It’s bizarre to consider, but I’ve been plagued all week on how to begin my review of Guillermo Del Toro’s new giant monsters versus giant robots movie, Pacific Rim, not because I couldn’t parse how I […]
As I watched a repeat episode of Mythbusters the other night, I was reminded of one of my pet peeves in Science Fiction and Fantasy- the ineffectiveness of firearms. The Mythbusters were testing why so […]
It may seem perverse to fault a work for feeling too perfectly crafted, but the polish of Oni Press’ comics series The Sixth Gun, the sense of every element being in its ideal place, hindered […]
Here are two web comics that feature world-building on a grand scale.
The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes Mulholland Books 2013 The premise of The Shining Girls sold me before I’d read a sentence from it or knew who Lauren Beukes was: a serial killer with the […]
Character, Context, and Procedure: The Cores of the Police Procedural One can’t analyze science fiction and fantasy without running into certain words over and over again: World-building. Sense of wonder. Neologism. Cognitive estrangement. Novum. These […]
Police procedurals are a complicated genre to explore because they intersect so fluidly with so many other genres. On the one hand, they solidly rest within the mystery tradition: there is a crime that needs […]
Last week, we talked about how works of speculative fiction deploy techniques commonly found in literary fiction. This week, we’re going to flip that coin and look at how mainstream literary fiction employs techniques developed […]
As I mentioned last week, trying to draw general conclusions about the relationship between mainstream literary fiction and speculative fiction is difficult at best. For every “general” hypothesis, a slew of counter-examples can be raised […]
The relationship between speculative fiction and mainstream literary fiction is complicated by decades of group identity dynamics, mutual ignorance, and overbroad critical generalizations about both genres. However, if we try to put our long-held attitudes […]
Perhaps the most important insight I’ve gained from my research for my Crossroads series is that the borders between genres are very fluid, and the more one genre (or sub-genre) resembles another, the more contentious […]
Welcome to the first week of May! This month, I’m going to be taking a look at the often-fraught relationship between speculative fiction and mainstream literary fiction. I’ve always found the love-hate relationship between devotees […]
NOTE: This week’s essay is actually an adapted form of an essay from December 18, 2012 that was originally published at The King of Elfland’s 2nd Cousin. Some changes, however, have been made from the […]
Last week, we talked about how every piece of humorous speculative fiction inevitably gets compared to Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But as I outlined, Adams’ comedy of the absurd operates very […]
Horror and alternate history are difficult genres to mash up. You just don’t see them together very often and despite my firm belief in the adaptability of alternate history, it is rare when you see […]
Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (itself spread across five books with a six written by Eoin Colfer), with its friendly, green warning against panic, casts a huge shadow over the field of […]
This is going to be a first for me- I’m going to review a book BEFORE I finish it. Hold on! You might be thinking. How can I pass judgement on a book without finishing […]
Hello, folks! Now that I’m back on my feet, I find that April’s here. A few days ago was April 1st, also known as April Fool’s Day. And while I may not be clever enough […]
Animals have a very special role to play in stories, at least according to the long history of tales utilizing their presence as potent symbolism. Throughout the world of story-telling, a multitude of beasts have had very […]
Sorry, folks. I know some of you were looking forward to the final installment in the Crossroads: Western series, but I’m afraid I have been laid low by a really nasty virus plague. As a […]
Speculative fiction gives my imagination space to play. Whether it’s a strange, fascinating city, an entire alien world, or a different time/reality, the genre’s ability to transport offers both escapist entertainment and the insight into […]
I grew up watching Creature Features. It was a late night show where host John Stanley (or, for slightly older kids, Bob Wilkins) would introduce films as the most down-to-Earth horror hosts you’ve ever met. […]
Someone once said that every story starts with someone either coming to town, or leaving town. And there is no genre for which this adage holds more true than the western. It probably takes us […]
March is here, and that means it is time to move into a new Crossroads series. For some reason, March always brings to mind melting snow, spring’s inexorable creep across the plains, cold mountains withstanding […]
If there’s a recently popularized term that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, it’s “webisodes.” This demeaning and fun-sized determination of quality stems from the misconception of tacked-on extra content pumped out in the […]
Whenever I think of speculative fiction’s relationship to romance, I am always reminded of that scene in The Princess Bride where Fred Savage’s character interrupts his grandpa and – voice dripping with scorn – asks: […]
This is not how the World ends. This oft-spoken mantra, among others, repeated throughout the narrative of the Marvel comic S.H.I.E.L.D. is a tried and true indicator of how much I adore this work. Created by heralded […]
Last week, we talked about paranormal romance and the ways in which it uses longstanding cultural archetypes (vampires, werewolves, etc.) to explore power, sexuality, and possibly even deeper existential themes. But speculative fiction is composed […]
We interrupt your regularly scheduled coverage on SF detectives to bring you this… As a kid, I used to love watching the 1939 film Wizard of Oz. My parents had recorded it on VHS so […]
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