A very thorough (and probably pedantic) answer to the question of a major Cold War-era science fiction anthology's purported global reach, and whether it could rightfully be called World's Best SF, complete with charts and quantitative data.
Author: sonofsagan
Reading “The End: Surviving the World through Imagined Disasters” by Katie Goh
Goh's The End: Surviving the World through Imagined Disasters—a brilliant and fun exploration of (post)apocalyptic narratives across a range of subgenres and political concerns—is academic in rigor, creative in style, journalistic in accessibility, and activist in energy.
Watching “No One Will Save You” (2023)
Brian Duffield's directorial debut, No One Will Save You, is a brilliant film that utilizes conventions from several genres, including alien horror and home invasion thrillers, to play out the psychodrama of a character whose isolation and unspoken traumatic past call out for audience identification.
Reading “Redshirts” by John Scalzi
John Scalzi's Redshirts is a sometimes smart, mostly fun, and occasionally critically interesting novel that sits rightfully, and awkwardly, at the center of recent debates about the origin, aesthetics, and political value of so-called "squeecore" genre fiction.
Fall 2023 University Press Recommendations
A curated list of recommended books published by university presses and academic publishers in fall 2023. Recommendations tend toward my own interests and books that I think can help make a better world.
Spring 2023 University Press Recommendations
A curated list of recommended books published by university presses and academic publishers in spring 2023. Recommendations tend toward my own interests and books that I think can help make a better world.
Reading “Shadowdale” by Richard Awlinson [Scott Ciencin] (Forgotten Realms / Avatar 1)
The Forgotten Realms novel Shadowdale marks the beginning of a major event in the franchise's storyworld and, despite it being somewhat of an eye-rolling chore to read, it offers some promising elements for the rest of the series.
Reading “Juniper” by Monica Furlong (Doran 1)
Monica Furlong's Juniper is a beautiful, powerful novel of girlhood and community in ancient Cornwall that transcends its position as middle-grade fiction and demonstrates why Furlong's magical fictions of the ancient Celtic world, told from the perspective of women's experiences, deserve another look.
Fall 2022 University Press Recommendations
A curated list of recommended books published by university presses and academic publishers in fall 2022. Recommendations tend toward my own interests and books that I think can help make a better world.
You Want to Work in Academic Publishing: What Next?
This is a guide to thinking about the transition to working in academic publishing for academics, designed especially for graduate students and recent postdocs looking to move out of the tenure-track-or-bust rat race.
Genre Fantasies 