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Unstuck: Can a literary journal cut through genre stigma?
by Tracy V. Wilson | November 15, 2011
In my office, Holly and I have a huge whiteboard covered with ideas we want to talk about on PopStuff. Up near the top is the half-formed thought, “magic realism/fantasy/snobbery.” It’s one we haven’t quite figured out how to approach yet, but today I wish somehow we’d recorded it already. Thanks to io9, I now know that there’s a brand new literary journal on the market: Unstuck. The Austin American-Statesman gives a deeper look at the ebbs and flows of the place of genre fiction in the larger subject of literature, and it cites Unstuck’s executive editor, Matt Williamson, as saying the journal should “bridge the gap between, as he puts it, ‘the Pushcart Prize and the Nebula Award.’”
It’s easy to overlook the power of lies. While truth-telling is mentally and physically a normal activity, lying forces us to fake typically subconscious inflections and movements. We construct facts to fabricate a false page of reality and then — via our incredible memory-prediction framework — project that false page of reality into the past or present. In doing so, we remake our own perceived reality and/or that of another.
I like to think that I’m fairly adventurous and open-minded. When someone suggests trying a new cuisine, listening to a new CD or checking out a new movie or documentary, I don’t hesitate to say, “OK.” But, for some reason, I’m not always quite so ready to try other things — or so my husband says.
If you’re game for a hip hop-fueled sci-fi excursion through a world of interstellar conflict and robotic super villainy, then the 2006 album “Sci-Fu” will get you definitely there. It’s the creation of one Pete Gleadall AKA Pete Sasqwax AKA Waxfactor and as it’s something of an under-appreciated sensation, I felt I needed to highlight it here. Even better, Pete took time away from his life of graphic design, music production and fiction writing to chat with me from his home in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK. You’ll want some fitting background music for all this, so be sure to hit up PeteSasqWax.co.uk for free downloads of “Sci-Fu” as well as a few EPs. Now let’s get to the interview:
I’ve been hearing about J.J. Abrams’ new film “Super 8″ for what seems like forever now, but I couldn’t quite muster up anything like excitement for it. I can describe the reason for that in one word: “Cloverfield.” It’s not that I disliked the film — actually, I really enjoyed it — but after spending months scouring that darned trailer for clues and trying to figure out how the heck Slusho figured into the plot, I was a little disappointed to find that the finished film didn’t really need all the bells and whistles.
That, in a nutshell, is why I couldn’t really get hyped for “Super 8″ — until I saw the trailer.
A couple of weeks back, I insisted that Sydney Bristow of “Alias” and Olivia Dunham of “Fringe” must be one and the same. I won’t say that Friday night’s episode of “Fringe” provided hardcore proof, but I caught a serious case of déjà vu about halfway through the episode.
I had a pretty strange reaction when I first heard that FOX planned to move “Fringe” to Friday nights in January. I could’ve cursed a blue streak at my television, but instead I basically bypassed four of the five Kübler-Ross stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining and depression — and headed right to acceptance. That didn’t really make sense: Why was I so ready to let go of one of my favorite shows so quickly? Then I saw the name of the first Friday episode and thought wearily, “Oh yeah. That’s why. They’ve done this before. And now they’re twisting the knife.”
Starting word count: 5,004
Yesterday’s word count: 1,997
Total word count: 7,001
The product: A little fleshing out in chapter three and drafting of chapter four, in which we eat fruit tart in low gravity and meet a matchmaker. Later, we see major drama between journalists arguing the pros an cons of NaNoWriMo.
Last week I had the privilege to chat with Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the U.K.’s University of Sheffield. Noel is the co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) and has presented his thoughts on the matter to everyone from British Parliament to “The Daily Show.” He’s exactly the guy you want to talk to for 35 minutes about killer robots.
I conducted the interview for the Discovery News article “Are Terminators Real?” and couldn’t squeeze in everything Noel had to say. So I thought I’d share some more of his thoughts here — specifically those related to the anthropomorphizing of machines and how science fiction alters our expectations of robotics.
We have found the way to (some of) your scientific hearts at long last — with science fiction. After Tuesday’s podcast on why science fiction matters went live, we heard from quite a few of you guys. Which we love, because sometimes while we’re recording these sessions in the sweat-inducing podcast studio, it seems like we’re operating in a vacuum.
But we know that’s not the case. Not when you write in to give us a well-deserved tongue lashing for not including science-fiction master Robert Heinlein during our initial session. Don’t worry, we’ll get to him. There will be more of these. The point of this first one was to discuss a few favorites and get the conversation rolling.
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