Tag Archives: science fiction

The Return of AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review

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AESciFi.ca suffered a major hacker attack in late 2016 that shelved the site and so I have not written for the magazine in three years. However, I did put as much time as I could spare, along with several other old and new friends of AE, to getting the operation up and running again.

The bulk of the time was put in last summer, when I was waiting to begin my master’s program and had time for a passion project. I prepped media materials, did some editing and writing, helped with some simple user-testing of the new site, and co-planned the relaunch with the core team.

Then for a time not a lot seemed to happen. In fact a lot of hard work was going on behind the scenes, from our tech guru setting up the back-end of the site to the slush pile team poring through hundreds and hundreds of story submissions. In late June of this year suddenly we were 99% ready for the return of the magazine and it was time for me to contribute again.

I was wrapping up the academic year at the school I work at, and beginning work on the literature review for my master’s thesis research, since I didn’t have any summer courses to take. Fortunately I had some time and flexibility in my schedule to contribute again. For two or three weeks we were marking off items on the pre-launch checklist and getting ready for liftoff, and then, on July 10, it happened.

I have an essay in the relaunch issue, about sports in science fiction. By all means, feel free to read it. But I’m frankly more proud of the issue itself and, indeed, the the fact we managed to launch it–from editing stories and non-fiction pieces, to sending out press releases and tweets and the email newsletter, and coordinating all of the above. It’s a great magazine, and I’m excited to have it back in operation, but it’s actually pretty special to have been a part of making it happen.

My discretionary time is very limited and will be for the next year or two, but even as I’m stepping back from most writing outside of my academic program, one of the few things I will reserve a bit of time for is the occasional fun essay or book review at AESciFi.

To close off, I was interviewed by a podcast on behalf of the magazine back in the late fall and it has now been published. The total interview is about 20 minutes but has been broken into three bite-sized parts:

Part 1: https://lancerkind.com/podcast/050-introducing-aescifi-magazine/

Part 2: https://lancerkind.com/podcast/051-joel-boyce-aescifi-feature-writer/

Part 3: https://lancerkind.com/podcast/052-ae-canadian-science-fiction-review/

WFP Reviews 2017-2019

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Here are the reviews I’ve written for the Winnipeg Free Press since the last round-up. Fourteen of them! (Actually I’ve written 16, but one hasn’t been published yet and one actually seems to have disappeared into the ether, so I’m going to look into it later.) This time I thought maybe I’d order them from best to worst (in my own subjective opinion).

I generally don’t choose to accept a review assignment if I don’t have some reason to think the book could be good, but I do take risks with new authors and subject matter, which may or may not pay off and yes, there were a few duds, with the bottom three being particularly weak. But let’s focus on the positive and highlight some of the stand-outs.

I’ve become a fan of Cixin Liu, a literary giant in his native China, but new to the English-reading world, and after the success of the Three-Body series on our side of the pond, American publishers are combing through his back-list to keep the momentum going. I’ve reviewed two titles in translation over the last couple of years and both stuck with me, but I rank Ball Lightning (which I read last fall) much higher than Supernova Era (read this spring but not listed below since the review won’t come out until closer to the novel’s publication in October). Both are rather grim, truth be told, but the former turned it to better literary purpose, perhaps because the latter was written in an earlier stage of Liu’s career.

Starlight is Richard Wagamese’s final, technically unfinished novel (though it falls only a chapter short). Wagamese was one of Canada’s Indigenous literary luminaries, and it’s my first time reading this author who was unfortunately taken too soon.

Cory Doctorow is an old favourite of mine, but while I’ve rarely been disappointed, Radicalized surprised me with its impact and with how politically on-point it is, which is particularly difficult with a collection of four novellas rather than a single, cohesive novel. Four urgent stories about our present moment of crisis. Doctorow, as always, is best read fresh, so don’t leave it on your nightstand too long.

Radicalized

Starlight

Ball Lightning

Seventeen

Beyond Incarceration

Lent

Waste Tide

Red Moon

Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

Head On

Retrograde

Prefecture D

Those Who Walk the Road

Catching Up On More Fiction Reviews

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More stuff from the Free Press from this past year, all fiction. It’s been long enough since I’ve done an update I think it’s worth highlighting a couple. In fact, almost all of these titles come from favourite authors of mine (a couple newbies in there as well), but Death’s End, the final book in the trilogy by Cixin Liu (my new favourite foreign-language writer), is a must-read, along with its predecessors. Seriously, one of the all-time best science fiction trilogies, even in translation. You simply cannot skip it.

Also, Kelly Link, if you haven’t read her, do it. She’s so busy as an editor and rarely releases a collection, but she is one of the great short story writers. Get In Trouble meets the high bar set by her earlier work and I very much enjoyed it.

Get In Trouble

Death’s End

Necessity

Last Year

Invisible Planets

The Collapsing Empire

The Last Neanderthal

Origin

Book Review: Second Contacts

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So what happens after first contact? Leaving aside War of the Worlds scenarios where one race is completely destroyed, after the initial shock, what’s it like five or fifty years into  a universe where we know we’re not alone? Human history provides several possible outcomes: ranging from genocide to colonization to occupation to friendship and political alliance to the innocuous missionary outposts or even lone, Marco Polo figure.

Each of these come up in Second Contacts at one point of another, but this is a Canadian anthology . . .

Read my full review at AE.

Book Review: The Affinities

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Wilson imagines how a series of neurological, psychological and physiological tests might determine a sort of modern-day Zodiac, sorting humankind into “affinities” based on their deepest truest selves. Early on, he makes the point that the families we’re born into might be arbitrary, but he does suggest that being loved because you’re part of the same affinity with someone rather than because of a shared genetic lineage comes with its own problems.

Read the full review at AE.

Back to School, Belatedly

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Well, time for some updates. I’ve still been writing, just not here. For this September past I penned a little essay for AE, appropriately, on education-themed science fiction. Perhaps just as appropriate a topic as the school year draws to a close.

You’ll notice my opening paragraph refers to the proverbial cocktail party. Often, when a person is going to pontificate on their career, and especially public perceptions thereof, they start off with, “When I meet people at cocktail parties . . .” I don’t actually go to a lot of cocktail parties, but in fine speculative as well as Einsteinian tradition: assume a perfectly spherical cocktail party. . . .

No, I’m half-kidding. But really, if I’m at the proverbial cocktail party, or some near analogue (gas-station nacho bar), and introduce myself as a teacher, I really do find it gets people talking. But I’m more interested in the deep thinking of smart writers on the topic than your typical non-educators. Thus, the essay. Please read it here.