Tag: memory

February 17, 2013

Medusa’s Confusion

A review of Sandra Kasturi’s The Medusa Quintet in Tesseracts 14: Strange Canadian Stories (Edge, 2010) By Derek Newman-Stille In her poem The Medusa Quintet, Sandra Katsuri re-envisions the story of Medusa. She is created as a largely unaware and unquestioning woman who is coping with ideas of perfection and an imperfect body. Her body is destroyed and her vain...

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January 16, 2013

Interview with Silvia Moreno-Garcia

An interview with Silvia Moreno-Garcia by Derek Newman-Stille I am really excited to have been able to interview Silvia Moreno-Garcia. She espouses a lot of the themes that I talk about in my own work around the ability for SF to include those who are traditionally pushed to the fringes, so I was really pleased that she was willing to...

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January 13, 2013

The Timeless Power of Legends

A Review of The Monkey King & Other Stories Edited by Griffin Ondaatje (Harper Collins, 1995). By Derek Newman-Stille Griffin Ondaatje compiled The Monkey King & Other Stories as a celebration of the 40th anniversary of World Literacy of Canada. The stories within represent Canadian and Sri Lankan adaptations and re-tellings of Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim tales, bringing the timeless...

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January 7, 2013

Abandoned

A Review of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s “A Handful of Earth” in Expanded Horizons: Speculative Fiction for the Rest of Us (Nov, 2012) By Derek Newman-Stille Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s “A Handful of Earth” available for free online by Expanded Horizons: Speculative Fiction for the Rest of Us ( http://expandedhorizons.net/magazine/?page_id=2442 ) narrates the Dracula story from the perspective of Dracula’s “brides”, the three “sisters”...

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January 1, 2013

Year in Review: What is Canadian Speculative Fiction – from the authors

People are often asking if there is such a thing as “Canadian identity”, something that differentiates Canada from other nations. I thought I would ask authors if they thought that there was something distinctly Canadian about Canadian Speculative Fiction or how much they felt that their Canadian identity influenced their writing. I have provided links to the full interviews below...

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December 26, 2012

Interview with Noah Chinn

An Interview with Noah Chinn by Derek Newman-Stille Noah Chinn is the author of Bleeding Heart Yard (about werewolves, witches, and romantic curses) and Trooper # 4 (a post-apocalyptic adventure). Noah Chinn tends to play with ideas of comedy and humour while dealing with issues of disaster and destruction… and he brings some of that humour to this interview. I...

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December 21, 2012

Upcoming Interview with Noah Chinn On Wednesday, December 26th

Since Speculating Canada is currently doing an apocalyptic theme, I thought it would be interesting to interview an author who writes post-apocalyptic fiction. The fact that he also writes about werewolves and witches means that this interview was even more fun for me. In this upcoming interview on Wednesday, December 26th, Noah Chinn explores whether apocalyptic themes are fundamentally urban,...

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December 12, 2012

Little Tremours of the Weird to Shake Up the Mundane

A Review of Postscripts to Darkness 2 edited by Sean Moreland and Aalya Ahmad (Ex Hubris Imprints, 2012). By Derek Newman-Stille Postscripts to Darkness 2 is a fantastic sequel to the first volume, continuing the trend of infusing the familiar with the odd. The contributors to this volume illustrate an incredible ability to condense narratives to their bare essentials, creating...

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November 22, 2012

American Expat Explores the American Myth

A review of Jerome Stueart’s One Nation Under Gods in Tesseracts 14: Strange Canadian Stories. By Derek Newman-Stille Jerome Stueart, an American expat and current Canadian, explores the American myth in his One Nation Under Gods. Stueart creates a United States in which American concepts of patriotism are physically manifest in American gods. Gods like Lady Liberty, Strike, and Patriot...

Categories Fiction Book Reviews Comments: 5

November 21, 2012

Displacement

A Review of On Spec #89 Vol 24, No. 2 (Summer 2012 issue) By Derek Newman-Stille I have been a fan of On Spec for some time. I enjoy the quality of their stories, the diversity of their authors, and their ability to play with diverse characteristics of the speculative medium. I enjoy the fact that On Spec combines short...

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