“Fellow cyclists, we need to talk”
The Ottawa Citizen (August 27, 2015)
Three months ago, I started biking to work downtown. In that time, I’ve found a lot of bicyclists are jerks.
“Next Stop: Suburban Fantasy”
On Spec (Spring 2013)
It’s human nature to fear what we don’t understand. To reduce our fear, we strive to explain or rationalize it. These explanations often fit into some contemporary context so we can relate to them. At the same time, we may project something greater than ourselves onto these fears to justify our lack of comprehension.
“On Zombies”
Armand Rosamilia’s Blog (March, 2012)
Zombies don’t get their fa style=”clear: both;”ir share of attention. Vampires, werewolves and Frankenstein’s monster have had the Hollywood treatment. And while we zombie fans have The Walking Dead, vampires have had Buffy, Angel, Dark Shadows, Forever Knight, Vampire Diaries, Tru Blood and more on TV. Aside from World War Z, what’s the last zombie bestseller you can name?
Why the short end?
Violence.
“All This Has Happened Before: Cycles in Genre Fiction”
On Spec (Fall 2011)
Once upon a time, in a land not too far away, science fiction thrilled the people with tales of wondrous new futures and what dangers new technologies might pose. We settled Mars, led the Fremen against House Harkonnen and rendezvoused with Rama.
But then something happened. We stopped reading science fiction. Fantasy became the dominant genre in the land of make believe. Gone were the advanced machines (and humans) on futuristic worlds. In their place came kick-ass heroines with werewolf lovers fighting mages and fae on a city’s dark streets.
And sci-fi fans wondered: “What happened?”
“On Modern Mythologies”
The ChiZone (September 2011)
On the subject of modern mythologies, my first thought was the term is a contradiction. “Mythologies” implies ancient religions—tales of ancient cultures’ pantheons of gods that convey lessons on right and wrong, identity, why the world is how it is. But in modern times, what stories do we have? There are folks tales or favourable interpretations of history, but a few myths do not make a mythology.
“Not in Utopia Anymore: The Rise of Dark SF”
AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review (September 2011)
Lately it feels like “dark SF” is coming up everywhere—during panels at conventions, in online discussions, and in the submission guidelines of magazines like Apex and ChiZine. Now, “dark fantasy” has been around for a while — a kind of not-horror, not-wizards-and-elves but still dark and supernatural genre—but “dark sf” as a term is relatively recent. So what does it mean, and what makes it “dark”?
“The Genre Wars: Are They Over?”
The Page of Reviews (September 2011)
In August, AE: The Canadian Science Fiction review published my short story “Ascension,” which is about the zombie apocalypse told from a zombie’s point of view. Some would say this alone makes it a horror story. Yet it also deals with mass consciousness and the transcendence of the physical to the purely mental―the zombie apocalypse as the singularity―topics normally found in science fiction.
So, is it then a sci-fi story?
My question is: does it even matter? And are these divisions hurting us as a community?