Culture Consumption: November 2023

Hi, lovelies. Here’s my month in books, television, and games.

Books

“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.”

Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus enters into the magical world of a circus unlike any other. It’s a beautiful place that feels like entering into a kind of monochrome fairyland, with each and every exhibit dressed in black and white. And indeed, the circus is more magical than it seems — because it lies at the center of a magical competition in which two students of magic are pitted against each other in a years-long competition. The story beautiful weaves through time and explores multiple character perspectives to provide a wonderful

Poetry as Spellcasting, written and edited by Tamiko Beyer, Destiny Hemphill, and Lisbeth White is a beautiful collection of essays and poetry about the ways in which poetry connects to and reflects the sacred, spiritual, and magical — and the ways the author use the act of writing poetry as a sacred practice, a form of healing, a method for connecting with ancestors and community, and a path toward building a better future. In addition to the essays and poetry, the book includes prompts and suggestions to delving into poetry while staying grounded and connected to spirit.

In the essay “Articulating the Undercurrent,” Dominique Matti writes:

“I learned that it was possible to feel what one could not otherwise know. And that I could transmit feeling where rational explanation failed, by using poetry like a lyre — plucking invisible energetic strings. I discovered that where no one would cry for me, my poetry could conjure easy tears. And when my spirit could not represent itself in mundane gesture, it could rise up and shout in verse.”

In “Text of Bliss,” Kenji C. Lui writes:

“There is a time and place for the poetry of comfort and contentment, the poem that pleases aesthetically even if the subject is difficult. Beyond that, I think my poetry goal is to break something. Not in the sense of something broken in my interior, a confession and healing, but instead a methodical attempt to

break certain aspects of

this world.

. . . to bring to a crisis [their] relation with language.

In “Poetry as Prayer,” Hyejung Kook writes:

“Rilke says, ‘Every angel is terrifying.’ But what if you are the angel? What if the power you are afraid to call upon and know is your own power? Consider the possibility that the outward address of poetry as prayer was actually an inner invocation, a tapping into our own divine and enlightened self.”

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Culture Consumption: December 2023

Hi, lovelies. Here’s my month in books, movies, television, and games.

Books

System Collapse is the seventh book in Martha Wells’ Murderbot series — one of my all-time favorite series and one of the few that I feel compelled to continue reading after the first few books. Murderbot is still its sarcastic self, but lacks the usual confidence when it comes to facing incoming dangers and protecting its humans. The harrowing events have left their mark on Murderbot. Although its mechanical aspects are able to recover quickly, its organic bits are marked by trauma, causing panic attacks. But life doesn’t stop for trauma and new dangers arise while the team works to help the surviving colonists on an alien remnants contaminated planet. I love the way this book continues to evolve this character and its relationships with the bots and humans who have become its family. This is such a wonderful series.

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Culture Consumption: October 2023

Hi, lovelies. Here’s my month in books, movies, television, and games.

Books

Don’t Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones is the second book of the Indian Lake Trilogy. Four years after the deadly events of the first book, Jennifer “Jade” Daniels is released released from when her murder conviction is overturned. She returns to her home in the rural lake town of Proofrock a different person. After the trauma of surviving the Independence Day Massacre and the years being ground down by the prison system, Jade has revert to her birth name of Jennifer and is more reserved. She has let go of her obsession with slasher movies and attempts to let go of the past.

But fate does not allow her to go free — and just as she is released, convicted serial killer Dark Mill South escapes from a prison transport near the town and he takes up his role of murderer at large, beginning to kill off teenagers in a way that replicates classic horror movies. In order to survive, Jade is going to have to team up with old friends and find the new final girl in order to prepare her for what’s coming.

Don’t Fear the Reaper is another fantastic story from Jones and I particularly love Jade’s journey in this book, as she regains her courage, anger, and forthrightness. Along with working through her trauma, she allows herself to grow connected with, care about, and  in some cases forgive the people around her (something she wasn’t able to allow for when she was younger). She has learned that these connections matter and her care for them is a driving force of her regained strength.

I also really liked seeing from the perspectives of multiple people throughout the town, which revealed how the traumatic events really affected everyone. It also provided increased tension as the body count slowly rose, since seeing through other characters eyes brought us face to face with the horrors as they unfolded.

Coincidentally, Jade Daniels (especially with a third book on the way) represents a final girl who can’t seem to escape the ongoing saga of violence that surrounds her — makes for a nice companion read to my essay “The Never-Ending Tedium of Survival” about final girls who are caught in franchises that force them to struggle to stay alive again and again.

Tracy Fullerton’s Game Design Workshop is an excellent read for anyone looking into understanding the full scope of the game design process. The book carries the reader through every step of the process, from ideation to prototyping, development and iteration, QA testing, and publishing. In addition, she provides Exercises at the end of most sections that provide the reader with an opportunity to further explore the concepts in a practical way, which also offers a means of building a portfolio of work as you follow along (a step that I skipped at this time, but intend to pursue down the road).

Another great aspect of the book is that it is peppered with personal perspectives and anecdotes from various game designers, producers, writers, and creatives who make games. They expand on some of the information that Fullerton provides and also share their journey into games, what inspires them, and how they approach problems during the development process. It’s a fantastic way to expand the scope of the discussion.

My copy was the 4th Edition, published in 2019, so some of Fullerton’s perspectives in regards to the status of the games industry (in Chapter 15) are a bit outdated, since the nature of the industry is constantly changing. So, I would imagine that a new edition could be due soon. However, the bulk of this book remains valid — as it provides valuable insights and perspectives on how to approach making games.

Continue reading “Culture Consumption: October 2023”

Immortality, the 1960s, and the Power of Women’s Voices

Set in Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love, Gwendolyn Kiste’s Reluctant Immortals, gives voice to two often forgotten women of literature — Lucy Westenra from Dracula and Bertha Mason from Jane Eyre. Having both been turned immortal against their will, the two women band together in the face of an eternity in which they must continually fight off the control of the men who changed them. When Dracula and Rochester make a sudden return, the two women draw on the strength of their sisterhood to make a stand and claim their own power and space in the world.

I recently spoke with Kist about her novel and the writing life in an interview published on Interstellar Flight Magazine. In the interview, she notes:

“Women’s voices have so often been silenced. That’s true of real-life women as well as female characters. We tend to be seen as being less important to the world and less important to storytelling. You can see this throughout literature, and while it’s been getting better over the last few years, we still have a long way to go.”

Fantastical and Frightening Books About Women Reclaiming Their own Power

Recently, I put together a list of “the best fantastical and frightening books about women reclaiming their own power” for the Shepherd website, which aims to help folks discover new books. Generally, I balk at using the phrase “the best,” since there are so many more amazing books in the world that I had yet to read. However, this is the format the website uses.

As per the request of the editors, I specifically picked books that felt connected to my collection of prose poetry, Twelve.  This means that I wanted to include a mixture of prose and poetry books, as well as focusing on books that are connected to fairy tales and/or folklore. And truthfully, I love each and every one of these books and I hope many other folks come to love them, too.

If I were allowed to expand my list to beyond the five I listed, I would also included any or all of the following (to name a few):

  • Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom (which I just completed at the end of December)
  • Goddess of Filth by V. Castro
  • Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
  • The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin
  • Circe by Madeline Miller
  • Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold
  • Transformations, poems by Anne Sexton
  • Drink, poems by Laura Madeline Wiseman
  • The Moment of Change (a collection of feminist fantasy poetry), edited by R.B. Lemburg

And I’m sure I will discover many more such books of fantastical and frightening female empowerment in the future.