Alyx Dellamonica

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• Commented on Confessions of a (half-assed) news avoider
  I hope you enjoy it, William!...
• Commented on Confessions of a (half-assed) news avoider
  I agree that we do this: take in the things that support what we believe and shut out the ones that challenge us. But while Facebook makes it easier to imagine we're doing it efficiently and in an automatic way,...
• Commented on Confessions of a (half-assed) news avoider
  I did add a "Y" to Alyxandra to honor Russ and her Alyx, yes....
• Commented on Confessions of a (half-assed) news avoider
  Yes, Longform is amazing! I don't spend nearly enough time there. My first exposure to great feature-length investigative journalism actually came from Spy Magazine, if you can believe it....
• Commented on Confessions of a (half-assed) news avoider
  Yeah, comedy is a great delivery system. There's a show in Canada which premiered before Jon Stewart started doing more or less the same scthick, called This Hour has 22 Minutes. They examined, analyzed, and mocked. It was a good...
• Posted Confessions of a (half-assed) news avoider to Charlie's Diary
  I can't remember a time when, as an adult, I regularly watched TV news. In the days before the internet, there were times when I got and read newspapers: the excellent Edmonton Journal in its heyday, The Globe and Mail,...
• Commented on Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions
  The misandry in Tepper makes it impossible for me to read her, I'm afraid....
• Commented on Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions
  I'm a fan of "the magic user gets the power, the commons pay the price" models. In my current series, they're essentially committing sacrifices by using materials made from living things to write one-off spells whose effects only persist as...
• Commented on Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions
  I like it, Outeast! (In Indigo Springs, the fairies are extinct and their realm has essentially been repurposed for toxic waste storage.)...
• Commented on Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions
  Jocelyn, I love that you did this! Thank you for analyzing "Waldo" so closely! And I'm sorry about the cat bite....
• Commented on Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions
  Hi, all-- It's Wednesday afternoon and I am reading through your comments bit by bit, making a list of the books you're suggesting and seeing what you have to say. I'm still getting a sense of the rhythms here. I...
• Commented on Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions
  Lackey--check! And Modesett and Harkaway. You guys are terrific....
• Commented on Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions
  I definitely prefer a lot of system in my ecosystem. It's all so much more interesting when species are cross-pollinating, magically or otherwise....
• Commented on Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions
  We (my wife Kelly and I) did everything to skew the odds in our favor, including hand-feeding them as baby ferals. If they're trying to kill us, they're exceedingly subtle....
• Commented on Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions
  I'm never quite able to decide about Dune. The prophecies and Messiahs make it fantastical and magical, but there's so much about it that is classic SF. Then again, he was straight up writing about water and oil scarcity. If...
• Commented on Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions
  Oh, those sound amazing. Gerrold's got the next Chtorr book in the can, I believe. The series was a major influence on younger me!...
• Commented on Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions
  Either can have the ecological sensibility, though I agree that they're different things....
• Commented on Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions
  Note to self: Move Nnedi higher in TBR pile. Thank you!...
• Posted Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions to Charlie's Diary
  (Picture proves cats like me back). Something I noticed recently while wearing my (completely invisible but highly attractive) writing teacher chapeau is that the welter of SF subgenres and categories of fiction generally are terra incognita to a fair...
• Posted Magic, ecospeak and genre distinctions to Charlie's Diary Test Bed
  Something I noticed recently while wearing my (completely invisible but highly attractive) writing teacher chapeau is that the welter of SF subgenres and categories of fiction generally are terra incognita to a fair number of newer writers. I’m okay with this. We begin as readers and viewers, after all. Many people coming into my UCLA courses are curious about speculative fiction. They aren't necessarily book-collecting, con-going, award-nominating fans. They've watched a fair chunk of genre TV and film offerings; they're up on the MCU, they can tell a spaceship from a unicorn and they even usually know which is...
• Commented on Check Check Sound Check
  This is why in my current series, the race of cats is cursed. They can survive aboardship or on islands where they're already part of the ecosystem; nowhere else....
• Commented on Check Check Sound Check
  Thanks. Charlie!...
• Commented on Check Check Sound Check
  It has its upsides and its downsides, RDSouth, but the invasive weed element is very much part of the package....
• Commented on Check Check Sound Check
  I wouldn't call it so much "news avoidance" as "crap overload avoidance" Pigeon, you've pretty much expressed everything I believe about this practice, elegantly and in fewer words than I'd have used....
• Commented on Check Check Sound Check
  That's funny--Metropolitan by WJW is one of the books I'm about to mention if I can ever get that ecofantasy essay posted....
• Commented on Check Check Sound Check
  Rex, I agree in principle, but having spent more than half my life believing my marriage wouldn't be legit within my lifetime, I still enjoy being able to say "Incredibly Gay Married!"...
• Commented on Check Check Sound Check
  It does take a bit of doublethink and a lot of effort. What I mostly read are science articles and features--Longreads type stuff--in a narrow band of categories. I don't generally read about war, upcoming wars, elections, crime, politicians, the...
• Commented on Check Check Sound Check
  Are you commenting from your fabulous Roman vacation, Prince?? Because that is above and beyond the call. Thank you for the kind words....
• Commented on Check Check Sound Check
  Thanks, Robby. And if you are hanging on to some of the cats, it's possible I haven't seen them all yet....
• Commented on Check Check Sound Check
  Yes, exactly that kind of thing, Greg. Climate change, terraforming, rewilding... those are the links....