Speculative Chic Round Up: Week 3

ancillary-mercy-by-ann-leckie-500x750Greetings, and welcome to week three of shameless self-promotion! Our third week at Speculative Chic  was SUPER BUSY, with three days in a row with two posts instead of one. Why all the craziness? Well, we wanted to get our Hugo Reading project wrapped up before the rockets were handed out on Saturday night (and to that affect, CONGRATS to N.K. Jemisin for her Best Novel win!), and I have to say, it’s been a joy to see all these different bloggers reviewing in one place! But we did MORE than just book reviews, so let’s break it down:

Monday, as usual, was another round of My Favorite Things. Nancy discussed Star Trek Collectibles, Bingeable Books, Animate Cat Rosebushes and Power Armor with Sherry, Lane, Keyes, and Whitney.

Then on Tuesday, Tez managed to nab all kinds of eyeballs with The Culling: Clearing the Clutter of Unwanted Books. We promise: no books were harmed in the making of this post!

Wednesday brought our very first day of duel posts. First, Betsy sat down to review the Nebula-winning and Hugo-nominated Uprooted by Naomi Novik. Then yours truly introduced the Orphan Black Rewatch, which starts in September. Whether you’re watching for the first time or the twentieth, we’d love to have you aboard!

jim-butcher-aeronauts-windlass-cover-530x800Thursday had Nu reminiscing about the past ten years of her writing career and the events that jump-started her path to publication. Then Sharon came by and explained how Jim Butcher finally helped her see the Steampunk light in her review of The Aeronaut’s Windlass.

Finally, on Friday, we learned from Coach Sherry that too much feedback CAN be a bad thing, and then Janicu wrapped up our Hugo reading project with her review of Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Mercy. Spoiler alert: it’s a very satisfying end to an awesome trilogy.

What’s on the agenda next week? My Favorite Things returns, of course, and then we’ll discuss portrayals of teens in the apocalypse, debate the pros and cons of Suicide Squad, talk about why Squirrel Girl should be your new favorite superhero, celebrate the return of Harry Potter, and then, if we’re LUCKY, we might gather around the campfire to whisper about Stranger Things.

Won’t you join us?

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Speculative Chic Round Up: Week 1.5

fifth-season_0I don’t intend do to this every week, but it’s been a week and a half since Speculative Chic launched, and I wanted to give you all a chance to see what kind of awesome my contributors have been publishing. So, if you haven’t yet started following Speculative Chic (the best way is subscribing through email/Wordpress), here’s what you may have missed:

Welcome to Speculative Chic

Sound Off! Ghostbusters

My Favorite Things: Soundtrack Love, Fairytale Dectectives, and Awesome Aps

You Can’t Kill The Truth: Re-Reading Mira Grant’s Newsflesh Series Part One: Feed

51OXCIqV26L._SX277_BO1,204,203,200_Broken Earth, Broken Characters: A Review of N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season

Welcome to the Bookstore

Dear Sherry: Scared to Share

As you can see, we’ve already got a lot of content to sift through, and that’s not going to change! Excepting weekends, you can expect to see at least one new post daily, and the content varies from fangirling, commentary, reviews, writing advice, and the inner workings of bookstores. And it varies week to week!

So if you haven’t checked us out yet, please do! Feel free to like posts and comment on those that catch your interest: let Spec Chic’s authors know how much you appreciate their work!

ghostbusters2016

Culture Consumption: January 2016

2016 is here, and more to the point, it’s already February. Time flies when you’re having fun, and in my case, that fun is books, movies, television, and comics! Here’s what I managed to consume in January.

25340696Books

When it came to novels, I started 2016 with a bang! January brought some great reading, and some not so great. I’ve committed to being more discerning when I’m reading books, which means if a book isn’t grabbing me early on, then it goes to the DNF pile. In January, I had two DNFs, and I would’ve had three, because the novelization of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was terrible. I finished it because I’m a glutton for punishment, and because I’m a Star Wars fan. The two books I actually didn’t finish? Were far better written than Foster’s adaptation, but sadly the texts simply did not engage me.

In the win column, Newman’s Planetfall, Bow’s The Scorpion Rules, and Kornher-Stace’s Archivist Wasp were all compelling reads, as was Duncan’s The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter, a book I’m still having trouble believing was written by a guy, given how convincing the heroine’s POV was.

January, in short, was a great reading month.

1) Planetfall by Emma Newman
2) Star Wars: The Force Awakens by Alan Dean Foster
3) Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace
4) The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow
5) The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter by Rod Duncan

Did Not Finish:

1) The Dead of Winter by Lee Collins
2) Phoenix Island by John Dixon

Short Fiction

I hadn’t planned on any short fiction in January, but Lee Robins posted a link to a short story of hers published at Daily Science Fiction, and I had to give it a gander. A great read, and I adored the format.

1) “Tin and Mercury, Gilt and Glass” by Lane Robins

26240977Comics

I have a goal of reading one comic book a day in 2016. Now, that’s not always going to work out: I’ll run out of individual issues, or I’ll get sucked into a graphic novel and read more than one chapter, but that’s the goal. January worked out great, as I not only met my goal (for a total of 31 issues), but I read a hardcover collection in addition (Lumberjanes, what an adorable and fun comic!) as well as a giant, over-sized issue collecting Jem and the Holograms covers for the series so far. Well, read is an exaggeration: there was nothing to read there: just lots of pretty covers to look at!

Graphic Novels:

1) Lumberjanes: To the Max Edition: Volume 1 by Shannon Watters

Individual Issues:

Batgirl #46
Clean Room #3
Descender #8
Descender #9
Jacked #1
Jem and the Holograms #10
Jem and the Holograms Covers Treasury Edition
Lucifer #1
Ms. Marvel #2
Orphan Black: Helsinki #2
Red Thorn #2
Sleepy Hollow: Providence #1
Sleepy Hollow: Providence #2
Sleepy Hollow: Providence #3
Sleepy Hollow: Providence #4
Star Wars #12
Star Wars #13
Star Wars #14
Star Wars Annual #1
Star Wars: Chewbacca #4
Star Wars: Chewbacca #5
Star Wars: Darth Vader #12
Star Wars: Darth Vader #13
Star Wars: Darth Vader #14
Star Wars: Darth Vader Annual #1
Star Wars: Death Vader #15
Star Wars: Obi-Wan & Anakin #1
Star Wars: Vader Down #1
The Sheriff of Babylon #1
The Twilight Children #3
The Walking Dead #149
The Walking Dead #150

Disney-Pixar-Inside-Out-Movie-PosterMovies

Why yes, I did go see Star Wars: The Force Awakens in theaters. Again. I’ve officially seen it twice, which is a woefully small number, but maybe I can correct that before it finishes its theatrical run.

In other news, I finally got to watch Inside Out, which was ADORABLE. The Visit was a nice return to form for M. Night Shyamalan, and the end of Bone Tomahawk freaked me the hell out.

* = repeat viewing

A Perfect Ending
Bone Tomahawk
Cabin in the Woods*
Cop Car
Inside Out
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
Star Wars: The Force Awakens* (in theaters)
The Descent*
The Visit
Tropic Thunder*
What We Do In the Shadows*

galavant_612x816Television Shows

I’m addicted to Cheers, to the point I’m letting on-going comedies like The Big Bang Theory and New Girl simply fall by the wayside. It’s a great show. American Horror Story: Hotel wrapped up, and while there were storylines/characters I liked, I still find that American Horror Story: Asylum is the best. But the most fun to be had in January was the second season of Galavant. It delivered on season one’s cliff-hanger and ended in a wonderful way that allows the story to continue if it gets renewed, but is utterly satisfying if it doesn’t. And the songs…. oh, the songs…..

* = repeat viewing

American Horror Story: Hotel
Cheers Season 2
Cheers Season 3
Galavant Season 2


That’s it from me! Also, feel free to share whatever 2016 stats you’ve got! How many books? How many movies? What were your favorites? Lay them on me!

Cheers!