Lisa Paitz Spindler

I’m switching up the usual Danger Gal installment this week for some excellent conversation about women in television dramas in general and Burn Notice’s Fiona Glenanne in particular.

Earlier this week, I tweeted an article by Amanda Marcotte for The Good Men Project called “How to Make a Critically Acclaimed TV Show About Masculinity.” The Good Men Project endeavors to show us “a glimpse of what enlightened masculinity might look like in the 21st century” and analyze “what does it mean to be a good man in these modern times?”

I wish more of us were having these types of discussions about how in flux and often confusing gender roles can be in today’s world. While we have an unprecedented opportunity to redefine how women and men relate to one another and to the world at large, many people are scared silly not knowing what are “the rules.” The old rules might have been draconian, but at least everyone was on the same page. Still, I’m optimistic that all we need to do is keep sorting through it all with endeavors like The Good Men Project because we’re all re-evaluating each other and ourselves regardless of gender. Oh yeah, and Feminism isn’t just about women, it’s about all of us.

Now that I’ve gotten that soapbox moment out of my system, Marcotte’s post on television and masculinity made one particularly interesting point regarding the perceived lack of strong female protagonists in television dramas:

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Well, 2009 is starting off with a bang. I’ve been immortalized in song!

John Ottinger over at Grasping for the Wind started his Book Reviewer Meme wherein anyone who wanted to be listed in his blogroll as a book reviewer would run the list of everyone in a post. John Anealio of the SciFi Songs Blog writes a new SF-inspired song every week. Well, Anealio wrote one about the Book Reviewer Meme and Danger Gal is listed at the end. Right at the end, where Anealio slows down the beat. Like SciFiGuy, I think Anealio deserves a SciFi Grammy (what would we call it. . . an Anealio?)

Click here to hear the song and read the words. Also, here is the post about the song on Grasping for the Wind.

Now we just need a video.

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]

more graph humor and song chart memes

–Red is so your color. Stargate producer Joseph Mallozzi is entertaining the idea of a “Red Shirt Diaries” episode of Stargate: Atlantis.

– What color is a chameleon in a mirror? In my next story, I might have to write about Chameleon class spaceships that use this technology. A color-changing skin could help spacecraft maintain “comfortable temperatures without the bulk and expense of normal cooling equipment.” The less than half a millimeter thick silicon-coated skin is “an electrolyte sandwiched between two gold-coated polymer sheets” that reflect a large proportion of the sun’s visible and ultraviolet radiation. When charged, the skin turns from transparent to green.

–No more free orange juice. The first red blood cells have been grown in the lab, potentially eliminating the need for blood donations with an inexhaustible Type-O supply.

–A stellar river runs through it. Astronomers have discovered nearly a dozen new stellar rivers—strings of moving stars—over the disk of the Milky Way. By the way, the original title of my novel AVATAR was RIVER OF STARS.

–Not quite the Vitruvian Man. What makes Michael Phelps such a good swimmer?

–We can rebuild him. How to write a better Science Fiction villain. IO9′s Charlie Jane Anders talks about how, in Science Fiction movies at least, we don’t want shades of gray villains, but instead baddies we can conquer, the real world being just the opposite.

–Help! I’ve plummeted to my death, and I can’t get up! Five funniest episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

–”Steampunk is the new black.” Galaxy Express’ Heather is a guest commenter over at Grasping for the Wind discussing Urban Fantasy and the Next Big Subgenre. She talks about the emergence of everything Steampunk these days, and highlights how Romance has been creeping into Science Fiction:

[T]he current trend from romance publishers is toward more SF elements and grittier stories and characters. These aren’t your momma’s futuristic romances anymore…there’s a trend for many SF books these days to routinely include a romantic subplot, even if it doesn’t follow the structure of a typical romance novel (what many folks refer to as “romantic SF”). Because there’s such a range of types and definitions of these stories, I expect more people are reading this blended genre than we’ll ever know.

–Lou Anders’ Pyr Books blog is now a group blog including David Louis Edelman, Kay Kenyon, and Mike Resnick among other Pyr authors.

–What a novel idea. The world’s weirdest vending machines. Yes, Virginia, there is one for books.

–Where does the 8-track tape go? Sit in Captain Kirk’s Chair for a measly $2K.