by Yilin Wang Note: This article first appeared in The Bulletin #216 in October 2021. When I tell other writers who are not familiar with Sinophone literature that I am writing short stories and a novel that play with the wuxia fiction genre in English, I am often met with one or more of the […]
by Valerie Valdes Note: This article previously appeared in The Bulletin #216 in October 2021. You open the SFWA Bulletin to start reading an article about second person point of view (POV), and immediately you’re put off. You didn’t expect the article itself to use this POV, since most articles don’t. What a cheap gimmick, […]
by Nick Wood (NW) & Isiah Lavender III (IL) After finishing a working stint as a psychologist in Aotearoa, New Zealand, I (NW) visited the signing site for the Treaty of Waitangi (1840). This was a bilateral treaty between the colonising British Empire and the tangata whenua (or “People of the Land”, a.k.a. “Maori”), signed […]
by Eleanor Konik Often, speculative fiction relies on common government types, like monarchies and republics, because they’re familiar to readers. History, however, offers other examples of sociopolitical systems. They can be a gold mine for worldbuilding ideas that stretch beyond the mainstream. Informal Governments Many societies worked just fine without strict hierarchical leadership. Power […]
by Naomi Norbez With the release of Cyberpunk 2077 a few months back, there has been some debate about what it means to be cyberpunk, and how that genre should be executed. As someone making a response game called Eyewear Cleaner 2077, I thought I’d throw in my two cents. In a world of free data […]
by Andrew Hoe Human martial arts styles are biased: they’re specifically designed to fight other humans. Of course, watching Neo trade Kung Fu blows with Agent Smith is awesome, but perhaps our focus on human fighting systems in sci-fi affects our imagining of alien/robot bodies. Put simply, it makes composing fight scenes easier. By […]
by Priya Chand All narrators are unreliable. If you’re reading this thinking “hey, you’re misusing the term; ‘unreliable narrator’ refers to a specific convention”–well, I’m narrating this post, so what follows is all my interpretation! I do, though, genuinely mean to say that all narrators sell readers on a specific version of events and […]
by C.K. Larsen Surely, nothing screams sexy like a bisexual+ woman asking, “How does it feel to kill someone?” Cue the eye roll. Sharon Stone’s persona in Basic Instinct depicts an openly bisexual+ character who is revealed as a violent, sex-craving psychopath, and is just one of the many cases of harmful tropes that […]
by Henry Lien (This article originally appeared in The SFWA Bulletin #215.) Something I’ve noticed repeatedly in my author appearances, conference panels, and lectures is that discussions about representation and diversity in the arts today focus on the importance of diverse characters and creators. As crucial as that is, diversity can and should also include […]
by Hannah Abigail Clarke In the opening credits of Zach Snyder’s Watchmen, the phrase LESBIAN WHORES is briefly scrawled in blood on a wall. The lesbian couple from whom said blood was extracted lie adjacent, lifeless in lingerie. The lesbians here exist to display death. Death binds the lesbians to this opening credit spot, allowing […]
In Book 6 of the A Thousand Li series, two years have passed and the war between the Shen and Wei kingdoms rages on. When Wu Ying’s sister is kidnapped by the dark sect, he starts a quest to retrieve her and finds himself walking into a trap.
Suyi Davies Okungbowa is the author of Son of the Storm (Orbit, May 2021), the first in The Nameless Republic epic fantasy trilogy, and David Mogo, Godhunter (Abaddon, 2019). Find him at @IAmSuyiDavies on Twitter and @suyidavies on Instagram.
