Tag: memory

November 21, 2023

An Interview with Simon Bacon About Vampires and the Monstrous

In this episode of Speculating Canada, I interview independent scholar and researcher Simon Bacon about the monstrous, and, particularly, about the figure of the vampire in folklore and popular culture. Simon Bacon is an independent scholar based in Poznań, Poland. He has written and edited 30+ books including Becoming Vampire (2017), Eco-vampires (2019), Nosferatu in the 21st Century (2023), 1000...

Categories Interviews/Videos Comments: 0

September 5, 2020

Little Whispers Of The Fantastic

A review of Catherine MacLeod’s “The Stone Alphabet” in Earth: Giants, Golems, & Gargoyles Edited by Rhonda Parrish (Tyche Books, 2019) By Derek Newman-Stille Catherine MacLeod’s “The Stone Alphabet” is a refreshing collection of microfiction stories. Each of the stories is only a few lines of text but shows incredible worldbuilding, character development, and each has a delightful twist ending....

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comment: 1

July 5, 2019

Fever Dream

Fever Dream A review of Larissa Lai’s The Tiger Flu (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018) By Derek Newman-Stille Larissa Lai’s The Tiger Flu is a fever dream on paper, vivid and fantastical, and full of nightmares, which is perfect for a pandemic narrative. It is a surreal story, but it comments on issues of relevance to the real world. Set in...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comment: 1

May 4, 2017

A Shattered Touchstone

A review of Sean Virgo’s “My Atlantis” in Cli Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change (Exile, 2017).By Derek Newman-Stille Sean Virgo’s “My Atlantis” is a tale about the return to a changed land. Like Rati Mehrotra’s tale in Cli Fi, this tale features an older person, but unlike Mehrotra’s tale, where the protagonist is stationary in a changing land, this...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comment: 1

May 2, 2017

Ageing into Climate Change

A review of Rati Mehrotra’s “Children of the Sea” in Cli Fi: Canadian Tales of Climate Change (Exile, 2017) By Derek Newman-Stille In “Children of the Sea”, Rati Mehrotra links the changes that come with ageing to the changes that come from environmental damage. In Mehrotra’s tale, age becomes a subject of stability in a changing world and an older...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comment: 1

April 23, 2017

Old, But Not Obsolete

A review of Jeff Lemire’s Old Man Logan Vol 1: Berserker (Marvel, 2017). By Derek Newman-Stille So many narratives of ageing feature memory and reflection, an exploration of a life lived rather than a life in the process of being experienced. Like many representations of ageing, Lemire’s aged Logan finds himself in a world that isn’t the way it should...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

April 13, 2017

Persistence of Memory

A Review of M.G. Vassanji’s Nostalgia (Anchor Canada, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille Memory is powerful and it can be fleeting, but M.G. Vassanji’s Nostalgia is a tale of memory’s ability to persist. Vassanji writes a near future fiction story in which immortality has been achieved, but in this future, everyone who undergoes rejuvination (the age reversal process) simultaneously has the...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0

March 16, 2017

Mecha-care

A review of Fiona Moore’s “Seal” in Lazarus Risen (Bundoran Press, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille Over the past few years, there has been a rising interest in robotic assistance for Long Term Care homes for aged populations. One of the technologies that has been developed is a robotic seal (called Paro) that emulates life and serves as a companion for...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comment: 1

November 4, 2016

Speculating Canada on Trent Radio Episode 72: An Interview with A.C. Wise

On this episode of Speculating Canada, I Interview the fabulous A.C. Wise about The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves The World Again. We discuss trans narratives, femininity and femme identity, Lovecraftian fiction, monstrosity, unspeakable horrors, weird literature, horror literature, resistant texts, diversity, representation in literature, making our fiction match the diversity of our own world, memory, the power of speculative...

Categories Interviews Comments: 0

February 10, 2016

Immortality Quest

Immortality Quest A review of Kelley Armstrong’s “Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word” from “Expiration Date”, Edited by Nancy Kilpatrick (Edge, 2015) By Derek Newman-Stille It is always exciting to see a collection on the notion of the “Expiration Date” open with a vampire story – a monster developed as a fundamental question to the notion of death itself...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 0