Welcome to the Gloaming Magazine
Update: Volume 2, Issue 4 is back online!
January 15, 2011
We are pleased to announce that after a too long delay, you can again read our previous issue, Issue 2.4: Wonderland, on the website. Thanks for your patience, and we hope you join us in once again enjoying these awesome stories and poems!
You can read the issue on our Back Issues page.
News Update: Submissions will be closed as of December 31st.
December 30, 2011
Due to an extensive backlog, the Gloaming Magazine has decided to close fiction and poetry submissions as of December 31st, 2011. Submissions will re-open later in the new year once the backlog has been processed. Any submissions received after December 31st will not be opened. We apologize for any inconvenience our production delays have caused. It is our hope that this submission hiatus will allow us to respond to everyone who has sent us work very soon.
We are, however, always willing to consider pitches for non-fiction articles and suggestions for our artist profile features.
Once Upon a Time: Fractured Fairy Tales
By Angela Roberts
November 14th, 2011
Four episodes have aired already of Once Upon a Time, ABC’s take on the revisionist fairy tale genre. In Canada, the show airs on CTV on Sundays at 7pm. Fairy tales seem to have become the new ‘in’ thing for TV this season, with this series and Grimm both premiering this fall, and both purporting to feature fairy tales for adults. I haven’t watched Grimm; its premise of a “descendant” of the Grimms who can see fairy tale characters inside people just hasn’t interested me anytime I catch a commercial or a few stray minutes. It just seems too dark. And it appears to be billed as some sort of mystery/cop show but with supernatural monsters. Sounded convoluted to me. Once Upon a Time, on the other hand, had a different approach. Created by a couple writers from Lost, Once Upon a Time features Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan, a woman who just might be the key to removing a terrible curse that has trapped all of the familiar storybook characters we know in our world, in a town called Storybrooke where none of them remember who they were. Emma is brought to Storybrooke by the persistence of Henry, the boy she gave up for adoption years before, who possesses a book filled with the story of how the curse came to pass, how it was unleashed on Snow White and Prince Charming and their friends by the Evil Queen. He’s convinced that he knows who everyone is supposed to be, and that Emma, being the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, is the only person who can break the curse.
We all Procrastinate
By Angela Roberts
November 7th, 2011
With NaNoWriMo having begun this month, it seemed a good time to discuss some aspects of the writing life. And since many writers use that event as a way to stop procrastinating, that seemed like an ideal first subject: procrastination. We all procrastinate, as writers. It might seem odd to think that of genre writers since many of the most successful genre writers have outputs impressive enough to make other writers cry in despair. But everyone has procrastinated at some point. The only difference I can see between a writer who’s prolific and one who is not is that one has found that perfect work-life-discipline balance that allows them to be productive. There are many forms of procrastination and many ways it manifests in a writer’s life, some easier to control than others. And different solutions for everyone. Unfortunately, there is no miracle cure. And there is no shame in faltering in your discipline every once in a while. I can honestly say that I don’t have all the answers. I even procrastinated in writing this article. But sometimes, it’s just the discussion that helps.
Artist Profile: Nadezhda Strelkina
By Angela Roberts
October 24th, 2011
Recently, a fan referred us to the artwork of Russian artist Nadezhda Strelkina. Her striking paintings remind us of British artist Josephine Wall’s works, who we interviewed back in February. Both have an interesting approach to colour, detail, and both create works of surpassing beauty. Ms. Strelkina was gracious enough to share some of her works and her time with The Gloaming.
Angela: How did you get started as an artist?
Nadia Strelkina: I was born to a family of artists, in a village of artists - the motherland of Russian lacquer [painting], Fedoskino. So I grew up in an atmosphere of painting. I began painting before I began speaking.
Our Newest Issue has arrived!
October 21, 2011
The Gloaming Magazine is proud to announce the launch of our October 2011 issue, Harvest! Reap the benefits of seven stories and poems by talented writers Crystal Bourque, Tod McCoy, Dinesh Pulandram, Lee Clark Zumpe, Denise Kelly LeBlanc, Peter Krane, and Christopher King. Plus, artwork by Adriana Coluccio, Veronique Vallieres, Angela Roberts, Ludmila Rishkova, and Stephanie Deliva. Click on the link below to read the issue. And look back here soon for the forthcoming print issue (loaded with bonus content) that will be available through our online store.
Looking for our previous issue? You'll be able to find it on our Back Issues page soon!
Con-Cept 2011 = Great Fun
By Angela Roberts
October 17th, 2011
This weekend, we attended Con-Cept, Montreal’s long-running fan-run SF convention. It’s our second time attending at all as The Gloaming, although it was still a little incognito as we didn’t have the chance to arrange renting a table this year. For that, we’d probably need more staff since if there was anything we learned at Ad Astra besides that we love fans and we love meeting new readers, it’s that conventions like Ad Astra and Con-Cept are a lot less fun when you’re chained to a table. There’s always so much to see and do. Even this weekend, it’s sheer luck and discipline (and lack of sleep) that gave me the opportunity to get the three awesome interviews that we’ll be publishing for your reading pleasure very soon. Basically, I had a fantastic weekend, and much of that is due to the particular feature of a small fan-run con that you don’t get at the bigger commercial cons: the people you meet.
Artist Profile: Julia Tourianski
By Angela Roberts
October 7th, 2011
Often, we find artists for this artist profile feature because they in fact find us, approaching us through email with links or examples of their work. We love it, not only because it gives us a chance to encounter artists we might never have otherwise, but also because it means we get the chance to show off up and coming artists to the world. This is how we encountered talented artist Julia Tourianski. She sent us the intriguing painting we've displayed prominently at the top of this article, and we were so intrigued by this dark forest scene inspired by Scandinavian picture books that we had to know more. Julia was kind enough to answer a few questions and provide us some more pieces for us to showcase her art. This particular painting is entitled "Burzum".
Angela: How did you get started as an artist?
Julia Tourianski: I was born into a quite artistic family; my father always painted. I completed my first oil painting when I was 13 and couldn't stop after that.
Doctor Who: The Wedding of River Song
By Angela Roberts
October 3rd, 2011
Well, this weekend was the season finale of Doctor Who! Entitled The Wedding of River Song, the episode managed to remarkably tie up several loose ends from throughout the season and bring up a multiplicity of new mysteries to make viewers eagerly await the next season, or the next Christmas Special. Eek! Ending in October like this, I hope there is a Christmas Special! You wouldn’t disappoint us like that, would you, Steven Moffat? Hehe. Kidding! Of course there's a special! As usual, for many Doctor Who fans, the wait will be long and difficult. Especially with a pretty awesome season finale like this one. It wasn’t quite the mile-a-minute thrill ride that last season’s was, preferring to be a bit more contemplative and to showcase Matt Smith’s ability to display the Doctor’s ingenuity. And while the episode really revolved around the Doctor, Karen Gillan’s Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill’s Rory Williams really got some moments to sink their teeth into. And of course, River Song – the true crux of this episode – got the best parts.
Game Review: The Sims Medieval: Pirates and Nobles
By Angela Roberts
September 30th, 2011
Some time ago, I reviewed EA's quest-based adventure game spin-off of The Sims, The Sims Medieval. Last month, the first expansion pack, or Adventure pack, came out: Pirates and Nobles. In this expansion, you get numerous new items, outfits, and a new Kingdom ambition, Peacemaker. In the Peacemaker ambition, your goal is to settle a war between two neighboring countries, the Noble Guild of Tredony and the pirate nation of Aarbyville, and of course, to ensure that your own kingdom survives the whole thing. You also get two new traits to give your Sims, the Entitled trait (which gives your Sim a negative buff anytime they're somewhere not decorated to the nines) and the Guild Enemy trait (which causes your Sim to be overcharged at the Village Store). You can play the new War Quests within any existing game (and depending on the quest, that can be a profitable use of Quest Points), but for the purposes of this review, I decided to try to play out the Peacemaker ambition, and use as many new objects and outfits as possible. I opened the ambition, began a new game, and as of this writing, I've played it as far as apparently possible (which sounds weird, I know, but I'll touch on that later).
Movie Review: Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
By Angela Roberts
September 24th, 2011
It has the longest and cheesiest English title, but Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame was probably the best written, the best acted, and best directed of all the wuxia films I saw at Fantasia this year. It’s a high stakes fantasy adventure by one of the masters of Hong Kong cinema, Tsui Hark, set in a mysterious and epic ancient China where gangsters congregate in shadowy shanty-town caves, people spontaneously burst into flames, and giant Buddha statues loom over the city. It is into this fantastical world that Detective Dee is summoned back from prison by the woman who put him there, the soon-to-be Empress, whose officials are spontaneously combusting. Dee is aided in his quest by a wary albino constable and a hot-headed female bodyguard as he endeavors to discover how and why these crimes have been committed before they ruin the Empress’ coronation.
Earth to Organizers: Montreal Fandom Actually Exists
By Angela Roberts
Sept. 19, 2011
I wasted my time on Sunday. That’s the simplest way of describing my experience of going (or really, not going) to Montreal Comic-con this weekend. That’s because I never made it in. Like a lot of people, I promptly left when I was told that upon purchasing a ticket, I would have to stand in line for three hours to enter the show floor. Frankly, I have better things to do with my time, and any reported wait time like that is unacceptable at a con. Certainly at a still pretty small con like Montreal Comic-con, still holed up in rickety Place Bonaventure. It smacks of unprofessionalism. It’s amateurish. It’s bull, is what it is. I took the Montreal Comic-con to task last year for its amateurishness, and they haven’t changed my mind. Instead, they did a worse job than last year. Last year, you could at least get in. This year, the organizers seemed to have taken fans’ comments to heart, bringing in top notch guests and improving advertising. And then what do they do? They don’t properly expand their venue rental to accommodate the extra traffic, and they create a tiered ticketing system designed to keep out the bread-and-butter ticket holders. Yes, I’m serious. But more worrisome is how this type of thing is indicative of the general attitude about Montreal fandom.
The Drama Age Of Comics: Superhero Comics in the Post-9/11 World
By Brian Patry
Sept. 16, 2011
10 years have gone by since 9/11 changed the world. It was a day that shook the Western world to its core in more ways than one. With the soul-shattering realization that no, we are not inviolable on our side of the Atlantic came a series of changes to our daily hustle and bustle. Just about anyone over the age of 20 can tell you how air travel has changed (they still have those terrible in-flight meals, though). What only fanboys and fangirls know is that the comics industry also went through a reactionary evolution to cope with living in what some are referring to as “the decade of terror.”
The comics industry has had four major superhero periods in its history. First was the Golden Age of comics, second the Silver Age, then the Bronze Age, and now we’re officially in the Modern Age of comics. These four ages were each spearheaded by specific issues going on in society at the time.
The IT Crowd: Have You Tried Turning it Off and On Again?
By Angela Roberts
Sept. 12, 2011
While I’ve been hacking away like a geriatric smoker this week, I’ve watched eighteen episodes of a quirky show called The IT Crowd. If you’ve already heard of this hilarious British comedy, good for you. You know what I’m talking about when I say that this show is something of a hidden gem, at least for those of us in North America. I understand it’s quite popular in Britain. The IT Crowd is a fantastic little show about the weird members of an IT department way in the basement of an equally bizarre mega corporation. It actually began its run around the same time as The Big Bang Theory spawned the geek craze that’s captured audiences under its spell in the last few years, but I don’t know how much the show has benefited from that. Certainly, it takes a different approach to geekdom, a more “Revenge of the Nerds” approach, than Big Bang Theory. And in true British fashion, it’s just a little bit surreal.
Book Review: The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie
By Angela Roberts
Sept. 5, 2011
If you haven’t been reading Joe Abercrombie’s work, you’re either not into fantasy or you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years. (Or you’re someone with a lot of stuff to read, I suppose, but still, this author ought to be on your list.) Abercrombie has quickly been establishing himself as a leading voice in British fantasy with his gritty bloody secondary-world fantasy novels. He’s gone in five novels from a writer I discovered in the bargain bin to receiving acclaim from sources as diverse as The Times, Publishers Weekly, and Interzone. And he’s done it, in many ways, by bending every rule he could think of. He started with a trilogy, his fantastic First Law trilogy; then went into standalones, with first the awesome Best Served Cold and most recently, The Heroes. His books are connected, they all take place within a shared world, but he seems to make a point of changing protagonists with each story. He uses multiple viewpoints and writes in deep third person limited. His books are incredibly hard to define in terms of genre. His work is epic fantasy told through the eyes of the regular guy, it’s sword and sorcery but with hardly any magic, it’s historical fantasy set in a secondary-world setting, it’s a lot of things. It must really frustrate the marketing department. He subverts nearly every expectation. And his characters are rarely heroic, never really good, but always sympathetic. There are definitely no heroes in Abercrombie’s fictional world.
Girl Power Cartoons
By Angela Roberts
Sept. 2, 2011
I was flipping through the cable guide recently and stumbled upon some cartoons on Teletoon Retro that I hadn’t seen in years: He-Man and She-Ra. (The original He-Man, not the recent reboot that sucked.) And it got me thinking about the types of cartoons I grew up with. Long before the Spice Girls and the so-called Girl Power craze, the Saturday morning cartoons of the 80s and early-mid 90s presented, shall we say, different female role models. Women who didn’t fit the stereotypical molds. Women who didn’t need rescuing all the time. Women who were leaders, who spoke their minds, and who were respected for more than just their looks. And also women who demonstrated a different, more peaceful approach to resolving conflicts. The toy companies went wild for the young female market in the 80s in a way I don’t think they ever had before. This was the era of a new Barbie every week. It was also a time when your average girl owned several Barbie dolls. (I had a whole soap opera cast.) I think toy companies (the main purveyors of cartoons, then and now) suddenly realized that girls watched cartoons, and that cartoons could be a fantastic way to sell toys to girls. This was also the time that anime was really hitting the North American market in a big way, and there had already been a strong tradition of female characters and female-oriented entertainment in Japan. Add to that the fair assertion that this was a time when more and more women were reaching prominent positions in the television industry and so had a vested interest in producing works for girls, and you have the ideal conditions for some of my favourite girl power cartoons; She-Ra, Jem, and Sailor Moon.
Genre Weekend 17: Spaceballs
By Angela Roberts
August 29th, 2011
I’ve been a bit sick this week (hence the delay in getting articles out) and when I’m sick, I find the only thing I have any concentration for is stuff that doesn’t require too much concentration. I like to laugh (even if it hurts). I crave easy mental stimulation. And sci-fi comedy (most often sci-fi parody), like comfort food, nourishes my geeky soul. What is it about science fiction and fantasy that it lends itself so well to parody? We see it over and over; Red Dwarf, Galaxy Quest, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Robot Chicken… You can go on and on. Is it because SF takes itself so seriously? Yeah, probably. And certainly the best spoofers of science fiction are the people who love it most. Look at YouTube if you need any proof. Sci-fi comedy is fun. And it never seems to run out of material. One TV series that caught my attention recently as I browsed through Netflix was Spaceballs the Animated Series. It was a surreal experience because I love the movie so much. But it sort of commands attention.
Genre Weekend 16: The Whisperer in Darkness
By Angela Roberts
August 22nd, 2011
I’ll be up front about this: I’m not a fan of H.P. Lovecraft. I’ve tried; I really have. I even own an annotated collection of his stories. But I just can’t get through a single story. Perhaps it’s just that I find the entire style of that period, which Lovecraft cannot be said to have broken entirely away from, to be a bit boring. I have trouble with Poe sometimes too, and he was a huge influence on Lovecraft, but I still think Poe had a greater understanding of pacing and suspenseful language than Lovecraft did. So, suffice it to say, I didn’t really go into The HP Lovecraft Historical Society’s film adaptation of The Whisperer in Darkness (not even one of Lovecraft’s more famous stories) with the eye of a great aficionado of Lovecraft. More like a noob. But I’d been intrigued by the idea of the film and the write-up it had received in the Fantasia catalogue. What I came out with, though, were mixed feelings. This was probably the only film at the Festival this year that gave me that.
Movie Review: Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
By Angela Roberts
August 17th, 2011
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is a rare export indeed. It was certainly one of the oddest films that I saw at Fantasia this year. This Finnish film is set high up among the Laplanders, rugged suspicious men who herd the wild reindeer of the area. It’s a thoroughly bizarre horror comedy, and a disturbingly convincing reimagining of the Santa Claus myth. In this story, Santa isn`t a kindly old man who distributes toys to deserving children. Santa is a giant demon who punishes naughty children in sadistic medieval ways. He and his creepy elves went about their business for years until the Northern peoples trapped them inside a mountain. But well enough can never be left alone, and an American mining company working for a very weird man unearths something they`re not prepared for. It falls to a young Laplander boy, his father, and their neighbours to find a solution to the problem.
Genre Weekend 15: Casual Gaming Revolutions
By Angela Roberts
August 15th, 2011
I’ve always been a gamer, but I’ve never been what’s considered a “hard-core gamer”. In fact, according to Wikipedia, I’m what’s called a mid-core gamer – someone who games regularly, but doesn’t devote copious amounts of his or her life or energy to gaming and the gaming culture. In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that I’m also currently working in the industry, so I won’t necessarily endorse or put down any specific current studio. This article is really about that other definition of gamer – the casual gamer. And even with that, although I can agree somewhat with the description that Wikipedia offers, I think definitions themselves are misguided; often an attempt to categorize and belittle an aspect of the industry that some people feel threatened by because it doesn’t fit their established stereotypes of the sub-culture. These people think that casual gaming is somehow dumbing down the industry by allowing it to appeal to a mass audience. What they’re really afraid of is the possibility that they’ll no longer be special, that the strength they gained in being different will be diminished by the mainstreaming of what made them different. It’s an elitist viewpoint, and it’s common in sub-cultures as they become integrated into mass culture. The science fiction field has been struggling with it for decades.
Movie Review: True Legend
By Angela Roberts
August 9th, 2011
Chinese high-fantasy adventure True Legend is Wuxia fun at its finest. The film stars Vincent Zhao as Beggar Su, one of China’s most famous literary and legendary kung fu figures, most famously portrayed by Jackie Chan in the comedy Drunken Master. True Legend is not a comedy, however, but a drama peppered with comic moments. The English translation of the title is oddly appropriate. The film is a bit of a paradox; a mix of comedy and tragedy, a film that calls itself true yet is enthusiastically fantastical, a film that tells the ‘legend’ of a drunken madman. But the ride is worth it.
Movie Review: The Troll Hunter
By Angela Roberts
August 6th, 2011
If there’s any country that seems suited to a movie about monstrous trolls walking the Earth and being hunted by a world-weary hunter, it’s Norway. The folkloric tradition in Norway is full of legends of trolls. Anyone familiar with the metal scene is also aware of the rich history of Norwegian folklore and paganism, and the tension between Christianity and the older persistent traditions. All of that comes together in the Norwegian found-footage film, The Troll Hunter. Set in the wild forests and back country of Norway, the film purports to be the lost documentary footage shot by a trio of young filmmakers as they investigate the activities of a possible bear poacher who turns out to be hunting a far more dangerous quarry; trolls. They chase the taciturn hunter down, follow him until he agrees to do an interview and then accompany him on his hunts, with the whole thing coming to a head in a great battle against a troll the size of a skyscraper.
Movie Review: Hellacious Acres: The Case of John Glass
By Angela Roberts
August 1st, 2011
One of the benefits of film festivals is that they’re generally open to films from big studios and indie filmmakers alike. And if you’re an indie filmmaker who’s just made a kind of off-the-wall science fiction film, where else do you take it but to the Fantasia film festival? Hellacious Acres: The Case of John Glass is one such movie, made on a shoestring budget by Quebecois filmmaker Pat Tremblay. It was certainly an uncommon choice of mine to watch it, and for a while I thought I was going to be the only pass holder attending (a sad fact of homegrown Canadian cinema is the lack of attention it gets from the media, even at home). I wasn’t even sure if I’d like it; the description had been enough to attract my interest, but still make me a little wary of the content. But it surprised me, both because it’s actually quite impressive for the budget it was made on (amazing what one can do with After Effects these days) and because I found the pacing and plot to be pretty good.
Movie Review: Ip Man: The Legend is Born
By Angela Roberts
July 29th, 2011
You might wonder why I’m reviewing Ip Man: The Legend is Born. It’s not science fiction, or fantasy, or horror. It’s a semi-biographical historical set in the early 1900s. Sure, there are martial arts, and lots of it, but no flying or magical leaping or battling monsters or anything you usually see in kung fu movies. The most fantastical it gets is in the liberties it takes with its subject matter. But it showed at Fantasia. That’s because one of the proudest traditions at Fantasia has been to show gems of Asian cinema, especially films from mainland China and Hong Kong. Oftentimes, the genre festival circuit is the only way North Americans can view these films. They’re rarely distributed through normal channels. Ip Man and Ip Man 2 were not distributed in North America. And it’s a personal mission of mine to see as many of these types of films as possible whenever I go to the festival.
Movie Review: Legend of the Millennium Dragon (Onigamiden)
By Angela Roberts
July 25th, 2011
One of my favorite things about Fantasia is having the opportunity to see some quality anime. It’s not something I have a lot of time or money for these days (collecting DVDs can be a frustrating and expensive hobby) but I still enjoy it as much as I used to. I usually try to get in every anime screening at the festival, and there is always at least one or two. This year, my first anime film was Legend of the Millennium Dragon, an epic fantasy by the same studio that made Spriggan, Naruto, and Bleach. The screening was preceded by a brief speech made by the film’s producer.
Movie Review: Ironclad
By Angela Roberts
July 20th, 2011
England, 1215. King John has just signed the Magna Carta under duress, and he’s quite indignant about it. Forget that his general arrogance and ineptitude at foreign affairs brought him to it; he’s King, after all. And kings are supposed to get what they want. So, King John hires an army of big, savage Danes to help him murder and pillage his way back to having absolute power once again. He sets about violently killing every baron who signed the Magna Carta, and unfortunately starts with the keep where devout monk Brother Marcus and the three Knights Templar under his charge have sheltered for the night. John orders the monk murdered, the baron executed, and the castle razed. The only survivor is Templar Knight Thomas Marshall, who rides for Canterbury to warn the Archbishop of what has transpired. There Baron William d’Albany, the leader of the last rebellion, Thomas and the Archbishop hatch a desperate plan; the Baron and Thomas will gather together a ragtag group of fighters and hold the venerable castle Rochester against John while the Archbishop arranges for help from France and a new king.
The Baron assembles his medieval Magnificent Seven, mostly men who are fiercely loyal to him and his money, and they take over Rochester from the weak ineffectual Baron living there. What follows is a months’ long siege filled with bloody battles and hardship. And few will survive. This is the story of Ironclad, the first film I saw at Fantasia this year.
Genre Weekend 12: Fantasia Fun
By Angela Roberts
July 18th, 2011
It’s that time of year again here in Montreal. The Fantasia International Film Festival officially began on July 14th. Now in its fifteenth year, Fantasia is one of the premier genre film festivals in North America, showcasing incredible science fiction, fantasy, horror, and all sorts of stuff from the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia. The festival’s line-up is so eclectic that pretty much anyone can find something they’ll want to see. I usually go for the Asian historical fantasies and the anime. Something I’ve been pleased to see at the fest in the past few years has also been a few fine English historical adventure films, like my first screening of the year, Ironclad. This year, The Gloaming was approved for media accreditation for the first time, and I, as our representative, got a media pass allowing me nearly unlimited access to screenings. Which was pretty awesome. I love Fantasia; I’ve been going for years, and would have gone even without the pass, but having the pass is pretty cool. Certainly, I was glad I wasn’t out waiting in line in the 36 degree weather on Sunday like I would be if I’d bought tickets.
Book Review: When the Hero Comes Home
By Angela Roberts
July 13th, 2011
Heroes. Speculative fiction is full of them, depends on them. The hero’s journey is an integral part of most genre fiction, especially fantasy. That journey, that quest, is what draws us in, what fascinates us, what we read for. And it usually ends with the climax of the hero’s quest. We see the hero develop, we track his/her progress, we witness the confrontation between the hero and his/her goal, and then we see its fulfillment. And then we assume everything went well afterwards. Disney is good for this. It’s only within my lifetime that they began making sequels to all of their fairy tales, attempting to make more money by continuing the story. One always assumed that Snow White lived happily ever after with her prince, that Aladdin and Jasmine ruled Bagdad peacefully, that Sleeping Beauty never had to worry about spindles ever again. But as we mature as people and as readers, we question these assumptions. We start to ask, “And then what?” Many an accomplished writer started off by finishing their favourite books, writing new adventures. And as we grow up, we understand that there is more to the story than “And they lived happily ever after.” Because they might not have.
When the Hero Comes Home, edited by Gabrielle Harbowy and Ed Greenwood for Dragon Moon Press, is an anthology of short stories that attempt to address those questions; not with continuations of established stories, but with all-new, all-original stories all centered on the same theme: the aftermath. What happens after the epic battle, after the hero has slain his enemy (or hasn’t). What happens when the hero goes home, wherever home might be. And whether or not there even is a home to go back to. Because, let’s face it, people don’t become heroes expecting to go home one day. Westley may have left to find his fortune so he could marry Buttercup, but he sure as hell didn’t think they’d be back on the farm. Heroes leave home for various reasons; adventure, fame, fortune, escape, love, honour. But they come home (when that’s possible; many don’t survive the culmination of their quests) because they still hold some ideal of Home in their hearts, and whether or not that ideal holds up under scrutiny is one matter explored in these stories.
Genre Weekend 11: Miracle Day
By Angela Roberts
July 11th, 2011
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been mentioning the premiere of the newest season of Torchwood. Canadian science fiction cable channel, Space, ran an entire Torchwood marathon last weekend, and this past Saturday saw the premiere of Torchwood: Miracle Day, a ten-part mini-series that will serve as the hit Doctor Who-spinoff’s fourth season. The show is a co-production between BBC Cymru Wales (the arm of the BBC which makes all of the Doctor Who-related shows and several other awesome productions of the past few years), and American cable channel Starz, noted recently for their exceptional series Spartacus: Blood and Sand. The show will primarily take place in the US, with series stars John Barrowman, Eve Myles, and Kai Owen (whose characters Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, and Rhys Williams are the only main characters left alive after the climactic events of the past three seasons) being joined by Mekhi Phifer as CIA agent Rex Matheson.
Author Interview: Julie Czerneda
By Angela Roberts
July 6, 2011
Julie Czerneda is the accomplished Canadian author of numerous science fiction novels and short stories, and the editor of several anthologies. Her first novel, A Thousand Words for Stranger, was published by DAW Books in 1997. She is the author of a number of series of novels, including the Species Imperative series, The Clan Chronicles, and the Web Shifters novels. Julie generously gave us some of her time and answered a few questions about writing, editing, and the writing life put to her by our editor, Angela Roberts.
Angela: You taught science and worked for some years in educational publishing before devoting your career to fiction writing. Do you feel that these experiences influenced your fiction writing and how?
Julie Czerneda: Absolutely. I’d always wanted to be a biologist. Winding my way through years of grad school was like being in heaven and to this day, I dabble. My curiosity about the living world is what made me immediately love science fiction once I found it. My own SF stems from the questions I ask myself that I can’t answer any other way. Plus, such fun!
My work as a non-fiction author, editor, and publisher for (egad) almost two decades was great training for me professionally. I understand the book production side of things, such as formatting, contracts, design, and the time constraints for the various stages. I’m comfortable with promotion and the public. Though some of my non-fiction training proved hilariously unhelpful. When my editor at DAW, Sheila Gilbert, gave me her revision comments for my first book, which were very helpful but would add pages, I assured her I could cut the same number elsewhere so they’d fit. In a textbook, page count is rigid, no matter what has to change. When Sheila realized I was serious, she chuckled and told me to keep all the pages. Every so often, I hear about that.
Genre Weekend 10: When There’s Nothing on the Tube
By Angela Roberts
July 4th, 2011
One disadvantage of summer is that, frequently, there’s nothing new on TV. Sure, it’s changed a lot from the way it was even five years ago. I’m old enough to remember TV before cable made summer premieres possible. It was continual reruns and sports. And while reruns made many genre shows cult hits, and cemented their place in the canon, there’s still only so many times you can watch the same three episodes of Star Trek (because, you know, somehow every time you turned on the TV, it`s those same three eps you`ve seen over and over). Things have gotten better in that department. Cable networks realized a while ago that not everyone runs off to the cottage for the entire summer. But what do you do on those days when there just isn`t anything on? Let’s say you’re not necessarily the type of person who automatically thinks of outdoor activities to run off and do. Or, like far too often up this way lately, your weekend’s rained out, and you’re just not interested in trekking out in the pouring rain.
Well, you could watch a DVD. But, you’ve probably watched your entire collection already. You could play video games. Always cool. I did plenty of that this weekend. But I also found myself with a limited choice of television shows this weekend. Sure, I watched some of the Torchwood marathon on Space. The only problem with marathons, though, is you have to be willing to commit. Otherwise, what’s the point? No, someone has already thought of an alternative to trying to see your favourite shows on TV; Netflix.
A Review of The Scapegoat
By Ludmila Rishkova
June 28, 2011
To start anew…
What would happen if one had a chance to start his or her life anew? One would start in the middle; of course, there is no going back to the very basics. The growing up is already accomplished, the complete shedding of the past is not quite possible, but still one gets a chance to start over. What would one do?
The Scapegoat presents just that.
Genre Weekend 9: True Blood Love
By Angela Roberts
June 27, 2011
Waiting sucks. Never has this been truer than with the immensely popular series, True Blood, the phenomenal show based on Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire novels. I would even venture so far as to leave off the Charlaine Harris connection; I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Alan Ball has taken a series of so-so vampire novels with an annoying protagonist, and made a masterpiece of genre drama. I think when it comes down to it, he’s made it his own. And millions of True Blood fans are no doubt thankful for that. True Blood began its fourth season on Sunday, June 26th on HBO, and what an opener it was! I’ve been watching True Blood since it first began appearing on TV screens; certainly it’s one of the reasons I insist on having HBO on our cable bill. And it amazes me how it never gets old. I think we know that Ball still has much to mine from Harris’ novels. But what’s important is that Ball and his awesome cast make it good.
Outcasts: After the Apocalypse, Will We Change?
By Angela Roberts
June 22, 2011
On Saturday, June 18th, a new show premiered on Space Channel here in Canada; Outcasts, a program imported from the UK about a group of colonists in the year 2040 awaiting the arrival of what might be the last transport ship to ever arrive from Earth. The show ran for eight episodes on the BBC before being cancelled due to low ratings, and after making it to DVD, has premiered now in North America. It’s not surprising that the show suffered from low ratings; not because it’s bad (I think it’s quite good) but because of a poor reception. I had no idea it had even existed until I was re-watching episodes of Sanctuary this weekend; the Videotron Guide (our cable provider) had the show listed as Outcasts: A Love Story, the story of a Christian man and a Jewish woman who fall in love during the Second World War. Not at all what it actually was. Thinking this was an odd choice for Space, I simply flipped down the guide till I found something else, and thus had no idea what I was missing till I got the opportunity to watch the real show on the network’s website. It might have helped if there had been any real promotion so that I might have been forewarned. So, when I did finally get to see it, I immediately thought that this was something worth blogging about.
Genre Weekend 8: Catching up to the Season Enders
By Angela Roberts
June 20, 2011
As we didn’t have an edition of this column last week, I had a few episodes to catch up on. The three shows I’ve been reviewing every week have now all either had their season finales or soon will, and I’ve decided to devote today’s column to reviewing what’s shown since my last column. Sanctuary had two very interesting episodes, and the season ender will air next week. Doctor Who just had its mid-season finale, and what a finale it was. Game of Thrones, as well, ended its season with two fantastic and powerful episodes.