Author: Doris V. Sutherland

The podcast RiteGud recently did an episode called “A Guide to Squeecore” that’s been causing quite a bit of buzz in SF/F circles. It touches on a number of topics and makes some good points about the uglier aspects of the contemporary genre establishment: behind the pride flags and celebrations of diversity, it is authors wealthy enough to afford expensive writing workshops who make valuable connections, while real outsiders remain on the outside. At the same time, a climate of complacency has led to such incidents as last month’s Hugo Awards being sponsored by Raytheon.

But the main focus of the podcast is the assertion that this cliquishness has led to a single aesthetic dominating modern SF/F, which the speakers Raquel S. Benedict and J.R. Bolt dub “squeecore”. They decide against naming any specific works that fit this aesthetic until some brief comments at the very end, however, which muddies their efforts to define squeecore.

I have nothing substantial to add to the podcast’s observations about backroom politics, so this post will concentrate on the question of the squeecore aesthetic. I’d also like to stress that none of the observations in this post should necessarily be taken as criticisms or objections: while the podcast is heavily critical of squeecore (even the chosen label is derisory) if the aesthetic exists, there’s room for it to be discussed in neutral terms.

Continue reading ““Squeecore” and the Cartoon Mode in SF/F”

I’m proud to announce that L is for Lycans, the latest book in Red Cape Publishing’s A-Z of Horror series, is out today — and my werewolf sex-worker story “Harzie Pulls the Trigger” is amongst the thirteen tales inside. I’d like to take the time to thank Emily Lauer, Kelly Jennings and Contrarius, each of whom provided invaluable beta-reading feedback.

Buy your copy of L is for Lycans today, and perhaps also check out some of the other anthologies in the series — including I is for Internet, which features another of my stories.

See the first part of this series here.

Amongst the real-life figures included in Dryden’s Amboyna: A Tragedy are the English captain Gabriel Towerson and the Dutch governor Herman (or Harman) van Speult. Dryden gives each of these men a fictional family member: Towerson is now engaged to a native woman named Ysabinda, while van Speult has a son, Harman Junior. These two made-up characters are central to the events which, in Dryden’s telling, culminate in the Amboyna massacre of 1623.

Harman Junior, who is purportedly friends with Towerson, has become attracted to Ysabinda. He tries to court her, stressing that he has more money than Towerson, but she shows no interest. He then pleads with Towerson, offering various benefits in exchange for Ysabinda: “I’ll make my father yours, your factories shall be no more oppressed, but thrive in all advantages with ours; your ain shall be beyond what you could hope for from the treaty”. Towerson, however, dismisses this call to “make merchandise of love”.

Harman Junior decides that he has just one course of action left: killing Towerson. While pursuing the Englishman he bumps into the Dutch Fiscal. “I would, like you, have Towerson dispatched; for as I am a true Dutchman, I do hate him” says the Fiscal, although he tries to encourage the impetuous young man along a more subtle path.

Continue reading “On Dryden’s Amboyna, Part 2″

A current research topic of mine is the Amboyna massacre, which occurred in 1623 on Ambon Island (or Amboyna, to use its antiquated name). The incident arose from the island’s Dutch colonists becoming convinced that their Japanese mercenaries were conspiring with a small community of English colonists to rebel; after a round of dubious confessions were extracted through torture, the island played host to a mass execution: ten Englishmen, nine Japanese and one Portuguese were killed.

Looked at from a full perspective, this incident was — in terms of bloodshed — a footnote to colonialism’s brutal trail through the Spice Islands. Two years previously Jan Pieterszoon Coen, Governor General of the Dutch East India Company, oversaw a massacre at the Banda Islands; this led to Coen himself reporting that of the native population, “About 2,500 are dead either by hunger or misery or by the sword”.

Continue reading “On Dryden’s Amboyna, Part 1″

I’m happy to say that I’ve set up an online store via Gumroad, and the first product available to purchase is a digital omnibus of Midnight Widows issues 1 and 2. Scripted by myself and drawn by a team of talented artists (let by Marcela Hauptvogelova) this is the story of three sapphic vampires going fang-to-bone with a gang of zombie serial killers. Pick up your copy today!

Subscribers to my Patreon now have access to three chapters of Monster Hunters, Dinosaur Lovers, my book about the fiction caught up in the Puppy/Hugo affair of 2013-6. The latest chapter tackles the comedic stories that became a humorous undercurrent to the whole saga and stretches to 8,500 words (expanded from 1,900 words’ worth of WWAC blog posts).

Specifically, I’m looking at “The Boy Who Cast No Shadow”, “The World Turned Upside-Down” and “The Ink Readers of Doi Saket” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt; “Tuesdays with Molakesh the Destroyer” by Megan Grey; “I am Graalnak of the Vroon Empire, Destroyer of Galaxies, Supreme Overlord of the Planet Earth. Ask Me Anything” by Laura Pearlman; “A Kiss With Teeth” by Max Gladstone; “…And I Show You How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes” by Scott Alexander; The Builders by Daniel Polansky; Pure Attentions by TR Dillon and “The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild” by Catherynne M. Valente. Here’s a preview:

Speculative fiction has long had a close relationship with comedy. Through satire of the contemporary world, parodies of more po-faced works or simply out-and-out strangeness, generations of SF and fantasy authors have put humour to good use in their works.

As heated as the culture wars became from 2013 to 2016, it is clear that both the Worldcon regulars and the Puppies recognised the value of humour in fantasy fiction, as the following stories testify.

The Wit and Weirdness of Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Based in the Netherlands, Thomas Olde Heuvelt is one of relatively few international authors whose work reached the attention of the Hugo Awards in translated form. His fiction appeared on the Hugo ballot three times in as many years, starting in 2013 when his story “The Boy Who Cast No Shadow” (“De jongen die geen schaduw wierp”) was a finalist for Best Novelette.

If this sounds like your bag then feel free to subscribe to my Patreon and read every completed chapter, which  now total more than 26,000 words between them. Plus, I’ll draw a portrait of you as a cryptid!