JEWS IN POPULAR SCIENCE FICTION: Marginalized in the Mainstream, edited by Valerie Estelle Frankel, is the book that contains my essay on golems in speculative fiction along with a dozen others. Typically for a book like this, some of them didn’t work for me: I’m familiar with debates over Superman as Jewish symbol and couldn’t get into Jewish themes allegedly found in The Last Airbender (the essay on Jewish themes in Tolkien worked better for being conscious it’s an odd thing to look for). Most of them, though, worked very well indeed.
One article, on the Ferengi as “space Jews” argues they do start out as negative Jewish stereotypes but the writing on DS9 makes them more complex and the Jewish elements less stereotypical. A couple of articles look at Jewish characters in comics, concluding that even characters whose Jewish faith initially runs deep get less noticeably Jewish as time passes, and not Jewish at all when they jump to TV. And “Jewish” is often limited to things instantly recognizable to non-Jews, such as menorahs and Hanukkah.
And while I remain a fan of Ragman, one essay makes a good case that his 
abilities aren’t Jewish — the whole idea of evil souls getting trapped for their sins in the rag suit is much closer to Christian themes.
My favorite article by two teachers showed how they demonstrate to students the way you apply Jewish religious law to new issues. The topic was the zombie apocalypse: given Judaism’s mandate to treat the dead respectfully, is it acceptable to burn or mutilate the living dead? If the zombies are living virus-carriers, is murdering them acceptable? The answers are a)yes, saving the living counts for more; and b)yes, but only if someone’s in imminent danger, not if the zombie is infected but not turned.
My essay’s awesome too, so if you want to pick something up as a gift this month and you know someone who’d be interested, here’s the link.
#SFWApro. Ragman cover by Pat Broderick. All rights to images remain with current holders.
To my surprise, he didn’t put up a fight at all, but let the vets examine him, give him his shots and so forth. He’s in great shape (yay!) and not overweight (yay again!). I took him home, then we let him out in the backyard. He didn’t bear us a grudge and was quite happy to accept petting later.
For really good news, I got my payments from Draft2Digital for a couple of books that sold this summer. And my golem article came out in 
I haven’t read it yet but the table of contents looks interesting.
Being published makes up for a lot. Have a great weekend everyone.
I spent last weekend at ConGregate, a Winston-Salem con, and had a great time. I was on eight or nine panels, chatted with a lot of NC writers I know and discovered an excellent coffee/tea shop across the street (really good loose leaf tea). The hotel restaurant was reasonably priced. I also picked up some good used books at a sale table (two Philip K. Dick, one Andre Norton) though that kept me from buying anything new from my friends.
Needless to say, I was a total wreck Tuesday, unfit for work; besides sleeping I think I might have done some blogging, but not much else. We tried making an appointment for Trixie but had to settle for Wednesday. Tuesday night passed without problems and I slept like a log. So soundly I woke up late which left me off-balance the rest of the day. I know it’s a weakness but I really need a couple of hours before the dogs join me downstairs if I’m to get my head in the game.
It’s a sign of the changes that last weekend was well, strange. No, not because of an eclipse, that photo’s from the lunar one in December. But TYG and I were actually social, in person, for the first time in ages. A friend of ours was in town so she came over to meet the dogs and then go out to dinner. Sunday I went to my friend and fellow writer 
On the plus side, I gave Undead Sexist Cliches it’s final proof (via a PDF downloaded from 
For January I want to get in 25,000 words on Impossible Takes a Little Longer and the same on Oh the Places You’ll Go (as it’s a short story, that represents multiple drafts). A bunch of other projects too. And to resume bicycling regularly. My aerobic workouts in the morning are good, but too many push-ups and lifts takes a toll on my elbows and shoulders (though my impinged shoulder has improved — I think general strengthening has helped). I’d like to shift more of the exertion to my legs.
That includes time for watching various TV shows (Roswell Conspiracies, X-Files) and movies. Because I keep discovering new insights or examples when I watch new movies, so it’s worth making the time. This week, for example, I got good ideas from both Lilo and Stitch and Absolutely Anything (details when I get to the review post in about a week or so). So I keep pushing myself, even though it’s sometimes hard to find the time.
like the way I break down Alien Visitor films and TV into various patterns and themes (I did the same thing for time travel films in my last book), I look at golems as defenders, destroyers, artificial life forms, their relationships with other people and golems vs. the Holocaust. My editor was pleased with it too — the rewrites were minor.
Which may be due to lack of sleep — okay, it’s definitely partly lack of sleep — or that to get Alien Visitors done, I’m not taking any complete days off.
quite qualify) and a couple of episodes of Ben 10.
Based on a recommendation from my friend Ross I checked Brad Ricca’s SUPER BOYS: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster out of the library to gain more perspective on the Alien Superheroes chapter (which focuses on Superman for obvious reasons). Ricca does a very good job chronicling the guys’ lives and early creative endeavors (Siegel wrote some remarkably funny columns for his high school paper) to the later years when Shuster did kinky illustrations for one magazine and Siegel was working on Archie Comics’ way too camp line of superheroes (curiously, given Ricca mentions Siegel’s fondness for the Shadow, he doesn’t mention his work on Archie’s painfully bad Shadow comic).
Claremont was half-Jewish himself and specifically referenced that and anti-Semitism as an influence. A lot of the time, he comes off as reaching — the idea Doctor Doom as a Roma is lashing out because of his people’s deaths during the Holocaust doesn’t fit the Silver Age take on Doom at all. This was worth a look but not as insightful as it might have been.
The painkillers and muscle relaxants he’s on make Plushie dopey, so he spends most of the day dozing in there. Still he gets miserable and demanding enough to distract me from work. And as TYG sleeps downstairs to be near him, just in case he has a pain attack or something, our schedule is a mess. Usually I start writing when I wake up, come down when TYG wakes, write some more (mixed in with dog care) and do my stretching, yoga and exercise later.
Wisp has been a surprisingly good trooper for all this. I have to sleep in the main bedroom with Trixie (Trixie would freak out if we left her alone) so Wisp spends her nights alone in the spare bedroom. Didn’t faze her as much as I thought. Last night she didn’t come in but that’s more because 
Wisp has still been coming on at night on a regular basis. This morning she came in mid-morning, which hasn’t happened in a while. I suspect she’ll be spending more time indoors as the weather drops. Hopefully she’ll go back to snoozing while she’s in — it’s much easier to get work done that way. There’s a white cat that’s been sniffing around our house lately, but Wisp doesn’t seem compelled to establish her turf and drive the stranger off. If the new cat comes regularly enough, we’ll schedule a spay/neuter at the local clinic, then trap it. We don’t see it consistently enough yet.
Fall has definitely started. Temperatures were relatively mild earlier this week (I emphasize “relatively”) and this morning it was almost chilly enough to require more than shorts and a T-shirt. It’s quite welcome.
