Hope you're having a happy holiday season so far. This month we're winding down the year by putting together lists and checking them twice -- top 10 lists, that is. We're also bringing you some fun holiday-related content, including a roundup of the worst Santa movies ever made.
In an editorial last week, Managing Editor K. Tempest Bradford started a discussion on why readers don't often comment on fiction. It's still going on, and we'd still like your input.
The Editors
Blog For A Beer: Best/Worst Of The Year
It’s December, and you know what that means: lists. Specifically Best Of lists. We humans have this need to look back over a meaningful section of time and decide on the most awesome things they experienced in that time period. Exciting, right?
What you don’t see too often is Worst Of lists. The biggest piles of crap you had the misfortune to witness within a calendar year. Stuff you wish you could forget but you can’t. So, instead, you rant about it.
Over the next three weeks we’re going to compile some Best Of/Worst Of lists, and you’re going to help. Why, you ask? Because we might give you $10 if you do!
We’ll start with something easy this week: Movies. What are the 5 best genre movies you saw this year? How about the 5 worst? (And I’m talking about movies in the theater, not direct-to-DVD stinkers or, Zuul help us, Sci-Fi Channel clunkers.) Whatever movies you choose, you have to back it up. Convince us. Because we’re going to put together the definitive Best/Worst Movies of 2008 list and we will defend it… to the death.
Fiction: Geddarien by Rose Lemberg
Zelig's grandfather liked to smoke with his window half open, even though winter's breath melted on the old parquet. When the snow on the streets turned as porous and yellow as a matzo ball, a pigeon flew into the room. It hid under the chaise, there to await compliments or perhaps breadcrumbs.
Zelig asked, “Do you think the pigeon would like some cake?”
Grandfather examined the offering from the lofty height of his chaise: a piece of honey cake on Zelig's outstretched palm. “A good one like that, he will want.”
The boy clambered onto the chaise and wormed his way under the blanket, close to the old man's legs. Grandfather smelled comfortably of chicken soup, hand-rolled papirosen, violin rosin. Outside the window the abandoned cathedral still sputtered pigeons into the darkening square, and a neighboring house obstructed the rest of the view.
Grandfather said, “Do you know what Geddarien is?”
Zelig flattened a piece of cake and dropped it into a crack between the chaise and the wall. Moments later, he heard hesitant crooning from below. “No, grandfather. What's Geddarien?”
The old man closed his heavy eyelids. “These cities like ours, my boy, they have a life of their own. And sometimes, you should know,” he whispered, “the city dances.” Grandfather's eyes opened again: watery gray with a thin grid of red, like railroad tracks across a thawing country. “Could you bring it to me? My fiddele?”
“Grandmother says it will only make you upset.” But he threw the rest of his cake under the chaise and jumped off. In the small polished wardrobe, the battered black case was buried under an avalanche of hats. Not so long ago Grandfather used to go out, dandy like a pigeon in his gray pinstriped suit and a fedora; but these days he could not even properly hold the instrument. His grumpy nephew Yankel now came to give Zelig music lessons.
Grandfather opened the creaky case, and inside it the old violin glowed, waiting for touch. “Your fiddele, now,” the old man said, “is only a quarter-fiddle, and newly made. But soon you will graduate to one-half, and then to full.” He stroked the large fiddle's neck with his fingers. “To this one. My father played it, and his grandfather, too.” He took up the cake of rosin from the case, moved it slowly along the horse-hairs in the bow.
Zelig felt the sounds this movement created, a music of honey sap upon wind, melting the heart into his bones. “Grandfather, what of Geddarien?”
“Ah. Geddarien, there's a story.” The old man smiled sadly.
Column: Randym Thoughts: Oh No — It’s Santa Movie Season
Santa Claus has starred in a lot of movies. I can only assume he uses the money from his acting gigs to upgrade his workshop, what with technology always advancing. Hard to build iPods with chisels, ya know?
But, sadly, not all of his movies are good.
Here are some examples of the not-so-great ones. Some I made up. Some are real movies. Some I made up, and then found out they were real movies. How sad.
See if you can guess which are real, and which are bogus...
Category: A Conversation with Dr. Nnedi Okorafor author of The Shadow Speaker
There's a discernible new voice in Young Adult Fiction. That voice is distinctly Nigerian...and American. Dr. Nnedi Okorafor thrives in a realm of fiction called African Fantasy.
This genre combines elements of speculative fiction, magical realism and traditional fantasy with a decidedly cultural twist. Not all of these books are set in Africa, but do contain aspects of African folklore. Also, instead of the traditional Celtic setting, stories have a more earthy approach to magic.
Nnedi was born in the United States to Igbo (Nigerian) immigrant parents and you can see that influence in her work. But, her path to writing was an unusual one. Absent are any anecdotes about knowing she wanted to write since she was a small child, though she was always an avid reader. Favoring the maths and sciences, she envisioned a career in either entomology or veterinary medicine.
All this changed when following her freshman year at college, she made the difficult decision to undergo surgery to correct scoliosis, a condition involving curvature of the spine. Nnedi found herself among the one percent of people paralyzed after the surgery.
Nnedi credits that experience and having to learn to walk again with releasing her creative juices. Undeterred by advice not to pursue her passion, she changed majors. She completed her Bachelor's degree in Rhetoric (Creative Writing) and earned a PhD in English in 2007. The rest, shall we say is history.
Column: Crossing Lines: Stargate Atlantis — No Hope On The Horizon
I'm so disappointed with Stargate Atlantis lately, as anyone who's been reading these column can probably tell. To be honest at this point if I wasn't writing this column I don't know if I would still be watching the show. I'd probably break up with it for good and catch the final episodes sometime in the spring on rerun. Sadly, the following episodes did not alter this opinion. There were some good things going on but at the end of most of them I just want to scream, "This is what you're going out on!? These episodes are what you want us to remember of the show!?".
First off, apparently Carson Beckett is now some planet-wandering healer/medicine-man? I must have zoned out on a previous episode and missed this, or they never mentioned it and it's simply a weird retcon, either way it feels forced. But Carson is back and that's never really a bad thing in my book!
The episode "Outsiders" starts with the team heading to a planet to bring Carson medical supplies. Carson is there to treat some folks that are victims of one of his earliest sketchy ethic moments, helping the Hoffans develop a plague that is deadly to 2/3 of the human population. The plus side of the plague is that those who survive it can't be fed on by the Wraith and are in fact poisonous to them. Now, this is one instance where Carson actually showed some care. Once he realized the drug would be deadly to many humans, he stepped back and was like, 'Oooooh, too sketchy for me. I'd rather return to Atlantis and perform painful experiments on living sentient beings.'
Okay he didn't actually say that.
Movie Review: Ten Things You Should Know About Twilight
You know you're going to see it, don't even pretend. Seventy million dollars worth of people went to see it, and if you think you can resist the tide of crazy around this movie, you have something else coming. However, it's dangerous to go unarmed. Before you settle into the trembling darkness of a theatre overrun by 14-year-olds in their Hot Topic baby tees, you must know what they know, so you can avoid laughing in the wrong place and being immediately decapitated. (They'll do it, too; they know how, the movie showed them.)
Here are ten things you should know about Twilight before you venture out to see it. Beyond this, there be dragons. Fare well, brave soul.
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