Dare to Speak Their Name: Including the Queer in Worldbuilding, Fierce & Proud

I was once again involved with Octocon this year. I had the daunting task of moderating the Dare to Speak Their Name: Including the Queer in Worldbuilding. Daunting as I didn't really feel qualified to be a part of it. However, as a reviewer of, and sometimes writer of, stories, I suppose I do have some experience with worldbuilding. The panel ended up being a lot of fun and by the end of it I think we all felt that we could have talked for a good while longer about the topic. 

Here are the details:

Dare to Speak Their Name: Including the Queer in Worldbuilding

"Speculative fiction can give us many opportunities to step outside familiar constructs of gender and sexuality. Whether the world is one without obvious prejudice where all genders are treated as equally as possible and queerness is unremarkable, or one in which gender isn't assigned at birth or just doesn't matter at all, how does SFF queer its worlds? What can these secondary worlds show readers and viewers who had previously only been exposed to straight culture?"

Panelists: David Ferguson (moderator), GOH Philippa Ryder, Helen Corcoran, Quinn Clancy, Robert JE Simpson.

If you missed it, you can check it out on Twitch until the end of October. 

One of the panelists was Quinn Clancy who is involved with the Cupán Fae group. Established in 2015, the group meets weekly to discuss their current projects, collaborate on new ideas and basically provide support to each other. They were selling books as part of the con so I picked up a couple of them on Kindle (I'm sorry. I have to be selective with physical books due to space constraints). I decided on their science fiction anthology, Fierce New World, and their latest anthology, an LGBTQ one, Fierce & Proud. I love a bit of science fiction and have recently decided to make a conscious decision to look at LGBTQ creators and works. I ended up starting that journey with EM Forrester's Maurice, a wonderful gay romance book that spawned an equally wonderful movie starring a young Hugh Grant. However, the Octocon panel made me notice that I haven't really delved much into LGBTQ science fiction. Well outside comic books. Coincidentally, I have recently backed a science fiction comic book Kickstarter called Fanny Galactic, which stars a drag queen and other queer characters. I could go on but maybe another time and another place. Anyway, I started reading Fierce & Proud not even thinking of a science fiction angle but it turns out the writers largely went in that direction (the book doesn't stick to single genre and I must note that I haven't finished all the stories yet). I'm gonna call out two stories in particular as I thought they had clever ideas and the writers managed to pull them off well: Paul Carroll's Man in the Mirror and Kat Dodd's Marked. They are interesting looks into the perception of sexuality and gender. Though I have enjoyed all the stories so far so maybe support the group by checking out one of their books? I may cover Fierce New World when I get to it.

Cupán Fae on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CupanFae

Cupán Fae's website: http://cupanfae.com/

The Secret Life Of Cows: Never Judge A Book By Its Title

I think I've said before but I don't really read new books. I tend to go for proven classics and tend to go for fiction. However, I am also a sucker for bookshop purchases. I was in one of Dublin's well known establishments when I spotted not one but three books in the top ten section. I was unsure about picking up The Secret Life of Cows but I perused the foreword by Alan Bennett and it piqued my curiosity. 

In the book, Rosamund Young goes into the personalities and the family history of her cows, telling various stories about them that, she argues, show their personality and intelligence. She argues that people see personalities in other domesticated creatures like dogs and cats but hardly ever apply this belief to farm animals like chickens, sheep, pigs and lambs. An argument that has won me over. If the book was just about this, it might just be a quirky distraction but she uses her argument to further argue that we should take personality (and individuality) into account when raising these animals.  It is an excellent argument against factory farming and over-reliance on medication. It is also a case for maintaining our hedge rows and how the loss of any part of nature disrupts the whole. The book is fun, quirky and educational and it is worth your time.

Writing lesson: there is more to animals than you think   

Planetfall: The Joy Of A Good Book

Living in the age of social media and various streaming services, I haven't been much of a book reader lately. Yes I maintain a comic book habit but even that has dwindled in recent times. Being editor of Irish Comic News has at least kept me somewhat up to date on Irish books. Recently, I decided I needed to tackle my to-read pile, a decision that was reinforced by Michael Carroll's recent panel at Octocon where he urged aspiring writers to read more in order to become better writers. He also suggested reading a broad range of books so I decided to alternate between science fiction and something from another genre.  I have a lot of sci-fi books in my to-read pile so I decided to start with that genre. When trying to settle on what book to begin with, I decided I wanted to try a modern sci-fi. I have read some H.G. Wells and Philip K. Dick (a novelist I will be returning too) but I hadn't read any recent stuff so I decided to put Planetfall on top of the pile.

I first became aware of Emma Newman when she was guest of honour at Octocon in 2015. I learnt a bit about her issues around socialising and anxiety and, seeing as I suffer from similar issues, I felt somewhat of a connection with her. After listening to her Tea & Jeopardy podcast (which she does with husband, Peter), I became a fan of her writing too (she has an excellent sense of humour). Looking at the publishing date, Planetfall, which was her first venture into science fiction, came along around this time. I picked up a copy when it first came out but, as with many of my book purchases, I started it and got sidetracked. "Life is what happens when you're busy doing other things". Delving back into it, I was reminded of the comfort books have given over the years. The writing style is such that I found myself devouring numerous chapters at a time. I am not going to go the plot as I want people to discover things for themselves. What I will do is tell you a few things that, to me, makes this a great novel.  Firstly, the technology has a level of believability. Sure the alien technology is strange but the human technology feels like a logical step to the likes of Facebook, YouTube and Facebook, social media in general. Secondly, it may be on an alien world but it is all about humanity and what makes us tick. Finally, I really connected with the main character's point of view. She is dealing with issues and I felt her anxiety and emotions along with her. The pacing of the writing seemed to pick up with her anxiety levels which resulted in a book that had me on an emotional rollercoaster and absorbed me from start to finish. I highly recommend that people pick this book up. Emma Newman's next book set in the same universe, After Atlas, is already on my read pile. In fact it is the next one after my current non science fiction one.

Writing lessons: believable characters, grounding your story.