The Joy Factory Weekly - Issue #8 (6/2/2021)
Alright! You've got your tickets! Let's get to this!
Another week has passed, and I’ve got so little to report that it’s actually sad. A few things happened this past week:
I attended my biweekly writing group! We had a good time sharing work and talking about writing and current events.
I had yet another personal trainer session through the cancer center. This one involved the core. And for about 3 days, I could barely bend over. Totally worth it, I guess…
I recorded a lot of podcasts.
I played in two new TTRPG campaigns: one running a bonkers alien teenagers system and one running Apocalypse World. I played Duo Maxwell meets Bender from The Breakfast Club in the former and a bonkers character named Gritch in the latter. Both were fun times.
I GMed another session of my Star Wars game. We’re running the Revised ruleset from Wizards of the Coast. I’ll talk more about this session on Patreon!
Meanwhile, we’re about two inches from figuring out a name for the actual play podcast I’ve been working on for months. It’s a lot of little things taking up lots of time! Hopefully, I’ll have more detailed things to report next week!
Meanwhile, here are some of the things I was up to this week that you can check out:
Over at The Joy Factory Monthly, I talked with Iori Kusano about the joy of video games (one of two video game conversations happening over there). It was a delightful conversation!
On the Joy Factory Patreon, I wrote about my top 5 horror soundtracks! Consider joining up!
Over at The Skiffy and Fanty Show, Brandon O’Brien and Iori Kusano got back on the Kamen Rider train with the latest episode of Righteous Kicks! Expect more of it in the near future!
Alright! Now onto the main affair...clickables?
Don't forget to sign up for the Joy Factory Weekly Newsletter! And if you'd like to share your thoughts about social media culture, email me directly at shaunduke.net/contact or send me a tweet @shaunduke!
Make sure to check out The Joy Factory Monthly on your favorite podcatcher. If you enjoy the show, throw up a 5 star review on iTunes AND join me at patreon.com/thejoyfactory!
Show Notes
If you want to learn more about Premee Mohamed's work, check out these delicious links:
Speculate SF's The Case of the Cindered Seal
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Clickable Geekery
It’s interesting to think back on what the SF/F/H short fiction world looked like 5, 10, or even 15 years ago. While online magazines have existed about as long as I’ve been in “the fandom,” we’ve certainly seen an explosion in their popularity over the last 20 years. Lavie Tidhar recently dropped over at Uncanny Magazine to discuss the role of diversifying short fiction publishing (i.e., worldifying it) in the online magazine universe. It’s an interesting piece and comes just as a new volume of The Best of World SF heads our way!
On a less happy-but-equally-interesting note, Sam Weller recently shared some thoughts about his conversations with Ray Bradbury and the late-author’s thoughts on how the public responded to the 1918 flu pandemic decades after its conclusion. This is partly a cautionary tale, by the way, but it offers some critical insights into cultural memory! Also returning times long past is this latest piece from Darkworlds Quarterly on the pulp stories that preceded (and obviously influenced) Star Trek. While a lot of the pulps are a tad ridiculous, it’s still a fascinating period of bold exploration -- albeit with lots of...err...problems. Worth a read! And lastly, Literary Hub had a fantastic piece on W.E.B. Du Bois’ lesser known science fiction story, “The Comet.” I’ve taught this particular work before, and it probably should be required reading in a lot of American literature courses.
For those looking for a bit of fun, I point you to this excellent map from 2020 of each U.S. state’s favorite horror movie. I would really like to see similar maps made for other countries to see the regional preferences there, but it’s still fun to have a map of my country to poke at! Also in the horror realm: Puzzle Box Horror’s exploration of the history/roots of folk horror, a genre I’ve enjoyed once or twice. For example, David Annandale and I once talked about 1973’s The Wicker Man (not to be confused with the other film of the same name which was covered on Torture Cinema long, long ago…).
Though I don’t share much about the gaming world here, I was pleased to see this massive profile of Izuho Numata in Kotaku. The piece explores the early days of SEGA and some of Numata’s biggest projects from the period, including some classics you’ve probably heard of! Speaking of video games: a new series of posts by Bret Devereaux explores the theories, histories, and intentions behind Europa Universalis IV, a strategy game by Paradox Interactive. You can read all four parts here: Part I; Part II; Part III; Part IV!
If you’re looking for some books to read, there have been quite a few lists floating about. First, Literary Hub has a list of 34 books by Asian American literature to check out for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! Then Book of Cinz recently announced Read Caribbean 2021 for Caribbean Heritage Month, which features a number of events and “books you need to read” in celebration of the long and amazing history of the region’s literature! Meanwhile, Clark Ashton Smith shared an introduction to American fantasy, which takes us back to some of the influential works of yesteryear! Finally, Words Without Borders shared a list of translated books from Haiti that you should check out. Seriously. Check them all out!
Clickable Factoids
One of the “big most exciting news” things to happen in the last week-ish is the fact that Virgin Galactic successfully had its first human spaceflight for its Unity craft. It is the third total spaceflight for the project and comes with a number of other technical achievements. There’s a video on the Virgin Galactic website showing the launch. Must be a hell of a gut punch when the shit drops!
Me being the space dork that I am, I’ve also got other space-related things to share. There are two Centauri Dreams articles worth checking out. The first tries to determine the frequency of planets which are continuously habitable versus those, like Mars, which are not. The second explores recent models which suggest there may be volcanoes on the seafloor of Europa. If true, this bodes well for the possibility of life underneath its massive surface of ice! Aliens, perhaps!
Meanwhile, Astro 3D reports on a recent look at a detailed cross-section of UGC 10738 (a galaxy) and what it reveals about the Milky Way! In short: we’re not that special. That’s actually a good thing, by the way. We might never get to talk to anyone in another galaxy, but at least there might be more weird bipedal animals writing science fiction out there!
Clickable Fiction
A lot of fiction has come out in the last week. Here is just a little bit of it for you to enjoy!
“What the Astronaut Thought with 3% Oxygen Left in His Tank” by Matt Hollingsworth (Transfigured Lit)
“Dusty Winds” by Melony Akpoghene (Kalahari Review)
“Tiger of the New Moon” by Allison Thai (Anathema Magazine)
“Balfour in the Desert” by Fargo Tbakhi (Strange Horizons)
“The 21 Bus Line” by Gabriela Santiago (The Dark)
“Water Child” by Frances Ogamba (The Dark)
“Disenchantment” by P.H. Low (Fantasy Magazine)
“The Cabbit” by Maria Dong (Nightmare Magazine)
You might also want to check out Issue #333 of Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 17 of Omenana, the June 2021 issue of Metaphorosis, Issue 18 of Polar Borealis, and Volume 12, Issue 1 of Molotov Cocktail.
It’s been a while since I last shared some CFPs for various academic journals, collections, and conferences. If you’re academically-inclined, there’s probably something in the list below to entice your writing bug. So here goes!
1. “Gender and Queer Identities in Australian Speculative Fiction”
Deadline: June 17, 2021 / Gender Forum
A special issue seeks submissions on what I think are fairly obvious subjects. There is some language here concerning indigeneity that may be of interest to some.
2. “SF: Activism and Resistance”
Deadline: June 30, 2021 / Activism and Resistance Conference
Academic conference seeking subs on the role of activism in science fiction. Specific language here focuses on contemporary movements, challenging the universal experience, etc.
3. “The Inhuman”
Deadline: July 15, 2021 / The Neutral Graduate Cinema Journal
A special issue on ways of thinking about the unhuman, the human within the paradigm, and the anthropocene.
4. “American Golden Age Mystery & Detective Fiction”
Deadline: July 15, 2021 / Mean Streets: A Journal of American Crime & Detective Fiction
A special issue on, well, the Golden Age period of those two genres. Some specific language here about the hard-boiled genre vs. the classic mystery genre!
5. “Science and Technology in Popular Culture”
Deadline: Aug. 1, 2021 / Northeast Popular Culture Association
NEPCA seeks proposals for presentations on the relationship between science/tech and popular culture.
6. “Fans, Fandoms, and Celebrity Studies”
Deadline: Aug. 1, 2021 / Northeast Popular Culture Association
NEPCA seeks proposals on a variety of aspects concerning fandom, from politics to social media to sports and more.
7. Untitled Volume on Star Wars and Star Trek
Deadline: Aug. 2, 2021 / Vernon Press
A new edited collection seeks essays on the themes, narratives, moral dimensions, etc. of the two franchises. Lots of places to go with this one!
8. “Digital Humanities”
Deadline: Oct. 31, 2021 / Digitalia
A scientific journal seeks submissions on a variety of elements concerning data visualization, language processing, archives, education, and more.
9. “(Neo)Cybernetic Paths for an Epistemology of Digital Cultures”
Deadline: Dec. 31, 2021 / Open Philosophy
A special volume seeking to explore the “cybernetic programme” to better understand cybernetic research beyond the dystopian.
And that’s what I’ve got for you here!
Now on to...books?
Currently Reading
Over the past week, I finished P. Djèlí Clark’s A Master of Djinn (for a podcast) and resumed my long affair with Stephen King’s The Shining. To the former, you can expect a review incoming on the Joy Factory Patreon! It is, to be brief, an incredible work!
As for the latter, well, I’ve been nursing this book for so long. In my opinion, it is probably King’s greatest work and contains some of his best writing, plotting, and characterization. As a horror novel, it is a remarkable work for the way it unveils the tragedy to come while still building suspense and genuine terror. Naturally, it’s dramatically different from the film adaptation, but that makes the reading process even more exciting because I’m discovering something new here. Hopefully, I’ll finish it this week and get to something new. More on that later!
Currently Watching
I watch entirely too much stuff… In addition to rewatching Quantum of Solace and Stargate, I also finally caught up on the 5th season of The Expanse. To date, I consider this to be the greatest science fiction show of the last 20 years and likely one of the top SF shows of all time. It is incredible how they manage to build suspense, drive a narrative forward, and explore new things. Season 5 focuses on shifting power dynamics, terrorism, and the unrelenting mystery of the Builders. And now I’m here with no more show to watch and a desperate need for the final season to get here so I can see how it all ends!
Additionally, I started Jupiter’s Legacy, a comic adaptation on Netflix. Having no experience with the comics, I don’t know how well it works as an adaptation. However, I will say that I’m having some difficulty with the narrative. Where the story seems strongest is in its past narrative during the Great Depression. There, we get some truly fantastic characterization and an interesting retread of the superhero origin story that plays happily in the “secret island” narratives of yesteryear. I absolutely adore this aspect! But the “present” narrative leaves much to be desired. I appreciate what the show is trying to do -- explore the morality of using lethal force as super people -- but I find so many of the younger characters annoying to watch. A lot of this show rests on us believing what we’re told, but for some of these side narratives to have any real weight, they have to be anchored to something. The idea that the daughter of a superhero has descended into drug addiction and destructive behavior because her dad made her life suck just doesn’t work for me here. There’s nothing to support it. If anything, most of the evidence on screen suggests otherwise, and I find myself struggling to really care about characters who, in the midst of some real serious bad stuff, seem determined to blame other people for their own problems. In that respect, I guess it’s realistic -- and I do sympathize with the issues of addiction -- but as a narrative, I just don’t care for it...
I’ll probably come back to Jupiter’s Legacy when I’ve finished watching it. I think there are some interesting points to discuss with the way it handles the “gritty narrative” trend and how it deals with trauma. Stay tuned!
Currently Writing
I just started yet another horror project that will likely end up as a novelette. I had this line swirling around in my head while taking a shower, and I had to pop up to my home office to start writing. 350 words later, and I had the kernel of a story! I don’t have a title yet, but the story will definitely delve into aspects of my life back in Santa Cruz, CA!
Beyond that, I’m mostly working on articles for this project and trying to chug away at the horror novel. And if I get the itch to finally complete my much-late Professional Development Report for work, I’ll do that, too.
Now on to other media to enjoy!
There is a surprising amount of media to share in my folder for this week! So let’s get to it!
First, some podcasts:
Over at New Books Network, there’s a new interview with William Garrett Acree about his new book, Staging Frontiers: The Making of Modern Popular Culture in Argentina and Uruguay. They use the word “swashbuckling” here, and I think that’s enough reason to listen!
Literature and History has a new episode on Ancient Greece and early works of “science fiction.” I’d quibble with definitions here, as I don’t personally think anything pre-1900 is actually science fiction, but it’s still important to recognize all of the work which influenced SF as we know it today!
Meanwhile, there is a bunch more amazing stuff to check out! In the “culture” universe, there’s this piece I recently found from Open Culture on Sun Ra! It features an interview with the famed musician and writer and the reading list from Sun Ra’s UC Berkeley course from 1971! There’s so much here to love. There’s also this amazing video that folks on Twitter were raving about: the opening credits features some fantastic archival footage and a surprising geek reference. The documentary is entitled The Nagano Tapes and chronicles the Czech Republic’s gold medal win in hockey at their first ever Olympics!
On a “not happy but interesting” front, there’s The Anthropocene Project, a digital exhibit of art, film, augmented reality, and other forms of media showing the human influence on the Earth. It’s super cool and a powerful reminder of what humans can do to an entire world.
In the music world, I recently discovered Trash Theory’s history of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence,” which deep dives into the group’s beginnings, the intentions behind the song, its creation and influence, and more! You should also listen to the original song. Go on. You know you want to!
If you’re a fan of 80s movies, you might enjoy this video on the VFX of Flight of the Navigator! We had a blast covering this film over at The Skiffy and Fanty Show, by the way.
Speaking of older movies, you might have missed this cut of George Orwell’s 1984, which was adapted to the screen in 1954! There have been many other attempts to adapt Orwell’s classic, including a play I got to see in London a while back (with beer!). Definitely give this old flick a try!
Finally, we come to pretty space pictures! First up is this shot of NGC 4565 (a.k.a. The Needle Galaxy, for all the stitch work done there). It’s truly incredible that the universe is full of immense galaxies. Just looking at this gives me chills! Finally, there’s this shot of AG Carinae, which I will now call the Big Red Eye. It’s 20,000 light-years from us, and yet it is so amazingly stunning, no?
Alright! It’s time for...new books to read?
We’re deep into summer releases now (at least, by the measure of places where summer began in May rather than in mid-June), and with that comes a sea of new and exciting books! Expect to see more small press releases this summer, as my little brain has me digging through those summer catalogues for all the sexy books to share!
Here are the books out this week that you should check out:
The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu (Tor; June 1, 2021)
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo (Tor.com; June 1, 2021)
Walking on Cowrie Shells by Nana Nkweti (Graywolf Press; June 1, 2021)
Future Feeling by Joss Lake (Soft Skull Press; June 1, 2021)
Bacchanal by Veronica G. Henry (47North; June 1, 2021)
Multispecies Modernity: Disorderly Life in Postcolonial Literature by Sundhya Walther (Wilfrid Laurier University Press; June 1, 2021)
Huchu’s The Library of the Dead has been getting some good buzz both for its imaginative narrative and his previous work. This is technically his genre fiction debut, though definitions of “genre” are fairly hard to pin down. I’ve been waiting for this one for a while now, and I’m hopeful its play on Zimbabwean and Scottish culture will produce something truly unique! Meanwhile, the second novel on the list, Bacchanal, also features magical communications (Huchu’s features talks with the dead). I’m curious to see Henry’s treatment of Louisiana, carnival, and animal communication here (largely because the South has a way of seeping into you and never leaving).
Additionally, there’s the much-anticipated debut The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo. I’ve been a huge fan of her work since she dropped The Empress of Salt and Fortune. Richly detailed and beautifully written, Vo’s work is practically essential reading these days. And finally, there’s Lake’s Future Feelling, set in an undefined future of B-list celebrities, media influencers, and more. It’s hard to tell if this is a cyberpunk work, but it has a lot of those feels here. Also: there’s something called a “butt-meter” in this book, and I need to read to find out what that is and how it works...
On the short fiction front is Nkweti’s Walking on Cowrie Shells, a genre bending collection featuring award-nominated fiction on racial prejudice, stories about collisions between cultures (Cameroon and the West), West African culture, and all manner of genre concepts from zombies to mermaids. It’s bound to be a truly incredible collection. You should check it out.
On the non-fiction front, I’ve got one rather inside-baseball works. Walther’s new book explores the relationship between animals and humans in India, taking an ecological and spatial perspective on modernity and animal studies. Mostly curious about this one because I recently rediscovered the course reader for an animal studies class I took at UC Santa Cruz, and now I can’t get some of the questions that class raised out of my head!
And there you have it. Now on to...a reading list?
Every week, I’ll ask my Twitter followers what they’re reading. Here’s what they said:
Making Oboe Reeds, Step by Step by Naomi Bensdorf Frisch (from @SithHounds)
1924: The Year That Made Hitler by Peter Ross Range (from @lupulinous)
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin (from @lupulinous)
The Incorruptibles by John Hornor Jacobs (from @lupulinous)
Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders (from @carturo222)
Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky (from @carturo222)
Doctor Who: The Ruby’s Curse by Alex Kingston (from @carturo222)
Chances of a Lifetime by Eleanor Lansing Dulles (from @KateSherrod)
Lake of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe (from @KateSherrod)
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (from @adamcallaways)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (from @adamcallaways)
Act Your Age, Even Brown by Talia Hibbert (from @mikaela_l)
The Sword of Happenstance by Steven Brust and Skyler White (from @stevenhalter)
Orbit 1 edited by Damon Knight (from @CoraBuhlert)
City of a Plague God by Sarwat Chadian (from @Bookworm604)
Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline (from @Bookworm604)
The Trials of Koli by M.R. Carey (from @RobHBedford)
Hall of Smoke by H.M. Long (from @RobHBedford)
Dahlgren by Samuel R. Delany (from @tarkusest)
The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison (from @templetongate)
The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk (from @templetongate)
The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel (from @FictitiousPod)
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki (from @FictitiousPod)
Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace (from @sfhelmut)
God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert (from @ian_sales)
Diving Into the Wreck by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (from @sbisson)
Gifting Fire by Alina Boyden (from @Zeteram)
Machine by Elizabeth Bear (from @oldscout)
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson (from @BookofBogan)
Light Chaser by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell (from @Hugo_Book_Club)
The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Clark (from @runalongwomble)
War of the Maps by Paul McAuley (from @SteveJWright1)
Black Water Sister by Zen Cho (from @pdmcguirelaw)
The Invisible Life by Addie LaRue (from @pdmcguirelaw)
Reaper’s Gale by Steve Erikson (from @pdmcguirelaw)
Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold (from @certifiedjenius)
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (from @mikedouton)
Close Your Eyes by Paul Jessup (from @fabiofernandes)
The Silver Witch by Paula Brackston (from @cherylreads)
Bellwether by Connie Willis (from @CatKimbriel)
Brass Man by Neal Asher (from @IanPickford6)
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (from @hugogirlpodcast)
A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (from @moirakatson)
Ack-Ack Macaque by Gareth L. Powell (from @bassplyr5150)
Dogma: A Screenplay by Kevin Smith (from @bassplyr5150)
It’s Always the Husband by Michele Campbell (from @bassplyr5150)
And there you have it. Follow me on Twitter @shaunduke if you want to share your reads next time!
We’ve come to the end! Thank you so much for sticking around, putting up with the whole “Shaun is still figuring out this works” thing, etc.! Y’all rock! This week has been remarkably busy, but I expect to share some stuff with you!
Here are some of the things you should expect by next week:
There will be a new episode of The Joy Factory Monthly. I’m recording TWO this week, and I’m not sure which one will drop on Monday.
I’m gonna share some extended thoughts on Jupiter’s Legacy and Army of the Dead.
Some TTRPG goodness!
A few updates and special things for Patreon supporters!
And there you have it!
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!