Lisa Paitz Spindler, Danger Gal

I’m still gearing up after my holiday hiatus, but I’ve got some great ideas in the works for the Danger Gal blog in 2009. In the meantime, I came across this article titled Ellen Ripley Paved the Way for Strong Female Leads via John Scalzi’s list of articles he’s written for AMC’s SciFi Scanner blog and it’s all kinds of goodness. Money quote:

. . . I’ve had cause to think about women’s characters in science fiction, and the single most important female character in the history of science fiction film: Ellen Ripley, of the Alien series. What makes her important? Because she’s a pivot point in the history of science fiction film, and how women inhabited the genre. In a nutshell — Before Ripley: Barbarella. After Ripley: Sarah Connor.

It was writing ZOE’S TALE that prompted Scalzi to contemplate the state of female characters in Science Fiction. That makes all the work I’ve done with this blog worth it, because highlighting great female characters in Science Fiction helps to the potential for more, new, great female characters. Yes, ZOE’S TALE is on my TBR list. I’m not going to make my 50-book goal this year since I took most of November off from reading to write until my fingers bled. So now I’m catching up. I’m just about finished reading Sandra MacDonald’s OUTBACK STARS (love it) and I have several books someone sent me to read/review (DeNardo, pay no attention to this post. . .) one of which is Scalzi’s AGENT TO THE STARS. Then I can read ZOE’S TALE.

One of the first characters I profiled for the Danger Gal Friday articles was Ellen Ripley.

Galaxy Express’ Heather Massey is guest blogging today over at Dear Author about Science Fiction Romance and, as usual, raises some pertinent issues about the subgenre and its future. Here’s a short excerpt:

Clearly establish SFR as a subgenre by releasing it from the paranormal umbrella. (While I’m at it, fantasy romance should get its own pad, too.) While there’s crossover at times, wolves, vampires, and demons have little to do with aliens and nanotechnology.

Couldn’t agree more. While I love all the flavors of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance, as a reader and a writer I’ve often been frustrated by catch-all term.

I’m chiming in out preferred book formats over at Grasping for the Wind today. Today’s topic:

Though we all know that some books only come out in certain formats, if the world were perfect and you could have a book in any published format, which do you prefer – hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback, audiobook or ebook? Why?

Zip on over to read my response and several others as well.

Crossed Genres is a new online magazine inspired by an altered version of the Genre Challenge. From the initial SFWA LiveJournal post on this new market (see an update here):

Every month, Crossed Genres posts a new genre. Writers and artists have one month to submit stories and art that combine the chosen genre with some aspect of Science Fiction and/or Fantasy. All submissions are considered for publication (read the submission guidelines.) Crossed Genres will also contain interviews, and articles about the current genre, SF/F in general and the craft and business of writing. The Magazine is free! Please sign up to get the mailing list!

I wish I’d known about this market a few weeks ago, but I see they’ve extended the submissions deadline for Issue 2 — I wonder if they’ll consider extending the deadline for Issue 3 as well?

Crossed Genres is not currently an SFWA-qualifying market, but that is a priority for the magazine and they’re working toward that goal. This is a great concept and I’m so excited they are embracing Romance in addition to all the other possibilities. I hope they return to having another SFR issue sometime in the future.

Grasping for the Wind’s John Ottinger is updating his blogroll of fantasy and science fiction book reviewers and needs our help. If you would like your site to be included, take this list and post it on your website, then add yourself to the list, preferably in alphabetical order. John will then track the links across the web from back links, and can add each new blog to his roll as it pops up.

Here’s the list:

The Accidental Bard
A Dribble Of Ink
Adventures in Reading
The Agony Column
The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent.
Barbara Martin
Bibliophile Stalker
Bibliosnark
BillWardWriter.com
Blood of the Muse
Bookgeeks
Bookslut
The Book Smugglers
Bookspotcentral
The Book Swede
Bookrastination
Breeni Books
Cheaper Ironies [pro columnist]
Cheryl’s Musings
Critical Mass
Dark Wolf Fantasy Reviews
Darque Reviews
Dave Brendon’s Fantasy and Sci-Fi Weblog
The Deckled Edge
Dragons, Heroes and Wizards
Dusk Before the Dawn
Enter the Octopus
Eve’s Alexandria
Fantasy Book Critic
Fantasy Cafe
Fantasy Debut
Fantasy Book Reviews and News
Fantasy and Sci-fi Lovin’ Blog
The Fix
The Foghorn Review
From a Sci-Fi Standpoint
The Galaxy Express
Galleycat
Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review
Grasping for the Wind
The Green Man Review
Hasenpfeffer
Highlander’s Book Reviews
io9
Jumpdrives and Cantrips
Lisa Paitz Spindler’s Danger Gal Reviews
Literary Escapism
Michele Lee’s Book Love
Monster Librarian
Mostly Harmless Books
My Favourite Books
Neth Space
NextRead
OF Blog of the Fallen
The Old Bat’s Belfry
Outside of a Dog
Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist
Piaw’s Blog
Post-Weird Thoughts
Publisher’s Weekly
Reading the Leaves
Realms of Speculative Fiction
Rob’s Blog o’ Stuff
Robots and Vamps
ScifiChick
SF Diplomat
SciFiGuy
Sci-Fi Songs [Musical Reviews]
Severian’s Fantastic Worlds
SF Gospel
SF Reviews.net
SF Revu
SF Signal
SF Site
SFF World’s Book Reviews
Silver Reviews
Speculative Fiction Junkie
Speculative Horizons
Spontaneous Derivation
Sporadic Book Reviews
Stella Matutina
The Sword Review
Tangent Online
Temple Library Reviews
Tor.com [also a publisher]
The Road Not Taken
Un:Bound
Urban Fantasy Land
Vast and Cool and Unsympathetic
Variety SF
Walker of Worlds
Wands and Worlds
The Wertzone
WJ Fantasy Reviews
The World in a Satin Bag
WriteBlack

Foreign Language (other than English)
Cititor SF [Romanian, but with English Translation]
Elbakin.net [French]

Bond is an Australian/British string quartet with a classical crossover sound (what I’d call Classical Techno). The group has been described as “the best selling string quartet of all time,” and has sold over 4 million records. The quartet consists of Haylie Ecker (first violin, from Perth, Australia), Eos Chater (second violin, from Cardiff, Wales), Tania Davis (viola, from Sydney) and Gay-Yee Westerhoff (cello, from Hull, England). Read more about Bond on Wikipedia.