In Search of the Happiness Max

edwardspoonhands:

theashleyclements:

wilwheaton:

jenniferdeguzman:

He said Star Trek is too “philosophical”? Screw that noise.

mechcanuck:

I don’t know when this interview happened but I AM SAD AND ANGRY NOW

The philosophies in Star Trek are kinda part of the actual setting. If you don’t get that, why are you allowed to make Star Trek movies.

Sigh. The whole point of Star Trek is that it’s philosophical. If you don’t want philosophical Science Fiction, there’s plenty of that for you to enjoy, but Star Trek is philosophical. Philosophy is part of Star Trek’s DNA, and if you’re given the captain’s chair, you’d better damn well respect that.

This just… hurts.

This reminds me of all the executives being hired to run YouTube networks who probably couldn’t name more than one YouTube channel.

The one good thing to come out of this is to see other people defending philosophy in science fiction for once. Thanks, guys :)

For when your need to compensate for something reaches extreme levels

Sir, why did you give the war robot high heels? Storming the beaches tomorrow will be interesting...

(via Good Show Sir: Only the worst Sci-fi/Fantasy book covers)

coelasquid:

Wasn’t Westworld’s claim to fame something like being the first motion picture to use pixels on screen?

WestWorld’s claim to fame was that it was AWESOME.

But my rant is actually not quite about that stuff at all. It’s about history, and this notion that History Is Authentically Sexist. Yes, it is. Sure it is. We all know that. But what do you mean when you say “history?”

History is not a long series of centuries in which men did all the interesting/important things and women stayed home and twiddled their thumbs in between pushing out babies, making soup and dying in childbirth.

History is actually a long series of centuries of men writing down what they thought was important and interesting, and FORGETTING TO WRITE ABOUT WOMEN. It’s also a long series of centuries of women’s work and women’s writing being actively denigrated by men. Writings were destroyed, contributions were downplayed, and women were actively oppressed against, absolutely.

“

—

tansyrr.com» Historically Authentic Sexism in Fantasy. Let’s Unpack That. / A great post from Tansy Rayner Roberts; read the whole thing, share it. (via gwendabond)

Yes, exactly!

(via malindalo)

A great post and a really important one for the fantasy fiction genre (everything that is said here also goes for inclusion of PoC, but Roberts is specifically responding to an on-going discussion of sexism as “authentic”).

(via kateelliottsff)

Yes! And this relates to my blog post: Remembering Margaret Cavenish, the first person to write a Science Fiction novel. This honour is usually attributed to a different woman, Mary Shelley, but although Shelley’s influence on the genre is greater, the fact that she is held up over a woman writing centuries previously, with impressive scientific inspiration, is also a symptom of the distortion of history provided by men ridiculing and silencing the efforts of women.

I’ve been thinking about Margaret Cavendish all day…

So I wrote a bit more about her, and The Blazing World, and why you should know who she was.

theoncominghope:

“I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

—

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein. (via riverran)

#mary shelley #this quote though #it’s all kinds of wonderful #hey remember that time one asswipe was like you have 30 seconds to name something invented by a woman… #…and Mary was like SCIENCE FICTION MOTHERFUCKERS #that was awesome #thanks Mary Shelley (via snappily)

And the next time someone starts claiming that teenage girls have ruined the horror genre with romance or whatever you can be like, hey dicksmack, teenage girls and romance built your genre so sit the fuck down.

(via sharpestrose)

Frankenstein is my favorite book.

(via saiyangirlie)

the tags.

(via florafaunamerryweather)

Actually, the first science fiction story was written by a different woman: Margaret EFFING Cavendish.

I mean, props to Mary Shelley, she’s probably been more influential, but you have to give credit where it’s due. Written in 1666, and republished in 1668 alongside her Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, (AKA science before people really used the word ‘science’),The Blazing World was inspired by a visit to the Royal Society (she was the very first woman to do so). She looked down a microscope and it blew her mind to the possibilities of different forms of life.

The Blazing World is about a woman who journey’s to a parallel world before we had a vocabulary for talking about parallel worlds, and before we had even imagined space travel. This ‘twin’ of the Earth was connected at the North Pole. Cavendish’s heroine’s ship is caught in a storm, driven off course, and washed up on this new world. There she encounters strange and wonderful people (before anyone else envisioned aliens) who elect this strange woman to be their Empress and present to her many scientific marvels (including a submarine). Cavendish uses this set up to satirise her own society and explore a world where a woman was allowed power far beyond what Cavendish herself could hope to attain (even as a Duchess with an unusually permissive husband and rare education).

So, like I say, props to Mary Shelley and all, but let’s not obscure the achievements of one woman with those of another. Margaret Cavendish invented science fiction, parallel worlds, travel to other (physical) worlds, aliens, the concept of submarines, and more. Let’s celebrate them both.

‘What does science fiction tell us about the future of reproductive rights?’

This is excellent and extensive. DO NOT let the length put you off. It’s important. Read it.

Annalee Newitz on science fiction, reproductive rights, and child-rearing.

Rejoice in the Sun, by Joan Baez

Some songs enter your conscious at a very early age and never really leave:

The stunning visuals of Silent Running help, of course. I blogged about this today over at The Girls’ Guide to the Apocalypse. I’ve blogged about it before, too, and I’ll doubtless blog about it again. So pretty, so sad, so ever so slightly mad.