Tag: community over individual

May 21, 2013

Creating Community in Isolation

A Review of Julie Czerneda’s Riders of the Storm (Daw, 2008) By Derek Newman-Stille  Displacement is a factor that is prevalent in the lives of many people who have had to leave home for whatever reason. The finding of “home” is a nebulous, complex, and constantly changeable phenomena. Julie Czerneda explores the search for home in a foreign and confusing...

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February 21, 2013

Empowering the Freak

A Review of Leah Bobet’s Above (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2012) By Derek Newman-Stille Leah Bobet’s novel Above focusses on a group of people who have taken up residence in the sewers. Chased from society above the ground and called “Freak”, “Monster”, “Sick”, and “Cursed”, they retreated beneath the city to create their own society, free of discrimination. Their most...

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February 15, 2013

Interview with David Nickle

An interview with David Nickle by Derek Newman-Stille I was pleased that David Nickle was willing to do an interview here on Speculating Canada and particularly that he shows such a strong interest in the ability of Speculative Fiction to open social questions, challenge taken-for-granted notions, and encourage readers to think for themselves.  Spec Can: To begin our interview, could...

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February 10, 2013

Upcoming Interview with David Nickle on Friday February 15th

In our upcoming interview, David Nickle discusses coming of age as a writer of Canadian Speculative Fiction, particularly non-violent, anti-individualist storylines and a general sense of outsider identity that permeates the lives of many Canadian Spec Fic authors. He wants readers to question themselves and their reality, challenge their preconceptions, and experience those moments of “scary transcendence” that are embodied...

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February 9, 2013

Characters in Books Become Real in the Otherworld

A Review of Charles de Lint’s Spirits in the Wires By Derek Newman-Stille In his Spirits in the Wires, Charles de Lint expresses something that I have wished to be true since I was a child: that the characters that we read in books become real through our collective imagination. De Lint’s Otherworld and the In-Between, standing between our world...

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January 28, 2013

Dragonville

A review of Charles de Lint’s The Painted Boy (Viking, 2010) By Derek Newman-Stille Charles de Lint often takes his readers into the hidden parts of the world and brings attention to the things that people ignore in the world around them, whether that be the fantastic side of the world and the potential for a magical viewpoint or attention...

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January 23, 2013

Interview With Karl Schroeder

An Interview With Karl Schroeder by Derek Newman-Stille Karl Schroeder is the author of several novels including “The Claus Effect”, “Ventus”, “Permanence”, and The Virga Series. In the following interview, much as in his fiction writing, Mr. Schroeder asks his readers the tough questions, calling on them to question their limited views of reality and helping readers realise that they...

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January 18, 2013

Upcoming Interview With Karl Schroeder on Wednesday, January 23

I first heard Karl Schroeder talk at The Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy in 2009 and have looked forward to the opportunity to talk to him. I am pleased that I will be able to share that conversation with all of you readers on Wednesday, January 23, when Karl Schroeder talks about his work consulting about technological...

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October 21, 2012

Quote – Canadian Tropes – Privileging Community Over Individual Heroics

“By now, many of us could recite the list of tropes that we’ve decided make us us: stories that privilege the community over individual heroics; stories about open space(s), alienation, isolation; about the rare and precious coming together of isolated bodies to comfort each other in the dark and cold before separating once more…” -Nalo Hopkinson – Final Thoughts (in...

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