Posted in archie reads, archie reviews, books, fantasy fiction, reading, science fiction, speculative fiction, Ursula K LeGuin, visionary fiction

archie reviews a book…. The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)

My third book review! YAY. The Office Andy Critic

Disclaimer: I have never thought of myself as much of an art critic – I sort of always thought it wasn’t my place to disagree with the storyteller. As in, if I didn’t enjoy a book or movie, then it probably says more about me not being the intended audience for it, right? But I don’t think that need stop me from sharing my thoughts on such-and-such a book.

So here I go…

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Posted in artists, blogging, children's fiction, drafts, fantasy fiction, fear, fiction, goals, hope, inspiration, practice, procrastination, radical fiction, science fiction, speculative fiction, visionary fiction, writing

archie’s ambitious pre-30 writing goal that can also get you inspired too, maybe?

I am turning the big three-zero in 2019, can you believe it?
I know, I seem so wise for one so young… lol?
No, but seriously – I’m pretty flabbergasted by that age.

Of course, turning 30 is a big milestone that not everyone has the privilege or good luck to ever reach, so naturally, this needs to be something celebrated with big fanfare.

Michael Dwight partyingThe Office Twirl

But still… 30?

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Posted in Afrofuturism, fantasy fiction, feminism, fiction, hope, imagination, inspiration, radical fiction, reading, science fiction, speculative fiction, visionary fiction

empowerment through radical fiction

I don’t have to tell you things are bad.

Everybody knows things are shit – it’s a gd depression.
Nobody can find work and if they do they’re scared of being harassed and exploited.
Everybody’s exhausted or too tired to care much, to speak of anything of real meaning.
Governments and Corporations are running wild in the streets.

Hardly anyone anywhere seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it.
We know the air is unfit to breathe, the waters are unfit to drink.
And we sit inside, on our phones and laptops, scrolling and swiping.
Tweets and Stories telling us about what that shithole 45 has done, said, fucked up, and we can only watch in disbelief, smh as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Yeah, shit is bad – worse than bad – fucking dystopic, catastrophic, apocalyptic.
So what do we do?
We don’t go out anymore.
We hide in our rooms, where we are safer, trying to forget our responsibilities, our privileges.
“Please, just leave me be.
Let me have my iphone and my coffee-maker, and I won’t say anything…
Just leave us alone.”

Well, I will leave you alone but I know that is not what you really want right now.
That’s why you are still reading.
So what is to be done?
I don’t want you to protest, or to write to some official because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to protest about or what to write.
I don’t know what to do about this gd depression, about nuclear war, about the drones, about all the refugees, about the NSA, about the trump nazis, about our dying Earth and her Animals or about the prison industrial complex.

So what, then?

I'm Mad as Hell Network Art

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Posted in anarchy, death, fantasy fiction, feminism, fiction, radical fiction, science fiction, speculative fiction, Ursula K LeGuin, writing community

rip Ursula

The one known as Ursula K Le Guin has departed.
So it goes…UKL Guin by Taros

She is survived by books – full of characters and entire worlds – stories and premises that have impacted countless people in more ways than typical for any author.

There’s a point, around the age of twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life,
or to make a virtue of your peculiarities.
— from The Dispossessed

I felt the need to write something about her passing not simply because she was a writer too, or that I have read some of her books, but because she inspired me by the ways in which she integrated her politics into her craft and persona. 

So here it goes…

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