control – Speculating Canada: Canadian Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy

October 23, 2016

Stigma is Sticky

Stigma is StickyA review of Nalo Hopkinson’s The Chaos (Margaret McElderry Books, 2012) By Derek Newman-Stille As she frequently does, Nalo Hopkinson uses her novel The Chaos to disrupt hegemonic ideas of normalcy, questioning what is ‘normal’ and using the supernatural and magical to point out the way that the norms we create are equally strange. The Chaos takes elements...

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June 4, 2016

Do Emperors Dream of Electronic Nightingales?

Do Emperors Dream of Electronic Nightingales? A review of Michelle West’s ‘The Nightingale’ in Once Upon a Galaxy Edited by Wil McCarthy, Martin H. Greenberg, and John Helfers (Daw, 2002). By Derek Newman-Stille Michelle Sagara West (here writing as Michelle West) takes Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Nightingale” from once upon a time into the (un)Happily Ever After, transforming myth into...

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May 2, 2016

Frozen Wooden With Steampunk Horror

Frozen Wooden with Steampunk Horror A review of Kate Heartfield’s “The Seven O’Clock Man” in Clockwork Canada: Steampunk Fiction, edited by Dominik Parisien (Exile Editions, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille As much a horror tale as it is a steampunk story, Kate Heartfield’s “The Seven O’Clock Man” evokes the powerlessness of youth. Heartfield constructs a community where the late mayor...

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August 18, 2015

Sands of Time and Landscapes of Memory

A Review of Marie Bilodeau’s Nigh Book Two (S&G Publishing, 2014) By Derek Newman-Stille Memory, made of time and place and story, shapes Marie Bilodeau’s Nigh Book 2, a tale about the return of the faeries and the collision of human and faerie cultures. Like the first book of Nigh, this book explores the power of the slippery landscape, changing...

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June 11, 2014

Quote – Shrinking Envelope of Normal

“Each of us has felt alone, mechanized and constricted by – or forcibly expelled from – the shrinking envelope of normal, the hegemony of real.” -Greg Bechtel – “Junk Mail” in Boundary Problems (Freehand Books, 2014)

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March 17, 2013

Sex, Drugs, and Country and Western Horror

A review of Derek McCormack’s The Haunted Hillbilly (ECW Press, 2003) By Derek Newman-Stille Hank is a country and western star looking for an image that will bring him success and Nudie is willing to assist him with an eye toward aesthetics he picked up in the carnival. Nudie recreates Hank in an image he desires, planting evidence of infidelity...

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September 13, 2012

The Vampire’s Gaze

A Review of Nancy Kilpatrick’s Berserker in Vampyric Variations(Edge, forthcoming 2012) Nancy Kilpatrick never makes things easy for her reader or provide them with simple answers. Her creative gift is to teach through her writing and open up questions, complicating the potential answers to remind you that answers themselves are too simple and impossible – answers are the main fantasy...

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Tag: control

Stigma is Sticky

Do Emperors Dream of Electronic Nightingales?

Frozen Wooden With Steampunk Horror

Sands of Time and Landscapes of Memory

Quote – Shrinking Envelope of Normal

Sex, Drugs, and Country and Western Horror

The Vampire’s Gaze