Wild Unicorn Herd

soemily:

anygoddamnedcolleen:wildunicornherd:anygoddamnedcolleen:

NPR » Top 100 Science Fiction, Fantasy Books

wildunicornherd:confessionsofasablefangyrl:wildunicornherd:

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HOPKINSON AND BUTLER FOR ALL THE AWARDS

ALL OF THEM

Well also Beloved because Beloved, and if this list is articulated as ~books with magic~ then well. A question though: why not Frankenstein? I’ve not read it and so please someone correct me if you will as it seems I’m wrong, but I had thought it was supposed to be really truly worthwhile and deeply felt and about classism? Or maybe I’m confused and thinking of something else.

Oh, I have no beef with Frankenstein. It’s an important book. It’s just so goddamned OLD and BORING (not necessarily as a story, but as a choice). It’s like NPR asked the neckbearded masses to name a really important female science fiction writer and they were like “…Uh…that lady who wrote Frankenstein?” BEIGE. BEIGE BEIGE BEIGE.

Like, look at Tolkien. He was not the first fantasy writer by far. But he’s the one that half the writers on that list are aping. This is the equivalent of putting George MacDonald or E. R. Eddison or James Branch Cabell at #1 instead of Tolkien. No, fuck that, it’s the equivalent of putting Tolkien at #1 instead of Gene Wolfe. Their gender politics are about the same anyway.

Shouldn’t snark before I’ve had breakfast. Sorry, hope this explains things. :P

1. How I think The Gaslight Dogs and The Fifth Head of Cerberus use indigenous shapeshifters to address “going native” from a postcolonial perspective
2. How I think The Gaslight Dogs and The Fifth Head of Cerberus use indigenous shapeshifters to address “going native” from a postcolonial perspective
3. How I think The Gaslight Dogs and The Fifth Head of Cerberus use indigenous shapeshifters to address “going native” from a postcolonial perspective
4. How I think The Gaslight Dogs and The Fifth Head of Cerberus use indigenous shapeshifters to address “going native” from a postcolonial perspective
5. How I think The Gaslight Dogs and The Fifth Head of Cerberus use indigenous shapeshifters to address “going native” from a postcolonial perspective
6. How I think The Gaslight Dogs and The Fifth Head of Cerberus use indigenous shapeshifters to address “going native” from a postcolonial perspective
7. How I think The Gaslight Dogs and The Fifth Head of Cerberus use indigenous shapeshifters to address “going native” from a postcolonial perspective
8. How I think The Gaslight Dogs and The Fifth Head of Cerberus use indigenous shapeshifters to address “going native” from a postcolonial perspective
9. How I think The Gaslight Dogs and The Fifth Head of Cerberus use indigenous shapeshifters to address “going native” from a postcolonial perspective
10. How I think The Gaslight Dogs and The Fifth Head of Cerberus use indigenous shapeshifters to address “going native” from a postcolonial perspective
11. How I think The Gaslight Dogs and The Fifth Head of Cerberus use indigenous shapeshifters to address “going native” from a postcolonial perspective
12. How I think The Gaslight Dogs and The Fifth Head of Cerberus use indigenous shapeshifters to address “going native” from a postcolonial perspective

I was ready to trim down and post a review of The Gaslight Dogs, and then today I read Wolfe’s The Fifth Head of Cerberus and it’s going to have to be a whole essay about postcolonial…stuff and cross-cultural contact…and the concept of “going native”…and transformation.

So, in the meanwhile, have a linkdump on both books!

The Gaslight Dogs

• Review: Gaslight Dogs by Karin Lowachee / Tor.com – by jhameia.
• Silver Goggles: Themes of Gaslight Dogs – jhameia’s more detailed follow-up essay. ’Ware spoilers.
• Interview with Karin Lowachee « Beyond Victoriana – Ay-leen interviews the author.

The Fifth Head of Cerberus

Now, this book—three interlinked novellas really—came out in 1972, so there’s quite a lot of existing scholarship and some of it is in academic journals which I can’t access directly. But these are the online resources I’m starting with:

• Ultan’s Library » Fifth Head of Cerberus – UL is a small but high-quality repository of essays on Wolfe.
• Cave Canem – Wolfe scholar Robert Borski’s Fifth Head wiki.
• The Urth Archives – the online form of the Gene Wolfe mailing list.

To X., who no doubt hoped this Tumblr, being devoted to POC in SF, would be a Wolfe-free zone: I’m so sorry.