Sorry I’m a few days late but to be fair, I picked up on Tuesday, and what I assumed would be me given like an hour to blog was me not seeing the station until 9pm, following me realizing that I left my keys back in Portage Station from when we were there earlier. Thankfully, I’m on good speaking terms with my supervisor and he buzzed them to me rather quickly – I didn’t have dinner until about 1030 and I’ve worked the last two days, which were ironically less busy but I still hadn’t had much of a chance to finish my con-ed, let along blog. But the year’s minimum online education is done, so now I’m less guilty about doing this.
So I really should have finished “Blaze” by Kristal D. Ball – my Kobo USB port isn’t working properly – so my dad is going to try to fix it. I think I’ll wait another pay period and probably get another kobo. It’s not the end of the world, but I had about ten ebooks on there I was kinda excited for. Fortunately, the Beta bailed me out, and he gave me two paperbooks, so I read one (finished it June, but… you know…) and it’s Tesseracts 19: Superhero Universe
Tesseracts 19 is honestly a weird place to introduce anyone to the Tesseracts Anthologies. Don’t get me wrong, I’m of that unpleasable fanbase (I find shorts too short! The novella collection only had a handful of novellas!) and since the genre of science fiction and fantasy is extremely inclusive when you get into realms like slipstream, paranormal thriller, alternate history, it makes a lot of sense to have a theme instead of one guy writing a psychological headgame and another doing a sword and sorcery rom com.
And I got nothing against Super Heroes. I feel at home at Comic Con because I grew up around pulp fiction and my dad’s old comics (and what was freely available as a kid) as opposed to the more literary festivals, because I guess you go in (despite having a small portfolio of completed books by the age of 20) and it’s kind of funny watching people who don’t do the genre assume they know it and it’s all scum, you’re scum, and if you defy expectations aren’t we an educated little bitch?. Well, it’s funny now – seriously people, I don’t know why some of you like to knock people down, not everyone who signs up for little league has aspirations of playing for the Blue Jays – and I say props to the balls for the editors for picking something that has been treated more seriously in the movie industry lately but is probably poo-poo’d as mainstream. And if you read my star rating, know it’s not that it was an ‘it’s only okay’ thing – I thought the anthology was a lot of fun.
Super Heroes aren’t exactly my thing and I’d be fibbing if I said they were. I can catch the references (and I am taken to the movies… first world problems, right?) but a lot of anthologies I read and I read introductions about someone’s absolute adoration of Lovecraft or Dr. Challenger, and I’m all like, “…I’ve read more than fifty books a year for about the last ten years. WHY DON’T I KNOW EVERYTHING BY NOW?” before probably going to study lung anatomy.
Honestly, I generally enjoy the Tesseracts anthologies, and you can go back and try one from a previous year if this year’s theme doesn’t appeal to you. It’s basically full of Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy, plus it’s a good way to get exposure to different writers from all over the country.
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