Alyc Helms's Blog, page 6
May 27, 2015
You are not a thing
Warning – Spoilers for Mad Max: Fury Road
I saw Mad Max: Fury Road at WisCon and again when I got back. I think a lot of folks have given better commentary than I can about what works and why, so I’m not here to add to the noise.
But I’m getting a little weirded out by a trend I’ve seen over the past few days, which is the celebration of the War Boy rhetoric from Mad Max. I mean, wasn’t the whole point of Nux’s storyline that the War Boys were, in their own way, as much things to be used as t...
April 18, 2015
Can You Hear Me Now?
I just got finished performing in Emily Jiang’s telepresence choir. I have to say, that is one of the strangest performing experiences I’ve ever participated in. Half the choir was physically present at the venue in Palo Alto, half was Skyped in via tablets from places as far as four time zones away. The music Emily composed was deliberately designed to turn issues like lag and dropped connections into features. It was all kind of a brilliant and terribly innovative multi-media project/commen...
April 10, 2015
My very first arty thing!
Omg, you guys, you guys!! I got… I don’t know if you’d call it fanart or book schwag or authorial schwag, but I got something from a fellow reader/writer that is arty and is related to my book!
It is my VERY FIRST piece of arty stuff related to my book (by someone who isn’t one of my closest friends, though Avery Liell-Kok has done some great sketches of Missy and David Tsung that I will post here if I get her permission).
Better yet, it is the awesome dragon from my cover! It is pretty and s...
April 9, 2015
Crossovers!
Jean Eyre would wear this dress
A friend of mine posted on Facebook about the new Agents of SHIELD spinoff, commenting that in the not-to-distant future, all we’d have would be Marvel-inspired versions of our favorite shows, like Law & Order: Special Villains Unit or Pride and Prejudice and the Punisher.
I was charmed by the idea of Lizzie Bennett going on a refined killing spree, but of course, she’d need the correct incentive. Cue my Frank Castle-style response.
“Pride and Prejudice and The...
April 4, 2015
My Hugo Nominations
In between unpacking my books today, I’ve been following the various discussions about what to do about the Hugo voting this year and how to address the deeply conservative, demonstrably sexist, racist, and anti-queer movement instituting a slate-based nomination process as a way to game the system and shut out any other voices but the ones they’ve contrived to put forward (and who apparently agreed to be put forward by them–when you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas).
I don’t want t...
March 17, 2015
Intersectionality and the White Girl
Following up on my cover reveal, Fantasy Faction is featuring a guest post from me where I talk about writing diverse casts, representation, and avoiding problematic tropes.
Cover Reveal!
The wonderful folks at Fantasy Faction hosted my cover reveal! Here it is for those of you who don’t feel like following a link:
Cover Designed by Amazing15
I need a fedora.
February 16, 2015
Social Dynamics and the Politics of Helping People
0r How to not be “Helpy.”
The other day I was at an outdoor cafe and witnessed a scene that bothered me. A woman was sitting at a nearby table with a small dog of the inveterately yappy variety. A family passed by trailing kids of various ages. The dog took exception to this, sprang up to the end of its leash, and leveled a barrage of barking at the kids, one of whom (a girl of about 5-6) was startled enough that she sprang away, hit the wall beside her, and fell.
She was physically fine, but s...
February 13, 2015
The Unheimliche Maneuver
New Crimson Peak trailer has me (and the rest of certain corners of fandom) swooning into a puddle of unf. I know I was overcome by a fit of hysteria and desirous of a visit to a physician to have my condition treated with one of those newfangled vibrating devices.
I was trying to come up with something intelligent to say about why the Crimson Peak permutation works for me when Fifty Shades of Gray doesn’t. They’re both playing with the same tropes of a woman trapped in situations of control,...
January 21, 2015
The Dragons of Heaven Sticky Post
Preorders and reviews are an author’s best friends!
The Dragons of Heaven, by Alyc Helms
Published: June 2015
Publisher: Angry Robot
ISBN: 9780857664327
(Cover Art coming soon!)
Missy Masters inherited more than the usual genetic cocktail from her estranged grandfather. She also got his preternatural control of shadows and his enduring legacy as the legendary vigilante superhero, Mr Mystic. After a little work the costume fits OK, but Missy is far from experienced at fighting crime, so she journeys...
