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.

Nicola Griffith shared a video of her describing a similar issue to a group of students, when her own agent questioned why the protagonist of her second novel needed to be a lesbian.

Malinda Lo followed up with a very constructive post looking at the hard stats of YA fiction published in the US over the last several decades. In particular I found it interesting that she proves once and for all that the anecdotal experience of there being less lesbians than gay male characters in YA is absolutely true – in fact, it’s a 2-1 balance. So YA authors, time to add the girl on girl kissing!

Finally, it seems that while the Publishers Weekly was carefully not naming and shaming the agent in question, the buzz behind the scenes was not so kind. She speaks out at Colleen Lindsay’s blog the Swivet, with her own description of the phone call in question.

[UPDATE] The authors of the original post have replied at Rachel’s LJ, standing by their original post and urging people to focus on the bigger and more important picture of making YA more gay-friendly, rather than getting distracted in finger pointing or choosing sides.

In other news, Catherynne Valente provides one of the best responses I’ve seen to the idea of an Amazon ‘subscription service’ for e-books. I don’t think I know any writer who is more eloquent when angry.

An announcement that the marvellous Diana Rigg is getting her own ‘at the BBC’ DVD celebration of her TV career.

Kate Elliott tackles the writing advice question of how to tackle the openings of novels.

a wonderful post by Karen Healey celebrating the women in the David & Leigh Eddings, and how you can appreciate elements of some work while also acknowledging its many, many flaws.

A discussion on why it’s deeply inappropriate to use the sexual image of breasts to promote breast cancer awareness – I really appreciate having concrete reasons now to argue against this, as it’s something I’d always felt was vaguely wrong without being able to put my finger on why (apart from it always being inappropriate to use the sexual image of breasts to advertise anything).

On Mad Men and the new crop of copycat “retro sexist” TV shows – what’s the difference between a well crafted guilty pleasure, and wallowing in the bad habits of the past?

A post on Tor.com about the relationship between the Doctor and children in New Who.

A call for papers for a non fiction anthology about Doctor Who and race.

I love me some My Little Pony rebuilds and these modern Doctor Who monsters are very impressive!

Sketches of Harry Potter kids as hipsters – funny, apart for the repeated joke. My favourite is Draco Malfoy’s classic “I hated Potter before it was cool.”

Speaking of Potter, I loved the recent entry in Kathleen Jennings ‘the Dalek Game’ series of sketches, including a discussion of how she came to reading Harry Potter and what it means to her.

Great post for readers wanting to look back at some of the fantasy fiction of the past: a list of the top 10 bad-ass female fantasy characters.

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.

Elizabeth Bear has written a fascinating essay on Charlie Stross’ blog, about the role of the singularity in the science fiction community, and the issues she had with it as a concept. She talks about gender and diversity in this “rainbow age” of SF, and it’s well worth a read.

Meanwhile, there’s a new blog about science fiction in YA, something I know is on a lot of our minds at the moment! (not looking at Cat Sparks or Simon Haynes in particular) And if you missed it, here’s my blog post on the Locus Roundtable about our family’s favourite science fiction books for kids.

There’s a great positive news story about Jennifer Yeh Nelson, a successful female director in Hollywood.

Glenda Larke has been writing a series of posts on her transition to using Dragon Dictate software to write her novels, and she talks eloquently here about the writing-related technological changes she has seen in her lifetime, and how writers with RSI or other medical issues that limit their typing abilities shouldn’t be afraid to embrace the new.

Jim C Hines is once again showing off his chops as a good ally: in this case discussing what subtle (and in some cases not so subtle) differences he would face in his career if he had been born Jane.

Stirring stuff, but I also wanted to quote a tweet from Ekaterina Sedia which is certainly relevant, even if this wasn’t one of the posts she had in mind:

@esedia Ultimate irony: male bloggers writing about the difficulties of female bloggers get gazillions positive comments!

Podcast of the week is the Outer Alliance/Writer and the Critic crossover, in which Julia, Kirstyn & Mondy discuss a range of queer fiction (including Horn & Bleed by Peter M Ball) and many of the issues that emerge from writing and reviewing work with queer characters. And stuff. It’s brilliant, so listen to it! Also, the show notes are a work of art.

And the first post is BY ME! I made the science fictional personal by talking about some of the SF I read when I was young, but particularly what robots and spaceships are on my daughters’ bookshelves. Including our favourite Play School modern classic, Jemima To The Rescue:

“A great feminist moment. She rescues the honey. The day is saved because Jemima is a big damn hero who is also good at her job. In space.”

I don’t know who else will be participating, but I’m excited to see their posts this month.

Elsewhere, Sherwood Smith talks about the perception that kids don’t want to read science fiction. I was surprised at the premise as I have seen quite a bit of SF for middle grade around, and from what I hear, publishers are very keen for YA SF to take off as the next big thing. But the discussion & the comments so far are an interesting read.