A caveat, before we begin: Not only am I speaking in generalities, but I haven't kept a close eye on fan studies for the past few years. So this may well not be as novel or useful a perspective as I think it is ( Read more... )

(My internet continues to be horrid, which is why this is going up at nearly 3 am rather than any kind of civilized hour ( Read more... )

I recently bought and read Samuel R. Delany's The Jewel-Hinged Jaw for the first time, since I wasn't aware it had been reprinted by Wesleyan (way back in 2009) until Patrick Nielsen Hayden mentioned it to me at Viable Paradise this year. Those of you who are longtime readers will know that I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Delany's critical ( Read more... )

So in the course of discussing the idea of a single work as a 'masterclass' with some folks, I had some thoughts which I figured it would be worth reproducing here.

(NB: While this post was prompted by vcmw's comments at 4th Street, I don't want to come off like I'm picking on her. The intent here is to work through my ideas on how learning from ( Read more... )

"The Failure mode of Clever is 'Asshole'." -John Scalzi
Apropos of sartorias's post on con programming and my previous post on critical discourse, I wanted to (briefly) talk about common ways that panels can fall apart, and then dig into why they rarely achieve a level of discourse beyond that of an undergraduate seminar.

(Also, Scalzi's point is pithy but ( Read more... )

So there's been a lot of nattering about reviews and people being demanding of authors on the nerdier end of the internets lately (and by lately I mean in the last N months, not yesterday). And I think that some important things are getting lost amidst the declarations that George R. R. Martin is not your bitch (PS: he's not, nor is any other ( Read more... )

So, then. Let's talk about Fourth Street ( Read more... )