The new episode is up! Go fetch it and consume it with digital gusto!

In which women aren’t funny, don’t write important books, but come in handy as assassins and thieves.

News

Connie Willis named SFWA Grand Master

Liz Bourke on Strange Horizons & the art of the mean review

Survey shows that men (as well as women) often play characters of the other gender while gaming – in many cases, men are bored with or alienated by the big musclebound male characters, which game designers think they want. Sound familiar?

Hoyden about Town are asking for guest bloggers to crosspost their Australian Women Writers Challenge reviews on Hoyden (ASIF also keen to do so)

More on feminine tosh: a good solid article in the Australian media (shock!) about the women in literature issues of recent months (and, you know, decades).

Have we been following the “Women aren’t funny” stoush that played out in NYT? This interesting development.

DC Comics – cancellations & new titles – Tansy is especially excited by World’s Finest (featuring the Earth 2 Huntress & Power Girl)

Stranger with My Face – Women in Horror film festival in Hobart, Tasmania – 17-19 February

Tansy’s book launch for Reign of Beasts (Creature Court Book Three) on 2 February at Hobart Bookshop, 5:30pm.
(more…)

Hard to believe we’ve made it to 50 episodes. Of course the alternative is that we stop talking, and that would never happen! Sadly we didn’t eat cake, but we did namecheck Joanna Russ at least once, so that’s almost the same thing, right?

You may eat cake while you listen to it, if you want to. If you do, you know we want to hear about it!

Check out EPISODE 50 now!

In which we leap happily back and forth (with occasional ranting) over those fine lines between feminist critique and anti-female assumptions, plus share our bumper collection of holiday culture consumed. Happy New Year from the Galactic Suburbia crew!

NEWS AND LINKS

Hugo nominations open and we’re gonna have our say

Aqueduct Press to publish Brit Mandelo’s thesis, “WE WUZ PUSHED: On Joanna Russ & Radical Truth-telling”!

Islamic superhero comic turned animated series The 99 to screen in Australia (ABC3)

Amanda Palmer’s wedding post

Great piece on how the very idea of ‘Mary Sue’ is sexist, ties into this episode’s theme about the criticism of female characters.

The wealth of powerful girl heroes in today’s YA

WHAT CULTURE HAVE WE CONSUMED?

Alisa: Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal; The Freedom Maze, Delia Sherman (with cover art by Kathleen Jennings); The Vampire Diaries; Primeval; The 99; Planetary; Homeland and Boxcutters.

Alex: The Double Life of Alice Sheldon, Julie Phillips; Changing Planes, Ursula le Guin; Perchance to Dream, Lisa Mantchev; Twilight Robbery, Frances Hardinge; Chronicles of Chrestomanci vol 1, Diana Wynne Jones. DOA and Going Postal

Tansy: The Freedom Maze, Delia Sherman; Beauty Queens, Libba Bray; Snuff by Terry Pratchett, Going Postal (TV) – Batman (animated) & My First Batman Book by David Katz, David Tennant & Catherine Tate in Much Ado About Nothing (DIGITAL THEATRE DOWNLOAD AWW YEAH).

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

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

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

News

Coffeeandink on The Erasure of women writers in SF and Fantasy

Mur Lafferty – My Problem With Classics

Open letter to publishers: book bloggers are not your bitches

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

Australian Women Writers Challenge
Sign up now

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

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

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

(more…)

Howie needs a Hat

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

News

World Fantasy Awards!

Realms of Fantasy sinks for the third time

Graham Joyce calls BFS Extraordinary General meeting December 9th –

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

What Culture Have we Consumed?

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

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

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

Feedback: well overdue!

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

The new episode is up here! Go, listen.

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

News

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

Ada Lovelace Day

Wonder Woman gets a father (yesthisisnews)

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

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

What Culture Have we Consumed?

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

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

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

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

The new episode is ready to download here!

EPISODE 43

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

No, seriously, she’s broken now.

News

The WSFA SP shortlist (Tehani wooo!)

Death of Sara Douglass

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

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

What Culture Have we Consumed?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

COME ON IN, EPISODE 42 IS FINE

News

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

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

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

What Culture Have we Consumed?

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

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

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

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

Servalan and her two best men

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

EPISODE FORTY

In which we hug the Hugos, plug the Stella, lament the loss of the Weird Tales team, and contemplate (briefly) our podcasterly mid-life crisis. Alex delves into the wonderful world of classic cyberpunk, and Tansy demands to know why on earth Alisa is still watching Doctor Who if she doesn’t actually like it?

News

Weird Tales Sold, Editorial Staff Kicked Out

Strange Horizons Fundraising Drive

The Stella: new Australian novel prize for women

Galactic Chat
Kelley Armstrong
Ben Peek

Tansy’s win

What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alisa: Doctor Who Season 2, Outer Alliance Podcast
Alex: Trouble and her Friends, Melissa Scott; Only Ever Always, Penni Russon; Synners, Pat Cadigan; Blake’s 7.
Tansy: SF Squeecast #3, Panel2Panel, Among Others by Jo Walton, Alcestis by Katherine Beukner, Stormlord’s Exile by Glenda Larke, AM KINDLED WILL TRAVEL

Pet Subject: Hugoriffic!
Were you there for the Hugo Twitter party? Or did you have to resort to sitting in the live audience?
The stats
The results
Hugos commentary round up

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

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

EPISODE 39

In which we defend Mary Sues everywhere, point at superheroes with their pants down, plan a Hugo Twitterparti and reveal which of the three of us is secretly a hardcore horror fan. But most importantly, Alex is watching Blake’s 7 completely unspoiled and she loves Avon the best, hooray!

News

The Mary Sue Conversation:
Zoe Marriott
Sarah Rees Brennan
Holly Black
Elizabeth Bear
“Sometimes a book is about a female character because there are female people in the world.”

What if Male Superheroes posed like Wonder Woman?
Gender Bent Justice League
Bonus, superheroes without pants (except Wonder Woman):

Cat Valente steps down from Apex Magazine as fiction editor, Lynne M Thomas steps up.

Alex wants to be in Reno.
Watch the Hugos!
Join @GalacticSuburbs in whatever the right time zone is and Twitterparti the Hugos with us!

What Culture Have we Consumed?
Alisa – The Hunger Games, Life on Mars UK, The Women’s Hour Podcast, Doctor Who
Tansy - Lords & Ladies, Terry Pratchett; Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, Rob Shearman; Rob on the Big Finish Podcast, Xena & the mystical pregnancy
Alex - Ship Breaker, Paolo Bacigalupi; Blake’s 7; Across the Universe, Beth Revis.

Featured Feedback:

Grant Watson (as well as our producer) pointed out to Tansy that Jason Todd died in “A Death in the Family” and not “The Killing Joke.” She is very sorry.

Kirstyn McDermott took us to task over our dismissive attitude to horror, and we decided to address her concerns and chew over our complicated relationship with the darker side of spec fic.

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