Tag: nature

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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March 28, 2015

Speculating Canada on Trent Radio Episode 31: An Interview with Marie Bilodeau About Nigh

In this episode of Speculating Canada on Trent Radio, I interview the wonderful Marie Bilodeau about her new series Nigh, a series about the Fairiepocalpse. In our conversation, Marie and I discuss the power of myths and legends about fairies, the relationship between the natural world and human occupation, the power of unsettling norms and expectations, and the nature of...

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November 19, 2014

Quote – Getting Closer To the Real World

“There’s something about this area – the lake and the land around it – that’s like a haven. I’m not hiding from the skyscrapers and parking lots and the craziness of the rest of the world by living here year round. I’m just, like, getting closer to the real world.” -Charles de Lint – Mulengro (Orb 2003)

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August 22, 2014

Quote – Considering Ourselves Greater than Nature

“That they should envision themselves greater than nature, that they believe they can control eventualities with their industries both amazes and amuses you, the latter in a grim way. You survey the skyline of London, blotted with inky smoke from their factories, fumes that choke the air, and you wonder: are they insane? They cannot breathe. They die of illnesses...

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November 19, 2013

Quote – Surface Dwelling and Energy into Transforming World into Unnatural Objects

“Perhaps the vulnerability of surface dwelling explains their constant, frenetic activity and their tendency to expend tremendous amounts of energy transforming the matter of their world into perversely unnatural objects.” -Gary Eikenberry – Anthropology 101 (in Tesseracts)

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November 15, 2013

A Face of Shifting Leaves

A review of Urban Green Man Edited by Adria Laycraft and Janice Blaine (Edge, 2013) By Derek Newman-Stille Have you ever looked into the woods and seen a face looking back at you made up of branches and leaves? These are the moments that can’t be caught on film but can be evoked through tales, through our own folklore. Turning...

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June 2, 2013

Quote – Humans Have Much To Learn From “Inferior” Life Forms

“The mortals have much to learn from what they deem inferior life forms.” -Nancy Kilpatrick – Berserker (in Vampyric Variations)

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April 14, 2013

Transformative Art

A Review of OnSpec #91 Vol 24, No 4 (Winter 2013) By Derek Newman-Stille One of the key narrative threads running through Volume 24, number 4 of OnSpec is the transformative power of art and writing. This thread is most potent in Kevin Cockle’s Palimpsest, a short story about a man who learns how to transform the world and people...

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March 27, 2013

Quote – Trees Enjoying You Walking Through Them

“I could feel the forest enjoying your walking through it. It was like the trees knew you.” -Charles de Lint – Mulengro (Orb 2003)

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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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