Tip of the Hat: Gone Podcast

Occasionally, there's something that comes along that simply reminds you of the joy of fandom. The execution may not be perfect, but it's nevertheless touching, or thought-provoking, or simply fun. We wanted to introduce this occasional series to shine a light on those things when we find them.

I don't review podcasts. That's not one of my things. But even though I don't run in podcast circles, I do see a number of the more popular ones bubble up and enter into the conversational spaces I frequent. The one I don't see come up is Gone, a fiction / horror podcast written, performed, edited, produced, and everythinged by Sunny Moraine.

You may know Sunny Moraine from the excellent story "Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams", originally published in 2015 at Cyborgology and reprinted this year at Tor.com. You may know them from their novels or story collection.

You should also know them from their excellent podcast because Gone is one of my favorite things running today.  You can listen to it here.

Moraine describes it as such:

Gone is a serial horror fiction podcast that I write, narrate, and produce. Most simply, it’s a creepy story about a world in which everyone but the protagonist has mysteriously vanished overnight, leaving no trace or clue regarding what happened and why. As the last remaining person struggles to make sense of her situation, that situation becomes increasingly desperate. Things begin to fall apart, the center does not hold – and the dark is coming. And she might not be quite as alone as she believed.

More deeply, it’s a very personal story about loneliness and fear, isolation, the terror of not being able to trust your own mind, and the pain of bitterness and resentment. There’s a lot going on in it.

Gone is fantastic, though a little bit difficult to find if you don't know who created it. I struggled a little bit to find it even after I knew it existed but couldn't remember where I heard of it.  I'm glad that I persisted because I look forward to new episodes every other week.  I'm writing this when there are only four episodes plus some interludes released. There will be a fifth episode by the time this publishes, which concludes the first mini arc at the midpoint of the first season. I would hold this article until after the fifth episode, except that I'm perhaps only days away from the birth of my daughter and I might be distracted for a little while after that, and I didn't want to not talk about Gone.

Each episode gives a little bit more of the shape of what happened, though centered tightly on the narrator and her perspective. It is becoming relatively clear (as much as anything is clear this early on) that things are not whatever the narrator thinks they are and there is something lurking behind the shadows and that she might not be nearly as alone as she thinks she is. It's creepy and fascinating.

Go listen.


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 2017 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Writer / Editor of the mostly defunct Adventures in Reading since 2004. Minnesotan.  

Microreview [book]: Fantastic Erotica: The Best of Circlet Press 2008-2012 eds. Cecilia Tan and Bethany Zaiatz

[Insert Dirty Joke Here]

The Meat (teehee):

I swear there will be a minimum of penis jokes in this review (starting now I guess), because in all seriousness I think erotica gets a disproportionate amount of derision and disdain from readers in general. It gets put off in its own section, and anyone caught wandering that aisle must deal with an awful lot of strange looks from bookstore patrons and staff. When, really, what this collection is is an amazing collection of speculative stories from a wide range of genres and experiences brought together to entertain, to challenge, and yes, to arouse. The level of the fiction is as good as I've seen in any speculative anthology, and the stories are at turns tragic, inspiring, and incredibly sexy.

Perhaps it's to be expected, because this is a Best Of... anthology, pulling stories in from across multiple years, but that hardly changes the fact that the fiction is amazing. Without a central theme, the collection shows the stories voted the best by readers, writers, and editors, and is presented in such a way to provide a sort of sampler pack of what erotica is and can be, a way of introducing the wary and the gun-shy to a world of adventure, action, and sex. Like all speculative fiction, each story invites the reader to enter into a new world, some like our own and some very much not. And the different styles and settings show that sex is (despite how it's taught in much of the US) very much a part of life, is lifting and powerful and impossible to ignore.

The stories themselves range far and wide. Sacchi Green's "The Pirate from the Sky" stars an all-female bad of pirates in a steampunk Southeast Asia trying to live free, and also perhaps to stop a global war. Meanwhile, in Sunny Moraine's "Catch and Release," a space-faring junk collector finds something floating in the inky dark that turns out to be much more than he bargained for. When Suleiman opens a metal pod to find a woman inside, a woman unlike anything he's even encountered, he finds himself the inheritor to a punishment he doesn't understand and refuses to enforce. On the surface, the stories could not be more different, alt-historical fantasy to deep space science fiction, and yet in each the stories shine as unashamedly speculative and complex, nuanced. Themes of freedom, of rebellion, of loneliness and isolation all intertwine and provide backdrop to hard choices with outcomes that are not always blindingly positive. These are not stories that can be separated from the sex they contain, though. Indeed, sex is central to both stories, the ideas of body autonomy,  of choice, of freedom all tied to the way sex is portrayed and experienced by the characters.

This is not to say that the anthology is without flaws. As said, there is a certain lack of overall structure to the collection, and transitions from story to story can be a little jarring for those not ready to move from historical fantasy to dystopic future to second world fantasy to post-apocalyptic sprawl. The anthology certainly doesn't stay in one place long, which was part of why I liked it but those seeking a more interconnected feeling in terms of genre and theme would probably be better served seeking out a themed anthology instead of this collection, which was voted on and selected to try and provide a sampling of the best of the best erotica. Unfortunately, being a sampling of all sorts of different kinds of stories also means that some are bound to fall a little flat. And while I personally found something to like in every story in the collection, I will admit that there were a few I cared for a little less.

With stories like N.K. Jemisin's "The Dancer's War," though, it is impossible to be anything but incredibly pleased with the collection as a whole. Building a rich second world with a layered and interesting political system, the story shows just how much fun erotica can be, two men locked in a duel, neither willing to admit defeat even as the stakes rise higher and higher. It is an incredibly cute story, but also one that shows a subtle talent for world-building and creating compelling characters. Bernie Mojzes' "Ink," meanwhile, shows just how far erotica can be pushed to the limits. There are all sorts of jokes that could be used when hearing Lovecraftian erotica (I mean, tentacles, come on), and yet the story manages to craft sex and character and loss and longing in a way that is not ridiculous, that does not build to a punch line. Instead, it manages to capture that fear of the unknown, the draw and repulsion, while being sexy. Which I was not expecting at all.

In the end, Fantastic Erotica provides a stunning map to the vast realms of erotica, featuring a nice variety of characters, sexualities, genres, and themes. And they show the power and uniqueness of erotica. These are not science fiction or fantasy stories with sex scenes added in to sell. The sex is integral both to the plot and message of these stories, and is depicted with skill and passion. These are speculative stories, no less deserving of time or consideration than anything that appears in Asimov's or Lightspeed (and indeed many of the names here have appeared in the most prestigious of genre publications). That they feature sex is deliberate, and should not somehow transform them into stories that "true SFF fans" would not read. Sex is just another part of life (a very sexy part) and to treat it as different, as outside "normal" fiction, is to do both SFF and readers as a whole a vast disservice.

The Math:

Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 for an amazing variety of stories, sexualities, and genres, +1 making an Eldritch Horror sexy

Negatives: -1 for a lack of clear organization

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10 "probably go out and read this now"

--

POSTED BY: Charles, avid reader, reviewer, and sometimes writer of speculative fiction. Contributor to Nerds of a Feather since 2014.

Reference: eds. Tan, Cecilia and Zaiatz, Bethany. Fantastic Erotica: The Best of Circlet Press 2008-2012 [Circlet, 2013]

Summer Reading List: Charles

I will admit that my To Be Read queue at the moment is incredibly long. I tend to buy books about a year in advance of when I'll be able to read them, and this year I've definitely fallen behind. There's just so much to read! Anyway, that's why none of my picks for my Summer Reading List are new books. Not all of them are that old, but it's definitely a mix of newer and older things. First and foremost is catching up on some short fiction anthologies that I picked up at WisCon 38 (so they've been languishing for over a year now). But I am very excited about getting to these, as they are all sure to be better than the last book I finished, Circumpolar!**

Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History eds. Rose Fox and Daniel José Older

I really need to read this collection. The talent involved is truly impressive and I am a sucker for historical fantasy. Really, I should have read this already (I feel like given the amount of short fiction I read admitting that I haven't read this yet is a mark against me). But time and circumstance have conspired to keep me from it. No longer! This is at the top of my list of books to read next and I'm doing it!

Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire

Given Seanan McGuire's output where novels are concerned, it's nearly criminal that this will be the first novel of hers that I will read. Really, I've meant to seek out her work ahead of this but whenever I went to the bookstore I either couldn't figure out where her work was shelved or they didn't have the first book in any of the series. This only further cements my opinion that genre distinctions (especially when it comes to how things are shelved) are not exactly doing anyone any favors. But that's a dead horse for another day. Anyway, I've been reading more urban fantasy and wanted to check out this series, which sounds like it's right up my alley. Mystery and magic and San Francisco!

Un Lun Dun by China Miéville

This really is turning into a list of authors that I should have already read but haven't gotten around to. Miéville is an author who I've heard so many good things about. I really really want to read Embassytown, but this book made it into my greedy little paws first and so it looks like it will be my first introduction to the author. It's apparently for younger readers but that's never stopped me before and sometimes I think it's a testament to a writer's skill how they choose to write to a young audience. In any event, the description evokes both Alice in Wonderland and the Island of Misfit Toys and seems like it will be a fun and rather creepy read.

Line and Orbit by Sunny Moraine and Lisa Soem

I will admit that, despite the other titles on this list, this is the one that I'm most excited about. Sunny Moraine has been one of my favorite writers of short fiction since I stumbled across their work and here is a novel for me to read by them. A novel with a science fiction romance between two men. And I am nearly certain, given what I know of the author's writing, that it will make me cry at least twice. Which might seem like a weird thing to look forward to, but emotional connection is something I look for and it is a huge reason that I really, really want to read this book!

Beyond Binary ed. Brit Mandelo

Here is the second fiction anthology that I need, that I need to read soon. It seems like such a great theme for a collection, examining gender and sexuality in way that needs to be examined. Not that stories like this never show up in publication, but to see an entire collection of them is important. Plus the talent involved is again amazing, including Nalo Hopkinson, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, and Catherynne M. Valente. Just wow. So yes, very much needing to read this collection.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

And lastly, a book that I've been meaning to get to for quite a while. I never really knew that Left Hand of Darkness was part of a series, and from the description it's not exactly the most narratively link series of novels, but this one is technically part of the same cycle. Do people write cycles any longer? Hmm... But this looks like an interesting story that examines the line between utopia and dystopia and seems like a fascinating read.




**I cannot take complete blame for choosing this book. It has become a tradition that each WisCon partner and I scour the bargain-priced books of A Room of One's Own bookstore in Madison, WI, and select for the other person the most ridiculous-looking book we can find. This one features the Red Baron riding a mechanical Pegasus and waiving a gun. It's...well, it was certainly an experience.


POSTED BY: Charles, avid reader, reviewer, and sometimes writer of speculative fiction. Contributor to Nerds of a Feather since 2014.