The Joy Factory Weekly - Issue #12 (7/6/2021)
Alright! You've got your tickets! Let's get to this!
Another week has passed, and here we are with space adventures and updates!
First things, I’m happy to report that I finished a new short story which has no title! This is a milestone because, well, I’ve been off the writing game for a while, and finishing things has always been a problem for me. If you’re a Patreon supporter, you may have seen excerpts from the draft a while back. For now, I’m going to rejoice in the fact that I’ve completed a thing! Then I’m going to edit it and send it out there!
Writing, by the way, has been both a trial and a joy. The big thing for me is getting away from doing stuff I shouldn’t be doing instead of doing the thing I actually want to be doing, which is a habit some of you might understand and has been made worse by pandemic hell and social media sucking the life right out of you. So, there’s gonna be some real changes to how I go about my life in the near future.
On a related note, I also purchased a bunch of tarot decks on the suggestion of David Annandale, who uses them as a writing tool. Ended up with three decks: The Wild Unknown, the Smith-Waite Centennial, and Santa Muerte. The latter of this is absolutely shockingly gorgeous, and as soon as my new dining room table comes in, I’m going to spend a lot of time fiddling with these and The Story Engine coming up with plots and storylines and characters to play around with!
Beyond those updates, here are some of the things I’ve been up to:
I was pleased to get a bit of traction on a new article I wrote about Twitter called “How to Make Twitter Suck Less.” If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you know about several authors stepping away from Twitter and the general feeling within the broader geek community about the Twitter community. I wrote the article to hopefully help more people find something meaningful on the platform. May it help you, too!
Over at The Joy Factory Monthly, Sarah Nicolas joined me to talk about podcasting -- why we do it, why we love them, and more. It was an awesome discussion!
The Skiffy and Fanty Show dropped two episodes: a Torture Cinema podcast on Lady Battle Cop (OMG, it’s a ridiculous movie) and a discussion with David Annandale and Brandon O’Brien on the problems of streaming outside the United States.
Alright! Now onto the main affair...clickables?
Twitter is one of those places that people hate and use at the same time. Millions upon millions of users log in every day to share photos…
Clickable Geekery
Let’s start things off with movies! Over at Horror News Network, Mike Joy shares 10 horror films to watch this summer. The season is ending soon for anyone north of Kentucky, so get on this soon! Grady Hendrix has also continued his Murder Books 101 series with a look at the gender politics of horror cinema. Some familiar films are mentioned here, and I think Hendrix does a great job drawing historical connections here. And the last “horror” thing to share here is this article on Kazuo Ishiguro’s exploration of cults and white supremacy in his newest novel, Klara and the Sun. The author, Mieko Anders, makes a lot of fantastic connections here, and I think everyone should read the analysis.
If you want to learn a bit about comic books during WW2, JSTOR Daily has a piece on the Writers’ War Board, a government-funded group which developed propaganda for the U.S. Super fascinating stuff! Speaking of history, Troy L. Wiggins has some brilliant and rather brutal thoughts on the United States, its treatment of slavery narratives, and its relationship to black cultural production. Lots of food for thought here!
If we continue with the history-of-genre theme, you might get a lot out of this Troy Brownfield article on the impact of the sword and sorcery genre on the 1980s. I can already think of a number of films and books not mentioned here. Maybe there needs to be a sequel article! Then Galactic Journey takes us on a journey to a look at the British superhero comics of the 1960s. This is a part of comic history I know very little about, and so I read this with a grin on my face! And if you’re interested in Wuxia, you might get a lot out of Jeannette Ng’s history of the genre. The last history-of-genre piece is a new one from James Wallace Harris, which explores how contemporary audiences view science fiction from the olden times (50s, 60s, etc.). The analysis is worth reading here.
Finally, two major SF awards announced their shortlists: the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Shirley Jackson Awards. Also: don’t forget to check out the latest issue of Salon Futura and Star Trek Quarterly!
Clickable Writing Advice
Over at Gnome Stew, Jared Rascher takes an in-depth look at how to fit monster encounters to the theme of your game. And I do mean in-depth. There’s a chart. There are lists. There’s so much to play with here! Check it out.
For horror writers, you might get something out of this Horror Tree article on avoiding cliches in the genre. At the very least, I see this as a thing to play around with. How do you twist these common ideas into new things?
Clickable Factoids
Over at UC Santa Barbara’s The Current, Sandy Seale reports on the discovery of a new type of supernova, which may shed the light on a mystery dating about to 1054 C.E.! Go learn you some history, y’all! Also in the past: the discovery of decorated bones in a Neanderthal-era cave! We’ve already learned that the Neanderthals were a more advanced species that we gave them credit for, and this discovery adds to that knowledge!
In other science news, here’s a piece from JSTOR Daily on the blood of western fence lizards and the connection it might have to Lyme disease numbers on the west coast. This is pretty wild, and I’m curious to see how this science pans out. I mean, of course I am. I’m a lizard dork!
Lastly, I have to share this interview with Tyler J. Kelley, which explores the man’s work and the idea of living with or “beating” climate change. I’ve seen a lot of similar conversations lately. They might not be happy conversations, but they’re necessary ones. More, please!
Clickable Fiction
“Planned obsolescence” by Marissa Lingen (Futures)
“How to Haunt Your Local Forest” by Kate Lechler (Fireside)
“The Jubilee” by Sheree Renée Thomas (Fireside)
“Not All Caged Birds Sing” by Sheree Renée Thomas (Fireside)
“He Leaps for the Stars, He Leaps for the Stars” by Grace Chan (Clarkesworld)
“Last Nice Day” by Rich Larson (Clarkesworld)
“Garden” by Alejandro Burdisio (Clarkesworld)
“The Wishing Pool” by Tananarive Due (Clarkesworld)
“Haja Hoje” by Anna Martino (Strange Horizons)
“Barefoot and Midnight” by Sheree Renée Thomas (Apex Magazine)
“Aunt Dissy’s Policy Dream Book” by Sheree Renée Thomas (Apex Magazine)
“Tree of the Forest Seven Bells Turns the World Round Midnight” by Sheree Renée Thomas (Apex Magazine)
“See with Your Eyes, Not with Your Hands” by Monte Lin (Nightmare Magazine)
“We Will Weather One Another Somehow” by Kristina Ten (Diabolical Plots)
“City-Above, City-Below” by Aimee Ogden (Daily Science Fiction)
You might also want to check out Grimdark Magazine #27, the July 2021 issue of Fantasy Magazine, Issue #333 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 4 of Baffling Magazine, and the 58th issue of The Future Fire!
Now onto...new books?
Some of us might have taken advantage of the Small Beer Press sale this week. Wasn’t me. I promise…
This week’s editions are technically spread across two whole weeks, mostly because there was hardly anything last week and it seemed silly to have an SLE about one book. And so, here we are with books for Week 2 of the month!
Here are some of the books you should check out this week:
Ghost in the Well: The Hidden History of Horror Films in Japan by Michale Crandol (Bloomsbury Academic; July 1, 2021)
We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen (DAW; July 6, 2021)
Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith (Random House; July 6, 2021)
Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim (Knopf Books for Young Readers; July 6, 2021)
Big Dark Hole by Jeffrey Ford (Small Beer Press; July 6, 2021)
The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay translated by Arunava Sinha (HarperVia; July 6, 2021)
There is only one non-fiction book on the list, and it’s one that I’m sure some of you will want to hunt down through your library. Thankfully, the paperback edition looks to be reasonably affordable, too! Crandol’s look at the entire history of Japanese horror cinema mostly interests me as a new “I am totally a horror fan now” fan and will take us back to the very beginning. I’m absolutely excited to see what there is to learn here!
In fiction town, I’ve got five fantastic works to share. First is Nguyen’s We Have Always Been Here, billed as a psychological SF thriller. The book blurb gives the impression that this will be one part Solaris and one part Pandorum, both films I actually quite enjoy. So, yeah, I’m gonna read it! Also on the strange front: Kupersmith’s new novel, Build Your House Around My Body, which takes a more literary approach to Vietnamese history and folklore in the form of a ghost story spanning decades. Not gonna lie. I’ve been interested in learning more about Vietnamese folklore from my girlfriend, and this book is pushing me harder in that direction. Definitely gonna read it!
Speaking of ghost stories: Mukhopadhyay’s The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die is only new because a lot of you might have missed its first English translation back in India. Now it’s getting a much bigger release here in the west, and I am so here for this ghost tale full of traditional Indian culture and laughs. Also: apparently, there’s a film adaptation out there, and I must have it!
Lastly, there is Jeffrey Ford’s new collection, which I already purchased. This is shaping up to be a powerful grouping of strange, weird, and unusual stories. I mean, it’s Jeffrey Ford. Did you expect anything less? I can’t wait to read it! And then there’s Lim’s Six Crimson Cranes, an original fantasy pulling heavily from East Asian folklore. Again, I remain excited by all of this fantasy work being published which takes the genre into other cultural traditions. Lim’s work may very well be one to watch for here.
Alright! Now onto...more books!
Every week, I’ll ask my Twitter followers what they’re reading. Here’s what they said:
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (from @lupulinous)
Building Solidarity During This Crisis by Dean Spade (from @lupulinous)
Dead Lies Dreaming by Charles Stross (from @grimak_us)
Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells (from @grimak_us)
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (from @grimak_us)
Beowulf translated by Maria Dahvana Headley (from @SueBursztynski)
A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (from @bibliofeminist)
Death’s Requiem by David J. Gatward (from @rebecca_latson)
The Metamorphoses by Ovid (from @ChrisDuncle)
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (from @RainbowWar71)
Cyborgs in Latin America by J. Andrew Brown (from @carturo222)
Indexing by Seanan McGuire (from @kadycreates)
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang (from @Nickpheas)
Nophek Gloss by Essa Hansen (from @runalongwomble)
The Coffin Maker’s Garden by Stuard MacBride (from @chawdwickginther)
The Wolf of Oren-Yaro by K.S. Villoso (from @Wi11iamSc0tt)
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski (from @SkiffilyPodcast)
Mary Elizabeth Braddon: A Companion to the Mystery Fiction by Anne-Marie Beller (from @AnneMarbleAAR)
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin (from @BeverlyBambury)
Ashes of the Sun by Django Wexler (from @SteveJWright1)
The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid (from @lyrrael)
Catalyst Gate by Megan E. O’Keefe (from @templetongate)
A Place Light in the Black by K.B. Wagers (from @KMiddleburg)
The Deep by Rivers Solomon (from @CoreyRedekop)
I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dane Wells (from @DireSquid)
Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison (from @TiemenZwaan)
And there you have it. Follow me on Twitter @shaunduke if you want to share your reads next time!
We’ve made it to the end. I hope you enjoyed your time on the back of the Macrocosmic Mega Beetle. Don’t forget to get your souvenir books in the gift shop and your required decontamination in the delousing showers.
Thanks again for hanging with me this week! Things will be busy busy around these parts. Why? Well, I’m going to be writing and reading a lot. Expect me to talk about that in upcoming editions.
Here’s what to expect for the rest of the week:
A new episode of The Joy Factory Monthly on a subject I haven’t picked yet because I didn’t schedule my week correctly. Stay tuned!
A new episode of The Skiffy and Fanty Show. This one will be one of the Righteous Kicks episodes, so I’m not directly a part of it. But I edited it!
Some fiction excerpts and flower pictures on Patreon! My demonic whale story has a beginning, and I might share it!
Something else that is secret.
Alright! Have a good one, y’all!
Joyful Transmission Concluded!
Thanks for reading The Joy Factory Weekly newsletter! As always, if you want to support the project or my other work, head over to patreon.com/thejoyfactory. You can find me @shaunduke on Twitter and at shaunduke.net!