Since the night she died, she’s been called beautiful five thousand, two hundred and seven times by five thousand, two hundred and seven different tenientes. Each one has his own, peculiar stiffness as he clings to her, as his veneer of restraint chars and peels back like pages in a burning book.
Obviously the social conditions complicate things, the homophobia both institutionalized and internalized. But other characters, in other stories, they could overcome those difficulties. Leo and William can’t, not because they’re gay but because their choices make it impossible.
Dollhouse always had at least as much of an identity crisis as its main characters, so I suppose it’s only fitting that it should close on two completely different notes.
Better known as St. Brendan the Navigator, this strong man in an often harsh land became famous in the Middle Ages for his ocean voyage to discover the Isle of the Blessed, a Paradise supposedly located beyond the Western Sea. Adroitly blending imagination, the medieval “Life of St. Brendan”, and author Morgan Llywellyn’s vast knowledge of Irish legend and history, Brendán is a fascinating introduction to this towering man of faith and the world that shaped him and which he, in turned, shaped.
This month’s audio fiction is The Armature of Flight written by Sharon Mock and read by Mark Bukovec
They shared an apartment where William knew the landlord, where nobody asked questions. Leo learned to ignore the strange bumps and creases of his neighbors’ clothes. He was safe among the modified; their crimes, their sins, were so much greater than his own. And in that safety he could forget, as long as possible, what lay ahead.
As creators of worlds for fiction and gaming, we must see the big picture. It is our duty to paint the landscapes of our settings with enough detail to engage and fascinate. We may find ourselves responsible for entire cultures and continents. Truly epic works may find us bearing the weight of galaxy-spanning civilizations.
Fantasy and science fiction writer Kage Baker died of uterine cancer on January 31, 2010. Her final message to her readers appears on her website: “I want you to tell all these people that I wanted more time to spend with them. Tell them I meant to, tell them I wanted to hear what they said and tell them what was on my mind.”
It looks to be a banner year for fantasy and science fiction films, at least in terms of quantity, if not quality. In the first month of 2010 we’ve seen the release of Daybreaker vampires, a post apocalyptic Book of Eli, and a Legion of killer angels, not counting The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnasus, the latest Terry Gillium film to tank at the box office.
Editor Horton packages fourteen stories originally published online during 2008 into an anthology that confirms the obvious: good short sf/f can be found on the Web. It is, perhaps, more bounteous than in the days when OMNI magazine went online in late 1996 (“Get a Grip” by Paul Park, published by OMNI in March 1997, became the first fiction originally published on the Internet to be nominated for a World Fantasy Award), but the amount of less-than-good fiction is even more abundant. Unplugged serves two purposes: to point out examples of outstanding fiction and to direct the reader to the online sources that publish it.
It also provides proof of the variety of speculative fiction available. Most importantly Unplugged does what any good “best of” anthology does:
showcase highly readable, enjoyable fiction.
