#we're actually in a dystopian sci-fi novel

[alexandria-lib]

A memoir of the past decade (2014-2024) would be a dystopian sci-fi novel in any time before that.

[marsadler]

INTRO

Hello!

I thought I'd do a bit of a more formal intro as I try to move over to engaging more on Tumblr now that other social media platforms are becoming steadily more unusable.

I'm mars or Kaye, I write lots of weird sensual horror and cross-blended speculative fiction with horror, all with trans and queer characters. I first self-published a short story on itchio in March of 2023 after years of wishing I could leave ghostwriting to publish my own work. (I still haven't fully escaped that occupation, but we're getting there.)

I'm a big, huge fan of publishing on itchio, although I'm also published on Amazon as a necessary evil, boo hiss, tomato tomato, etc.

PUBLISHED WORK

2023

FIRST CREATION: my debut novella, 22k words/98 pages, religious horror featuring an angel and a demon on opposite sides of a never-ending war escaping together, and a whole lot of cannibalism and fruit metaphors. It was a finalist in the 2023 Indie Ink Awards. Transmasc protagonist, M/M pairing.

Blood & Flowers (currently undergoing a re-release process that's adding roughly 11k words and a new cover, so it's not available for sale right now): won the Queer Indie Award of 'Best Sophomore Novel' in 2023, enemies to lovers, vague Romeo and Juliet retelling, vampires and haunted houses. I'm so excited to share the re-release of this early this year! Transmasc protagonist, M/M pairing.

EYETOOTH: another novella (I really love writing novellas), 18k words/90 pages, t4t eroguro medkink fever dream. A trans art student undergoes an experimental surgery at an underground plasma donation center, but afterwards, the doctor disappears and leaves him to deal with the aftereffects and strange cannibalistic urges. Transmas protagonist, nonbinary love interest, M/NB pairing.

2024

Dead Cowpokes Don't Wrangle: Probably the coolest thing I did last year was curate this anthology with a good friend and fellow author, H.S. Wolfe. A queer collection of weird west stories and gorgeous artwork from 18 creators, this is an absolute banger, if I do say so myself. My story in there, Red as Blood, Black as Tar, deals with people coming back from the dead, gunslinging outlaws, and a lot of weird, gross tar. F/NB pairing, ~10k words.

UNHOLY FAVORS: 22k words/90 pages, a short story duet about making deals with supernatural entities that go wrong. Featuring trans protagonists, monsterfucking, weird dreamscapes and hellhounds, this is an odd little itchio-exclusive collection. M/M pairings for both, each story is around 10k words.

The Apples of New Eden: 57k words/251 pages, my first full-length novel. Sci-fi horror, taboo romance. Two brothers struggle to reunite for Christmas in a dystopian war-filled future. Featuring cybernetics, wire play, heavy handed anti-establishment themes, and some really weird dogs. Itchio exclusive, transmasc protagonist and M/M pairing.

WIPs For This Year

Sequels: one of my main goals this year is to actually publish a sequel to one of my three started series. (First Creation, Blood & Flowers, and Eyetooth are all the first books in series.)

Sweet Lamb: novel length, religious horror. I tried to release Sweet Lamb early in 2024 but it just wasn't ready. I'm glad I waited, because I'm a lot clearer now on what I want to do with it. It's a very personal book to me, and I want to make it the best it can be. Polyam trans rep, new age cults, weird fucky angels.

Clipped Wings WIP: novel length, religious horror, anti-establishment themes as well as a toxic age gap pairing. What happens when you take an angel's wings away?

Several Novella and novelette length wips: I won't list them all out because I've started SEVERAL, and I'm not sure which I'll get done first, but I'm hoping to get at least a couple of them out this year.

Other work: I'm very excited to be a part of several other cool collaborative projects I can't talk about yet, but there's several things in the works right now, so keep an eye out!

Alright, that's it for now, thank you for reading this, and I'm so excited to meet new people on this platform and get weird about queer horror with y'all! You can always DM me or ask me any questions, I'm chronically online.

All my books have CWs in their front matter for those looking, and on itchio in the listing. They're also available on my website, which is marsadler.carrd.co

[rebeccalouisaferguson]

Spoiler alert: Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) is not dead when Silo returns for season 2.

Okay, that's not exactly a spoiler since the tough engineer survived the last moments of the season 1 finale of Apple TV+'s sci-fi series when she ventured outside after uncovering the vast conspiracy surrounding her silo, only to discover the existence of other silos close by. "Her face is on the poster, so we know that Juliette is not dead," showrunner Graham Yost tells Entertainment Weekly.

She's alive, yes — but when season 2 picks back up immediately, her problems are only getting worse as she must find a way to get out of the toxic air and safely into a new silo. "Juliette has a very difficult time getting into this other silo, and she's looking for safety 'cause her suit is running out of air," Yost says. "The wondrous tape that Walker [Harriet Walter] arranged for her to have her suit wrapped in, that's going to fail. A lot of the episode is about Juliette just trying to survive and the engineering stuff she has to do to try to stay alive."

But let's back up, since the premiere turns back the clock earlier than you may be expecting for an origin story. "The premiere [follows] Juliette, but we actually don't start with her," Yost reveals. "We're going to start back an undetermined — at least at first — amount of time ago, in another silo. We're going to see a rebellion going very wrong."

After thrusting viewers into this chaotic, violent rebellion, the premiere will follow the leader of the conflict as he convinces everyone to go outside of the silo. "He's got this green flag and says, 'Follow me to freedom. Let's go outside,'" Yost says. "They run up and we cut from them just as they're going outside to seeing that same flag sticking up out of the ground, out of the hand of a skeleton, and it's God knows how many years later. In the distance is this person in a cleaning suit walking toward it, and it's Juliette, who will follow the trail of bodies that will lead her into a dead silo."

That's when the show finally picks back up with Juliette needing to solve her next crisis. "Juliette tries to stay alive in an empty silo and starts to figure out the mystery behind it," Yost teases. "At some point she gets a sense she might not be alone. Then at the very end of the episode there's a twist."

Juliette won't be happy to hear about another curveball heading her way, but viewers will have to wait a little to find out how she handles that new twist because the second episode relocates back to her former silo where another rebellion is taking shape. Yost says season 2 will finish adapting Hugh Howey’s dystopian novel Wool "in a slightly different way" as it explores how Juliette's exit impacts her old home.

"There’s the beginnings of a call for rebellion, because Juliette went over the hill, so maybe it’s safe outside," Yost explains. "And yet what we saw over in the other silo is what can happen if the rebellion goes wrong and all the people died, so that's the basic tension of the season."

Yost reveals that season 2 will be following two separate storylines as a result: "One is with Juliette in this other silo, and one is back in her home silo," he says. "Juliette knows [what] could happen to her silo, and is there any way she could get back to them to help them to stop that from happening? Stuff’s starting to get really, really scary."

Silo season 2 is expected later this year on Apple TV+.

[aurorawest]

I finished The Mars House last night and have been trying to gather my thoughts beyond ADJFAWEHDHA; and AHHHHHHHH. Let's see how this works out.

In a lot of ways this is a pretty typical Natasha Pulley book, which makes you love complicated people who have done bad things, possibly for good reasons and possibly not. The love interest is to all appearances a xenophobic nationalist, but you better believe I loved Gale pretty much immediately.

In other ways this book is different from her past work—obviously there's the far future setting, but it's pretty clear that Pulley wanted to Say Something about gender with The Mars House. This book is a response to and shots fired at the terf ideology and it is not at all subtle about it. And of course, it's a Natasha Pulley book, so there's still empathy for the far-future Martian terfs.

So I would definitely call it the most...political? of her books, which for me was not at all a bad thing. It has everything that I love about Pulley novels—her gorgeous use of language, her ability to wring beauty and pathos out of the small and ordinary, the gay pining, the morally dubious main characters. I've seen reviews say both that the science is ridiculous and that the book is hard science fiction, and I would come down on the side of the science probably being a bit ridiculous, since it's definitely not hard science fiction (lol at the reviewers who are throwing that term around and not knowing what it means). I actually have no idea if the science is plausible or not and I honestly don't care, because that's really not the point of the book.

Anyway, now I'm just going to list things. Doing a read more for spoilers! And I'm not joking, I'm going to spoil the whole book under here so really, if you haven't read it and you care about that, don't keep reading.

The worldbuilding was so good. I mean, this is one of Pulley's strengths, but I had wondered how it would stack up in a sci fi novel versus her historical fiction. As usual, everything was so visceral and textured. Tharsis and Songshu feel like real places I could visit.

THE MAMMOTHS OMG OMG. When they decided to ask the mammoths for help pulling up the gravity train, I almost jumped up from the couch yelling (I would have, but I couldn't disturb my cat who was on my legs). The entire idea of communicating with mammoths and studying mammoth society almost made me cry. Having spent even a tiny amount of time around elephants in the wild, all of that rang 100% plausible. And true in my heart.

I need a sequel where River and January go to Alpha Centauri to talk to the aliens that the Penglai mission is going to find there.

I'M ABOUT TO SPOIL THE ENTIRE BOOK SO DON'T READ ANYMORE IF YOU DON'T WANT THAT.

Speaking of River, yeah I guessed that "Aubrey" was actually River. The clues were well done and I felt smug when I was right.

But!! I actually thought River knew more than they did! A literal chill went up my back when River revealed they had NO IDEA AUBREY WAS LITERALLY IN THEIR ROOM WITH THEM.

The scene in River's bathtub had me screaming crying throwing up.

Is Natasha Pulley working through something re: waifish orphans? I knew Yuan was going to end up being adopted into House Song within pages of their (his?) introduction.

I love that we never find out if River is biologically male or female. I love that January says it doesn't matter and he means that and never tells us.

Speaking of gender abolition, can I have that please for myself.

All of the animals were, as always, a delight. Shoutout to the puffin at the beginning who we never see again, as well as Shuppiluliuma in her basket.

The ancient Mediterranean references littered through this book (see above) were also a delight.

When you think about it, both of Aubrey's consorts fell for River, and that's funny.

The flashes of love between River and Aubrey were devastating.

The haptic implants are a dystopian nightmare and absolutely a realistic prediction of where we're going to end up.

Mori and Daughter!!

[sarandipitywrites]

Writeblr Interview Tag

@cowboybrunch tagged me for this - thank you! Go read her responses here

Tagging @breath-of-eternity, @darkangel319, @kingragnarok-writes, @ryns-ramblings, @wildswrites, and an open tag for anyone who wants to answer! Copy/pasteable template's under the cut.

Short stories, novels, or poems?

Novels, both to read and write. I just don't tend to seek out short stories or poetry to read, for whatever reason (legitimately don't know why - I enjoy it when I do read it?), and whenever I try to write something a bit shorter, it quickly becomes... not shorter.

What genre do you prefer reading?

I'll read most genres, but it seems like I usually end up reading speculative fiction/sci fi/fantasy.

Are you a planner or a write as I go kind of person?

Planner - I usually want at least a rough outline of a scene before I start writing. I find that breaking the writing up into two steps takes the pressure off of the actual 'writing' part and lets me focus more on prose/characterization/the fun shit because Past Saran already did the hard part :P

What music do you listen to while writing?

Ambient music/sounds that 'fit' what I'm writing, lately with binauaral beats layered under it. Nothing with words. Words going in ears = no words coming out of fingers

Favorite books/movies?

Books? LOTS. No Gods, No Monsters; Frankenstein; The Heart Principle; Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe; On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous; No Longer Human; etc etc etc Movies? Spirited Away.

Any current WIPs?

Spark Signature (high fantasy sci fi heist thriller; most current WIP; I am presently being very annoying about it) The Art of Empty Space (fantasy/paranormal mystery romance; WIP intro is no longer accurate; on hold because it has mutated beyond my control and I am slightly afraid of it) Dead Roots, Dark Water (dystopian fantasy adventure; Jak & Daxter fanfiction; currently on final draft and being updated weekly) Ambition is a Lonely Tower (paranormal mystery thriler; literally have not worked on this since I started posting writeblr stuff so it doesn't have a WIP intro but I am not giving up on this damn it)

Create a character description of yourself: 

Constantly messing with something (hair, face, nails, the springy cat toy in the pocket of every single one of their jackets); gets anxious when they don't have earbuds or earplugs available; sits like a pretzel; forgets everything within 5 minutes if they don't write it down; avoids wearing "real people clothes" where possible; when forced to go outside, wears a t-shirt, baggy jeans, combat boots, and a jacket

Do you like incorporating actual people you know into your writing?

Technically no? I use pieces from actual people I know, for sure, but there's no one character who's 'basically x.' Now it sounds like I'm over here sewing together chimera characters from people I know, oof

Are you kill happy with your characters?

Depends on the story, I guess. Nobody's died (yet) in AES. Murder's kind of a whole Thing in Spark. And DRDW... uh. Let's not talk about that one (sorry, half of my OCs).

Coffee or Tea while writing?

Coffee in the morning, tea in the evening.

Slow or fast writer?

All or nothing! It really depends on: 1. whether or not I have an outline (scene-level outline = words go fast) 2. my headspace (Sludge Brain day = no words. Fuck your outline)

If you were in a fantasy world, what would you be?

I'd get eaten by a demonic chicken or some shit within like five minutes. Assuming I didn't have a horribly quick and embarrassing death, I'd like to be an alchemist or something like that. Give people those Good Plants

Most fav book cliche:

Enemies to lovers/friends, or friends to enemies, or really any big shift in relationship dynamic. Do that well and I love you and your characters forever

Least favorite cliche:

The 'if only they would talk to each other' thing - if one conversation that the characters are fully capable of having (but won't) is the only reason for the conflict, I'm out. Especially if there's no good reason for them to be avoiding the conversation. I'm not sure if this is even a cliche, but it's what I thought of :D

Favorite scene to write?

I love writing 'calm' scenes with tension just under the surface. And any scene that lets me fuck with perception/senses. Love it when a scene isn't straightforward

Reason for writing?

Lots of reasons! It's by far the thing I get the most satisfaction and enjoyment from; I get to write (and therefore read) the stories I want/need to read; free therapy supplement; I have lots of thoughts and ideas and little guys in my head and giving it all somewhere to go helps my brain be a lot quieter (it's still pretty noisy in there though, not gonna lie)

Short stories, novels, or poems?

What genre do you prefer reading?

Are you a planner or a write as I go kind of person?

What music do you listen to while writing?

Favorite books/movies?

Any current WIPs?

Create a character description of yourself: 

Do you like incorporating actual people you know into your writing?

Are you kill happy with your characters?

Coffee or Tea while writing?

Slow or fast writer?

If you were in a fantasy world, what would you be?

Most fav book cliche:

Least favorite cliche:

Favorite scene to write?

Reason for writing?

[dalesramblingsblog]

Brief Thoughts on Judge Dredd Novels, Part IX: Wetworks by Dave Stone

And so Virgin's Judge Dredd books end in much the same way they began: with Dave Stone.

Quality-wise, Wetworks ends up splitting the difference between Stone's two other contributions to the series, being less characterful and efficient in its storytelling than Deathmasques - and there's nary an Armitage or Steel in sight, for shame! - but considerably more coherent than The Medusa Seed.

After book upon book of David Bishop warming up his conspiratorial muscles for Who Killed Kennedy - well, OK, it's just The Savage Amusement and Silencer, but in a nine book series, two out of three ain't bad - we finally get Stone's take on the matter, and it's exactly as zany and off-the-wall as you'd probably expect.

Which is to say, basically, that for all that I just called it "more coherent than The Medusa Seed," we're still making that judgement by the parameters of Dave Stone. In the thick of things, the conspiracy just about hangs together. It's only when you think to pull back a little, really, that you start to properly question the particulars of exactly why an extradimensional being masquerading as a Mickey Mouse stand-in should make a bid to control the Earth by means of staging a big feature-length action movie in which the planet's various Justice Departments get overthrown.

None of that really matters, however, because Stone's narrative voice is in full swing by this point, and it's rather glorious. More than Deathmasques or The Medusa Seed, Wetworks truly reads like the work of the madman who is going to produce Sky Pirates! in a mere five months' time, and this carries the novel quite far. Even if the book's musings on conspiracy and apocalypse aren't anything especially original for the 1990s, the fact that they're delivered with that idiosyncratic Dave Stone charm counts for a lot.

Indeed, while I'm nowhere near versed enough in the context of 2000 AD fandom in the 1990s to know what the expectations were for the 1995 Danny Cannon/Sylvester Stallone movie - which I'll probably get around to watching and reviewing in a few days' time - I don't think it's reading too much into Wetworks to detect a barely concealed undercurrent of cynicism directed towards the idea of big-budget cinematic spectacle, which can't help but feel pointed in light of Virgin's eventual decision to can the Dredd novels in response to the film's high-profile failure.

And it's a shame, really, because these nine books have been solid. Not always anything exceptional, by any means, but certainly solid, and the contributions of Stone in particular rank as rather entertaining slices of bizarro, ludicrously violent dystopian sci-fi. I'd also be remiss if I didn't give an extremely honorable mention to Stephen Marley's Dreddlocked, my beloved, but alas it seems that it is the way of all Virgin sci-fi novels to eventually find themselves subsumed by a failed cinematic adaptation, regardless of the actual material quality of the books themselves.

I'll still do the Black Flame novels, but as it stands I've really enjoyed doing these nine books, and I hope I've managed to make it generally entertaining in the process.

Current ranking:

Dreddlocked

Deathmasques

Wetworks

Silencer

The Medusa Seed

Dread Dominion

Cursed Earth Asylum

The Hundredfold Problem

The Savage Amusement

[inkfire-scribe]

Let me preface this with the fact that while I do in fact have a degree in creative writing and spend a lot of my spare time writing and reading fiction, I am not a published author (much to my own disappointment). I am, however, a lover of books, and this is my possibly incorrect, extremely simplified impression of What The Genres Are (in general).

ROMANCE- As stayed above, a book only qualifies as a romance if the primary focus of the story is the relationship between the characters. Some may add caveats like "must have a happy ending," but there is no unanimous consent on this.

MYSTERY- These books focus first and foremost on the activity of attempting to solve a mystery. There are a cluster of subgenres here that indicate the flavor of the mystery in question and what side of the mystery we're on: hardboiled vs sherlockesque vs cozy mystery vs a caper. Again, there is no internal consensus on the finer caveats like whether or not the dénouement is a defining trait.

FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION- I'm gonna make people mad with this, but both fantasy and sci-fi are what I call "setting genres," and you can drop a lot of apocalyptic or dystopian stories in here too. The driving force behind a fantasy or sci-fi novel is worldbuilding, as each is a flavor of speculative fiction, exploring what the world and particularly human society might be like if the specifics were different. What if identity politics, but in space? What if racism + magic? What if robots are people? The primary difference between fantasy and sci-fi is not tech vs magic, as you might guess, but rather our world vs a fictional one. If the universe looks like ours or like what our future could be, it's sci-fi. If the world is completely fictional (looking at you, Middle Earth) then it's fantasy.

HORROR- When the driving force of the narrative is the fear experienced by the reader, it's horror. I have little to no experience with this genre, so I'll let someone else get into the weeds of horror vs thriller vs "is it really horror if the monster isn't an allegory tho?"

ACTION/ADVENTURE- What it says on the tin. These stories are propelled forward by the characters' attempts to achieve a specific goal, generally following the Hero's Journey roadmap. These stories play nicely with almost every conceivable subplot, but if the primary focus isn't on achieving that goal, then it's not an adventure.

HISTORICAL FICTION- This genre asks the question "what if X but in the past?" This can be as simple as placing a character in a historical context to see how they behave or as sweeping as introducing domesticated dragons to important historical wars to see how they would have turned out differently. Again, this genre soaks up subplots like a sponge, which is why "historical fantasy," "historical romance," and "historical mystery" are all popular subgenres. Authors often sink months or even years of their lives into researching the period of history they specialize in. Historical fiction without actual history is just set dressing.

Before you bitch about how authors are marketing their books, do this one thing:

Shut the fuck up unless you are volunteering to do all the labor required to market a book, because it's really fucking hard, people don't pay attention to posts about original content 90% of the fucking time, and giving a short, pithy teaser is how book marketing fucking works. Click the links and read the full book description if you want to know more.

Seriously, shut the fuck up.

[thesunnyshow]

Name: Mae Gi

Age: 23

Writing Blog URL(s): @mae-gi-writes & https://embed.wattpad.com/user/nutmeggu

What fandom(s) do you write for?

The Boyz, EXO, BTS, SVT, Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts

Nationality: Mauritian

Languages: French, English, Creole

Star Sign: Pisces 

Favorite color: Mint!

Favorite food: Xiao Long Bao

Favorite movie: Patriot 

Favorite ice cream flavor: Mint and chocolate chip!

Favorite animal: Definitely whales

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering? Coffee all the way! 

Dream job (whether you have a job or not): Writer 😍 

Go-to karaoke song: Breaking Free High School Musical

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose?

Flying

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose?

The 70's 

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you?

I Would not. I believe that everything I've experienced was for a reason and I couldn't be happier where I am. 

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken?

100 chicken-sized horses because that would be cute af

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been?

I like to believe that I'd be a badass tough cookie

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures?

...sometimes.

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know?

I am bad at maintaining eye contact so I am always conscious of it.

When did you post your first piece?

I think it was in 2012 that I started my first story!

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why?

Fluff and angst are my go-to's because they are the ones that I relate to the most. My writing comes from personal experiences, so there's a lot of fluff and angst involved.

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships...etc?

YUpp!

Why did you decide to write for Tumblr?

I just started posting without really taking it seriously to be honest. But when people started showing interest, it motivated me to write more and gave me confidence. I also made lots of wonderful writer friends which I am so grateful for! 

What inspires you to write?

Life, people, relationships. Writing is also a way for me to process my thoughts of emotions, it's therapeutic. 

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most?

Romcom and slice of life mainly. And my guilty pleasure is the best friend to lover AU. 

What do you hope your readers take away from your work?

That it makes them laugh, have a good time, or cry in sympathy. I want my characters to reflect real people and I hope that my readers can relate and realize that they are not alone, no matter how tough life may seem sometimes. 

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively?

I stop writing and listen to music. It allows me to imagine scenarios without me actively writing them. 

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful?

My favourite work is definitely my first novel that I recently published on Amazon! It's sci-fi dystopian and is really close to my heart because every character is a piece of me stitched into them. 

My most successful on Tumblr is Deobi Playlist series, which is a fanfiction mashup of the series Hospital Playlist x The Boyz. I think people find it really entertaining and light to read. 

Who is your favorite person to write about?

Kevin from The Boyz, Jungkook from BTS. 

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose?

There's a difference in terms that some elements are already crafts for you and you approach them in a different perspective. Original prose is completely made up by you. 

What do you think makes a good story?

The storyline is important, but characters are definitely the most vital elements in telling a good story. 

What is your writing process like?

Depending on the mood, I usually put on a playlist of slow songs and start writing whatever comes to mind on my laptop. Sometimes if I need to figure out a story, I use pen and paper to quickly outline the series of events. I also usually write better at night or early morning. 

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story?

I actually already did! It was named as Entity and was a BTS fanfic that received so much love I decided to alter it into a real novel now called Terminal. It's available on AMAZON. 

What tropes do you love, and what tropes can’t you stand?

I am a sucker for Love Triangle tropes and Best Friends to Lovers tropes because, in my experience, they really do happen. I can't stand the "I'm not like other girls" trope, I just think it's overdone and is always portrayed as something that the protagonist needs. 

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you?

I definitely don't depend on feedback to write because I write for myself. But getting feedback and seeing people appreciate my work definitely motivates me to believe in myself as a writer. I would not have come this far without support. 

What has been one of the biggest factors of your success (of any size)?

I just kept writing, even though it was shit, even though I was sometimes frustrated. No matter how bad it was, I always told myself that I was doing this for me and never listened to outsiders who didn't appreciate my craft. 

Do you think fanfic writers get unfairly judged?

Definitely! Just because we write fanfiction doesn't mean we're not writers. I know of so many AMAZING fanfic writers who are so much better than actual authors!

Do you think art can be a medium for change?

Yes, art has always been involved to portray what can't be said. And that is the beauty of it. 

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself?

Rather than "writing for others" I keep myself disciplined by writing everyday, no matter how bad it might be or how little i write. 

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times?

Yes, I don't really understand why writing as an art form is so underrated when it is so beautiful, but there is this misconception that writers, especially fanfic writers, are just thirsty fangirls who are obsessed with their biases. No, we are content creators, we write stories because we are artists and take so much time and effort to write these amazing stories.

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr?

My boyfriend is the only one and he is really supportive.

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers?

That I appreciate every single one of them for supporting my work, and that every comment, reblog or like just makes my heart feel so full with love. I also wish to tell them to keep dreaming, keep pushing and stay safe 

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might be too scared to put themselves out there?

Be scared to start. Be scared because that means you're pushing yourself and that's okay. Fear is part of the process but you have to go through that to gain confidence in what you do. Throw yourself under the bus, because that's how it gets easier. And don't compare to other writers because like every artist, your story and your craft, your words and your voice will be different. So believe that you can, and you are worth it.

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr?

NEVER.

Do you have any mutuals who have been particularly formative/supportive in your Tumblr journey?

YES!! I'D LIKE TO THANK @pixelelf @choaticdeobi @moondustaeil @aveluant1a @atbzkingdom @thesingingfae1905 @2hyunjae @tbzhours @jenocakes ❤❤❤ 

Pick a quote to end your interview with:

There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair - Haruki Murakami 

[paradoxi-callum]

Criti-Cal book reviews: The Heart Goes Last, by Margaret Atwood.

There's a survey out there that suggests 2 out of every 3 Brits lie about reading books, or at least they did in 2009, with 42% of those people lying about having read George Orwell's 1984. It's not difficult to see why, I mean it's heralded as The Only Dystopian Sci-fi Novel Ever by people who put stickers on lamp posts around Carlisle. If I see one more "COVID-1984" sticker I am going to get physically violent, by the way. 

The reason I bring it up is because 1984 was a quite good reflection of the anxieties of a post-war world, where Europe narrowly avoided being taken over by Nazi Totalitarianism and was eyeing up it's Communist neighbour and wondering what it was getting up to. That's right, random sticker on the road-sign outside Tesco, 1984 is not an instruction manual; it's simply a warning to a world that we've moved far beyond as we've delved into the digital/surveillance age. 

Enter Margaret Atwood, a person who I wholly believe to be a fucking genius and the kind of person who I'd say "yeah, she could write a modern 1984 based on our current anxieties". It's a big claim considering 1984 is regularly cited as one of the best books of all time (by people who haven't actually read it, it's honestly a bit boring in the middle and the characters all feel very flat) but I can now back it up by saying that The Heart Goes Last is definitely a modern 1984, flat characters and all. 

THGL starts with a married couple who are living in the result of economic collapse, a sort of Mad Max future… but Max is living in a Kia Picanto with wind down windows and a very real sense of vulnerability. This defencelessness makes Stan and Chermaine miss their old lives, because no matter how bad it was their current situation is 10 times worse; they can't even have a shag in the back of the car for fucks sake! 

Charmaine finds a way out, and drags a reluctant Stan with her to a meeting at Positron; a weird timeshare system where you alternate between a prison cell and a home in a walled kingdom called Consilience. They're told that you will never be allowed to leave the place once you sign up for it, which should be a big red flag but look at payday loans; people will do anything when they're desperate. 

Once inside they're living in a facsimile of Baby Boomer America, chosen because it's a period of time when everyone was apparently a lot happier. In order to achieve this, Positron controls the media that residents consume, the decor of your home and the clothes you wear. The control of the masses is subtler than Orwell's Party Propaganda, but the effects are all the same; residents of both Consilience and Airstrip One are expected to support their masters without question or they will face horrific consequences. 

Orwell and Atwood also agree that you can't entirely crush the human spirit, that we are all primates who will defy those masters if it means we get a good shag out of it. 

Winston's stolen moments with Julia were a subversive act; love and sex would seemingly topple Big Brother because that's what we're hard-wired for. In the same vein, Stan is driven mad with lust, after finding a dirty note she left for her husband, for the idea of the wife of the couple who live in his house when he's at prison. He defies Position's rules and tracks the scooter that this mystery woman will ride when he's locked up, he's so mad with desire that he's even willing to force himself on her. It's ok, the opposite wife goes unharmed, the imaginary seductress he's made up is actually his own wife who is cheating on him.

This subversive love/lust is quickly entwined with rebellious actions; Winston’s love emboldens him and makes him out himself as a traitor to O’Brien, while Charmaine’s lust (and Stan’s stalkerish tendencies) attract the attention of a band of rebels who are hellbent on telling the world of Positron’s atrocities; fearing that Ed, Positron’s Big Cheese, has gotten greedy and let the good intentions that Consilience was founded on be corrupted for his own personal gain. Kind of like Bandcamp… or Tesla when Elon Musk bought it. 

The plot goes a bit weird, there's a whole Elvis thing and the Green Man Group (eco brothers of Blue Man Group) is a key plot device, but Atwood has woven a suitably thrilling tale and littered the story with so many coincidences that we have to choose whether there’s an invisible hand at play, or Atwood was having an off day or two when she wrote the short stories that make up THGL. A comparison with 1984 will show that I believe the former, as Winston’s story is essentially written by the people surrounding him from the moment he writes in that journal to the rat’s satisfied squeaks when they devour his face. It’s human nature to think of ourselves as powerless, which is an idea that 1984 seemingly supports but Atwood herself makes a convincing argument that Orwell still held out hope for us all:

Orwell has been accused of bitterness and pessimism - of leaving us with a vision of the future in which the individual has no chance, and where the brutal, totalitarian boot of the all-controlling Party will grind into the human face, forever.

But this view of Orwell is contradicted by the last chapter in the book, an essay on Newspeak - the doublethink language concocted by the regime. By expurgating all words that might be troublesome - "bad" is no longer permitted, but becomes "double-plus-ungood" - and by making other words mean the opposite of what they used to mean - the place where people get tortured is the Ministry of Love, the building where the past is destroyed is the Ministry of Information - the rulers of Airstrip One wish to make it literally impossible for people to think straight.

However, the essay on Newspeak is written in standard English, in the third person, and in the past tense, which can only mean that the regime has fallen, and that language and individuality have survived. For whoever has written the essay on Newspeak, the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four is over. Thus, it's my view that Orwell had much more faith in the resilience of the human spirit than he's usually been given credit for.

Orwell & Me, Margaret Atwood in The Guardian

THGL follows this optimism in a more straightforward way, Positron is toppled by an investigative journalist relaying the horrors of life in Consilience; most likely an allusion to Atwood’s support for, as well as the importance of, freedom of the press, usually one of the first freedoms taken away by dictators. 

The ending isn’t entirely happy though, Chermaine is tricked into believing she’s gone through a procedure that means the first two-eyed thing she lays eyes on when she wakes will be the object of her desire. This brainwashing is presented as morally ambiguous, I mean… if the brainwashed person is happy can we actually call it cruel? A woman fell in love with a stuffed bear and is more than happy with her situation, who are we to condemn this? The question hangs in the air as Atwood gives us an open end for Charmaine, does she go back to Stan and live a life of uneasy contentedness or does she go out into the world and see what happens? More importantly, why is everyone’s version of a happy ending having someone to shag? These questions, and more, will keep me awake tonight.

I rated The Heart Goes Last 4/5 on Goodreads

[streetlamphalo]

SPSFC with Team Boundary's Edge: Final Cuts

So, we're at the end of the cuts now! What a journey it's been, honestly. After a lot of reading, deliberating and commenting, we're now down to the wire. It's been a fun time, trying to whittle the 30 initial books down to 10 (actually, it's 11!). As a final reminder, we're reading 10%-20% of each book, discussing the pros and cons of continuing and going from there. As always, these books may not have worked for us, a group of three reviewers, but they may well work for you, so I would urge you to give them a chance if they sound interesting to you! The first round, second round and third round cuts are up on the blog.

Tomorrow, I'll publish our list of quarterfinalists, which means I will soon be posting full reviews on my Goodreads profile (it felt unfair to do this on 20% of a book). I can't wait to go back and read some of these books and actually finish them! So, without further ado, the final round of cuts is:

The Immune: A post-apocalyptic novel with a deadly pandemic at its centre, in a world where the remnants of humanity must struggle to survive. A couple of judges likened it to The Stand, which I haven't read, and reading about a pandemic during a pandemic was rough. Additional commentary: The POVs were all over the place for me, but the pandemic thing I couldn't get over. I wanted to give it a fair shot, but I feel about this the way I feel about the Station Eleven TV show: not right now.

The Flight of the Kingfisher: A mysterious woman draws a crew into danger and adventure, in a book that would delight fans of Firefly and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet. It's a very light book, which was a nice break from some of the harder reads on the list this year, but sadly didn't quite do enough for the next round. Additional commentary: I started off with excitement for this one, but in the end it just didn't come together. I wanted to like it, a lot, but Becky Chambers this isn't, unfortunately.

The Exodus Betrayal: A cyborg with a mission finds herself in hot water when she realises she's bitten off more than she can chew in this cyberpunk thriller. One of our judges actually wanted to carry on with this one, but sadly the other two didn't feel it did anything new. Additional commentary: I love cyberpunk as a genre, but I enjoy it even more when I feel that it's really trying to push the envelope with its themes and approaches. This one, unfortunately, just didn't and in the end, I couldn't bring myself to want to carry on reading.

The Lead Cloak: A Colonel working in Area 51 is forced to take direct action when a terrorist attack threatens a technology that could destroy the very concept of privacy. This one feels like it would work as a TV show - the action scenes zoom right along, but the characters felt too flat for us to be able to carry on. Additional commentary: This feels like a Jack Reacher sort of book, where the action really shines through. But for me personally, I need to care about the characters a little bit more and it didn't quite do enough for me to be able to maintain interest in it.

The Shift: What if Earth moved into a different dimension, one where multiple versions of history could exist? The multiverse thing is pretty hot right now and this one has some really solid concepts, but it's ultimately let down by basic prose and once again, too many POV characters. I know A Song of Ice and Fire made multi-POV sexy again, but you need to ease your readers in a bit. Additional commentary: I love these sorts of big ideas in sci-fi and it's largely why I read so much of the genre, but these days I need and (perhaps unfairly) expect more from my prose than what I got here. But if the idea sounds interesting to you, do pick this up!

Tracker220: Another dystopian novel where the government is trying to control people through microchips and one young woman is going to stand and fight against the oppression. This one was another one where we couldn't figure out whether the audience is intended to be younger than us or what. It's a shame, because again the concepts were interesting and you don't often see religion mixed in this way. Additional commentary: Jewish cyberpunk is not something that I've run into before and I do wish I could have been more forgiving of the writing and its young protagonist, but I honestly believe I've outgrown it now.

Time Burrito: One of the books that really sparked a lot of conversation, particularly because its non-violent protagonist is so different from anything else we've had this competition. But the book will ultimately succeed or fail based on its humour and for us three, that wasn't enough. I think we just needed more from long-form works like this. Additional commentary: Terry Pratchett is easily one of my favourite authors of all time, so humour in fiction is something that I'm really familiar with. But here the comedy just didn't land, which to me feels like a shame because having something fun and funny would be a great departure from how grim some of the other works had been.

So here we are! I am just so happy that we've seen the list through so far and I can't wait to share some full reviews with you all in the coming weeks. Commiserations to all the people on the cut lists, but please take heart that you made it this far! See you tomorrow for the quarterfinalist list.