We are destroying our planet. The scientists agree, there is no denying that catastrophic climate change is imminent. And yet our leaders continue to pay lip service to the issue without taking real, impactful action. If things don’t change – drastically and soon – we won’t have a planet to call home. Speculative fiction writers […] The post Cli-fi and catastrophe first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
The incredible Ursula K. Le Guin won the National Book Foundation medal for distinguished contribution to American letters in 2014. In her much-shared speech, she noted that “hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and […] The post Hopeful speculative fiction with Ryka Aoki first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Your body is a temple – a saying that has been with us for centuries. The message: look after your body because you and it are going to be together for a long time. The body is in a symbiotic relationship with the soul: one cannot exist without the other. But what if one of […] The post Body horror with Ellen Datlow first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
The idea of perfection, the perfect being, is one of the oldest stories in the world. How that perfection might be tainted, or turn against the hand that made it, is something that has always intrigued writers of fiction. We can see this idea in stories as wide ranging as The Stepford Wives to Pygmalion […] The post “Perfect” women – with Cat Valente first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Female friendships tend to take a back seat in our narratives, so that when they are given the space to exist, they exist almost solely to discuss a man. Virginia Woolf once commented that “all the great women of fiction were . . . not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in […] The post Female friendships – with Alix E Harrow first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Coming of age stories have long been a staple within speculative fiction genres, but in the last decade, we have seen an explosion of popularity in what publishers and booksellers refer to as YA – young adult – literature. And within that bracket, nothing is more popular than dystopian YA. We live in an increasingly […] The post Power and agency in dystopian YA with Melissa Welliver first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Recently, a number of prominent television and film creators, as well as authors, have either been outed for bad behaviour or made hateful public statements. Anyone who is a regular listener will know that we often refer to Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And they are not the only texts we mention that […] The post Reconciling our love of works by problematic creators first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
The history of humanity is arguably the history of us trying to explain everything around us. Both science and religion have developed as divergent threads of this goal, inextricably linked but often at odds with one another. Science fiction and cosmic horror also like to explore similar issues, so it feels natural that we are […] The post The mash-up: science fiction and cosmic horror with Ada Hoffmann first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
We talk about unequal societies a lot on this show, about privilege and power and who is in a position to use it. We wanted to take a critical look at a subgenre that maybe best reflects the democratic, bureaucratic society that many of us experience every day. Some of our favourite books fall under […] The post Political fantasy with Katherine Addison first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Technological advances are incredible. Just think, the phone in your pocket is infinitely more powerful than the computers that sent the first spaceships to the moon! Technology has given us basic things we take for granted like running water and electricity, to more modern inventions such as the internet, surgical robots, and automated vacuum cleaners. […] The post Technology and the fear of change with Sarah Pinsker first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Love can raise us up. Love can tear us down. It can be our strength, our weakness, and everything in between. And inevitably, love makes fools of us all. While we all enjoy reading a good romance, a love story is rarely just a love story. It has so many other uses within a narrative. […] The post The power of love with Tasha Suri first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
95 years after it was first published, the copyright on The Great Gatsby has expired. This great American novel has sold over 25 million copies since it was first published, despite initially disappointing sales. It is hard to believe now, with its cultural pervasiveness, that F Scott Fitzgerald died thinking he was a failure, that his works […] The post Tackling the classics – with Nghi Vo first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
We actually recorded this episode WAY back in January, just after Biden’s inauguration in the US. So, naturally, there is a bit of politics in this one given how wrapped up we all were in what was going on… you’ve been warned! An eye for an eye. You hurt me, I’ll hurt you right back. Not […] The post Revenge with Marjorie Liu first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
The frontier. The edge of civilisation. So far from the central government that laws are more like ‘guidelines’. Where the sheriffs are crooked and the criminals ruthless; trains rarely go un-sacked and the cattle drive never goes to plan. Oh, and don’t forget the drought. Life on the frontier is never easy. But what about […] The post Moving the frontier – with Stark Holborn first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Our identity is who we are. But for such a seemingly simple concept, our identities are extremely complex. We aren’t the only ones who decide our identities. Society places labels on us that we often don’t feel represents who we are, or worse, forces us into very narrow roles from which we feel we are […] The post Chosen Identities – with Charlie Jane Anders first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
The basic principles of writing a book are simple – come up with an idea, write it. Of course, it isn’t really that simple, it is a lot of hard work, but that’s about the size of it, right? Well, not always. What happens if you are asked to write for a hugely popular franchise? […] The post Franchise writing with Una McCormack first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Why do we need monsters in our fiction? Why do we want to be frightened? When they pick up a book, do readers enter into a pact with a writer, as Catriona Ward describes: a pact that says I share your fear, let’s face it together? We asked Catriona about the nature of fear, whether […] The post Making the ordinary monstrous with Catriona Ward first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
When you look, communities are everywhere. They can be the people where you live, the people who share the same interest as you, the people you volunteer with. They can be as small as a household or as big as a city. Communities, societies, political and religious beliefs all intertwine so that sometimes it’s impossible […] The post Communities with Caroline Hardaker and Gabriela Houston first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Spirituality exists in every work of fiction in some form or other, but most often manifests as divinity. Gods and goddesses never seem to go out of fashion. Why do authors turn to a god or pantheon of gods to articulate this spiritual urge? And out of all the pantheons, the Norse gods in particular […] The post Exploring Ragnarok – with H.M. Long & Genevieve Gornichec first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Being a parent is not glamorous. It’s hard work and it often goes unappreciated – in life and in fiction. When we do see parents represented in our fiction, we tend to see a very limited kind of representation. Rarely are parents the centre of the story – the prevailing social narrative is that parents […] The post Parenthood with Julia Fine first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
The world as we know it has historically been ruled by men. But when it comes to fiction, writers can choose what power structures they create and how they are depicted. Despite the free rein this allows authors, most simply replicate the patriarchy. When authors do step outside the familiar societal structures and present us with matriarchies, […] The post Matriarchies – with Aliette de Bodard first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Space. The final frontier. An empty, endless expanse of nothing? Or teeming with life?But do we really need to look beyond the confines of our world to find loneliness? We are currently fighting a pandemic, and in its wake, a loneliness epidemic. Despite our constant striving for companionship, it could be said that to be […] The post Loneliness in science fiction with Aliya Whiteley first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
History is written by the winners. By men. Early editors of science fiction anthologies chose to exclude works by women, and in doing so, made many believe that women did not write science fiction in the genre’s earliest years. This is just a single example and by no means exhaustive. Mallory O’Meara, self-confessed monster lover […] The post Hollywood Monsters – with Mallory O’Meara first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
In last year’s episode on magical realism, we talked about this genre’s ability to take a recognisable setting and tilt it a few degrees, creating something familiar and yet not quite what we’re used to. Alternate history can do this too – by revisiting a moment in time and fitting a different lens to the […] The post Magical inequality with Nicole Glover first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is one of the staples of Christmas. As well as the original book, it’s possible to watch adaptations involving among others Bill Murray, Jim Carey, Patrick Stewart, and (mine and Megan’s favourite) Michael Caine. It has even been used for specials like Doctor Who. This iconic story has been […] The post Scrooge reimagined first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
We constantly discuss themes, stereotypes and assumptions in popular culture, but we don’t often stop to look more closely at the way those issues are expressed. I’m talking about language, and its ability to explore ideas in a highly nuanced way. Phrases like “bad language”, “common parlance” – even “trigger warning” – all carry social […] The post Language & Power – with Genevieve Cogman first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Or ‘Extraneous Fangirling’ as I subtitled this episode while editing it. And in truth there is a fair bit of fangirling, but there’s also a lot of critical reflection to go with it. Because when we looked back at the books and shows we enjoyed as kids, we found some unsettling similarities. We remembered female […] The post Childhood Heroines first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Just in time for Halloween, we spoke to author Vivian Shaw about everyone’s favourite “monster” – the vampire! Immortal vampires have occupied the human imagination for centuries. Whether you prefer the Twilight, Buffy or Bram Stoker type, don’t expect them to turn to dust any time soon. We talked to Vivian about her Greta Helsing […] The post Reclaiming the vampire – with Vivian Shaw first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
Women have always played important roles throughout history, yet too often they are written out of official histories. We have touched on this before on our podcast, referencing essays like Kameron Hurley’s ‘We Have Always Fought’. This cultural pattern has effectively made women invisible – we have been silenced and marginalised. V.E. Schwab’s new novel, The […] The post The invisibility of women with V.E. Schwab first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
There are some genre tropes that are ubiquitous in fantasy, from the ensemble quest to overthrowing a dark lord. Magical schools are yet another trope we have come to know and love. Whether you are a fan of early narratives like Le Guin’s Wizard of Earthsea or appreciate the darker elements of more contemporary entries […] The post A magical education with Naomi Novik first appeared on Breaking the Glass Slipper ....
