Throwback Thursday – Discrimination against Science Fiction and Fantasy

So this was something of a conclusion to my posts on the definition of Science Fiction and of Fantasy, by diving into a personal and specific example of why the whole discussion mattered to me in the first place. I hesitate to share it again for two reasons: one, for the personal aspects, and two, because the original post generated a whole bunch of discussion. As such, going back to the original to see others’ opinions is a good way to get more than my single story here. Also, the personal aspects are no longer accurate.

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One of my favorite things I’ve written on the blog is my series on the definition and importance of Science Fiction and Fantasy – of fictions that might be called Speculative, or Romantic. And when asked, I said that one of the things that I would most like to change in the world is people’s opinions about these genres, or maybe about genre fiction in general. However, through all of this, I lacked a solid, concrete example. An example of prejudice against Science Fiction or Fantasy.

There are a lot of things in this world that we shouldn’t discriminate against. Things you can’t control, things that aren’t a choice, things that should have no bearing on life. But then, there are things that are opinions, that are a choice, that I can go right ahead and be upset about. And for me, the one that takes the cake is being against Science Fiction and Fantasy.

So, I had said I was going to do a post about movies this week. That’ll have to wait. Because last night I got a great example of anti-Sci-Fi discrimination. And I feel the need to share, and to vent. So let me set the scene, let me rant a bit, and then hopefully I’ll have it out of my system!

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Geek Parenting – Comparative Opinions Episode 45

Welcome to the Comparative Opinions podcast! In honor of Mother’s Day, hosts Holly and David talk Geek Parenting. Some thoughts on how they became geeks, how they are parenting now, and things they want to do with the Geek Baby in the future. Lots of talk about when it’s right to introduce media, and how. Happy Mother’s Day!

Comparative Opinions is a weekly half-hour-ish podcast hosted on ComparativeGeeks.com. Subscribe for new episodes every Sunday!

https://www.facebook.com/ComparativeGeeks/

https://twitter.com/comparativegeek

Music is by Scott Gratton: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Gratton/Intros_and_Outros

Comparative Opinions – Retrospective 2016 – Episode 27

Welcome to the Comparative Opinions podcast! This week, hosts David and Holly reflect back on their 2016, and look ahead a bit at their 2017. They expand a bit on their discussions from their “Best Of” lists. They also talk about uncompleted goals and things they are hoping to get to later. Add your thoughts for the year moving forward!

Comparative Opinions is a weekly half-hour-ish podcast hosted on ComparativeGeeks.com. Subscribe for new episodes every Sunday!

https://www.facebook.com/ComparativeGeeks/

https://twitter.com/comparativegeek

Music is by Scott Gratton: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Gratton/Intros_and_Outros

Book Review – The Mummy by Anne Rice

Hey look, I finished a book! It’s our first done of the year, with plans to read many more. To be fair, I cheated, by starting this book half a year or more ago… So we’ll see how I do with book number 2!

I picked up Anne Rice’s The Mummy because she’s one of those authors I figured I ought to read, but wasn’t sure where to begin. I had tried to read Interview with the Vampire but didn’t get very far… and there would have been oh-so-much to read after that! A stand-alone novel like this was a much better taste of her writing, and lets me move on to another author’s work next…

As a first thought on the novel – and as an observation that probably applies to much of the rest of Rice’s work – it’s incredibly hard to pin down its genre. The gut reaction is that it’s a monster story – like the Universal monster flicks. However, it’s not really a horror story. It has romantic elements, but isn’t a romance novel. It is placed in a historical moment, but it’s full of alternate history (you know, the living mummy). The only alternate technology is the elixir that gives long life, so not really Steampunk. Kind of fantasy with the immortality, but also like science fiction in that it must have an explanation with modern science… Modern adventure fantasy? Something.

Whatever it is, it’s good.

No LitFlix 2016… Sort Of

Basically with Geek Baby here the likelihood of actually making it to the movies as much as we would need to to be able to do LitFlix as we have been doing them is just not going to happen. The other issue is that when we do the LitFlix it ends up being almost all we read for the year, which is getting a little bit old. So instead we are going to change up how we might still do LitFlix, but not as a regularly scheduled program. We have really enjoyed doing LitFlix and want to continue it some way we just recognize that it cannot continue in its current form. Here are some ideas of what we might do with it.

LitFlix of Older Movies

One thought that David and I have had is that we could go back and do LitFlix for some older movies. By doing older movies we would not be tied to a specific movie release schedule and it would just be based on what movies we could find. If we did this we would probably not do as many as we have done in years past, but we could probably still do a few. Especially if we look at watching some movies of books we have already read.

Already Read the Book – Watch the Movie!

Now this would be a super easy thing that we could explore doing because if we have already read the book then all we would need to do is watch the movie. Now there are a couple of movies that are coming out that this might happen. One of these examples is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which I am personally super excited about, because the book is absolutely fantastic. If you have not read it yet, I highly recommend it.

Book Club

Another thing that we have considered exploring is actually doing the LitFlix as part of some sort of book club. Now this option is one that probably would not look at until we had our own hosted site where we could do something like a forum for the book club, but seems like a viable option. It would be one where we could introduce a book that has a corresponding movie that is already out and then plan a time to start a discussion around it. We would have to really see how it works, but it would be great to have more of a place to have a discussion instead of necessarily just have our opinion on it available.

We Will See

The big thing is that the LitFlix as we have done them is going away. We are probably going to try some different options to see what works. There are options that would work better when we are hosting our blog ourselves, but again we will just have to wait and see. What would you like to see or be interested in? Let us know in the comments below!