Thank you! I admit, it's a *lot* of fun to write these pieces 😀 I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to do so!

Title: Folded Spaces by Val Nolan (Interzone 301) Subheading: Generic Discontinuities in SF Body text: The passing of a titan is always cause for reflection. So it is with the death of Fredric Jameson last September at the age of 90. Jameson has been called the world’s greatest Marxist critic. His work spanned the academic arenas of postmodernism, postcolonialism, popular culture, architecture, utopian studies, and more, often becoming quite central to those fields. Moreover, he was possessed of a deep interest in the promotion and critical analysis of Science Fiction, emerging as a significant figure in the early years of the journal Science Fiction Studies. It was to the second issue of that publication that Jameson contributed the article ‘Generic Discontinuities in SF: Brian Aldiss’s Starship’ (Science Fiction Studies, 1973; later reprinted in Jameson’s 2005 volume Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions). Ostensibly a discussion of SF’s spaceship-as-universe trope, the article offers a microcosm of Jameson’s wider work: his curiosity regarding form, his emphasis on dialectical thought, and his interest in the power of signs and language.

Title: Folded Spaces by Val Nolan (Interzone 302) Subheading: Psience Fiction and Technology Body text: Everything in life is a spectrum. Consider science fiction and how it runs from diamond-hard sf to bombastic space opera through a cluster of alternate histories and near future punk tales before, eventually, exploding through the far side of the bookshelves again as science fantasy. As overviews go this is, of course, a generalisation – the kind we might use in the classroom to jumpstart discussion – but it does model the variety of spectra which critics can usefully identify at the level of subgenre, with regard to individual tropes, or even in charting the relationship between common narrative elements (if nothing else, the love of a good schema is universal in academia!). A thought-provoking example of just this is found in Susan Stratton’s article ‘Psi and Technology in Science Fiction’ from a special 1998 issue of Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts devoted to the depiction of psychic powers. What Stratton calls ‘psience fiction’, a term she backengineers from Peter Lowentrout’s use of ‘PsiFi’, has been a core element of speculative writing from its earliest years (though it became especially popular in the pulp era).

Title: Folded Spaces by Val Nolan (Interzone 303) Subheading: The Imagined Wests of Kim Stanley Robinson Body text: The frontier has always been a powerful symbol in science fiction. Indeed, both Westerns and sf originate as, basically, adventure stories, and a seam of each has consistently emphasised rugged life on lands or planets tamed through romanticised human grit, technologically-enabled terraforming, and, not unimportantly, the violence of settler colonialism. Such themes are particularly apparent in the American branch of the family for obvious reasons of cultural, geographical, and historical proximity. This use of ‘tropes and interpretations of the American western experience’ is the subject of Carl Abbott’s ‘Falling into History: The Imagined Wests of Kim Stanley Robinson in the “Three Californias” and Mars Trilogies’ (Western Historical Quarterly, 2003). Abbott, an historian of the frontier and an urbanist scholar, has often written about sf material. Here as elsewhere he frames science fiction as ‘a natural extension of the nineteenth-and twentieth-century West onto settings that stretch even more broadly across space and more deeply into time’.

Voting for the @britfantasysoc.bsky.social Awards is open! I'd be grateful if voters considered my Interzone 'Folded Spaces' column about the history of spec-fic criticism in the non-fiction category! 😀 Here's three opening pages from my 2025 instalments! britishfantasysociety.org/voting-opens... 😀

Do art.

Childhood you remembers.

Trust your inner child.

Do art.

Limerick mansion with 49 bedrooms primed for Ryder Cup teed up for €3m sale Property was built by Edward Smith O’Brien, son of William Smith O’Brien, an Irish nationalist MP and leader of the Young Ireland movement

Forget that Ryder Cup sh!t in the headline... Who wants to set up a school for mutants in the West Limerick countryside?!

Huge congratulations to everyone on this year's Hugo finalists list! 🥳 A spectacular selection! www.lacon.org/hugofinalists/

Close-up of a vintage Nintendo Game Boy with the Tetris game displayed, a Tetris cartridge to its left, and the console's original packaging in the background. The scene is nostalgic and colourful, set against a vibrant, striped backdrop.

Happy 37th birthday to the Nintendo Game Boy!

There can be no doubt that the biggest source of funding for UK academia is the unpaid labour of staff.

Masterclass — CYMERA Lead by Dr Tiffani Angus, this 2+ day masterclass will focus on on critique, editing, and the publishing industry. Who is it for? Newer writers, those with little experience of workshopping/critiqu...

Calling all newbie writers! Join my 2+ day Masterclass at @cymerafestival.co.uk this June. We’ll be doing some critiquing, learning about editing & publishing, and I’ll be running a SFF/H worship on the last morning. WAY MORE info here:

www.cymerafestival.co.uk/programme-26...

To the left, the cover (red and black) of "Spec Fic For Newbies: A Beginner's Guide to Writing Subgenres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror" Vol 1 by Tiffani Angus and Val Nolan. To the right, a list of the topics covered by the book: "Learn about writing… Spaceships, Aliens, Big Dumb Objects, Robots, Military SF, Utopia, Dystopia, Apocalypses, Cyberpunk, Solarpunk, Folktales & Fairy Tales, Witches, High Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, Grimdark, Historical Fantasy, Steampunk, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Time Travel, Gothic Horror, Supernatural Horror, Vampires, Psychological Horror, Body Horror, Zombies, Suburban Horror, Splatterpunk, Techno Horror, and Cosmic Horror!"

To the left, the cover (blue and black) of "Spec Fic For Newbies: A Beginner's Guide to Writing Subgenres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror" Vol 2 by Tiffani Angus and Val Nolan. To the right, a list of the topics covered by the book: "Learn about writing… Space Opera, Astronauts, First-Contact Stories, Climate Fiction, Pandemic Fiction, Uplifted Animals, Submarine Stories, Mysterious Islands, Biopunk, The Multiverse, Mythic Fantasy, Fairies, Goblin Markets, Enchanted Clothing, Dragons, Cryptozoology, Body Swaps, Portal Fantasy, Comedic Fantasy, Carnivalesque, Folk Horror, Ghost Stories, Werewolves, Possessed/Cursed Items, Animals That Attack, Evil Children, Ecohorror, Gendercide, Places People Shouldn’t Go, & Last Person Left Alive Stories!"

To the left, the cover (green and black) of "Spec Fic For Newbies: A Beginner's Guide to Writing Subgenres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror" Vol 3 by Tiffani Angus and Val Nolan. To the right, a list of the topics covered by the book: "Learn about writing… Space Academies, Superheroes, Terraforming Tales, Mad Scientists, Space Westerns, SF Procedurals, Meta SF, Spy-Fi, Searches For God In Space, The End Of The Universe, Dinosaur Tales, Archaeologist Stories, Hollow Earth, Elves, Magic Schools and Dark Academia, Wizards & Sorcerers, Magical Realism, Anthropomorphic Fantasy, Fantasy of Manners, Swashbuckling Fantasy, Weird Fiction, Urban Gothic, Shapeshifters, Birthing Monsters, Alien Abductions, Fungal Horror, Bugs!!!, Kaiju, Deals With The Devil, Near-Death Experiences"

The Locus recommended, BSFA/BFA shortlisted *Spec Fic For Newbies* writing guide series: three stand-alone books, 90 subgenres & major tropes! Fun & informative introductions to writing Sci-Fi, Fantasy, & Horror! Available now from
@lunapress.bsky.social: www.lunapresspublishing.com/academic-non...

announcing ILÚVATAR, my multi-billion dollar company which will specialize in the dismantling of all other idiotically tolkien-named entities, that they shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite

I'll throw in a random how-to here for anyone who might be interested in tips from me in how to do criticism: set yourself an impossible task and then try and do it. (4/-)

Caught the Stargate SG-1 episode 'The Light' this evening and, honestly, it's 2001's most prescient story about the harmful effects of social media.

Look, for my money the absolute game changer technologies right now are batteries and biosciences, not statistically modeling a mid conversation, but you do you.

This is a fun read 👽

4-panel comic by War and Peas Panel 1: Two green alien astronauts at an archaeological dig on post-apocalyptic Earth. One alien says to a crowned alien that's just arriving, "Commander, we've discovered an artefact. The humans called it 'Internet'." Panel 2: The two aliens stand beside a wheeled computer console on the ruined Earth surface. The alien at the keyboard says, "We were able to reconstruct some of the data." Panel 3: The crowned alien watches a screen showing an orange cat batting at a ball of yarn. Panel 4: Close-up of the crowned alien crying green tears. The other alien says, "It's pretty much all like this." The crowned alien replies, "Beautiful."

A fox (red and white fur) stands in long grass behind a timber fence. The fox has turned its head sideways so we can see it in profile.

Wonderful visitor in the field in front of the house this afternoon! 🦊

I genuinely loved it. So strong right out of the gate. Like seeing old friends but, not unimportantly, I also really enjoyed the new generation of characters. Consistently found myself looking forward to the new episode every week.

Fiction Anthology Purchasing Factors This survey is designed to help clarify how people decide on buying and reading short fiction anthologies. For the purposes of this survey, I am defining "anthology" to mean a book of multiple short...

Some indy research that I'll be sharing results of for everyone to see / use! This survey is on short fiction anthologies. You can take it even if you never read them, as there are Qs about that, too. The aim is to help anthologies shine, so please share it!
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

This is a valid point: whenever you see this sort of high-pressure sales tactic turned on a technology, you can be CERTAIN that it's a fake—actually useful new tech sells itself!

And don't underestimate the effectiveness of FOMO as a tool in the hands of a con artist.

Top Gun with a Cat YouTube video by OwlKitty

Honestly, if Top Gun 3 isn't just a full length version of the Owl Kitty video then what even is the point?

A hundred thousand years is a long time in politics.

This is v exciting! Esp. bc this book is very much on my tbr.

I am the very model of a modern Major-General, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral...

A lone human stands on a deserted road at night, holding a flashlight.

We're almost 6 weeks til go-time, til D-Day, til we head out seeking the TRUTH. So yes, the speaker details are imminent... Keep an eye on here over the coming days to find out who's going to enlighten us at Writing the Occult: Seekers on 30 May.

writingtheoccult.carrd.co

INTERZONE | Patreon Get more from INTERZONE on Patreon. a European magazine publishing fiction & non-fiction. Support INTERZONE and get exclusive access to their work.

And, if these snippets catch your eye, don't forget that you can subscribe to Interzone here for the full column and much, *much* more: www.patreon.com/cw/Interzone...

Title: Folded Spaces by Val Nolan (Interzone 301) Subheading: Generic Discontinuities in SF Body text: The passing of a titan is always cause for reflection. So it is with the death of Fredric Jameson last September at the age of 90. Jameson has been called the world’s greatest Marxist critic. His work spanned the academic arenas of postmodernism, postcolonialism, popular culture, architecture, utopian studies, and more, often becoming quite central to those fields. Moreover, he was possessed of a deep interest in the promotion and critical analysis of Science Fiction, emerging as a significant figure in the early years of the journal Science Fiction Studies. It was to the second issue of that publication that Jameson contributed the article ‘Generic Discontinuities in SF: Brian Aldiss’s Starship’ (Science Fiction Studies, 1973; later reprinted in Jameson’s 2005 volume Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions). Ostensibly a discussion of SF’s spaceship-as-universe trope, the article offers a microcosm of Jameson’s wider work: his curiosity regarding form, his emphasis on dialectical thought, and his interest in the power of signs and language.

Title: Folded Spaces by Val Nolan (Interzone 302) Subheading: Psience Fiction and Technology Body text: Everything in life is a spectrum. Consider science fiction and how it runs from diamond-hard sf to bombastic space opera through a cluster of alternate histories and near future punk tales before, eventually, exploding through the far side of the bookshelves again as science fantasy. As overviews go this is, of course, a generalisation – the kind we might use in the classroom to jumpstart discussion – but it does model the variety of spectra which critics can usefully identify at the level of subgenre, with regard to individual tropes, or even in charting the relationship between common narrative elements (if nothing else, the love of a good schema is universal in academia!). A thought-provoking example of just this is found in Susan Stratton’s article ‘Psi and Technology in Science Fiction’ from a special 1998 issue of Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts devoted to the depiction of psychic powers. What Stratton calls ‘psience fiction’, a term she backengineers from Peter Lowentrout’s use of ‘PsiFi’, has been a core element of speculative writing from its earliest years (though it became especially popular in the pulp era).

Title: Folded Spaces by Val Nolan (Interzone 303) Subheading: The Imagined Wests of Kim Stanley Robinson Body text: The frontier has always been a powerful symbol in science fiction. Indeed, both Westerns and sf originate as, basically, adventure stories, and a seam of each has consistently emphasised rugged life on lands or planets tamed through romanticised human grit, technologically-enabled terraforming, and, not unimportantly, the violence of settler colonialism. Such themes are particularly apparent in the American branch of the family for obvious reasons of cultural, geographical, and historical proximity. This use of ‘tropes and interpretations of the American western experience’ is the subject of Carl Abbott’s ‘Falling into History: The Imagined Wests of Kim Stanley Robinson in the “Three Californias” and Mars Trilogies’ (Western Historical Quarterly, 2003). Abbott, an historian of the frontier and an urbanist scholar, has often written about sf material. Here as elsewhere he frames science fiction as ‘a natural extension of the nineteenth-and twentieth-century West onto settings that stretch even more broadly across space and more deeply into time’.

Voting for the @britfantasysoc.bsky.social Awards is open! I'd be grateful if voters considered my Interzone 'Folded Spaces' column about the history of spec-fic criticism in the non-fiction category! 😀 Here's three opening pages from my 2025 instalments! britishfantasysociety.org/voting-opens... 😀

🧵 If you are not familiar with the City of Limerick you don’t understand culture, life or art. It’s one of those world cities that beats with the zeitgeist. It was seat of the only Irish Soviet & left wing when the Irish theocracy was far right socially. Its authors & poets were alternative … [1]

Dilman Dila's Signs With Luna For His New Solarpunk Novel, Dreams of a Yellow Balloon It is always a pleasure to work with our Luna authors on their new projects, and so it is with great joy that we welcome once again Dilman Dila and his new Solarpunk novel, Dreams of a Yellow Balloon,...

Always a pleasure to work with our Luna authors on their new projects, so it is with great joy that we welcome once again Dilman Dila and his new Solarpunk novel, Dreams of a Yellow Balloon, scheduled for release in 2028. 💙@booksfromscotland.bsky.social @africansfs.bsky.social

Truly one of the worst tropes in any media is the character who is blatantly neurodivergent but is "brought out of their shell" by another, more extroverted, character. No, you can't entirely change someone's personality type & mental processing by forcing them out of their comfort zone. Stop it.

Honestly, yes. Especially after the outpouring of angry macho spittle that took over the streets last week.