I never found the love for the Phantom, I’m afraid – it was all far too patriarchal to make a dent in my cultural stash – but this review makes me tempted to give it a try. I’m particularly excited that it’s a 19th century story and that the plot revolves around another female character. Bechdelicious! Shame it’s only a one shot.

Now the question is… is there an app for that?

Fowler’s novels are eclectic, but each clings fiercely to its themes and subject matter, making for a very satisfying reading experience.

The Case of the Imaginary Detective (published as Wit’s End in some countries, a far better title) wasn’t at all what I was expecting. I knew it was a book in which Fowler interrogated the detective fiction genre, and had even read summaries of the plot, but somehow in my head it was set in the 1930′s or 1940′s, like Jo Walton’s Farthing… but what I got instead was something more akin to William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition!

Rima is a wounded soul, having lost her mother, brother and most recently, her father. Needing somewhere to assemble her thoughts, she is staying with her godmother Addison, a famous crime novelist who has not produced a new book in more than two years. The house is full – of dollhouses set up for each of Addison’s literary crime scenes, of dogs, of secrets, of memories of Rima’s father, who may or may not have had an affair with Addison, and most notably of Maxwell Lane, the fictional detective.

Even as Rima tries to get her head together, she finds herself obsessed with Maxwell Lane, and other elements of Addison’s books – particularly the book Ice City, in which the murderer bore the name of Rima’s father. Mysterious women appear, in person and on the internet, all claiming to know more about Rima’s father and brother than she herself does. All the clues lead to a cult which may or may not have ties to Addison’s early years and the formation of Maxwell Lane. Rima is determined to solve the case, even if the people around her remain frustratingly unaware that there is a case to be solved.

For the most part, The Case of the Imaginary Detective is about grief, and the games we play with our mind in order to deal with the devastating reality of losing the people we care most about. This is Rima’s story, but by no means the only story that the book has to offer. Fowler also explores the line between fiction and reality, and how different people perceive that line. The most interesting part of the story for me was the exploration of Rima’s father’s three separate existences: as the flawed, normal, real individual she knew as her father; as the smooth and erudite newspaper columnist who rewrote his own life (and by association, her life, especially her awkward teenage years) for the entertainment of the masses; and as a fictional character in one of Addison’s books, who murdered his wife.

There’s also a lot in the narrative about privacy and ownership, especially as it pertains to the internet, and that ties back to the way that people often feel they have particular claims to other people in life, and how badly they react when they are proved otherwise. Rima’s privacy is compromised constantly throughout the novel – by the housekeeper who enters and cleans her room without asking; by her late father who thought nothing of breaching her trust in order to publicly portray himself as a good parent; by the fans on the forums who confuse the fictional Bim Lanisell with the real one and thus assume Rima is the daughter of a murderer; by Addison and her dogwalker, who both blog about Rima as well as her brother Oliver and his death; and of course by the fanficcers, who not only slash Bim Lanisell with Maxwell Lane, but happily incorporate Rima herself into their work.

The thing I love most about Karen Joy Fowler novels is that while they are not technically genre fiction, they often behave as if they were. The descriptions of everyday technology and how people use it are so very – well, 2006. [the book was published in 2008] This is a world before Twitter and iPhones, but one very much concerned with blogging, web forums, Second Life style 3D multimedia environments, and so on. It’s this interest in changing technology and how people are incorporating it into their lives that reminded me of Pattern Recognition, another novel which wasn’t technically science fiction, but presented current technology in such a way that it felt like maybe it was.

Rather than be concerned about the book “dating” thanks to the specific use of technology, Fowler has embraced this fact, making the book a time capsule of pop culture as well. Characters don’t just go to the movies, they go to see “Borat.” Addison is reading a book which can only be Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. There are a few elements of fictional pop culture too, not least Addison’s high profile series of crime novels, but it’s the detailed real world aspects which I really enjoyed. Crime novels in particular are quite often guilty of ignoring current technological advances, or coming to them late, because quite frankly technological advances screw with murder mysteries something shocking. Also, the technology is changing so fast…

This ties in with a conversation I was having recently with  random_alex about Going Bovine, a brilliant book with only one flaw: it posits a world with Star Wars. Or, as Alex put it, a world in which Star Wars is basically not that important. More and more, while I enjoy the inventiveness of fictional pop culture in novels, I have trouble raising the necessary suspension of disbelief to accept the erasure of real pop culture. I also find myself really enjoying books that are dated, and dated hard. It’s all worldbuilding, after all, regardless of whether you’re using genuine or madey-uppy elements!

If you’ve read and enjoyed Fowler’s fiction in the past, or if you have an interest in the crime genre, or if you just plain like books, this is a good one to get your teeth into. If you haven’t read her before… what are you waiting for? These are literary novels built for genre readers.

This is one of the best of the BenBella books I’ve read – the balance of topics is good, covering the writing structure, noir influences and themes, and relationships of the show. There are even a few oddball topics like – why is Veronica Mars so popular among conservatives? By about halfway through, I was desperate to rewatch my VM DVDs which is quite an achievement as I only did my last mass rewatch less than 6 months ago.

The biggest disappointment of the book is that it was released in 2006 – after season two, but before any of the essay writers had seen the third and final season. It makes sense that the book would have been released at the height of the show’s popularity, and that they didn’t know there was only one year to go before it would be cancelled, but with so much great insight and analysis about the first two seasons, the book couldn’t help but feel unfinished without reference to that. It’s a particular shame because season three did several things to break away from the formula and traditions of the first two seasons, and many articles read how left me with the sense of ‘to be continued’ without reference to that final act.

(some mild spoilers follow)

Rob Thomas’s reflective introductions to each articles go some way to rectifying this, as he was working on season three at the time the book was put together, and makes many teasing references to what audiences will be seeing. Indeed, Thomas’s contribution adds great value to this book, as he appears genuinely enthusiastic about the essays, but does not hesitate to point out what the real story was, where the essayist has made assumptions – either about his pop culture influences, his writing intentions, or why we never saw Backup the dog outside of action scenes. He also lets slip all kinds of tidbits about the making of the show, his early writing process, the casting of Kristen Bell, and how Jason Dohring took a minor character and turned him into the slightly psychotic heart of the show. (heh he points out that Wallace Fennel is the only character with strong, unwavering ethics) He doesn’t shy away from criticisms of the show, though, and owns up to flaws in the writing and production, sometimes explaining how they came to be.

My favourite articles explored the use of first person narrative in the show, and how this evoked classic noir films; the key relationships between Veronica and her father, and between Veronica and Logan; the story structure of television; the uses of heightened reality and “camp” to balance out the noir aspects of the show, and even one on the symbolism of the cars used for each of the characters. Veronica’s rape and the dual answer to that mystery comes up a lot and boy oh boy, do those writers love talking about Aaron Echolls.

All in all, a great, pacy and very readable book. But it could *really* do with some examination of Veronica’s first year at Hearst College, the next act of her relationship with Logan, the changed mystery structure of season three, and the aborted reboot of the show, with Veronica as an FBI agent, as shown in the season 3 dvds. I suppose, sadly, a long gone show such as this doesn’t justify a second volume of Neptune Noir. But it feels wrong to leave Veronica’s story at the end of season 2, rather than the far more ambiguous, melancholy end of season 3.

I’m going to have to watch it again, aren’t I.

Maura’s long post showing her correspondence with the SFX editor is worth a read, because it shows in paragraph after paragraph, the (by now) familiar sight of a privileged person who has been called on his (undoubtedly unconscious) sexism and that by extension of his publication and the industry he belongs to, and yet is not willing to accept or acknowledge that he has done anything wrong.

You could create a bingo card from his responses: they meant to include women, they thought about it, they intended to, but one article and two email correspondences went astray, and besides, there aren’t that many women in horror anyway, and if there are any, they don’t send their books to SFX, and they don’t make enough films, and when women do make horror it’s not really horror, and look, he has two anonymous female friends who confirm it’s not his fault, he meant well…

Besides, don’t you know there aren’t any women producing or consuming horror fiction and films?

Well, there aren’t if your only source of information is SFX magazine.

I’m not a big horror reader, but I see the same arguments being used that are regularly trotted out about women in SF. I have nothing but respect for editors and other people in positions of power who, when called on the inappropriate lack of representation of women, take that accusation seriously, and make an honest effort to do something about it in the future. Falling victim to unconscious bias does not make you a bad person. There’s no need to be defensive about it. But once it’s been pointed out to you… trying to pretend that it doesn’t exist is just silly.

As Maura says here, there is no excuse now. Not just with horror. In science fiction. In literature. In film. In awards lists. It’s been pointed out too many times. If you’re still contributing to the invisibling of women (awesome verb by the way) then ignorance is not an excuse. Unless, you know, you’re also not listening to what women say…

Hmm. That would make a lot of sense, actually.

February was Women in Horror Recognition Month (ironic, no?). I recommend you celebrate by reading a Kaaron Warren novel. Or two. Or recommend your own favourite hidden treasure of horror in the comments.

Sarah Rees Brennan is writing awesomeness about women in fiction again, debunking all the dumb excuses people give for being more critical of female characters than male (features the big spoiler for The Demon’s Lexicon):

There are also issues with writing people with disabilities, people of colour, people who are gay. There are even issues with writing straight white guys, because they too live in a world where inequality exists, and this affects them too! All these issues! That’s why it is impossible to ever write any characters at all. And so all my writing goes like this ‘the void… BLANK PAGES … the void… BLANK PAGES.’ It’s very deep.

Cheryl Morgan talks about how to get women nominating for and appearing on the Hugo shortlists, and looks a bit at the psychology that means women usually don’t get fairly represented. In particular she suggests that women are more likely to disqualify themselves from being well-read enough to venture an opinion.

 coffeeandink on male privilege & perception of merit in comics – a beautiful illustration of the ways in which some men can unconsciously discount the work of women, particularly in geek-friendly arenas. This might be one to bookmark and point people to as a great example of invisible sexism at work.

A round-table discussion on how to define and redefine ‘strong’ when it comes to YA heroines.

Moving away from speculative fiction and geekery circles, here’s an interview with Natasha Walter about the return of sexism and the pressure on young girls who don’t feel they have a choice to opt out of porn culture.

An uncomfortable theme that was raised in various circles was that women’s art is still seen as less, and that when forced to think about it, people can come up with a long list of justifications why this is so, because ‘actually I’ve been socialised to think that male=better/stronger/wiser’ is often a hard thing to admit, let alone come to terms with. One list that did have a substantial proportion of women was the “songs I am embarrassed to admit I like.”

Which brings me to Amanda Palmer, singing a song about Lady Gaga and herself and Madonna, apparently the final act of an ongoing debate with Neil Gaiman. It seems to belong to that conversation from several months ago – or maybe it’s the beginning of a new conversation. In any case, it’s a very cool song, not least because of the circumstances under which it was created. If you’re not already following Amanda’s blog (her posts are, this one notwithstanding, loooong and hard to navigate at times), she is definitely an artist to watch for the ways in which she experiments with form, social media and the changing face of technology and the internet. She’s basically the rock chick version of Cory Doctorow (ha, okay, someone has to get those two on a stage together if it hasn’t already happened), and its her willingness to throw herself, unrehearsed, into her art; her willingness to get messy, screw up & show her knickers (both metaphorically and literally) in various public forums that make her such a compelling figure.

I love the fact that Neil and Amanda have basically become the Posh and Becks of the lit/rock music world.

It’s surprisingly sophisticated, the way she chooses to face her fears like that. I’ve seen her do this with movies, too, being worried or scared by something adult in them, but coming back the next day and asking to see it again. She was terrified by Spirited Away the first time (and I don’ t blame her) but now it’s one of her favourite movies.

So yes, many spare moments & chores over the last several days have been enlivened by me having to recite from memory the plot of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Good thing it wasn’t the Twits or something, at least I remember a lot of this one! At one point I explained to Raeli about how that episode of Futurama she’s seen approximately a gazillion times, when Fry and the others visit the Slurm Factory, is actually a pastiche of the Willy Wonka movie. I pointed out the similarity in the river scene, the Oompa-Loompas, and Wonka’s costume. She nodded in a vaguely patronising “yes I see this is interesting to you, Mummy” way, and I dropped the subject.

But I remember the first time she saw that episode of Futurama, I thought “Oh here we go, seeing the pastiche before the source material…” Because that pretty much sums up my childhood.

I was not in on the zeitgeist, growing up. Possibly because my mother’s influence steered me away from American pop culture, commercial tv stations, seeing movies in the cinema, and any form of early-adoption, apart from the VHS player. We were also a pro-second-hand books family. I’m not sure if it’s just the era I was born in, but it seems like I viewed, read and experienced almost everything in entirely the wrong order.

Before I saw Star Wars, for example, I:

saw a parody in pig-themed comic book Oink! depicting Luke Skyporker and Ham Solo
watched Caravan of Courage
watched Return of the Jedi
read the novelisation of Star Wars
watched Spaceballs

Seeing the parody before the original source became something of a tradition for me. I also saw Spaceballs with its classic alien-bursts-out-of-chest-and-starts-tapdancing scene long before Alien.

Doctor Who, which can definitely be considered my first fandom, was something experienced through endless repeats and recordings. For at least 10 years on Australian TV (possibly 20), the same Jon Pertwee and especially Tom Baker episodes were repeated in a seemingly endless loop, along with the Goodies, Roger Ramjet, Bananaman, Monkey Magic, etc. My honey and I, comparing notes, discovered that we had exactly the same childhood TV memories despite having 10 years separating our ages.

My obsessive brain was reading Doctor Who: the Programme Guide at a horribly early age, learning which episodes went where, and becoming an expert in characters and actors I had never actually seen. Target novelisations allowed me to fill in the gaps, and say with great confidence that my favourite story was The Highlanders, despite it having been destroyed (I think) before I was born.

Oh, and I read about two dozen Star Trek: Next Gen novels before I saw a single episode of the series. I’ve been thinking about this a bit lately, thanks to listening to Wil Wheaton’s awesome ‘Memories of the Futurecast’ podcast, and my recent Dragonlancy nostalgias. As a teenager, I found some Next Gen novels being sold for $5 each in a no-longer-there bookshop in Hobart called Greensleeves. I read it in a mad tear, and went back with some pocket money, thinking I could maybe afford 3-4 of them. To my utter delight, they were now marked down to $2 each.

I loved those books like a crazy person. My favourite was “Survivors,” which filled in the backstory (later contradicted in the TV show I think) about Tasha Yar, my favourite character (ha, that worked out well). I eventually got hold of some episodes thanks to our local video rental, but the tv shows never quite had the same level of interest for me as the books. It was just about a year before my obsession moved on to other things… but I managed to collect a LOT of books in that time.

When it comes to books, my favourites were often the series that could be read in any order, like Pratchett’s Discworld or Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga. The same can be said for a lot of historical series, I suppose. I read Jo’s Boys before Good Wives. Read Rainbow Valley & Rilla of Ingleside before Anne’s House of Dreams.

I’m an early adopter, these days. I watch my favourite shows the instant they come out, I order books in bulk from the US rather than wait to see if they even get a release in Australia, and I take part in Last Short Story, a project which means reading as much as possible of the short fiction published this year, instead of waiting for awards shortlists, recommended reading lists and Best-Of anthologies to filter out the best stuff for me.

So much of our pop culture these days is obsessed with avoiding spoilers, with wanting to experience every second of a show or film or book without a single hint about it beforehand, without knowing what the twists and turns are. I love that experience too, and I understand why people get so obsessive about it now that the internet makes it so much easier to be spoiled. I’ve been known to hide from my laptop so I can watch a soccer game on delay without finding out what the result was by random tweets.

But there’s something to be said for the kind of story that is good despite you knowing how it ends. Where the experience is learning how they got to a particular place, rather than wondering where they will end up. I am, as it happens, a sucker for prequels, between-the-stories stories, and the revelation of backstory that makes the front story so much more interesting. One thing I love about the TV show How I Met Your Mother is the way that they play with narrative, using flashbacks and unreliable narration to reveal secrets and new layers about the past, which always fit seamlessly into the present, while dropping hints about the future – all managing to form a cohesive whole. Despite its title, it is most definitely a story about the journey rather than the destination. (I know this especially because I watched season 3 first, then 1&2, then 4…)

We all know how Doctor Who is going to end, this Christmas. Except we don’t. Not really. The joy is in the details. It should be every bit as much of a surprising revelation as was the War Games when I first watched it, long after Spearhead from Space; or the death of Julius Caesar in Rome. Short of actually getting hold of transcripts first and reading all the dialogue beforehand (which, cough, I did for Buffy Season Three) we can’t be spoiled, not really. All we have so far is the shopping list, not the recipe.

@clarkesworld: Three different slush stories had “hello kitty” references in them today. Hope this doesn’t mean there’s a HK theme anthology in the works

@tansyrr: @clarkesworld you didn’t hear about the special upcoming Hello Kitty issue of F&SF?

@clarkesworld: @tansyrr Just so you know, you are entirely to blame for inspiring this http://bit.ly/479GMK

I am so, so proud.

So the whole Singin’ in the Rain thing might have had unforeseen circumstances.  Just as I was about to throw in the towel on the whole ballet thing, Raeli has gone crazy for tap.  Huzzah!  I am much happier about that as a healthy dance lessons alternative.

But my daughter has been known to be flighty about such things.  Her birthday is in the new year, and I plan to get her kitted out for some dance lessons of some kind by then.  So I need to feed this new frenzy of hers.

Pop Cultch me, people!  I need recs for other films/tv shows, however old or contemporary, that might appeal to my girl.  So far, all she knows is that tap dancing is the preserve of a) Elf from The Fairies, b) those people on Singin’ in the Rain, c) the Chimney Sweeps in Mary Poppins.  Need – more – inspiration.

Ideally any recs should:

a) be in colour. Much though I love Fred and Ginger, I suspect that black and white may be a dealbreaker or at least a significant barrier for little miss nearly-five.  I can sneak those up on her later.

b) ideally feature at least one female dancer.  The example above are predominantly male, and she’s already twigged that the most prominent dance routines in Singin’ in the Rain are not the ones with Debbie Reynolds.  I’m in danger of her deciding tap dancing is just for boys and lunging for the tutu at the eleventh hour.

c) this part is embarrassing, but anything pink, fairy-ish, mermaid-ish or PRINCESSY would be a bonus.  I take no responsibility for her fetishes.

Suggestions?

I’m listening to the latest Sofanauts (no. 31) which is my latest obsession (in the last fortnight or so I have mainlined their entire backlist).  I’m loving the kind of discussions they have, about SF books and publishing and new media.  I occasionally arch an eyebrow or two, usually when they start talking about fantasy novels (seriously, if you think the only reason fantasy is published in trilogies is because the authors are churning out words to suck extra money out of fans, you’re not really on the pulse of the industry).  For the most part, though, they are cool smart people talking about stuff that interests me, and there’s always at least one British accent.  Can’t do better, as far as podcasts go.  (it’s also reinvigorating my interest in podcasting, might have to get back to that)

The current one has Paul Di Filippo and Peter Watts talking with Tony C Smith about the videogame industry.  One of the things they discuss is whether games are going to replace prose as an artform.  They bring in the whole issue of – photography didn’t kill off prose, TV and film didn’t (though they killed off most of the pulp magazines), etc. etc.  So why would games do it?

The most obvious aspect of this discussion that jumps out at me is that – okay I get that people are enjoying participatory artforms and that many are turning to these instead of static artforms (games rather than movies, blogs with communities rather than hardcopy newspapers) – but what about me?  I don’t mean the me that still likes to read a novel (but has to tear herself from the laptop in order to do it).  I mean the me who is 31 and female and in no way the kind of person that games are designed for.

Sure, there are plenty of women who game.  Hell, I spent two years of my life completely immersed in an RPG.  One that was almost entirely peopled by female players.  During that time, I certainly read a lot less than I do now.  But… the kinds of games that they design to sell, the big shiny ones with all the graphics, may appeal to some female gamers, but they are not designed for us.  As far as I know the entire medium, from its protagonists through to its storylines and priorities, is directed at not only the male gamer, but pretty much the teen male gamer.

Thanks to Hollywood, I’m kind of over media which have the male audience as their main priority.  Worse, they have a particular IDEA of the male audience in mind, which I’m pretty sure assumes that men are sex-mad, gun-fetishising idiots, and is just as irrelevant to many of the guys I know as it is to the women.  I’m not sure I want the games industry to be providing any let alone the majority of my future entertainment.

Sure, the SF field has a dodgy record with acknowledging audiences other than a certain kind of male reader, but there’s still plenty out there for me to read.  Far more than I have the time to consume.

(The second thought that jumped out at me was – seriously, there are people who think prose might die out? Do they not know about NaNoWriMo?)

I was going to tie this into the article I found yesterday about why men win literary awards, but this is long enough already and I haven’t reached my day’s word target yet.  Must write book.  More later.