Alien | unfridged

Weekend Reading List: New year, new list, new hope

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2016 had to get one last jab in, taking away our beloved Carrie Fisher. The Mary Sue pays tribute. The Cut gives us fifteen of her best quotes. The Rolling Stone looks back on how she championed mental health issues. We all miss her.
You need to listen to 1999 David Bowie talk about the potential of the internet. [io9]
I’ll be honest, I only discovered Sevdaliza’s music by going down the rabbit hole of YouTube recommended videos. But I’m so glad she’s in my life now, with her videos that spin dark fairytales out of hellbeast femmes fatales and gynoid royalty fantasies.
“Sex magic: how to cast spells with your orgasms.” [Broadly]
Afropunk’s compiled a mindblowing list of 10 black cosplayers who killed it last year.
Go look at Amber Thomas’s amazing interactive breakdown of gender equality in the dialogue of 2016’s highest grossing films.
I am very excited about XX, the women-created horror film anthology. Annie Clark (aka St Vincent) is just one of the hugely talented directors contributing. [Little White Lies]
On a similar note, Agnieszka Smoczynska’s The Lure, a film about man-eating, singing mermaids, is out soon. It looks like good fun. [IndieWire]
“We are in the era of the black geek.” [Afropunk]
io9 has a nice piece of writing on superheroes, real life heroes, and teaching children bravery.
Comic Katie Goodman’s song on Alien and inspirational women is very funny.
“The speculative dread of Black Mirror.” [The New Yorker]
The complex interplay between gender and AI is a topic that’s gaining ever-increasing popularity (and relevance) as we continue pushing the capabilities of chatbots, androids, and digital assistants. The New Yorker has an excellent piece on the perils of writing gender into chatbots, and a recent episode of Bitch magazine’s podcast charts the gynoid from Metropolis to Westworld, and beyond.
I CANNOT believe that I forgot to mention that I spoke to Becky Chambers about her novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, for the Mary Sue! It was a great experience, and you can read the interview here.

Weekend Reading List: Poltergeists, Pokemon, Power

Hey there kids, let’s start off with some good old Ghostbusters coverage:
- The Mary Sue is here for all your recapping needs.
- Author Jenny Trout thinks the rebooted movie is better than the original. Bold words, my friend.
- Autostraddle gives us Holtzmann’s ten gayest moments, and, in fact, posits that all the Ghostbusters are secretly gay.
The Steven Universe panel at SDCC sounds like it was so fun and charming, with creator Rebecca Sugar publicly coming out as a bisexual woman, and the cast leading a sing-a-long! [Autostraddle/LA Times]
The Mary Sue asks what it would take to decolonize space exploration in our science fiction.
“Why Elaine Fairchild [from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood] was my first feminist role model.” [The Establishment]
Also from the Establishment, a piece on witches, women, and the narratives that give us power.
Thirty years after Alien first came out, Little White Lies takes a look at its enduring legacy.
BUST tackles the history of the portrayal of women in the original Star Trek, hoping that the new show will do a better job at representation than the current films.
Go read “your white cisgender boyfriend can’t save you from the end of the world,” a poem by Kai Cheng Thom (who, full disclosure, I know in real life). [Plenitude]
Also from people I know IRL, journalist/artist Hera Chan chats about intersectionality in Game of Thrones on CKUT 90.3 FM’s Free City Radio.
The New York Times published a comic by Lynda Barry, in which Heidi (from Heidi) and Carrie (from Carrie) become friends.
Angry Asian Man is justifiably excited for the multiple men of colour populating Star Wars: Rogue One.
True to form, Jacobin explores the capitalist implications of Pokemon Go.
“Margaret Atwood on Donald Trump, witches, and flying cats.” I’m currently reading her book about science fiction, In Other Worlds, so I can at least confirm that flying cats are a lifelong obsession, as well as the subject of her upcoming graphic novel. [Lithub]

Image: “Who you gonna call,” Delaney Januzzi

unfridged

feminism and fantasy, science fiction and sexism

Tag Archives: Alien

Weekend Reading List: New year, new list, new hope

Weekend Reading List: Poltergeists, Pokemon, Power