Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
I was so excited by the title of this that I missed that this is an essay collection. It's definitely focused on sci fi books in particular as opposed to geeky fandom in general. Even though I had different expectations, I loved this. It makes me want to pick up her novels as well. The writing is engaging and smart, but it's also got a lot of rage bubbling underneath. I was impressed with how inclusive it is: Hurley is trans-inclusive and talks about racism as well as misogyny. This is definitely one I'd recommend.
Essential reading
After reading this, i think that every storyteller, every person who reads, writes, publishes etc. should read the first collection of essays.
The Geek Feminist Revolution is a pretty decent starting point for people starting to get into feminist non-fiction. It takes on a more liberal feminist approach, but with points that really encourage you to think about,
After reading this, i think that every storyteller, every person who reads, writes, publishes etc. should read the first collection of essays.
The Geek Feminist Revolution is a pretty decent starting point for people starting to get into feminist non-fiction. It takes on a more liberal feminist approach, but with points that really encourage you to think about,
i really liked this series of essays, though i'd seen many of these works in their original forms (blog posts, articles, etc.) so there wasn't a huge feeling of novelty or revelation for me while reading. that said, there is new material in this book and i found both the new material as well as the curated ordering of essays to be a valuable read that transcended the individual pieces.
i read in chunks, rather than all at once, and i would recommend reading in the following bundles of essays to get the best bang out of the narrative structuring of the text:
1 - "Welcome to the Revolution," "Persistence and the Long Con of Being a Successful Writer," and "I'll Bring the Pancakes"
2 - "What Marketing and Advertising Taught Me About the Value of Failure," "Taking Responsibility for Writing Problematic Stories," and "Unpacking the 'Real Writers Have Talent' Myth"
3 - "Some Men Are More Monstrous Than Others" and "Die Hard, Hetaerae, and Problematic Pin-Ups"
4 - "Wives, Warlords and Refugees," "Tea, Bodies, and Business," and "A Complexity of Desires"
5 - "What's So Scary about Strong Female Protagonists, Anyway?" "In Defense of Unlikeable Women," "Women and Gentlemen: On Unmasking the Sobering Reality of Hyper-Masculine Characters," and "Gender, Family, Nookie"
6 - "The Increasingly Poor Economics of Penning Problematic Stories," "Making People Care: Storytelling in Fiction vs. Marketing," "Our Dystopia: Imagining More Hopeful Futures," and "Where Have All the Women Gone?"
7 - "Finding Hope in Tragedy: Why I Read Dark Fiction," "Public Speaking While Fat," "They'll Come for You... Whether You Speak Up or Not," and "The Horror Novel You'll Never Have to Live"
8 - "Becoming What You Hate," "Let It Go: On Responding (or Not) to Online Criticism," "When the Rebel Becomes Queen," and "Terrorist or Revolutionary? Deciding Who Gets to Write History"
8.5 - "Giving Up the Sky" - this was the essay that hit me the hardest, so i'm kind of cheating saying it should be read on its own. but at the same time, it's an essay that feels so necessary with a topic that is woefully underexplored in talking about the price of action. because the costs of pursuing passions aren't always the backlash we might receive, but also all of the other beautiful things that we may have to choose not to do instead.
9 - "What We Didn't See" and "What Living in South Africa Taught Me About Being White in America"
10 - "It's About Ethics in Dating," "Hijacking the Hugo Awards," "Dear SFWA Writers: Let's Chat About Censorship and Bullying," "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility," "Rage Doesn't Exist in a Vacuum," and "Why I'm Not Afraid of the Internet"
11 - "We Have Always Fought" and "What Are We Fighting For?"
i read in chunks, rather than all at once, and i would recommend reading in the following bundles of essays to get the best bang out of the narrative structuring of the text:
1 - "Welcome to the Revolution," "Persistence and the Long Con of Being a Successful Writer," and "I'll Bring the Pancakes"
2 - "What Marketing and Advertising Taught Me About the Value of Failure," "Taking Responsibility for Writing Problematic Stories," and "Unpacking the 'Real Writers Have Talent' Myth"
3 - "Some Men Are More Monstrous Than Others" and "Die Hard, Hetaerae, and Problematic Pin-Ups"
4 - "Wives, Warlords and Refugees," "Tea, Bodies, and Business," and "A Complexity of Desires"
5 - "What's So Scary about Strong Female Protagonists, Anyway?" "In Defense of Unlikeable Women," "Women and Gentlemen: On Unmasking the Sobering Reality of Hyper-Masculine Characters," and "Gender, Family, Nookie"
6 - "The Increasingly Poor Economics of Penning Problematic Stories," "Making People Care: Storytelling in Fiction vs. Marketing," "Our Dystopia: Imagining More Hopeful Futures," and "Where Have All the Women Gone?"
7 - "Finding Hope in Tragedy: Why I Read Dark Fiction," "Public Speaking While Fat," "They'll Come for You... Whether You Speak Up or Not," and "The Horror Novel You'll Never Have to Live"
8 - "Becoming What You Hate," "Let It Go: On Responding (or Not) to Online Criticism," "When the Rebel Becomes Queen," and "Terrorist or Revolutionary? Deciding Who Gets to Write History"
8.5 - "Giving Up the Sky" - this was the essay that hit me the hardest, so i'm kind of cheating saying it should be read on its own. but at the same time, it's an essay that feels so necessary with a topic that is woefully underexplored in talking about the price of action. because the costs of pursuing passions aren't always the backlash we might receive, but also all of the other beautiful things that we may have to choose not to do instead.
9 - "What We Didn't See" and "What Living in South Africa Taught Me About Being White in America"
10 - "It's About Ethics in Dating," "Hijacking the Hugo Awards," "Dear SFWA Writers: Let's Chat About Censorship and Bullying," "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility," "Rage Doesn't Exist in a Vacuum," and "Why I'm Not Afraid of the Internet"
11 - "We Have Always Fought" and "What Are We Fighting For?"
I enjoyed this collection, but definitely go into it with appropriate expectations: it is a collection of blog posts. By nature that means that there is some repetition, some scattershot feeling. It's not a unified, logically consistent single work. That said, there are a number of powerful, painfully raw and personal pieces illustrating and critiquing the precarity of life as a creative professional in the US at this moment in time. (And, of course, the connection between that and misogyny.)
The only real sour note for me was one piece making an extended analogy between an argument w/ a 3 year old about not hitting their mother vs the 3 year old insisting that "we don't yell, you hurt my feelings" and some social media blow up.
Thematically, I was left pondering the throughline of many of the essays emphasizing grit & persistence & fighting tooth and nail for your ideals etc.. I can't help but feel that necessity was getting mixed up with normativeness or morality or something.
The only real sour note for me was one piece making an extended analogy between an argument w/ a 3 year old about not hitting their mother vs the 3 year old insisting that "we don't yell, you hurt my feelings" and some social media blow up.
Thematically, I was left pondering the throughline of many of the essays emphasizing grit & persistence & fighting tooth and nail for your ideals etc.. I can't help but feel that necessity was getting mixed up with normativeness or morality or something.