ICYMI/SYD #7

Our first podcast focuses on
Ada Palmer's "Terra Ignota" series.

In case you missed it, so you don't:

On Positron:

• We've started a Podcast! Goodness.
• 2 Theatrical outings/reviews: The House Theatre's production of Diamond Dogs, and Otherworld Theatre's A Princess of Mars.
• New Hive Mind: Futures (and Fantasies) Worth Fighting For.
• Recap of a cool talk at SAIC about environmentalism & SF.
• Meeting notes! Think Galactic: Too Like the Lighting & A Taste of Honey. Chicago Nerds: A Planet for Rent & Agents of Dreamland. Classic Sci-Fi: Holy Fire. Weird & Wonderful: Wool & Magic for Beginners.

Around Chicago:

• Jeff VanderMeer is around town, doing some talks about his forthcoming book Borne:
•  4/19 @ Depaul's Institute for Nature and Culture
• 4/24 @ Dekalb Public Library, hosted by Anderson's Books
• 4/26 @ Chicago Athletic Association, hosted by Volumes Book Cafe 
• Thursday 4/20, check out the  Comics, Culture, & Society half-day symposium at UIC.
• This coming weekend is C2E2, the Windy City Paper & Pulp Convention, and the Chicago YA Book Fest (whew). Lots and lots going on around C2E2, will try to post a round-up tomorrow.
• Welcome to Night Vale is doing 2 live shows in Chicago, the 25th & 26th @ The Vic & Thalia Hall, respectively.
• A few SF/F-notable events at the Chicago Humanities Festival, including a talk with the creators of the Kindred graphic novel adaptation.
• Further down the road:
• Cory Doctorow is in town to discuss his new novel Walkaway May 7th, again hosted by Volumes.
• Wiscon is nearly upon us! May 26-29 in Madison.

The Wider World & The World Wide Webs:

• Awards!
• The Hugo Nominees are out! It's a freaking fantastic list.
• David Hutchinson's Europe in Winter won the BSFA for best novel! I quite liked it.
• Charlie Jane Anders' All the Birds in the Sky won the Crawford! The Chicago Nerds quite liked it (and it's on many other clubs' lists, as well).
• Odyssey Con seems to be imploding spectacularly after mishandling harassment concerns; all guests of honor have now withdrawn, and the con is offering refunds for attendees. If you want to read more, maybe start with the File 770 report and go from there. This whole thing is just textbook "how not to handle safety concerns re: harassment"; the only bright point has been the many awesome folks in the industry & fandom supporting Valentinelli. This Con wasn't even on my radar until recently, and I stuck it on the events list since Madison is in easy reach of Chicagoland—sorry to see this whole fubar situation.
• Chicago Review of Books has a nice round-up and some interviews with Chicago-based comic creators who'll be at C2E2.
• CHIRB also did a cool piece with 11 climate fiction authors suggesting other works in the genre.
• Must-read article: Erin Horáková's article on Strange Horizons, Kirk Drift, about the way that culture at large misremembers James T. Kirk in telling ways. This is one of the most insightful bits of criticism I've read in quite a while, and I would not be surprised in the least to see "Kirk Drift" enter the lexicon of useful cultural/cognitive terms. Seriously, read this. The specific example is how we "remember" a Kirk that's very different from the actual text, but it illustrates a far more general point about how the present re-writes the past, and how close attention can reveal problematic misreads and ideological blindspots. Really brilliant.