Weinstock, Mad Scientist’s Guide to Composition (2020)

Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, The Mad Scientist’s Guide to Composition. Broadview Press, 2020. Pp. 246, ISBN 978-1-5548-1445-9. $15.55.

Reviewed by Don Riggs

I have taught from Weinstock’s Mad Scientist’s Guide to Composition for three years now, and have found it to be extremely useful in presenting the basic principles of academic writing for students, including what instructors call the “mechanics” of writing, including punctuation, paragraphing, and transitions; finding and using sources for research papers (helpfully called “Graverobbing” with a nod to Victor Frankenstein); preliminary stages like brainstorming and outlining; “Conducting Experiments” as a way of developing strategies for informing, persuading, and evaluating; and in a stirring chapter, “The Monster Lives!” providing approaches to revising, peer review, and retroactive outlining; and finally, “Placating Ghosts,” or documenting sources “to Avoid Angering the Dead… and the Living.” In other words, a very conventional approach to forming and formulating an argument… but presented in the guise of horror movie tropes.

McCarty, More Modern Mythmakers (2022)

Michael McCarty, More Modern Mythmakers: 25 Interviews With Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers and Filmmakers. Crystal Lake Publishing, 2022. Pp. 274. ISBN 978-1-957133-14-0. $15.99.

Reviewed by Jason Kahler

Michael McCarty has published dozens of books, especially non-fiction work about genre writers and artists. Crystal Lake Publishing is a relative newcomer, but they’ve already started distinguishing themselves by having a good eye for talent and publishing books that enhance the horror and science fiction community. More Modern Mythmakers is a strong collection of interviews that are a testament to McCarty’s access and eye, and the book would make a nice addition to your shelf, but it has some shortcomings that make it less than completely successful for a book of its kind.

Manzetti, 150 Exquisite Horror Books (2021)

Alessandro Manzetti, 150 Exquisite Horror Books. Crystal Lake Publishing, 2021. Pp. 210. ISBN 978-1-7377-2187-1. $11.99.

Reviewed by Rachel Verkade

There is an art to creating a “Best of” list, whether that be a “Best of Shakespeare’s Plays” or “Best Singles by Take That.” You are inevitably going to make a lot of people angry. Art and tastes are subjective, and one man’s trash is another person’s treasure. And nowhere is this more true than with horror fiction. Fears are as individual as fingerprints. The film or book that terrify us and make chills run down our spine might make be utterly dull to another. And we horror fans are desperately protective of our best beloveds. I have seen knock-down drag-out fights between fans who can’t agree whether Matthew Stokoe’s Cows is trash or a masterpiece. So creating a volume in which you want to compile the best of modern horror fiction is a bit of a risky endeavour. Fortunately for all of us, Alessandro Manzetti decided to take on the challenge, and he took it on with grace, courage, and a library I can only dream of possessing.

Foucault, The Birth of Free Will (2019/1974)

Michel Foucault, The Birth of Free Will, translated from the French by Pierre Menard. Routledge Focus, 2019 [1974]. Pp. xvi + 48. ISBN 978-6-472649-45-8. £46.99 hb/£15.99 pb.

Reviewed by Fabio Fernandes

When reviewing a dead author, one must be an archaeologist of sorts. One must read beyond the mere narrative, and open before oneself the text like a map, being careful about the paratexts and everything that surrounds the text. This Genettean approach is very useful in cases like the chapbook I have in my hands: The Birth of Free Will, by Michel Foucault. This is a very special book, because, among the whole work of the French philosopher, this is the only one he explicitly asked that be published only after his death. The fact that it took so long to finally see the light of day probably has to do with the fact that it’s about a book that doesn’t exist. Or rather, about a book that does not quite exist the way Foucault tells us. An alternate book, so to speak.

Barbini (ed.), Evolution of African Fantasy and Science Fiction (2018)

Francesca T. Barbini (ed.), The Evolution of African Fantasy and Science Fiction. Luna Press, 2018. Pp. 111. ISBN 978-1-911143-51-2. $15.99.

Reviewed by Djibril al-Ayad

This short book, published under the Academia Lunare imprint of Luna Press Publishing, contains five essays on aspects of SFF created by Africans, in Africa, or containing representations of Africa or Africans. It is not really a book about “evolution” of African speculative fiction, although the first three papers do discuss historical writing and modern developments, but it is nevertheless a fascinating and important first step in a history of scholarship of this under-appreciated section of the genre. I would like to see a dedicated academic journal publishing an issue of this scale once or twice per year (and emphatically not only in English).

Kuppers, Studying Disability Arts and Culture (2014)

Petra Kuppers, Studying Disability Arts and Culture: An Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Pp. 186. ISBN 978-1-137-41346-8. $37.99.

Reviewed by Kathryn Allan

Petra Kuppers is a well-known and respected figure in the disability community at large, her work encompassing (and transgressing) the realms of academia, theatre and dance, literature, and activism. It is no surprise then that her handbook, Studying Disability Arts and Culture: An Introduction, brings all of these various backgrounds together to guide those interested in learning about “the work of disabled artists and their allies” and “artful responses to living with physical, cognitive, emotional or sensory difference” (back cover). Primarily marketed as an undergraduate text, Studying Disability Arts and Culture is a useful arts-based learning tool for anyone who wants to explore “disabled bodies and minds in theatre, performance, creative writing, art and dance” (back cover). As a past university educator and current independent scholar who sometimes dabbles in creative writing, I found Kuppers’ text admirably accessible and comprehensive—for someone new to disability studies in general or to disability-centred art practices specifically, this handbook is a useful resource.

Crowley, 100 Best Video Games (2017)

Nate Crowley, 100 Best Video Games (That Never Existed). Solaris Books, 2017. Pp. 260. ISBN 978-1-78108-614-8. $17.99/£12.99.

Reviewed by Valeria Vitale

Literature is full of entertaining anecdotes on how books were born: unforgettable personal experiences, reminiscences of a dream, an unusual meeting, surreal coincidences, a strike of inspiration… you name it. This book was born on the internet and, more precisely, on Twitter. Emerging SF writer and game geek Nate Crowley promised a video game concept for each “like” received. The idea was so successful that the thread rapidly got out of hand. Luckily, someone thought that there were enough good seeds there to craft an entire book out of them. The author took things further and didn’t stop at the simple description of the made-up video games, but teamed up with real game designers to sketch very convincing features and even graphics, making this amusing fakery completely believable.

Juanita, De Facto Feminism (2016)

Judy Juanita, De Facto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland. EquiDistance Press, 2016. Pp 226. ISBN 978-0-9716352-1-0. $19.95.

Reviewed by Cait Coker

Judy Juanita’s collection of essays De Facto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland is a mixture of previously published material from her long career in activism, including poetry, and more recent autobiographical reminiscences that relate to her 2013 novel Virgin Soul. This work does not relate to genre per se (unless we think of being Black in America today as being a dystopian experience, which, to be honest, we might well do). The sixteen essays, half dozen poems, and a collection of digital correspondence span from 1967 to 2015, much of which is drawn from the online magazine The Weeklings, cover expansive territory on Juanita’s career as an activist and an artist: she has been a member of the Black Panther Party, has taught in the first Black Studies program in the US, and is a playwright, poet, novelist and professor. She reminds us that creative work is activism too.

Weintraub, Religions and Extraterrestrial Life (2014)

David A. Weintraub, Religions and Extraterrestrial Life: How will we deal with it? Springer-Praxis, 2014. Pp. xiii+234. ISBN 978-3-319-05055-3. $34.99.

Reviewed by Djibril al-Ayad

Weintraub’s Religions and Extraterrestrial Life is a work of popular astronomy and theology, written by an academic astrophysicist and published by an imprint of Springer, one of the large academic publishing multinationals that dominate the market. The core thesis of this volume is that we are within a generation at most of either discovering extraterrestrial life (if not intelligence), or learning that it is extremely rare, at least in our part of the universe. He then sets out to discuss how various major world religions will deal with this scientific knowledge, based primary on the foundation texts and/or mainstream theology of each movement, and ultimately concludes that most faith groups will be largely unshaken by the news (either way)—either because their tenets allow for non-human life, or because they are already in the business of denying science and so will have no qualms about ignoring it. As an astronomer, Weintraub’s chapters popularizing the detection of exoplanets and the possibility of astrobiology are extremely well-written, successful and useful; his forays into theology are more patchy, one-sided, and in many places disappointingly shallow. On the whole this is a valuable and interesting book, both thoughtful for non-specialists interested in extraterrestrial life, and a contribution to the critical discussion about religion and science.

carrington, Speculative Blackness (2016)

andré m. carrington, Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction. University of Minnesota Press, 2016. Pp. 288. ISBN 978-0-8166-7896-9. $25.00.

Reviewed by Don Riggs

Professor carrington’s focus in Speculative Blackness is on the interactions among not only science fiction, but other speculative fiction categories such as “fantasy, horror, utopia and dystopia, paranormal romance, counterfactual history, magical realism, and so on” (23). The thrust of his book is that the “Whiteness of Science Fiction” or the identification of speculative fiction as a White cultural tradition marks “alienation as a signal feature of Black experiences with the genre” (17-18). To support and illustrate these generalizations, the author presents an array of studies of presence and absence of African Americans in fandom, as demonstrated in fanzines, television’s original Star Trek series, comics, Deep Space Nine and its novelizations, and in a final chapter, he moves into online fanfiction archives involving “Black British-diasporic characters in Harry Potter,” extending his reach beyond the African-American sphere. He does a great deal of investigative work that reveals little-known aspects of the history of fandoms, of fans’ influence on the Speculative Fictional products (books, television shows, films, comics, etc.) that evolve in relation to the fans’ responses to them. As such, this is a reception study, except in the sense that the reception in turn becomes an influence on the subsequent development of the fiction.

Zinos-Amaro/Silverberg, Traveler of Worlds (2016)

Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Traveler of Worlds: Conversations With Robert Silverberg. Fairwood Press, 2016. Pp. 280. ISBN 978-1-933846-63-7. $16.99.

Reviewed by Andy Sawyer

Robert Silverberg is a writer I have read far too little of. But then, Silverberg is a writer everyone has read far too little of. One of the most prolific writers in our field, he began selling to the science fiction magazines (interestingly, for the British mag Nebula) in 1955: a mere three years, as he notes in one of his conversations here, after Philip K. Dick began publishing. In his first incarnation, he dedicated himself unflinchingly to writing and selling science fiction for the market, writing stories at breakneck speed (49 in 1956 alone), sometimes in partnership with Randall Garrett, sometimes under a bewildering array of house-names. During the late 60s and into the 70s (when I first came across his work), he changed tack, taking advantage of the increasing openness of the field to new styles and ideas. His work during that period alone would put many lesser writers to shame, both in quantity and quality. Among a series of astonishing stand-alone novels that ought to be on anyone’s bookshelf, Dying Inside (1972) stands out for its dark (some might say metaphorical) exploration of a telepath’s gradual decline of his powers.

Matronic, Robot Universe (2015)

Ana Matronic, Robot Universe. Legendary Automatons and Androids from the Ancient World to the Distant Future. Sterling Publishing, 2015. Pp. 224. ISBN 978-1-4549-1821-9. $19.95.

Reviewed by Małgorzata Mika

When choosing some books as your mental pabulum, one needs to prepare for a surprise. Ana Matronic’s Robot Universe: Legendary Automatons and Androids From the Ancient World to the Distant Future, offered as many as three surprises: 1) the title’s complexity is reminiscent of that encountered in doctoral dissertations, 2) the author is not an academic, but a singer and a fervent AI aficionado, and 3) the book’s hardcover edition is deftly designed and adorned with a multitude of beautiful illustrations. After a quick peek into the book, a tentative idea could be formulated, as both well-known and alien characters appear throughout the pages, promising variegated but not reader-intimidating content.

Forsyth, The Rebirth of Rapunzel (2016)

Kate Forsyth, The Rebirth of Rapunzel: A Mythic Biography of the Maiden in the Tower. Fablecroft Publishing, 2016. Pp 272. ISBN 978-0-9925534-9-4. $29.95.

Reviewed by Cait Coker

I’ve always been fascinated by fairy tales, and the more so when I was old enough to understand the history behind the genre. Though some of the stories find their antecedents in oral folklore, many emerged as part of a literary trend in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—a trend that was pioneered by numerous women writers at the French court just prior to the Enlightenment. If you’ve ever wondered why so many tales involve young women who are forced to marry beasts or who are abused by tyrannical step-mothers, it’s because their proto-feminist authors were writing from experience, and the “happily ever afters” that were promised were the ultimate in wish-fulfillment. Kate Forsyth played with both of these elements in her 2012 novel Bitter Greens, interweaving a retelling of the Rapunzel story with that of its seventeenth century author, Charlotte-Rose de la Force. In The Rebirth of Rapunzel, Forsyth revisits both the original tale and her own rewriting of it, and explores numerous other versions of the story along the way. In what she and scholars call a mythic biography, she closely examines the history and transformations of Rapunzel, and what they mean to her as a writer.

Gardiner, The Law of Chaos (2015)

Jeff Gardiner, The Law of Chaos: the Multiverse of Michael Moorcock. Headpress, 2015. Pp. 170. ISBN 978-1-9093-9419-3. $19.95.

Reviewed by Wendy Bousfield

Better known in the twentieth century than today, Michael Moorcock, now in his mid-70s, began his career as a teenager with stories in pulp magazines, and has had an extraordinarily long and diverse career. “Moorcock is a protean writer,” Jeff Gardiner notes in The Law of Chaos, “whose work transcends literary and generic boundaries … [H]is novels are, paradoxically, both popular and literary. His writing covers fields as far ranging as romance, heroic fantasy, science fiction, fabulation, surrealism, popular fiction, satire, allegory, fantastic realism, postmodernism, magic realism, non-fiction, rock’n’roll, comics and even cinema” (8). Most science fiction and fantasy readers probably know Michael Moorcock for his genre writing: sword and sorcery (saga of Elric of Melniboné and his sword Stormbringer), Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiches (Masters of the Pit), alternate histories (Warlord of the Air), and time travel (Dancers at the End of Time trilogy). As editor of New Worlds during the 1960s and 70s, he helped to transform space opera into innovative, intellectually engaging speculative fiction. A professional musician, Moorcock has for decades been a performer and lyricist for the rock bands Deep Fix and Hawkwind. In the 1980s, Moorcock began to write such self-consciously literary novels as Mother London and Byzantium. In 2012, Moorcock published London Peculiar, a collection of non-fiction essays, including accounts of his childhood during the London blitz, a period that profoundly influenced his writing. Recently, he has authored comic books; a computer game; and the first volume of a trilogy, The Whispering Swarm.

Howard, Touchstones (2014)

John Howard, Touchstones: Essays on the Fantastic. Alchemy Press, 2014. Pp. 294. ISBN 978-0-9573489-7-4. £11.00.

Reviewed by Małgorzata Mika

This troublesome f-word. It appears out of the blue to startle or outrage. It conforms to no norms, pushing and shoving among respectable authors of equally respectable literature. It chews a gum of literary conventions to utter a loud ‘pop’ when a balloon of high literary ideas breaks to be rechewed again. This is the fantastic in all its insolent beauty. The case of John Howard’s collection of essays, one may say, is all the more insulting, concentrating on revolving around the writers whose prose fits into such gutter-born genres as horror, science fiction and fantasy in the stages some might classify as evolving or cult. Probing the darker corners of literature seems hardly surprising since Touchstones: Essays on the Fantastic was released by The Alchemy Press, an award-winning independent publisher well-known for its fantastic proclivities. More so, the prevalence of horror and the weird among a caboodle of twenty-two texts is detectable, without the need of using the services of a professional medium. John Howard’s scholarly interests in the fantastic resulted in a peculiar combination that acquaints a reader with the works of the famous writers who are paragons of fantastic fiction, as well as those whose brilliant texts dissolved in the mist of other literary works. A mixture of the known, unknown and some eerie novelties is inviting, unearthing the talents long buried in the thick soil of 20th century fantastic literature.

Philips, Black Quantum Futurism (2015)

Rasheedah Philips, Black Quantum Futurism: Theory and Practice Volume I. Afrofuturist Affair, 2015. Pp. 84. ISBN 978-0-9960-0503-6. $8.00.

Reviewed by Ashley O’Brien

Black Quantum Futurism: Theory and Practice Volume 1 is a unique collection of essays and ideas that promises something beyond the ordinary. The basic premise of this collection, compiled by Rasheeda Phillips, who is also a contributor, and published in 2015 by AfroFuturist Affair, is that something very special happens when combining quantum physics, futurist traditions, and Black/African cultural traditions, namely that African descended people can see and change the future. All the rules, even common sense, break down, when looking at things on the quantum level. Even time can lose its meaning. So the idea that a particular tradition of thought, one from a culture or a religion, as an example, could prepare people for the strange mysteries of quantum mechanics is incredibly exciting, and worthy of exploration.

Roland, Curious Case of H.P. Lovecraft (2014)

Paul Roland, The Curious Case of H.P. Lovecraft. Plexus, 2014. Pp. 136. ISBN 978-0-85965-517-0. £14.99/$19.95.

Reviewed by Andy Sawyer

Paul Roland’s flawed but interesting biography is a record of a flawed but interesting man, designed to fill a need for “a popular but comprehensive biography” as opposed to the plethora of academic/scholarly treatments of Lovecraft which, Roland indicates, weren’t easily accessible outside the USA when he began the project twenty years ago. Now, perhaps, too much is written about Lovecraft, although much of this is partial and partisan, and Roland does his best to steer through some of the controversies and speculations without losing sight of either the facts of the biography and the substance of the fiction. He offers, for instance, the common suggestion that Lovecraft had Asperger syndrome (which of course had not been conceptualised in his lifetime), but notes that for each instance of Lovecraft’s Asperger-like behaviour other explanations can be offered. He several times notes, and is rightly judgemental about, Lovecraft’s attitude to race, which was extreme enough to be commented upon unfavourably in his lifetime. His chronological approach allows him to take Lovecraft’s fiction and comment upon it in the context of his life. This allows attention to be given to those earlier works which seem nowadays to be increasingly overlooked: the “dreamer” fantasies such as “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” and “The White Ship” which are as important to Lovecraft’s rejection of the world as “The Horror at Red Hook” and “The Shadow over Innsmouth”. For those new to Lovecraft, this is interesting and worthwhile.

Ellis/Thomas, Queers Dig Time Lords (2013)

Sigrid Ellis and Michael Damian Thomas (eds), Queers Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the LGBTQ Fans Who Love It. Mad Norwegian Press, 2013. Pp. 240. ISBN 978-1-9352341-4-2. $17.95.

Reviewed by Tracie Welser

Queers Dig Time Lords, edited by Sigrid Ellis and Michael Damian Thomas, was released last summer by Mad Norwegian Press. This small press is the same publisher behind the Hugo Award-winning Chicks Dig Time Lords, as well as Chicks Unravel Time and a slew of other Doctor Who and Whedonverse-related unofficial guides and commentary.

I, for one, enjoy critical work about pop culture. Works like What Would Buffy Do? deploy pop culture as a strategy for teaching philosophy and a provide a fandom-specific lens for examining society. We can geek out while turning a critical eye to our favorite works. Books of this sort are stimulating reading but can be a little didactic. But this book, like Chicks Dig Time Lords, is about fandom itself, and does a service to fandom. It’s a bit like being welcomed to a conversation in which a multiplicity of voices within fandom are asked why this universe and its occupants are so meaningful to so many.

Bogle, Frank Herbert (2012)

Bob R Bogle, Frank Herbert: The Works. Self-published, 2012. Pp. c.760. ISBN 978-0-9855893-0-1. $6.50.

Reviewed by Terry Grimwood

Of one thing, there can be no doubt, this biography is a labour of love. Frank Herbert: The Works is an overview of the life and written output of one of the most influential of post-war science fiction writers. Written in a clear, readable style, it is at once a fascinating account of the main points in Herbert’s life and an astonishingly in-depth analysis of his stories.

Koponen, World SF in Translation (2012)

Jari Koponen, World SF in Translation: Bibliography. Avain/BTJ Finland Oy, 2012. Pp. 429. ISBN 978-951-692-944-9. €48.00.

Reviewed by Kathryn Allan

Sometimes things get lost in the mail. It happens. When the journey from point A to point B crosses two continents and the Atlantic Ocean, it is understandable that a few packages will lose their way. I like to believe that my review copy of World SF in Translation was lost in the icy, wintery sea. Or, perhaps, it fell into the hands of a lonely, SF-loving mail carrier who was too taken by the happy little robo-astronaut on the bibliography’s cover to pass it on. I will never know what happened to my lost book, but the publisher of World SF in Translation, Avain, was gracious enough to provide me an e-book copy. Whether in paper or digital format, at first glance, Finnish SF scholar Jari Koponen’s bibliography is overwhelming. Written in three languages—Finnish, Swedish, and English (with translation of the Preface by Ben Roimola [Swedish] and Elina Koskelin [English])—the bibliography is not a resource for the casual reader of SF. World SF in Translation is a text for the serious student or scholar, in particular those interested in non-Anglo-American utopian literature and SF. Once I was comfortable with the sheer number of entries (around 3,500, give or take a hundred), it was a lot of fun skimming through the book to occasionally find a familiar name and be impressed by SF’s prodigious reach across the globe.