Asking the Wrong Questions

You could probably run an interesting poll among genre fans to see which ones find the elevator-pitch description for Netflix's new show Sense8 --a globe-spanning genre series from the minds of the Wachowski siblings and J. Michael Straczynski--an immediate selling point, and which ones see it as a reason to stay away.  I have to admit that I'm in the latter group. The involvement of the Wachowskis, whose recent work has vacillated between glorious messes ( Cloud Atlas ) and tedious ones ( Jupiter Ascending ) was cause for some concern, if also no small amount of curiosity.  But Straczynski, best-known for the formally innovative but cliché-ridden and self-satisfied Babylon 5 , gave me some genuine pause.  It was some time before I could bring myself to get past my expectation of long-winded speeches and juvenile cod-philosophy and give the show a try.  I can't exactly say that Sense8 defied these lowered expectations.  It is a mess, and it is cliché-ridde...

Today, July 14th 2015, marks the tenth anniversary of this blog's creation. Just writing that down amazes me.  This is where I'm supposed to say that when I started this blog I had no idea that I'd still be keeping it up a decade later, but the truth is that Asking the Wrong Questions 's longevity, in itself, doesn't surprise me.  I started this blog because I had things to say and nowhere to say them, because I felt unseen and unheard.  It answered, and still answers, a need that I don't ever anticipate being rid of.  What does surprised me is how much this blog has changed my life: the people I've met, on and offline, because of it; the projects that I was given the opportunity to participate in; the greater involvement in genre fandom, culminating in a Hugo nomination; and simply the realization that people from all over the world appreciate and have time for what I have to say. Having said that, ten years is a huge stretch of time, and it's only ...

I had originally planned to write this post some time last month, and make it an analogue to the one I made when the Hugo voting period open--more information than commentary.  But then the seemingly impossible happened, and this year's Hugo clusterfuck managed to throw up yet more sound and fury.  I was so angry about this latest iteration that I couldn't really bear to talk about it until I'd cooled down just a little, which brings us to today.  If all you'd like is the facts--including instructions on how to vote for site selection for the 2017 Worldcon--click here to skip my thoughts.  If you'd like nothing better than yet more Hugo bloviating, read on. To put it briefly, what got me so angry last month was that one of the US's largest SF publishers decided to carry water for bigots.  In early May, Tor creative director Irene Gallo posted a comment on her Facebook page calling the Sad and Rabid Puppies "racists and neo-Nazis."  This is, of cour...