Notes from New Sodom: The Secret Cuisine
Miso Soup at Midnight It’s night in the city of Writing. A librarian sits in the SF Café, looking out on the ghetto of Genre. The whole place has become a little chi-chi over the years, beatnik artists moving in above the brothels and the crack dens. Might almost forget it’s the ghetto, if that [...]
Notes from New Sodom: Calling a Spade a Spade by Hal Duncan
Of Polls and Poles It’s polling day here in the Royal Borough of Kentigern, in the nation of Grand Albion — my country of origin back before I became a fully-naturalised citizen of New Sodom. It’s all terribly tense, with Labour terribly unpopular, but the Conservatives in a bit of a mess and the Liberal [...]
Notes from New Sodom: The Ghost and the Golem – by Hal Duncan
A Rejection of Definition “What SF writers write is SF.” Orson Scott Card So Science Fiction is dead; but the death of Science Fiction is not the end of the story. Rather it’s the beginning of it. Torn apart in the struggles of its factions, deserted by the blood and breath of its most explorative [...]
Notes from New Sodom: The Spelunkers of Speculative Fiction
The Scalpel and the Cigarette “In fact, one good working definition of science fiction may be the literature which, growing with science and technology, evaluates it and relates it meaningfully to the rest of human existence.” H. Bruce Franklin When you watch enough of the daily dogfights down in the SF Café, you can get [...]
Notes from New Sodom: The Kerspindle Kerfuffle
It was Friday night in the city of Writing when the shit hit the fan. I didn’t make it down to the SF Café myself till Saturday afternoon or so, having been off at a gig that Friday night; so when I finally stumbled in, somewhat worse for wear, to grab my daily brunch of coffee and a cigarette over the Twitter Gazette, the kerfuffle was already in full swing. It’s war! people were saying. War! The neighbouring states of Amazonia and Macmilland have gone to war!
Notes from New Sodom: The Scourge of Sci-Fi
In the uptown district of Literature and the midtown district of Mainstream, so the story goes, the high-brow and the mid-brow all turn their noses up when they glance downtown, in the direction of Genre. Fairy tales for children, they sneer.
Hal Duncan’s The Lucifer Cantos – Gimmie One!
Short note, as I love it when I run into something cool. Sweet title? Check. Hal Duncan? Check? Super sweet, envy inducing binding? Yes! The aforementioned Duncan’s (who writes a column here at BSC called Notes from New Sodom–check out his latest The Marriage(s) of Science Fiction / Fantasy) The Lucifer Cantos is coming from (I think) Papaveria Press, which has all kinds of beautiful product I hadn’t see before!
Notes from New Sodom: The Marriage(s) of Science Fiction / Fantasy
Down in the ghetto of Genre, in the SF Café that is our literary salon, in this scene of zines and forums, conventions and clubs, there’s a Great Debate that kicks off every so often. The diversity of the clientele maps to a diversity of opinions — convictions, even — and few of these are as contentious as those addressing the differences or lack thereof between science fiction and fantasy.
Notes from New Sodom: On Blood, Bad Boys and Bottoms by Hal Duncan
The Inner Inhumanity I’ve got a theory, one that’s been brewing for a while really, ever since I first read Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire and Poppy Z. Brite’s Lost Souls. It’s one that’s been partly informed by my… exposure to the Twilight phenomenon, to the general prevalence of the vampire trope these days. [...]
Notes from New Sodom: To the Water-Fountains by Hal Duncan
Latest and second edition of Hal Duncan’s monthly column Notes from New Sodom. If you missed the first, go check out Down in the Ghetto at SF Cafe.
When you’re caught up, check out To the Water-Fountains after the jump…
Notes from New Sodom: Down in the Ghetto at the SF Café
Welcome to the SF Café, in the ghetto of Genre, in the city of Writing, in the Republic of Art. We call it the SF Café because only the letters S and F survive, but you can still see the full name today, The Science Fiction Café and Bar, traced in the grime, outlined in the negative shadow of those clean spaces left where the letters have fallen away. It may look a bit shabby from the outside and there’s surely some weird shit in the window that makes you wonder what the fuck is going on inside. But…
What is Style? by Hal Duncan
Back to the BSC collection of essays, articles, and manifestos! Over the last couple of years one of the great sources of all three has been author Hal Duncan. Duncan’s novels include Vellum and Ink, the first earning Arthur C. Clarke, British Fantasy Society and Locus Award nominations. More recently, his novella, Escape From Hell!, was published by MonkeyBrain books. You can also check out the Hal Duncan file at BSC full of applicable interviews and reviews. We’d like to thank Hal for letting us hold this down!
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