Blog

2016 Hugo Reviews: Novelettes

Brooke-Bolander_final-575x442

My second article on the 2016 Hugo prose fiction finalists is up at Women Write About Comics.

Last time, I covered stories about cat photographs, biological warfare, killer starfish, gay dinosaurs and John Scalzi; this time around, the topics are spunky cyberpunks, spacefaring samurai, virtual reality, pop-up cities and ethics in murder journalism.

The above illustration, incidentally, is by Galen Dara and accompanies Brooke Bolander’s story “And You Shall Know Her By The Trail Of Dead”.

Women in British Animation

Erica Russell's Feet of Song

I’ve started a new series of articles at Women Write About Comics: Women in British Animation.

This is a subject that I’ve long been interested in. Eleven or twelve years ago I gained access to my college library, complete with animation tapes from the BFI’s Connoisseur Video line. Jan Svankmajer, the Brothers Quay, Aardman Animations… and the Wayward Girls & Wicked Women series.

I can remember being fascinated by the fact that there was a whole movement of feminist animation in the UK from the seventies through to the nineties – a movement that, sadly, seems largely forgotten today. I am positively relishing the opportunity to shed some light on this body of work.