Tag: Monstrosity

October 11, 2017

Slavic Myths and Human Monsters

A review of David Demchuk’s The Bone Mother (ChiZine, 2017) By Derek Newman-Stille David Demchuk’s The Bone Mother brings together snippets of strange lives into a tale that hints at connections between these individual stories and provides shadows of a larger narrative tying them together. Each of Demchuk’s tales ties in with a snapshot shown at the beginning of the...

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September 11, 2017

Who Are You? 

A review of Jerome Stueart’s The Angels of Our Better Beasts (ChiZine, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille Jerome Stueart’s The Angels of Our Better Beasts is a struggle between the multiple aspects of human identity. It’s cover evokes the Governor General award winning Marian Engle’s Bear, a tale about the encounter between human civilization and the wild, and Stueart’s collection is...

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December 22, 2014

Speculating Canada on Trent Radio Episode 26: A Discussion with Dan Vena About Apocalyptic Fiction

In this episode, Queen’s University PhD student and cultural theorist Dan Vena joins me in the studio to talk about Canadian apocalyptic fiction. In our discussion, we explore notions of the monstrous, the superheroic, mutations, pandemic narratives, and the power of apocalyptic narratives to discuss issues in the present such as environmental concerns, the experiences of LGBTQ2 people, critical capitalism,...

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November 8, 2013

Hunger

A review of Tyler Keevil’s “The Herd” in Dead North: Canadian Zombie Fiction (Exile Editions, 2013). By Derek Newman-Stille Tyler Keevil’s “The Herd” reverses the hunter/hunted dynamic in zombie fiction. Zombies, often characterised by their herd mentality in fiction are treated like a herd of prey and hunted by a man who has acquired a taste for human flesh.  Keevil...

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July 29, 2013

Penning the Subtle Murmur of Death and Splash of Blood

A review of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s This Strange Way of Dying (Forthcoming 2013, Exile Editions) By Derek Newman-Stille Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s This Strange Way of Dying is just one step abstracted from reality, with one foot in The Weird. Populated with monsters, magic, and folklore, her work is fundamentally about the human outsider experience, the deeper engagement with the world that comes...

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April 15, 2013

300th Post and The Story of Speculating Canada

Dear readers, Today will be Speculating Canada’s 300th post!! Thank you for all of your support. I thought I would publish a bit about the story of Speculating Canada itself and reveal some of my hopes and dreams about where Speculating Canada is going. Speculating Canada grew out of my current research for my PhD in Canadian Studies at Trent...

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April 6, 2013

Speculative Fiction Speculations # 7

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March 21, 2013

Quote – People Fight For Fear of Monsters

“People unite against things. People fight when they’re scared and threatened, not to change, not for the future. They get it wrong in the other Tales. People don’t fight for heroes: They fight for the monsters. For fear of the monsters in the dark.” -Leah Bobet – Above (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2012)

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March 14, 2013

Interview with Corey Redekop

An interview of Corey Redekop By Derek Newman-Stille Wouldn’t the world be better if we just asked the monsters politely if they could please not eat us at the moment? Corey Redekop and I had a chance in this interview to explore the figure of the monster and its role as a representation of the social outcast, the rejected. It...

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March 10, 2013

Upcoming Interview with Corey Redekop on Thursday, March 14

Even though I research the use of monstrous protagonists in Canadian SF to express ideas of the outsider and socially oppressed groups, for some reason I haven’t done much work on the figure of the zombie…. largely because they just creep me out too much. I had been hearing so many amazing things about this book Husk by Canadian SF...

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