Tag: Science Fiction

October 27, 2019

Cosmic Horror and Challenging Ableisms

Cosmic Horror and Challenging Ableisms  A review of Ada Hoffmann’s The Outside (Angry Robot, 2019). By Derek Newman-Stille   There aren’t enough narratives about autism by autistic people. This, and their powerful style of writing and brilliant science fiction, is why I keep coming back to the works of Ada Hoffmann with adoration. Hoffmann’sThe Outside, with its autistic, queer narrator, is...

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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...

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June 8, 2019

The Teaching Rocks

The Teaching Rocks A review of Drew Hayden Taylor’s “Petropaths” in Take Us To Your Chief (Douglas &McIntyre, 2016) By Derek Newman-Stille Drew Hayden Taylor’s “Petropaths” is a tale of the ongoing nature of colonial violence, centred on the exploration of the way that this continued assault has created a generation of indigenous youth who are, as he suggests “stuck...

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May 11, 2019

Flipped Worlds

Flipped Worlds A review of “Flip” (Markosia, Enterprises, 2018) edited by Jack Briglio and featuring work by Derek Kunsken, Wendy Muldon, Eleonora Dalla Rosa, Miguel Jorge, Hugh Rockwood, Alberto Massetti, Marcello Bondi, Francesco Della Santa, and Salvador’s Coppola. By Derek Newman-Stille The comic “Flip” offers a series of flashes through different worlds filled with different possibilities, inviting readers to turn...

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March 13, 2019

Decolonized Space

Decolonized Space A review of Drew Hayden Taylor’s “Lost in Space” in Take Us To Your Cheif (Douglas & McIntyre, 2016). By Derek Newman-Stille In “Lost in Space”, Drew Hayden Taylor explores the first Anishinabe man to travel into space. He is travelling as part of a mining operation set out amongst asteroids. Hayden Taylor uses the imagery of being...

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December 5, 2018

Not Malfunctioning

Not Malfunctioning A review of Fiona Patton’s “I Am Not Broken” in Over the Rainbow: Folk and Fairy Tales from the Margins (Exile, 2018) By Derek Newman-Stille In our ableist society, disability is treated as a flaw, as a malfunction. In “I Am Not Broken”, Fiona Patton explores the problematic assumptions about disability by abstracting the image of malfunctioning onto...

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June 7, 2016

Speculating Canada on Trent Radio Episode 66:

In this episode of Speculating Canada on Trent Radio, I have a chance to do an audio interview with Julie Czerneda. I have previously interviewed Julie in text format, but wanted a chance to share her spoken words with you. Julie and I discuss the boundary between science fiction and fantasy, the power of SF to teach, developing fantasy worlds,...

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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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April 30, 2016

Speculating Canada on Trent Radio Episode 62: Afrofuturism

In this episode of Speculating Canada on Trent Radio, I explore Afrofuturism and particularly focus my examination on the work of Canadian author Nalo Hopkinson. Even though I am not a black person myself, I felt that it was important to examine Afrofuturism as an important contribution to imagining black futurity and to science fiction in general. In this episode...

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February 1, 2016

Speculating Canada on Trent Radio Episode 56: A Discussion with James Kerr About the Potential of SF

In this episode of Speculating Canada on Trent Radio, my friend and colleague James Kerr and I discuss the complicated potentials of science fiction. We look at the ways that science fiction relates to current issues, can imagine new possibilities, can bring attention to social issues, and, perhaps most importantly, questions the status quo. You can listen to this episode...

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