Michael Janairo

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Author: Michael Janairo

  • Review: Oryx and Crake of The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood

    oryx_and_crake_1.largeI recently started listening to the audiobook version of MaddAddam but then stopped after the first disc. I had read Oryx and Crake when it first came out 11 or so years ago (as well as The Year of the Flood when it first came out), and I realized I needed a refresher in Margaret Atwood’s trilogy — who was this Snowman again? What was his relationship to other characters?

    So I went back to Oryx and Crake, as read by Campbell Scott, which is a rather simple story. A man nicknamed Snowman appears to be the last human in a post-apocalyptic world. He has been left to care for genetically modified humanoid creatures amid a ravaged landscape – no electricity — that has been taken over by other genetically modified creatures that have gone wild: giant and smart pigoons (pigs with human cells), and the friendly and sweet looking dog-like creatures that are actually fierce and killer wolves deep down inside, thus the name wolvogs.

    The plot goes something like this: Snowman tells stories to the humanlike creatures, thus giving them a creation story about Oryx and Crake (these are both names of extinct animals taken as nicknames by a brilliant scientist and one-time friend of Snowman’s — that’s Crake — and a woman who is a love interest for both men, Oryx). One day, Snowman (his real name is Jimmy) goes in search of food and then returns to find that other humans may be around. The end. (more…)

  • GoT Episode 4.8 “The Mountain And The Viper” pre-reaction

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    Oh! Sh*t! No effing way!

    (Next week: Ep. 4.9 pre-reaction)

  • Help Joe Hill help Sci-Fi & Fantasy

    An intriguing string of tweets earlier this week:

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    That’s right, after all these years, the “Best American …” series will finally start to showcase the best in Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and you can help guest editor Joe Hill by sending him recommendations for stories via this webpage: http://submissions.johnjosephadams.com/basff/submit/.

  • On West Point and my father’s 60th reunion

    My father, Max, and my brother Anthony at West Point.
    My father, Max, and my brother Anthony at West Point.

    This past weekend, my father celebrated his 60th college reunion at the US Military Academy at West Point.

    He attended the long weekend of activities with my older brother who, unlike me, had vivid memories of when we lived on post (I was but a wee toddler, and yet I remain a proud Army brat and always feel an upsurge of emotion when I’m at West Point).

    I met up with them on a Sunday morning, after all the official reunion events were over. I met some of my father’s classmates in the lobby of the hotel as they were getting ready to head back to their respective homes. We went into town for a brunch at Andy’s Diner (a place that has been around since 1903 and which many Plebes went to, though my father had never been there. I gave them copies of a short fiction anthology of military sci-fi that includes one of my stories. We toured the West Point Museum.
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  • ‘Angela and the Scar’ called a ‘standout’ tale in ‘Long Hidden’

    In case you didn’t know, the anthology of all-new short fiction “Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History” comes out on Friday, May 9, 2014.

    A review from RT Books says the editors “have assembled some superstar-powered stories,” and then it goes on to point out three “standout tales” out of the 27 in the volume. And, yes, the story I wrote, “Angela and the Scar” is one of those standout tales.

    Thanks!

    Read the full review here http://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/long-hidden

  • UPDATE: Mark your calendars: Long Hidden, the anthology, is on its way

    LongHidden-frontcover-sm

    UPDATE: Change of date and time (see below)

    The anthology “Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History,” which includes one of my short stories (“Angela and the Scar”), has a release date: May 9, 2014.

    Where can you buy the book? Check out the publisher’s page, Crossed Genres. The trade paperback edition is $19.95, and it is 363 pages. In addition to my story, it includes stories by some big-name writers such as Tananarive Due, Sofia Samatar, Ken Liu, Victor LaValle, Nnedi Okorafor, and Sabrina Vourvoulias. For a complete list of authors, check out my earlier post.

    And while you’re at it, you may also want to kick in some bucks for the Crossed Genres Magazine’s current Kickstarter Campaign.

    But wait, there’s more!

    A book release party will be held at 9 pm Saturday, May 10, at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 236 E. 3rd St., New York, New York 4 pm Saturday, May 10, at Alice’s Arbor, 549 Classon Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. Here’s the event page on Facebook. So if you’re in NYC, please go to the event and buy a copy. (Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend, as my day job is taking me to a conference at Yale.)

    (more…)

  • Moss Hart, Act One and the persistence of You Can’t Take It With You

    Tony Shalhoub as George S. Kaufman and Santino Fontana as Moss Hart in "Act One" at Lincoln Center (Photo by Joan Marcus)
    Tony Shalhoub as George S. Kaufman and Santino Fontana as Moss Hart in “Act One” at Lincoln Center (Photo by Joan Marcus)

    “Act One” officially opens at Lincoln Center later this week, but this weekend I saw a preview showing of it. It’s good. Not great — the story of the life of Moss Hart, the playwright who grew up poor in the Bronx and had only a eighth-grade education (he had to go to work) but who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize.

    The production is magnificent — a rotating set, great period costumes, top-notch acting from Tony Shalhoub (as an older Moss Hart, narrating Our Town-style; as the father of the 11-year-old Moss Hart; and as George S. Kaufman, who works with the young adult Moss Hart); the young adult Hart is strongly played by Santino Fontana, who may be best known as the voice of the evil prince Hans in the movie musical “Frozen”; and Andrea Martin, nailing multiple roles.

    The play (written and directed by James Lapine), though, moves a bit slowly in, yes, Act 1, and feels very much like a less madcap Moss Hart play — a little dated in trying to stay true to the source material, Hart’s 1959 autobiography about his Dickensian early 20th-century life. What also seems dated is the ease of access Hart had to some of the brightest minds of his day, despite his lack of education. Perhaps a 21st century analogy would be talented computer coders and programmers who drop out of college and gain access to the best and brightest in that field.

    What was most interesting to me though was what happened before I saw the show. I wanted to see the play in no small part because I had acted in Hart and Kaufman’s “You Can’t Take it With You” in high school, back in the 1980s.

    At work, one of my coworkers, when I told her I was going to see the play, said, “I performed in ‘You Can’t Take it With You’ in high school.” She’s in her 60s, which means her high school days were in the 1960s. And also at work, another colleague said, “I was in ‘You Can’t Take it With You’ in high school!” That colleague, however, is an intern, a college senior, and her high school days were in the 2000s.

    There it was, three generations of people all working at the same place all having been in the same play, which was first performed 1936 and won the Pulitzer in 1937.

    So if you love the theater, and if you’ve been in any of Hart’s plays (such as “The Man Who Came to Dinner”), then this play is highly recommended.

     

     

     

     

  • The writing game is a waiting game

    When I was in college, my friends and I often joked about the life of being of writer, especially the low pay, imagining a scenario in which a publisher would say something like  … “Great story. Here’s a dollar. What else ya got?”

    What we didn’t talk about was all the waiting that goes along after sending stories out, and the sometimes in-between emails that can come it.

    So on March 17, I got an email from a writers contest telling me of my status in the contest. I was told my story wasn’t lost, that others had been told they hadn’t won, and some had gotten Honorable mentions, but that I was in the “hold” category — which I had never knew existed. The thing is, in one of the write-ups announcing the contest, it had said that winners would be notified around the end of March, so I wasn’t expecting to hear anything — certainly not as soon as March 17. (more…)

  • Thank you, Tor.com

    So this is next on my reading list, thanks to a random drawing on Tor. com.

    Publisher’s Weekly says of Eileen Gunn’s collection of short stories, “Questionable Practices”: “Nebula-winner Gunn combines humor and compassion in 17 short, intricate gems that showcase her many talents.”

    Can’t wait.

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    (Note the Tor.com buttons, too)