I say, that Mr Orwell can write quite well

One of the hundred or so books I'm currently reading is the Penguin George Orwell Essays. They're models of good writing - crisp, humane, witty, packing great meaning into a short space. I'm partway through his analysis of Dickens, which makes devastating use of the term "etc etc".

Flash of Insight

The Tiptree Award is for fiction which "expands or explores our understanding of gender", not fiction which is necessarily well-written or feminist. (This does not dissuade me from attempting to snavel one.)

On an unrelated note, Kukaburra.

It's all about being a woman

... is the slogan of an underwear shop. What does it mean to "be a woman"? To spend your money on clothes, apparently. Or perhaps it means to spend $80 on a five-minute visit to the endocrinologist to be told "You've lost a kilo, no signs of kidney damage, your average blood sugar has improved but is still too high - we'll test again in three months, and see if you need Metformin pills to control your glucose," and to come out thinking "Wow, a whole kilo!"

Oing

Speaking of things all writers should read, if you haven't already, visit the Turkey City Lexicon. I was just re-reading it when I came to this definition:


Abbess Phone Home

Takes its name from a mainstream story about a medieval cloister which was sold as SF because of the serendipitous arrival of a UFO at the end. By extension, any mainstream story with a gratuitous SF or fantasy element tacked on so it could be sold.


It hit me I knew the story being referred to - it's by Joanna Russ, and just let me hide the title... ( a SPOILER )

There's a fantastic example of "As You Know Bob" in the Blakes 7 episode Aftermath.

Useful information

U-Turn on Memory Lane

As a younger woman I was a big fan of myth-busters like James Randi, and joined the Australian Skeptics. After a blazing row (IRL!) with a Skeptic who argued that rape was a largely harmless crime, I quit them. More recently, I discovered the close connection between CSICOP and the FMSF. Talk about feet of clay. :-(