Friday Five: Compulsive Reading in Still Air

Hello hello all. Today I finished pretty much devouring Paladin of Souls in one sitting (barring work commitments), then had a nap with very weird dreams as London once again demonstrated its ability to wring humidity out of the scantest amount of heat. It’s after this odd mix of events I bring you my Friday Five, which has absolutely nothing to do with the post but I felt like sharing anyway.

1. Let’s start with the blog of the week and why. It’s The Fantasy Hive, and they’re doing a Women in SFF Month that’s providing a fun opportunity to talk random shizzle about books which is all I ask for in life. It doesn’t feel like there’s quite as big a community going for this as Wyrd & Wonder, but who knows what can be? And it’s a conversation towards a good end too.

2. Moving on, got a few good posts on writing today. The first one comes from the Hive as well, and their interview with Miles Cameron on his authorial process.

This article by Sarah Chorn on emotionally powerful writing is a good ‘un, and I particularly like the idea of point 6 about treating the emotions like a landscape.

Also this twitter thread by RJ Barker featured a lot of what I consider good sense

I seem to have seen LOADS of stuff recently about how important realism is when writing fantasy. So I'm going to counterpoint that by saying maybe it isn't?

Believability? That matters, but something need not be real to be believable.

— RJ Barker (@dedbutdrmng) June 30, 2021

3. Blog time!

There was a very thoughtful interview write up on Glasgow in 24, where Fabienne interviewed a trans fantasy fan Bina Fisher about finding books in the genre that represent her life (it comes with recs).

A very cool project I’ve completely forgot to talk about prior to this is the Neurodivergence in Fiction series over at FanFiAddict, the most recent of which was Participating in Events as a Neurodivergent Individual. And I’d just like to add – seems like Justin Gross is always looking for more article writers, so anyone neurodivergent in the genre who fancies talking about it should get in touch with him.

And a couple more articles and reviews I enjoyed reading

First Lines Friday: Female Debut Authors in SFF – The Book Nook (thequaintbooknook.com)

Fantasy Book Review: No Gods No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull (tarvolon.com)

4. Now here comes a grab bag of random stuff that I found really interesting.

Ellen Forget, MPub on Twitter: “Pre-orders are now open for this volume on worldbuilding, in which you’ll find my chapter about worldbuilding in urban fantasy novels set in Canada. I’m excited to see this in print!” / Twitter

John Zaozirny on Twitter: “THREAD: The market for selling TV & film scripts, for staffing, and, honestly, just getting execs/directors/talent to read is as hard right now as I’ve personally ever seen it. I thought it might be helpful to lay out, in my opinion, why I think that is. 1/” / Twitter

The History and Politics of Wuxia | Tor.com

Averse Miscellany: The New Poetry, Part 1 of 2 – Poetry London

5. Finally, in a category of its own, as it’s a pretty weighty one, is this article on the twitter discourse on the short story “I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter”.

How Twitter can ruin a life: Isabel Fall’s complicated story – Vox

An on that heavy note, that’s my Friday Five, have a good weekend all.