Tuesday, October 13, 2015

A MANIFESTO IN AZTLÁN

(from Ernest Hogan's Mondo Ernesto blog)


Hang onto your nalgas, carnalito/as, my “Chicanonautica Manifesto” is in Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, Volume 40, Number 2, Fall 2015!

It's part of special section called “Dossier: Latino Speculative Literature, Film and Popular Culture.” They even used some of my drawings to illustrate the introduction.


Along with my manifesto is an essay: “From Code to Codex: Tricksterizing the Digital Divide in Ernest Hogan's Smoking Mirror Blues” by Daoine S. Bachman.

Also discussed are Chicanafuturism, Latino@futurism, Jamie Hernandez's comics, Afro-Latina and Mexican immigrant heroines, Chicana/o cyberpunk, Gloria Andzaldúa's sci-fi roots, speculative rasquashismo, and Chicano@futurist visual art!

Order yours now!


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Monday, October 12, 2015

Kicking And Screaming: A Previously Unseen Story By Jody Scott!

(from the estate-authorized Jody Scott site)

\We are tremendously thankful to Mary Whealen for this very special treat: a previously unpublished story by Jody!

Kicking And Screaming
By Jody Scott

Naked we come into this world and handsomely outfitted in a new pinstripe from Big & Tall, complete with a foulard tie, we go out of it.

At any rate that’s what happened to Nettie Polotnik’s husband Phil who had been dead nine years to the very day when our story begins. Philip Hart Polotnik had never been neat while he was alive (Phil died at age fifty-six, his skull broken in a car crash); he drank like a fish, played poker all night long and smelled like the nasty brown cigars he smoked (and those cigars were what killed him, according to Nettie! If it hadn’t been that accident it would have been emphysema like the late Johnny Carson). Nettie herself was the neat one in the family. Their four children, Michael, Tim, Meredith and Polly, now grown-and-gone were about average on the neatness scale, with son Timmy (once a juvenile delinquent, today a world famous oncologist; can you believe such a turn of events?) being the sloppiest of the lot, Nettie was thinking as she hummed somewhat happily while cleaning out the fridge.

Funny how much junk gets collected when a person lives alone. Now why was there an open, moldy (covered with a crawling, green, slimy fuzz; ick! The smell of it—phew! Into the garbage it went)—can of tuna when the only person in this family who even liked tuna was daughter Meredith who lived in New Rochelle and had four children of her own? You’d think—but never mind what you’d think; Nettie didn’t want to dip into that old barrel of pain, regret and sorrow, why should she? She was alive, vibrant and happy, she liked living alone in peace and quiet and most of all you can’t change the past so why bother yourself with it?

“I don’t know about that,” Phil said. “Reality isn’t exactly what we always thought it was, honey.”

Her husband was sitting across the table in his new pinstripe suit, smoking a cigar and drinking coffee which was all wrong because he’d been dead for nearly a decade. . And yet—!

“I’m not going to argue with you so butt the hell out,” Nettie snapped. Feeling tired, she didn’t have time to argue the same foolish old arguments, she had a dental appointment in an hour and had to buy gas on the way (running out of gas was always so embarrassing) and then grocery-shop. But she felt strange, very strange indeed. And there certainly wasn’t any use in snapping at poor dead Phil about it because the poor guy wasn’t even alive for mercy sake!…

Something was happening to Nettie and she had no idea what, except that she was terribly dizzy and before you could say “Poof!” she was sprawled on the floor in her ratty old blue bathrobe that had come untied and was all rucked up under her. There wasn’t much pain, except for a clutching in the chest (it reminded her of Valentine’s Day in school when the kids all exchanged hearts, big shiny paper hearts that said “Be mine!” with a pretty lace banner across the front of them) but this was different, because—

Suddenly Nettie found herself up at the ceiling looking down at her body. She hadn’t realized how filthy it was up here—the entire ceiling could use a good scrubbing but most especially the overhead fixture; there were dead flies in the globe, quite disgusting but that wasn’t the worst of it.

The worst of it was: leaving that funny-looking hunk of clay all sprawled out, its butt showing, right in the middle of her scrubbed kitchen floor for someone else to find which was awful but she couldn’t do anything about it, so—

“What were you saying dear?” she asked Phil but Phil was long gone, so Nettie hurried so she wouldn’t be late—very sorry about the mess on the floor but wasn’t that the way life always ended?—so no use worrying about it. Sad, but true; and with a sigh, Nettie herself was out of there.


Out Now After Almost 40 Years: 
The Surreal Feminist SF Classic, 
By Jody Scott
Out Now on Kindle!

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Back In Print After Almost 40 Years: The Surreal Feminist SF Classic, PASSING FOR HUMAN By Jody Scott


Own it for $2.99!
Free on KindleUnlimited

Considered by i09 as "One Of The 10 Weirdest Science Fiction Novels That You've Never Read" Digital Parchment Services, and the estate of Jody Scott, is thrilled to announce the republication of Passing For Human!

"I liked Passing for Human." –Neil Gaiman

Passing For Human is the beginning of The Benaroya Chronicles trilogy, continued in the soon-to-be-released I, Vampire and concluding with Scott's never-before-published final book in the series!

"A joyously and at times scatologically tangled Satire of the post-industrial Western world from a Feminist point of view that wittily verges on misandry." -The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

Passing for Human Or
Who Isn't Afraid Of Virginia Wolf?
Starring:
Benaroya
A 36-foot
Extraterrestrial "dolphin"
In the role of:
"Brenda Starr"
"Emma Peel"
Mary Worth
And a happy New Guinea hoptoad

With an all-star cast including
Abraham Lincoln
Jennison, the Kansas Jayhawker
Heidi's Grandfather
General George S. Patton
The Los Angeles Police Department
The Prince Of Darkness
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Ancient Egypt
The Isle of Capri
Interstellar Station 8
Four billion newly created people
And several hundred Richard Nixons

When a dolphin-like alien comes to Earth disguised in a female human body, it sets the stage for a wild feminist romp that out stranges Stranger in a Strange Land!

"The pace of the story never lets up, yet it finds room for serious contemplation of humanity’s woes. The style is easy, with an edge of noir. The central character is a bit of a tough girl which, mixed with her naivety about humans, makes for an intriguing and likeable character. Especially as she (in common with the other aliens) inhabits bodies she has chosen from Earth culture – Brenda Starr, Emma Peel, and Virginia Woolf. Who could not like that, especially the final scenes in which Virginia Woolf is involved in a running gun battle. The humor, pace, and wry observation make this a rare and wonderful beast – a serious science fiction novel that doesn’t take itself seriously."
– Graeme K Talboys, grumbooks Review

"The novel leaps along with an energy and a disregard for convention that reminds me a little of genre outsiders like Barry Malzberg and possibly Josephine Saxton in that this reads like a romp through the Collective Unconscious. A closer comparison might be with the early novels of Ishmael Reed who shares with Scott a vitriolic contempt for seemingly all and everything, sniping and satirizing hilariously along the way.  Jody Scott’s wild imagination, seemingly scattershot but tightly controlled, makes Passing For Human an absurdly comic romp of unexpected juxtapositions and witty asides. Good examples of what SF can do when it steps out of its comfort zone, and of how women’s SF can challenge the genre assumptions by challenging its tropes and its language. Take a look, see what you think."
– Performative Utterance

This Strange Particle Press release features Barry N. Malzberg's original 1977 introduction, and a special forward by Jody Scott's heir and life partner, Mary Whealen.

Passing for Human (The Benaroya Chronicles) By Jody Scott http://amzn.com/B0143K2LXG

$5.99

FREE on KindleUnlimited for a limited time!

Paperback edition coming September 15th

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The estate-authorized Jody Scott site (http://www.authorjodyscott.com)

Digital Parchment Services (http://digitalparchmentservices.com)


For information please feel free to contact mchristian@digitalparchmentservices.com

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Out Now: The Unauthorized Guide To Trek: The Complete TOS Crew Book By James Van Hise



“A gem of a book...every Trekkie and sci-fi fan needs this on their shelf.” —Goodreads

The classic, complete guide to both the crew of the Starship Enterprise and the actors and actresses who brought them to life.

Written in the 1990s, this acclaimed book covers the all the members of the original crew: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov and Chapel. It’s filled with profiles of each character, biographies of the stars who played them, as well as in-depth conversations with the actors.

Trek fans will learn things they never knew, and gain new insights into William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Majel Barrett, and Walter Koenig.

The Complete TOS Crew Book is written by media journalist James Van Hise, creator of the much-beloved Enterprise Incidents magazine. Van Hise has been hailed by the Star Trek Expanded Universe Wiki as “The eminent Star Trek reference book author.”

You'll also find rare publicity stills and personal photos, taken by the author, of the actors themselves.

Bonus: Brand new caricatures of each crew member, especially commissioned for this book, by the award-winning political cartoonist and Filmation animator, Darryle Purcell. Plus a preface by Mr. Purcell on the role Star Trek played in his life.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

THE WORLD'S STRANGEST TRUE ENCOUNTERS: NEW "BEST OF FATE MAGAZINE" BOOK RELEASED

(From The Best Of Fate Site)

“FATE is about UFOs, the paranormal, all that stuff. I find it fascinating!” says Stephen King.


AMAZON TOP TEN PARANORMAL AND SUPERNATURAL BESTSELLING SERIES! 
 OWN FOR ONLY $2,99!

This book contains 25 true reports of real-life encounters with the paranormal and the supernatural; accounts which are, indeed, stranger than fiction. Drawn from the files of FATE—the magazine Stephen King says gave him many of his “best ideas”, and the world’s leading publication of the strange and unknown—the testimonials in this series come from a wide variety of people, places and decades.

To read this book is to enter the world of ESP, prophetic dreams, magic, ghosts, poltergeists, miraculous healings, the occult, and the supernormal. You may begin reading this classic collection as a skeptic, but we are sure you will be more of a believer by the time you finish.

Here are just a few of the fascinating, thought-provoking reports and personal accounts you will find in this fantastic-but-true book, personally selected by the editors of FATE Magazine:

  • Eye-witness to a Miracle Healing
  • We Heard Voices from the Dead
  • The Exorcist Fought Five Demons for One Woman’s Soul
  • The Navy Blimp Returned to Earth—Minus its Crew
  • The Witches’ Salve
  • The Little Man Who Was Sometimes There
  • ESP Demonstrated in Cross-Country Test
  • Ghost Soldier in Their Attic
  • Two Watches Stopped at the Moment of Death
  • The Poltergeist That Could Write
The World’s Strangest True Encounters is an extraordinary collection of extraordinary tales by those who have encountered the inexplicable, and of first-hand investigations by FATE’s writers into reports of the extraordinary and unexplained.

Wikipedia calls FATE “the longest-running magazine devoted to the paranormal. …it has published expert opinions and personal experiences relating to UFOs, psychic abilities, ghosts and hauntings, cryptozoology, alternative medicine, divination methods, belief in the survival of personality after death, Fortean phenomena, predictive dreams, mental telepathy, archaeology, warnings of death, and other paranormal topics.” FATE is true journalistic pioneer. Launched in 1948, it covered controversial topics like electronic voice phenomena, cattle mutilations, life on Mars, telepathic communication with animals, and UFOs at a time when discussing such things was almost taboo. Recently, FATE celebrated the 67th anniversary of its founding and the publication of its 727thissue, a rare feat of longevity achieved by only a select few U.S. periodicals.

FATE hopes you enjoy the books in FATE's Library of the Paranormal and the Unknown.