Chicago Nerds- The Winged Histories

For the August meeting of the Chicago Nerd Social Club, we discussed Sofia Samatar's "The Winged Histories"(2016), the companion to her 2013 "A Stranger in Olondria".

The novel is somewhat difficult to summarize--it's a few different stories of women on various sides of a complicated conflict: a civil war with tangled roots in ethnic and religious history. Also, there are vampires (don't read it for the vampires).

Also, like "Stranger", it's just astonishingly, chest-grabbingly good. On the back of my childhood copies of The Lord of the Rings was that Lewis blurb--"here are beauties blah blah", and I think of that when reading the Olondrian novels. Possible spoilers below!

Last Wiscon 40 thoughts

It's hard to believe Wiscon's already two weeks in the past. It's such an experience-rich, though-provoking event. Combined with hectic work-weeks before and after, Wiscon does strange things to my perception of time.

I already posted some recaps of the Book Reviewers and Hive Mind panels, which were a blast. I don't have time to do in-depth recaps of the other three days of that glorious event, but I wanted to share a couple highlights and notes.

Friday evening, Think Galactic hosted a delightful party. TG was formed by Chicago folks inspired by Wiscon, and a good number of the group goes every year--we usually read at least one of the guests of honors' and Tiptree Winners' works.

So this year, we wanted to host a party, and it was a treat! Our theme was "Sci-Fi Saved My Life", and we encouraged people to bring meaningful quotes from SFF works, or to share positive stories about their engagement with speculative literature and culture.

Rousing success! We covered part of the wall in quotes, we had good beer on tap, the chocolate fountain was a hit, and the room decorations and lighting made for a great space. Also, we got to introduce many Wiscon-goers to Malort (Letherbee's Besk, actually), the infamous Chicago liqueur.

For the rest of the weekend, I bounced between academic panels, Guest of Honor events, and a few panels I was speaking on.

My Wiscon Schedule

Just about ready to head to scenic Madison, WI for Wiscon! Here's my agenda thus far:

Friday Night, you should really come to Think Galactic's party: "Sci-Fi Saved My Life". We encourage everyone to bring quotes or passages from SF/F works that have inspired you; we're going to have post-it notes to share with. Rescue-or-savior-related costumes are encouraged! There will be drinks! The party gets going at 8:45pm in Room 627.

"Expanding the Lexicon of Fantasy: The Works of Sofia Samatar" is Saturday, 2:30pm in Conference 4. I'm very excited to be on this panel, we've got so much to talk about. Highly recommended, Samatar is one of the best and most intriguing writers right now, and all of us on the panel have been talking about a whole slew of diverse topics we want to examine and celebrate.

Sunday, I'm on the panel "Why I'm Ashamed to Call Myself an Atheist", which is a bit weird--I'm not ashamed to call myself an atheist, and neither are any of the other folks on the panel. We're spinning the discussion a bit from the original panel description, still looking at issues within various atheist/secular groups and movements (Dawkins' racism/sexism, for instance), but focusing more on positive, intersectional directions and figures. I was more than a bit wary of this panel at first, but after some reassuring back-and-forth with the moderator and other panelists, I'm looking forward to it (especially since lack of secular representation was a concern of mine last year). 4pm in the Caucus.

And finally and most excitingly, I'll be presenting my academic paper on Cherryh & Levinas as part of the "Alien Intimacies and Alternative Worlds" panel, Monday at 8:30am in Conference 3. I am incredibly stoked about this; the paper I'm presenting is a part of, really the heart of, the work I've been doing on Cherryh for a little over a decade now. I'm also looking forward to my co-panelists' talks: Kate Fruend-Heuer's "Families as (Re-)Defined by Octavia Butler" and Alexis Lothian's "It's the Future, But It Looks Like the Present: Queer Speculative Imaginaries".

Seriously, Wiscon is the best. If you're going this weekend, please say hello if you'd like! I'm Jake Casella, it'll say so on my badge!

So much good stuff on the schedule! And really, just a wonderful environment, wonderful folks. Look for site updates and live-tweeting as time & technology allow; Positron will resume normal service next week!

Think Galactic: A Stranger in Olondria

A book is a fortress,

a place of weeping,

the key to a desert,

a river that has no bridge,

a garden of spears.

Oh my goodness, "A Stranger in Olondria" (2013). I was unprepared for how this book was going to sweep me away. Indeed, I reverted to a reading pattern from my youth that I haven't done in a long time: I simply devoured the book in a few sittings over a day or two, then immediately went back to the beginning and read it more slowly.

Sofia Samatar's first full-length novel and most recent winner of the World Fantasy Award, "Stranger" is a very unusual fantasy. At a plot level, it's unusual, though not terribly complex--a wealthy young man visits a much larger and cosmopolitan nation, is haunted by a ghost (which has religious/political ramifications), goes through a lot to be exorcised, goes home. The texture, details, and themes of the story, though, are incredibly rich, and I can already tell this is a book I'll be revisiting a lot.

We had a wonderful discussion of the book at Think Galactic, and were very pleased to welcome a new member who also attends the Classic Sci-Fi Meetup. Possible spoilers below, although I don't really think this is the kind of novel that can be spoiled: