think how much you enjoyed the arc probably depended a lot on how pro-River you are.

This (spoily for the last ep!) post talks about River’s actual timeline, as based on the last ep of Doctor Who Confidential – I think we need charts, people!

I’ve enjoyed Amy and Rory too – as companions they have got lost at times in this busy season but the final episode ties it all together and shows yet again that a journey doesn’t make complete sense until you get to the end of it. I wanted to put up a vid that sums up how squeeful I was about them in the last ep, but decided not to risk spoiling people yet. So instead, here’s the story so far of River & the Doctor [before The Wedding of River Song, spoilery for all her other eps]

Strange Horizons are offering my complete Creature Court trilogy as a special prize – you must donate to their fundraising drive today (or have done so before today) to be in the special draw. And don’t get too excited about the third book, which is still a few months away – the winner gets the first two now and a second parcel when the third book is printed.

Strange Horizons is a great publication that publishes some wonderful writing every week, and if it wasn’t for winning one of their many many prizes the first year I donated, I might never have discovered the wonderful prose of Sarah Monette. So donating to them is something I associate with that happy blurred feeling of discovering a brilliant new writer. I recommend it!

Also I was delighted to be invited as a guest to Tehani’s second episode of her Book Nut Podcast – of discussions about children’s and YA fiction, and the teachability and librarianisation of said books. I was a little skeptical when she told me the planned length of the episode, and I think we both considered it a win that we managed to keep it under 50 minutes.

Tehani has done exhaustive show notes but we cover my love of classic children’s books (E Nesbit, Edward Eager, Diana Wynne Jones), the inevitable (?) hypocrisy of parenthood when it comes to censoring books, Lewis Carroll and Enid Blyton, plus comics for kids, graphic novels for libraries (I am being invited back to discuss this at more length) with particular reference to Runaways and the Ultimate Spiderman, and a bunch of current YA favourites such as Karen Healey’s the Shattering and Sarah Rees Brennan, and Holly Black, and… and… and…

Can you believe Tehani and I will be living in the same state soon? We will podcast ALL THE TIME. Or, you know, just chat to ourselves and not let anyone else listen. So listen to us while you have the chance!

And, while you’re at it, don’t forget the new episode of Galactic Suburbia, covering such topics as the feminism of Fringe, crimes against superheroines in the DC Universe, the companions of Doctor Who, and why e-books can break an indie publisher’s brain.

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.

Charles Tan, who has also been an advocate for issues to do with e-poverty (and general book poverty) in countries outside the US, writes here about speculative fiction in the Philippines and what SF local content is available.

I’ve really been enjoying the guest posts about pro writers and indie press over at Fablecroft, and particularly this piece by the sharp and generally awesome Cat Sparks.

Bitch Magazine’s blog has been doing a fantastic series about the various problematic portrayals of mental illness in pop culture, and I had to single out this particular post which talks about why, exactly, this issue is so important and how pop culture can not only shape society’s perceptions about social issues, but can damage lives.

Meanwhile, a man involved in the gaming industry writes a letter to his someday daughter, apologising for the world he works in, and explaining at length many of the problems which are endemic to the gaming industry. The post is incredibly long, rambling in places and flawed in several places, and yet is a vital and important document which depicts a personal journey from dumb, default-misogynist teenager to sensible and pragmatic pro-feminist adult who is ashamed of what he sees around him. I particularly love the bit where he focuses on the kneejerk assumptions and insults made about ‘feminists’ among male gamers and tries to explain it in their own language:

“If your first instinct when you hear the word “feminist” is to say “those man-haters want equality, but they still want me to pay for everything, hurf durf!” then you currently have as accurate an understanding of feminism as a confectioner would have of a Titan II missile schematic. You know those congressmen who say that Grand Theft Auto IV is a “crime simulator” that is “training new felons?” That’s you, and feminism.”

Meanwhile, Jim C Hines has something to say about what it actually means when ‘political correctness’ is used as an insult, and comes up his own new version, to make people feel better about their bigotry. I think my favourites are “fulfill the masculinity quota” and replacing the upsetting word “privilege” with ‘“disproportionately equal.”

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.