SciFiJedi.com

I have a regular Sunday night routine (used to be a Friday night one, but they moved Battle Star Galactica on me). I gather a beer, chips and salsa, and camp out in front of the T.V for a couple of hours of unadulterated geek out time all thanks to the Sci-fi channel.
The Sci-fi channel and I have had a few tiffs in the past. They’ve butchered some damn fine books making them into a miniseries. Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea comes to mind, but I digress. The thing is, I was really getting to the point where I believed everything original on the Sci-fi channel was–to be blunt–shit. But, thanks to a few cylons who look like humans, a couple of messed up fighter pilots, and a narcissistic genius I was hoping the Sci-fi channel was on it’s way to redemption.
And for the most part they are, not only is their Battlestar Galactica but the miniseries The Lost Room was good, and the new Dresiden Files is warming up a bit. I even kind of like their new series Eureka .
Okay, so all that said I still have to ask. Are the people in charge of programming fracking crazy? I’ve noticed in the last few weeks a strange thing during commercial breaks. Wrestling commercials. And not commercials for their sister network USA, honest to god wrestling on the Sci-fi Channel.
I’m going to be honest, wrestling is stupid, asinine and juvenile just to name a few adjectives. But that’s just my opinion, I know there’s millions of people out there who love wrestling, I have no problem with that necessarily. My problem lies with wrestling being aired on a channel dedicated to science fiction and fantasy.
Not that I have to stretch too far to see that wrestling and bad Sci-fi have certain things in common.

1. spandex
2. large breasted women
3. nonsensical plot lines
4. bad guys who are bad purely for the sake of being bad
5. generally appeals to a mostly teenage boy audience

All that said, I personally think the people in charge of programming at the Sci-fi Channel need a serious kick in the head, possibly even a good stoning. It’s my belief people would do less stupid things if public stoning were allowed, but that’s beside the point. The point is, if anyone agrees with me we need to start letting these morons know it. Wrestling can be found on a ton of other channels, it DOES NOT need to be on the Sci-fi Channel under any circumstances. So anyone out there listening, let’s start some mass mailing, or serious grumbling to those people in charge over there. With any luck we can be spared the commercials during Sunday night’s geek fest within months. And that would go a long way toward healing the rift in my relationship with the Sci-fi Channel.

I’m a fantasy writer for the most part, though I do occasionally venture off into more mainstream stuff, in recent years I’ve stuck pretty much to writing fantasy, or THINKING about writing fantasy anyway. I’ve learned lately though there are certain dangers to being a writer in general, and to speculative writing in particular.

I have a tendency to think up or think about my story ideas when driving. This is worse then talking on a cell phone and driving. My mind is completely absorbed by imaginary dialogues, creating descriptions, and just generally wondering willy-nilly. This means I often cut people off, run yellow lights (okay truthfully red lights, or at lest that’s what the cop who pulled me over said) and generally tend to piss off my fellow drivers. I’ve crunched garbage cans while trying to figure out my protagonists motivation, side swiped a parked car while going over the finer points of the climax of a novel, and once drove the wrong way down a one way street and ended up stuck on the median when I got this great idea for a story. Needless to say when I’m driving in “writer” mode, I’m a hazard to everyone.

I also am constantly running the risk of social ostracism. Not that I’m that much of a social person to begin with, but it would be nice to go to the local block party without people whispering behind their hands, and giving me the same kind of looks a platypus gets in a zoo. That “man god really does have a sense of humor” kind of look. See, the problem is I live in an area where people’s idea of creativity is getting out of a public intoxication rap, or seeing what kind of pretty tread marks they can leave in the local bar’s parking lot. So, while I won’t say being a writer itself makes them look at me funny, they inevitably ask what kind of writer I am, hoping to hear that I write for Hustler or something exciting. But no, I have to tell them that I generally write fantasy. This starts a conversation that goes something like this.

“Fantasy, like that Lord of Rings movie or Harry Potter?

Yeah, kind of like that, but Tolkin wrote epic, sword and sorcery fantasy, I write other stuff.”

“So you write about those pointy eared things…elves and junk.”

“No, not really.”

“Hmmm.” There’s usually an uncomfortable pause here, filled with side ways glances and that look of panic that only small talk at a party can produce.

“So…uhhh, I like romances, ever wrote one of those?” (This usually from women, most of the men around here don’t read anything unless a half dressed woman is sprawled all over the cover. Preferably sprawled on the hood of a classic car.)

“Nope,” I say, when what I’m thinking is, “Dear god no, I hate bodice rippers, and I’ve never used the words ‘throbbing member’ or ‘heaving breasts’. I’d never sully the sanctity of by brain with such drivel.”

Yes, I am a book snob, and that’s coming from an avid science fiction and fantasy reader, so I really don’t have much snobbish ground to stand on.

“So,” my forced companion will eventually ask, “You’re like a geek then, right? A Trekkie or something? Ever dressed up like a Star Wars character? You’d look hot in that outfit Princesses Leia was wearing in that last movie, you know that loin cloth thing.” That last sentence is usually (though not always) said by men, and is usually followed by the oh so subtle wink and elbow nudge into some other guy’s ribcage.

Just for reference, I would look hot in Leia’s slave outfit.

If I was to give an award for the most annoying fantasy creature elves would win hands down. I know, you’re aghast, but I have my reasons. Firstly, The Lord of The Rings. Maybe it was just Orlando Bloom as Legolas, but that was when I first noticed my estimation of elves had dropped considerably from when I was a child.

For some reason the sight of Orlando Bloom sliding down the trunk of that giant elephant (a mumakil if I recall correctly, and god how pathetic is it that I know that) shooting arrows the whole way just made me roll my eyes. It’s never a good sign when I roll my eyes. Of course this wasn’t the only moment in the trilogy that I’d rolled my eyes at the way elves are presented, and this isn’t the only movie or book that brought on such feelings toward the pointy eared little know-it-alls.

I mean what’s not to dislike. They’re smarter, stronger, faster, live longer, and are more beautiful then mere humans. They can move through a forest undetected and drop down from trees surprising any other life form that has dared enter their domain. They’re wise, that in and of itself isn’t bad I like wise, but they’re smug about it and I hate smug. And my biggest beef of all; they think they stand on some kind of moral high ground that we mere mortals could not possibly hope to obtain. I despise the moral high ground, unless of course I am firmly planted on it. Then I lord the moral high ground over everyone. In all honesty though, this happens very rarely. To quote Trent Reznor; “My moral standing is lying down”. And yes, I’ve been waiting since the early nineties to get that quote in somewhere.

I know many writers have taken the elves outside of cliché, or sometimes they’ve feed into that cliché with interesting results. Such as Jacqueline Carey’s Banewrecker and Godslayer books, which is a retelling of Tolkien’s famous series but told from the perspective of the “bad guys”. She plays quite well off the old elf clichés weaving them into her world building, which–despite what some people have said–I found an interesting take on Tolkien’s world.

I guess part of me just wants to see that illusion of perfection broken. You know, I want to see an acne prone teenage elf, or an ugly elf, or an elf that has a terrible sense of direction and has no idea where to find sacred objects or lost knowledge. A clueless elf, that’d be a refreshing change.

I have recently become a Gaiman convert, taken the vows, said the hail Neils, and swore to remain true to the god of speculative fiction.

Okay, maybe “god” is going a bit far, but demi-god surely. I first picked up a Neil Gaiman book years ago when Neverwhere was first published. I liked it, but I was in the midst of my epic fantasy phase and soon forgot all about it in favor of sweeping medieval-esque worlds inhabited by elves and large men with larger swords. Basically, I was young and wanted my stories all raw and exposed, with no subtext or subtlety to weigh me down. Pure escapism was my goal. I’m kind of sorry I missed my opportunity all those years ago to become a follower of one of the best writers on the market today. (Read more…)

So, the other day I was bored. Anyone who knows me knows this is a bad state for me to be in, ’cause usually my mind starts wandering and bizarre images pop into my head. Impulses I can’t explain and won’t go into here make my fingers twitch. I generally try to avoid boredom as much as possible. Idle hands are the devil’s playground, as they say.

To keep myself occupied, though not occupied in any pursuit that would better humankind, I started surfing the net to find out what was going on in the world. By the “world” I mean that small corner of it that interests me, like all good Americans that would be 1) America 2) pop culture 3) celebrity gossip. Though not necessarily in that order. In my running willy-nilly across the web, just looking for something to fill the silence, I stumbled across this article from Slate Magazine written by Adam Rogers.

After first reading the article I was a little miffed. After all, the guy uses the word “geek” something like three times, and not in friendly terms mind you. He wields the word like a sword, “I dub thee GEEK”. His opening paragraph alone was enough to annoy me, never mind the rest of the article. Okay, I will admit it’s not a bad article per se. The subject matter itself is interesting. I just don’t appreciate the tone he uses to talk about sci-fi fans, or the genre in general.

“Ronald D. Moore, the executive producer of Battlestar Galactica, has created a great show with a goofy title. The title isn’t his fault, of course—he’s remaking a crappy 1970s sci-fi relic—and, in any case, it lured in an audience of geeks who will watch anything with the word star in the title. A few months ago, Moore told me (and, more recently, Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff Jensen) that the geeky title means a swath of Battlestar’s potential audience doesn’t tune in.” (Read more…)

If you are anything like me, chances are you’ve spent countless hours pondering your true inner self in relation to the iconic figures of sci-fi and fantasy. Who hasn’t wasted away an afternoon wondering if they could have been Aragorn, Dr. Who, or Spock? Or in the case of us women; the damsel in distress, the Amazon-like warrior, or the earth mother that all women come packaged in when it comes to classic genre fiction.

Well, ponder no more my friends. Thanks to the internet, we can now take multiple quizzes to determine just where we would fit in the grand scheme of speculative fiction. (Read more…)