Another Award for Fight Like A Girl!
Another Award, you say?
Why yes, we’ll have some of that! Very happy to see Fight Like A Girl 2 doing this well, and nominated for a second major UK SFF Award, this time from the British Fantasy Society.
Contents are as follows:
- Foreword by Roz Clarke & Joanne Hall
- Introduction by Charlotte Bond
- The God of Lost Things Or Ethel, Dragonslayer by Danie Ware
- Ambition’s Engine by Gaie Sebold
- A Human Response by Dolly Garland
- More Trouble Than She’s Worth? by Cheryl Morgan
- Civil War by Juliet E. McKenna
- Lady Cona by Anna Smith Spark
- Ready for Combat by K R Green
- We have Always Been Here by Julia Hawkes-Reed
- The Seamstress, the Hound, the Cook, and her Brother by K T Davies
- A Way Out by S. Naomi Scott
- Amplify by Lou Morgan
“For me a healthy genre is one that constantly evolves and continues a dialogue with itself; reflecting who we are now and not stuck in its past. Eight years can be relatively recent but it seems only a few years ago we were being told no women read or write fantasy (to the surprise of the many women who did), cons would have strange ‘women in fantasy’ panels where authors of vastly different sub genres and styles would be grouped together as clearly all women wrote the same book, and yet now that has happily led to a new genre that is not unusual. Is that it all done? No just like the wider outside world changes we are still exploring the role and indeed the definition of a woman in a science fiction or fantasy environment. Roz Clarke and Joanne Hall have delivered the excellent Fight Like A Girl Volume 2 with a host of excellent authors delivering intelligent and hugely enjoyable stories to push that conversation onwards.” — Runalong Womble, Runalong the Shelves
Nominations and Awards like these truly keep the 'speculative' in 'speculative fiction', reminding us all that there is SO much wonderful work out there, a wider range of concept and narrative creativity, embracing more than just the latest trend. You may not find them on the tables of major bookstores, but there are a myriad small presses, publishing fascinating and ground-breaking titles, and so many authors and editors whom you'll probably not see on booktok. Awards like these continue to support the entire community, writers, artists and creatives across the industry as a whole.
Find all of the nominees, here.
Reading: Having finished three books simultaneously (Alan Dean Foster’s Spellsinger, H G Wells’ The Invisible Man and Tabitha Stanmore’s Cunning Folk: Life in an Era of Practical Magic, I’m honestly wondering how to follow that lot up. I tried reading the last of the new DragonLance trilogy (which I eventually binned in disgust), but maybe something else will present itself.
Watching: We’ve restarted FarScape, as we haven’t watched it in years, and it comes with a rediscovery of just what a wonderful series it is. Puppets are always better than CGI, Browder does ‘utterly hatstand insane’ with a genuine, frothing-at-the-mouth glee, both Black and Hey are unfeasibly gorgeous (on the subject of Fighting Like a Girl), as well as being independent, thoroughly capable and (mostly) fully dressed, and Simcoe would give any self-respecting Klingon a serious run for their bat’leth. And who wouldn’t love to see Rygel take on Quark in a dodgy-deal, mercantile show-down?
Playing: Bit stuck for new game art the moment, but looking forward to starting Al-Qadim at the end of the month, and to the upgraded NeverWinter Nights 2. I remember playing the first one, endlessly, probably 25 years ago, and I’m sure there was door I could never get past…