eldritchhobbit

I’ve been contributing my “Looking Back on Genre History” segments to the StarShipSofa podcast for 15 years now. All of my past segments are listed (with their topics and links!) on the “Podcasting” page of my website. (Scroll down to the “Looking Back on Genre History” section.) ALTALT View the full post.

StarShipSofa 714 William Meikle | StarShipSofa In my latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa podcast, I discuss Library of America’s recent “Back to The Future Is Female!” event and some of the works of science fiction related to it. ALT ALT ALT View the full post.

ALTALT Soon, very soon, Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier (2023) will have a sibling: Star Wars: Essays Exploring a Galaxy Far, Far Away (2023). View the full post.

ALT It was a joy to narrate the powerful “More Real Than Real” by Greta Hayer for the Cast of Wonders podcast. Cast of Wonders 537: More Real Than Real | Cast of Wonders View the full post.

Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier: ashleywritesstuff: I had the privilege of interviewing @dramyhsturgis about a new book she co-edited with Emily Strand about Star Trek. Pick up a copy, request it at your local library, read essays from some of the sharpest minds in Trek fandom, and listen to this episode of We Are Starfleet. View the full post.

unamccormack: Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier Great podcast interview with @dramyhsturgis about Star Trek: Essays Exploring the Final Frontier, a collection of academic essays to which I wrote the introduction! (There’s a discount code on that page too.) View the full post.

I had a fantastic time talking with brilliant hosts Ashley Thomas and Mike Slamer of the WE ARE STARFLEET podcast about the new anthology STAR TREK: ESSAYS EXPLORING THE FINAL FRONTIER, which I co-edited with Emily Strand. Thanks so much for a wonderful chat! 🖖 Listen to the episode here. ALT View the full post.

dramyhsturgis: Happy Towel Day! “A towel, [The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough. “More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost.” What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.“ — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy View the full post.

In my latest “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the StarShipSofa podcast, I discuss Guardians of the Whills, Andor, and local resistance in Star Wars. StarShipSofa 712 Laird Barron | StarShipSofa ALTALT ALTALT View the full post.

dramyhsturgis: And happy birthday to Daphne du Maurier (13 May, 1907 – 19 April, 1989)! “I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end.” ― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca (1938) View the full post.

dramyhsturgis: May the 4th be with you. Happy Star Wars Day! View the full post.

I’m so excited to share this with the universe! This anthology includes contributions from Emily Strand, Una McCormack, Daniel Unruh, Edward Guimont, Brunella Tedesco-Barlocco, Kristina Šekrst, Javier Francisco, Erin Bell, Martine Gjermundsen Ræstad, Andrew Higgins, John Jackson Miller, and me. The cover art is by Emily Austin. More information, including the full Table of Contents, is at the link below. The book can be requested via libraries as a hardcover or ebook, and the coupon code CFC10822213C4 provides a 24% “new release!” discount at the Vernon Press website: https://vernonpress.com/book/1672 ALT View the full post.

unamccormack: Oxford portals View the full post.

My two-part plan to fill the time between the end of Picard and the start of the new season of Strange New Worlds is going very well. Cheers for Una McCormack, John Jackson Miller, and Star Trek. View the full post.

dramyhsturgis: I am delighted to report that STAR TREK: ESSAYS EXPLORING THE FINAL FRONTIER is coming soon! 🖖 I’m so excited to share this with the universe! This academic anthology includes work from Emily Strand, Una McCormack, Daniel Unruh, Edward Guimont, Brunella Tedesco-Barlocco, Kristina Šekrst, Javier Francisco, Erin Bell, Martine Gjermundsen Ræstad, Andrew Higgins, John Jackson Miller, and me. The cover art is by Emily Austin. More information, including the complete Table of Contents, is available here from Vernon Press. ALT View the full post.

I am listening to “Jericho” by Iniko on repeat. Stunning and science fictional. 🎶🎵🎶 “I don’t need gravity; I just need growth.” View the full post.

I am delighted to report that STAR TREK: ESSAYS EXPLORING THE FINAL FRONTIER is coming soon! 🖖 I’m so excited to share this with the universe! This academic anthology includes work from Emily Strand, Una McCormack, Daniel Unruh, Edward Guimont, Brunella Tedesco-Barlocco, Kristina Šekrst, Javier Francisco, Erin Bell, Martine Gjermundsen Ræstad, Andrew Higgins, John Jackson Miller, and me. The cover art is by Emily Austin. More information, including the complete Table of Contents, is available here from Vernon Press. ALT View the full post.

I’m feeling sentimental, so here is *checks notes* a 23-year spread of STAR TREK essays! ALT ALT ALT ALT View the full post.

I’m so excited to share STAR TREK: ESSAYS EXPLORING THE FINAL FRONTIER with the universe. More information will be coming very soon! 🖖 View the full post.

It’s not every day that you and your brilliant co-editor Emily Strand submit your completed book to your publisher, but today is that day for me! More information on STAR WARS: ESSAYS EXPLORING A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY, the sibling to our previously-submitted and also-forthcoming academic anthology STAR TREK: ESSAYS EXPLORING THE FINAL FRONTIER, will be coming soon! ALT View the full post.

dramyhsturgis: “No,” Baze said. The word was, in so many ways, the perfect embodiment of who Baze Malbus had become, as blunt and as hard as the man himself. No was the word that seemed to define Baze Malbus these days, all the more so since the Imperial occupation had begun. No, and in that word Baze Malbus was saying many things; no, he would not accept this, whatever this might be, from Imperial rule to the existence of a Jedi in the Holy City to the suffering the Empire had inflicted upon all those around them. No, ultimately – and to Chirrut’s profound sadness – to a faith in the Force. *** The scent of fear…. Despite his best intentions, it even, sometimes, was a scent Chirrut caught from himself. But never from Baze. *** Chirrut Îmwe was not a Jedi. He was not, by any definition, a Force user. But what he could do, what he had spent years upon years striving for the enlightenment to do, was – sometimes – feel the Force around him. Truly, genuinely feel it, if only for a moment, if only tenuously, like holding his palm up to catch the desert sand that blew into the city at dawn and at dusk. Be, however fleetingly, one with the Force. *** Baze was a big man, a strong man, but he knew how to move himself with speed when needed, and with purpose at every moment. While Chirrut’s movements had flow, Baze’s had direction. *** These were Imperials, who had taken that which was beautiful and made it profane, and it didn’t matter if Baze Malbus still believed or not; it mattered to him that others did, and he saw the pain the Imperials caused every day. He saw it in friends and strangers. He saw it in hungry children in the streets, and hiding beneath the smile of Chirrut Îmwe. *** The problem was that if they were stopped for questioning, or brought it, there was no telling where that might lead or what it might lead back to. Unlike Baze, Chirrut still dressed as a Guardian of the Whills. He would be singled out because of this, subjected to more questions. And Chirrut, being Chirrut, would not tell the stormtroopers what they wanted to hear, and Chirrut, being Chirrut, would very likely begin spouting the litany. They would detain him. They might even detain him aboard the Star Destroyer, and Baze knew very well that those detained aboard the Star Destroyer were never heard from again. Baze sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Me first.” He shoved Chirrut into the alley. “I’ll catch up,” he said, then started running… *** Baze led the way, reached back to guide Chirrut out of the vehicle. As soon as Chirrut had his feet on the ground once more, Baze’s hand was gone. *** He didn’t want to know what Baze saw, not literally; Chirrut wanted Baze’s impression. If Chirrut asked, What does the service droid look like? he didn’t want Baze to say that the machine was a meter and a half tall, or half a meter wide, and covered in laminate with scratches along its torso. What Chirrut wanted was for Baze to say that the droid was friendly, or past its sell-by date, or had seen better days, or looked like it was fresh off the assembly line. Chirrut wanted the perception as Baze saw it, and thus, in a way, he was asking for Baze’s opinion. Right now, Chirrut was frowning, head down. “How does it look?” he asked. “Not,” Baze said, “good.” *** But Baze didn’t say anything. There was nothing he needed to say. Chirrut knew what he was thinking, and Chirrut knew why he was thinking it. *** He moved his walking stick, settled it so it stood between his knees where he sat. He rested his forehead against the cap of the staff, the cold metal of the crystal containment lamp doing little to soothe his headache. He was tired, and he was frustrated, and he thought that either or both would bother him less if Baze’s reassuring presence were somewhere over his shoulder. *** “Would he come with us?” Chirrut grinned. “Yes,” he told Fortuna. “He, meaning me, would.” “I don’t mean to offend, but you’re blind.” Chirrut put a hand up in front of his face, waved it back and forth, gasped. “Baze Malbus,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Baze laughed. Fortuna didn’t. “Don’t mistake his lack of eyesight for a lack of vision,” Baze said. *** “So you have hope, still?” Baze shrugged, spread his hands on his thighs. They were big hands, and he had done a lot of harm with them, and sometimes he wondered if his hands would not have been better used for gentler work – what it would have been like to have been a painter or sculptor or baker. “I do not know what I have anymore,” Baze said. “I have a home, and will fight for it. I have those I love, and I will fight for them. I see injustice, and will fight against it. I suppose these are the best reasons to fight.” *** “Tea?” Baze asked. Chirrut turned his head in surprise, orienting to the sound of his friend’s voice. “It’s chav,” Baze said. “Not that wretched Tarine stuff.” For a second, Chirrut found himself at an utter loss for words. He hadn’t heard Baze’s approach, and Baze was not, generally, a man who did things quietly. More, he hadn’t sensed Baze’s approach, nor even his presence, and if there was a presence that Chirrut Îmwe knew in the Force more than any other – more, perhaps, than his own place in it – it was that of Baze Malbus. “Well, if it’s chav,” Chirrut said, “I can hardly refuse, can I?” *** “There is a space between ‘next to impossible’ and ‘impossible.’” Chirrut smiled at something only he knew was there. “This is where we will fit.” “This guy, do you believe this guy?” Denic said to Baze. “Yes,” Baze said. *** Chirrut shook his head slightly, frowning. Baze tried to remember the last time he’d seen Chirrut happy. *** “There is no time to argue with me, Baze Malbus. Here, your anger only grows. You must leave Jedha before it consumes you.” “You cannot be left alone,” Baze said. “You would walk into walls.” View the full post.

These two novels — The Button Field by Gail Husch (2014) and Killingly by Katharine Beutner (2023) — were inspired by the same real-life unsolved mystery, the disappearance of student Bertha Mellish from Mount Holyoke College in 1897. I found The Button Field to be haunting, and now I’m looking forward to reading Killingly. ALT View the full post.

Back to the Future Is Female! I am looking forward to this online event at 6pm Eastern on March 14, 2023! From Pulp Era pioneers to the radical innovators of the 1960s and ’70s, visionary women writers have been a transformative force in American science fiction. For Women’s History Month, acclaimed SF authors Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Pamela Sargent, and Sheree Renée Thomas join Lisa Yaszek, editor of LOA’s The Future Is Female!, for a conversation about the writers who smashed the genre’s gender barrier to create worlds and works that remain revolutionary.  View the full post.

dramyhsturgis: I’m delighted to share that I’ll be giving a paper at the upcoming Realizing Resistance Episode III: The Expanding Universe conference on Star Wars. My talk will be “‘They Walked without Speaking’: GUARDIANS OF THE WHILLS, ANDOR, and Local Resistance.“ More on the conference is here: dcsco-op.org/rriii/ ALT ALT Registration for RRIII: The Expanding Universe is now officially OPEN! Join now to attend this three day digital conference May 4-6, 2023 for social events (cosplay reception), panels, brilliant keynotes, and all things Star Wars! Realizing Resistance Episode III Tickets | Digital Cultural Studies Cooperative View the full post.

StarShipSofa 706 Eleanor Arnason | StarShipSofa On my “Looking Back on Genre History” segment on the latest episode of the StarShipSofa podcast, I discuss the new series The Rig and its deep science fiction roots. ALTALT ALT View the full post.