So there I am, forgetting my woes, laughing at the gang and drooling over Chris Hemsworth, when we get this lovely little tidbit. Thor is trying to explain to the others that Loki is his brother and his responsibility.

Black Widow points out, “He killed 80 people in 2 days.”

Thor explains, “He’s adopted.”

Cue entire theater laughing…. except for me. (And my husband, who knows better.)

I missed the next 15 minutes of the movie because I was seething. Joking about adoption isn’t funny. Joking about being adopted isn’t funny. Making fun of a late discovery adoptee is especially not funny.

The 73adoptee post went viral, generating thousands of hits in less than a week. I must have struck a nerve because people responded in droves, primarily to tell me to fuck off.

Given that’s exactly how most of them phrased it, I think there’s a demographic going on here. I’m guessing most Avengers fans are male, ages 18-25. The majority of adoptee rights activists, myself included, are female, ages 30+. Adoptees typically do not search until their twenties, thirties or even older, and it’s not until they search that they discover they are second-class citizens regarding their own rights.

What you fanboys may not have realized is that I am a fellow fangirl. I’ve loved science fiction and fantasy all my life. I’m a time-traveling, cosplaying, fantasy-writing geek girl, and I am also a comics fan. I’m such a big comics fan I close every plastic bag in sight with two small pieces of Scotch tape. I mostly make mine Marvel, but I also read some DC and a smattering of Dark Horse, IDW, and others. Comics are a regular part of my world, as adoption is a regular part of my world.

This is my rebuttal to the snarky remarkers. Let’s analyze the negative comments I’ve received since I went up against the Avengers. The comments tended to group into several categories.

“How dare you moderate comments!”
I moderate comments on all of my blogs. I’m a computer security professional and I’m not about to deluge my readers with spammy comments. That’s how we spread malware, boys and girls.

I received hundreds of comments to my first Avengers post. I approved close to 50 as of this writing. I didn’t agree with all of them, but the one thing they had in common was that they were polite. Some who disagreed asked intelligent questions. I welcome that. But if you’re going to come to one of my blogs and be a dick, I’m not approving you. There’s enough dickishness on the Internet without adding to it.

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
I challenge you to check this out: Black Images In The Comics. It’s a book about the last 100 years of black characters in comics. Go look at the early ones. Find yourself cringing much? We’re at that point with adoptees. Yes, it’s a valid comparison. We’re talking about minority groups who are ostracized, stereotyped, and discriminated against merely for being who they are.

So, yes, discrimination against adoptees is a big deal. Civil rights are a big deal. Gay marriage is a big deal. Equality is a big deal. In case you haven’t noticed, that’s typically what the Avengers fight for. And the X-Men, and Spidey, and everyone else.

Quite frankly I am ashamed at the sf fan community. I thought we were the genre that welcomes “cripples, bastards, and broken things.”

“Nobody discriminates against adoptees.”
(primarily from the non-adopted) Uh-huh. Let’s see…

• Adoptees adopted by abusers, serial adopters, and pedophiles.
• Adoptees abandoned under “safe haven” laws.
• Adoptees dumped on planes and returned to their countries of origin.
• Adoptees born in other countries and later deported due to errors they had no control over in their childhood adoption paperwork.
• Black market baby selling.
• Adoptees routinely banned from their original birth certificates, and subjected to severe fees and restrictions while the non-adopted pay a token fee with no restrictions.
• Adoptees subjected to what amounts to restraining orders, merely for wanting equal rights.
• Adoptees made the butt of jokes on sitcoms, the stereotypes in made-for-TV movies, and the villains in horror films.
• Adult adoptees left out of legislative discussions of adoption and access to records.
• Three words: adoption reality TV.
• Three more words: reality TV reunions.
• The blatant bias against adult adoptee and first parent voices in the media. Read my analyses (here and here) which clearly show that adoptive parents and adoption professionals are the exclusive voice of adoption. If your knowledge of adoption is solely based on the media, you have no business discussing it.

And it’s not just the adoptees. Let’s talk about the widespread and deliberate coersion of mothers, then and now. Let’s talk about the Dan Rather report on the Baby Scoop Era, and Ann Fessler’s The Girls Who Went Away. Let’s talk about the current battle for father’s rights in Utah.

See any discrimination yet?

“I’m adopted and I thought it was funny.”
Again, let’s look at demographics. How old are you? How much do you know about your adoption? Have you thought about it much? Searched? Reunited? Ever had problems with your paperwork? Know the difference between an original and amended birth certificate? What are the adoptee access laws in your state and/or country?

Most adoptees don’t start truly thinking about adoption and its consequences until they’re older. I certainly didn’t start thinking about the mechanics of it until I was over the age of 25. Some statistics suggest that it’s when we start thinking about having kids that the question becomes relevant. On the other hand some people think about it their entire lives. It doesn’t matter how old you are, at some point you and adoption are going to have it out.

So if you flung back, “I’m adopted and I laughed my ass off,” return to this question when you’ve been around the ring a few times with whatever bureaucratic entities happen to be in possession of your paperwork. Trust those of us who have been there, it’ll be a humbling experience.

I would also like to suggest that this is the knee-jerk reaction of the Good Adoptee, a term coined by author, adoptee, and activist BJ Lifton. Good adoptees are not supposed to search or ask questions. When confronted by the suggestion that adoption is not all positive, they tend to react with, “I love my adopted parents! I think adoption’s great and I’m grateful I’m adopted!” To do otherwise is to threaten one’s existence in the adoptive family, sometimes literally in the case of disowned adoptees.

Maybe you really feel this way, but you won’t know for sure until you start to shrug off the conditioning. As adoptees we are used to dismissing our own feelings to achieve expectations for others. We don’t want to upset our adoptive parents by asking about our birth families. We’re afraid to rock the boat. Be sure your feelings are your own and not the ones you think you’re expected to have.

Even if you think about it and decide you honestly believe it wasn’t offensive, you have no right to tell other adoptees how they feel. And some of us found it highly offensive.

“You’re just angry. You must have had a bad adoption experience.”
Whether or not true, it’s irrelevant. See also my article about dismissing adoptee experience as anger.

“This is why the world hates adopted people.”
“No wonder your mother gave you away.”
“You’re a fucking bitch!”
etc.
Personal attacks are a great way to deflect. The suggestion that the Avengers adoption joke was discriminatory against adoptees must really have bothered you. I wonder what you’re so afraid of?

“How dare you! Avengers was the BEST superhero movie EVER!!!”
This is relevant to adoptee discrimination how? The movie was fine. The one-liner at adoptee expense was a low blow. That’s what we’re talking about. Geez, from the reaction you’d think I said, “Galactica 1980 was SO much better than the BSG remake.” I love comics as much as the rest of you but just because it has Marvel’s logo on it doesn’t make it sacrosanct.

Last, a couple of singular but amusing comments:

“Your husband’s nothing but your trained dog.”
Because he didn’t laugh when the joke was at his wife’s expense? If he’s trained, he’s obviously well-trained. I’m a lucky girl!

“Your gay.”
Is that “you’re gay,” in which case I guess you saw I unlocked Leliana’s achievement in Dragon Age: Origins? Or is it “your gay,” then which one’s mine and when should I pick him or her up? If I get to choose my gay, I want John Barrowman!

For contrast, here’s what some adoptees and others in the adoption community are saying about the Avengers adoption “joke”. If you’ve blogged about it, especially if you are an adoption community blogger, feel free to post in the comments. Others feel free to comment as well – assuming you pass my criterion of not being a dick about it.

I went to see Avengers over the weekend. As a longtime Marvel fangirl I was totally psyched. I may be more of an X-Men fan, but I’m perfectly happy watching just about anything in the Marvel universe.

Except there was one line in the movie that offended me enough that I was thrown out of my suspended belief and missed a good ten to fifteen minutes of the movie. Since it was adoption-related, I ranted… uh, blogged… about it over on 73adoptee: Avengers: Why Is Making Fun Of Adoption Still A-OK?

“So there I am, forgetting my woes, laughing at the gang and drooling over Chris Hemsworth, when we get this lovely little tidbit: “He’s adopted.” … What bothered me is that this is a prime example of how adoptees are one of the last fair sources of discriminatory humor. We can have a black Nick Fury, we can have a female assassin, but the bastard remains the accepted butt of any joke…” (continued at 73adoptee)

This incident got me thinking about heroes letting you down. Of all the Avengers in the movie I admire Thor the most, so to hear him deliver this offensive line was disappointing. It got me thinking of what the Tenth Doctor said about Shakespeare: “You should never meet your heroes.”

When I was five I was utterly enamored with Buck Rogers. I thought Wilma Deering as played by Erin Grey was the pinnacle of female achievement. After all, she was a pilot, just like Buck, right? I drew pictures of rockets and turned an old refrigerator box into the best darn spaceship you’ve ever seen so I could be the universe’s greatest female pilot.

For years I had a pleasant rose-colored affection for Buck Rogers… until it came out on DVD. I re-watched it as an adult and was appalled as I witnessed my idol, Wilma Deering, drop all of her 25th Century feminism to fawn over Buck’s prehistoric machismo. Ugh! What the hell was I thinking?

Speaking of Doctor Who, I find it similarly difficult to watch 1977’s “The Talons Of Weng-Chiang.” The stereotypes and racism are disturbing to a modern viewer, as is the casting of a Caucasian as a Chinese person in “yellowface”.  As with Avengers, it throws me right out of the story and back into a world where even our heroes aren’t perfect.

Sometimes it’s the story showing its age, as with Buck Rogers and Weng-Chiang. Sometimes it’s indicative of modern flaws, as with Avengers. However it happens it’s disappointing, and makes our heroes just a little less heroic.

Have any of your favorite shows, movies, or books disappointed you? Have you found yourself unable to suspend disbelief as a result? Share in the comments!

I’ve always been a fast reader. I taught myself to read at age two, which sounds more impressive than it is. A bored toddler will do ANYTHING for entertainment, and I probably figured out that it was much more entertaining than listening to grown-ups. Come to think of it, I still feel that way…

Most of the books available to me were also for grownups. I cut my teeth on Reader’s Digest Condensed Books and had more than one steamy romance novel ripped out of my hands for reasons I would only discover later. Gradually I gained more children’s books, of the Dr. Seuss and Little Golden Books variety.

I was notorious at the local library. The juvenile books were color-coded by reading level. I zipped through yellow, blue, and red, then got special permission from the beaming librarians to access the chapter books. Later I became the only kid allowed to venture across the Sacred Threshold to the section of the library reserved for adults.

(Tips on how to ingratiate yourself to librarians: Always be super-polite, never put books away on the wrong shelves, and don’t try to sneak in snacks when they’re not looking. Asking them for recommendations will get you bonus points, but you really start unlocking the achievements when you start recommending books to them.)

My tastes gravitated from an initial childhood love of mysteries (Nancy Drew! Trixie Belden!) toward fantasy and science fiction. I think that’s when I started to speed-read. I wasn’t trying to race through the books. I kept finding series that were so addictive that I couldn’t wait to get to the next one.

It’s probably Mercedes Lackey’s fault. I was barely thirteen, and what was the first book I encountered in the fantasy genre? A novel about a brown-haired teenage girl who is ostracized by her family, loves to read, and bonds to a magical white not-horse with a flowing silver mane that spirits her away to a new life. Oh, like I was ever going to be able to resist THAT. Especially since the second fantasy series I read was Pern…

In high school I read a novel a day. Time wasn’t a problem given my absolute lack of social life. I got busted by a substitute science teacher once. He made me hand over the book, took one look at it and said, “I can’t punish a student for reading Isaac Asimov in physics class.” Thank you, Foundation’s Edge!

But, looking back, I have to wonder if I was reading too fast. Sometimes I missed things that I picked up on later, which worked fine for Valdemar and Pern since I read the covers off both series. Books I only read once, I probably missed the nuances.

This came to mind recently as I finished reading George R. R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire (aka Game Of Thrones). It was the first fantasy series I picked up during my sabbatical and I figured I should check it out, given what a HUGE Beauty and the Beast fan I remain to this day (except for season 3 thankyouverymuch).

GRRM is not easy reading. It’s not necessarily even pleasant reading. I had to take my time, puzzle things out, try to remember which characters were allied with whom at any particular moment. Part of that is GRRM, because Westeros is an incredibly expansive and detailed universe. Part of it is lack of familiarity. I’m older, with more distractions, and I find that I miss too much if I read unfamiliar things fast.

Other things I still devour. At the moment I’m reading Lackey’s Five Hundred Kingdoms for the first time, and sprinting through it. But then, that’s Mercedes Lackey. She’s one of my favorite authors and I am used to her style. It’s the same with Pern even though Todd McCaffrey is now writing it. I know the universe, I’m comfortable in it. I can read quickly and still get the most out of the book, especially knowing I will be rereading it along with the rest of its siblings in the series.

Do you find you read faster or slower depending on what you’re reading? Do you consume your favorite series like candy or do you savor them slowly? Share in the comments!

Some people don’t. When I started freelancing, I took every gig I could get. Some were worse than others – far worse. But when you’re new to fluxuating income, turning down a paying job seems insane. And sometimes you literally can’t afford to turn down a job.

But unless you’ve hit rock bottom, you should always consider saying no to a paying job under certain circumstances. Here are some of mine, feel free to share some of your own!

If it’s outside your mission
I recommend everyone have a mission or goal, a single sentence that keeps you focused. Mine used to be “I help people with their computers,” but when I switched from full-time consulting to full-time writing it became, “I write about business and technology, and I also write fantasy and science fiction.”

That makes it easier to say no when, for example, someone calls me looking for tech support. After 13 years my first instinct is to jump up and get started. My mission reminds me that’s not my job anymore. It’s still hard, but it helps me avoid an instinctive, “Yes, of course I’ll help!”

If it takes more out of you than it brings in
There’s more to a job than pay. Maybe there’s so much involved that your hourly pay ends up less than a tenth of a penny. Maybe there are only three part-timers working with you plus the boss hates the project and wants to undermine it. Pay is great. Pay for misery is not.

If your Spidey-sense goes off
Sometimes a job just feels wrong. The project looks interesting, the people are nice, but there’s something twinging your senses. Stay far away from projects like those. In my experience your instinct is always right.

If it’s beyond your skills
It’s okay to tell a potential client, “I don’t know how to do that.” In fact, it might just work to your advantage. People appreciate the truth. They also appreciate a good referral if what they want isn’t in your skill set. And by “good” I mean a trusted referral, someone you know personally, not just the latest business card to cross your desk.

If you don’t want to
I received an offer the other day. I thought about it a moment and decided that, while I had the technical ability for the gig, I didn’t want to do it. There’s no freelance rule that says you have to have a reason to decline.

Now, let’s get to the big question: How, exactly, do you say no? Many freelancers take jobs they don’t like because they’re afraid to say no, or they feel guilty, or they think their business will UTTERLY FAIL if they don’t.

You have to resist that fear. Saying no is quite simple: you say, “no.” Believe me, that is the hardest thing in the world to do, especially when it’s a sweet project and you’ve been eating ramen for a week. Don’t hem and haw and say you’ll think about it. Just say no.

But there’s more to no than “no.” I mentioned the importance of a good referral. You may also want to…

• offer resources like Web sites and articles
• suggest other approaches

But you don’t want to…

• Blow them off
• Upsell them
• Talk them into your services just so you can get the gig
• Refer them to a poor referral
• Be unprofessional

If you maintain your equilibrium and say “no” with grace and dignity, your freelance business will thrive and you won’t have to worry about miserable, time-consuming, soul-sucking gigs.

How do you say no to a paying job? Share in the comments!

(Image: cbenjasuwan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Uh-oh.

So I start browsing Marvel’s online catalog. There’s some New Mutants. Any good these days?

WARLOCK IS BACK! Everyone’s favorite alien is back on Earth, but why? Plus, witness the vicious battle between Cannonball and Dani Moonstar!

Okay, you had me at “Warlock”. And it’s only two bucks. What could it hurt?

Fifty comics later I am refreshed on current events and reminded why I like X-Men so much. As I tweeted at the time: “I will nevereverever get tired of X-Men. I’ve been gone for 15 years and everything is exactly the same.”

Now, before you lambast me for buying my comics digitally instead of going to my local comics shop… the digital comics actually inspired me to go to my local comics shop for the first time and buy a bunch there too, and I’ll definitely be going back for new issues. So support your local comics shop, they’re good people.

Are you behind on the X-times? Here are my eight simple rules for returning to the X-Men comics:

• People who were alive are now spectacularly dead. People who are dead are now spectacularly alive.
• Don’t ask Cyclops about his love life.
• Don’t ask Wolverine about his past. Or his present.
• If the Professor is walking around on two good legs, don’t ask about the wheelchair.
• If Illyana Rasputin appears out of nowhere, the only correct response is: “I’ll get Colossus.”
• Your choice of Fearless Leader depending on death, draining of powers and/or angst: Professor X, Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Magneto, Emma Frost. If it’s not one of those it’ll be someone you never expected like Leech or the Power Pack.
• Friends showing up with glowing eyes is usually not good. Unless their eyes are supposed to glow, in which case if they aren’t glowing it’s not good.
• You’ll get by better with Patented Shi’ar Technology(tm)!

Do you have any X-suggestions to add? Share in the comments!

(Adorable tokidoki X-Men sweatshirt from ThinkGeek. I have one and I love it.)
(Warlock image from the cover of New Mutants #5.)

Bradford teacher Alison Sherratt is set to tell the ATL annual conference in Manchester that members of her reception class have been acting out scenes from games well above limit for their age.

“The inspiration for this motion was when I watched my class out on the playground throwing themselves out of the window of the play car in slow motion and acting out blood spurting from their bodies,” she says.

“I followed it up in circle time and talked about what they knew about playing games on the computer.”

She questions how to respond when one of her pupils asks her to join in a game by “stabbing a person in the back”.

Time to party like it’s 1979
For pity’s sake! We’ve had video games for generations and still these hidebound attitudes prevail? Let’s go over it again, folks: Not all video games are violent gorefests. Many of them are not only suitable for children, but can help teach valuable skills like problem solving and cooperative play.

The article eventually gets to the heart of the actual problem:

Ms Sherratt also raises concerns over children having access to games unsupervised in their rooms, and wonders whether their parents are checking on what they are doing.

Exactly. It’s not video games that are the problem, but parental supervision. Except the article only mentions that after we’ve stoked the flames of hysteria. There’s a big difference between My Little Pony and Grand Theft Auto. As parents it’s our responsibility to understand that difference.

Video games are a form of art
I play video games myself. Personally I don’t care for the first-person-shooter variety, but that’s not to say there’s anything wrong with FPS. I simply prefer RPGs like Tales of Symphonia and Dragon Age. I like games with character building, story arcs, and plots worthy of a good novel. In fact, that’s just what many modern video games are – unique universes in a new medium. Rather than television or books, we find art and beauty in video games.

(Art and beauty in video games? Yes. Read this article about the Art Of Video Games exhibit – at the Smithsonian. Good enough for ya?)

The games my kids play are similarly cooperative. We’re fond of the Lego series: Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Harry Potter. I frequently find my kids working together to figure out how they can get beyond an obstacle or find a treasure. This cooperation translates to other aspects of their lives, as you can see when they play board games or build with real Legos.

How families can embrace technology
A former teacher recommended an excellent book which might change your views on kids and video games. The Connected Family: Bridging The Digital Generation Gap by Seymour Papert argues that technology is here to stay, and the only way we can deal with it as parents is to embrace it in ways that enhance our families.

I remember when the Atari 2600 came out, the Apple II, the PC, the family iMac, Sega Genesis. Today it’s Facebook and Twitter and Xbox – same principles, different technology. And every time something new comes out, a certain subset of people have to lash out at it in paranoia, as if this is something new and awful that has suddenly descended upon the planet. Again.

That’s not to say there aren’t dangers on the Internet. Believe me, it’s my job to educate parents on exactly what those dangers are. But you can’t avoid technology for the sake of keeping your kids safe. That’s like never driving your kids anywhere because there might be a car accident.

How our geeky household does it
Here at Chez Guidry, we almost always play video games as a family. The consoles are in the living room so everyone can participate, especially games like Wii Sports. Even if we parents aren’t playing we are still spending time with our kids.

That’s not to say we don’t have rules. Typically there’s no screen time during the school week. We make the occasional exception for important events (like new episodes of MythBusters, which as far as I’m concerned is educational science television). Screen is only allowed on the weekends, and only for limited periods of time. I will also make exceptions for reading ebooks on an e-reader if it’s real reading and not an interactive app that’s more game than book.

Do my kids fight these restrictions? Of course. They want to play video games all the time. (Hey, who doesn’t?) But I don’t let my kids play video games constantly. We don’t take handheld players in the car or to the pediatrician. They know they’ll get to play when it’s appropriate, and they also know that if a punishment goes beyond time-out, the next thing Mom’s going to say is, “You’re grounded from screen time.”

Do you play video games with your kids? What are some of your favorite family-friendly games? Share in the comments!

“New Job: Hiring Mommy Bloggers”

It’s not the first time I’ve seen the phrase. The term “mommy blogger” is common – and offensive.

Like “work-at-home mom,” the phrase “mommy blogger” makes all women bloggers sound like part-timers who are only knowledgeable about mom-related things like organic baby food. As it happens I am knowledgeable about organic baby food, having made my own when my kids were little. But that doesn’t mean it’s all I know, nor that my brain suddenly got scooped out of my head the moment my kids were born.

“Mommy blogger” implies that you’re not a paid professional, or if you are paid it’s in diapers and coupons. It’s the 21st Century version of Tupperware. People see it as something for housewives to do to earn a little extra spending money while their husbands have real careers. It’s not a real job, it’s moonlighting.

Except this IS the 21st Century, and plenty of women are earning their livings online: bloggers, freelancers, web designers, programmers. Yes, there are female programmers, and we don’t call them “mommy programmers” regardless of parturition status. These women are capable and highly skilled. To dismiss them as “mommy” anything diminishes them as professionals.

(And while we’re at it, all those women selling Tupperware and Pampered Chef and scented candles? I’ve met plenty of them and guess what? They’re professional about their jobs, too.)

I’m a writer and IT specialist. One of my blogs is about technology and social media. Another one, this one, is about writing fantasy and science fiction. Not exactly topics that come to mind when using the term “mommy blogger,” yet my decades of professional experience are dismissed by those two little words merely because I happen to be Blogging While Female.

As far as I’m concerned, even if you’re literally blogging about being a mom, you’re still not a “mommy blogger” because of the negative connotations. Some have embraced the term “mommy blogger” in an attempt to redefine it in a positive way. I’m familiar with that, because my other other blog is about adoption. No, not adopting children, BEING adopted, as in adult adoptee. We bastards know a thing or two about redefining offensive terms. Nevertheless, I can’t find it within myself to embrace “mommy blogger.” It stirs memory of every hardship I’ve ever had as a female in a predominantly male industry. In short, it makes me go all Captain Janeway. And we know what happens when you go all Captain Janeway (if you don’t, ask the Borg Queen).

The problem is painfully obvious if you visit freelance job sites, especially those advertising to “Work At Home MOMS!” The jobs are lousy and the pay is slim if any. I’ve seen tons of writing gigs where you’re asked to write your fingers off for pennies a word and “promotion on our site.” Of course these sites are happy to con both men and women; getting ripped off is not exclusive. Even so, the advertising seems disproportionally targeted toward women, moms in particular.

And we don’t see the reverse assumption towards men. Men blog. Women are “mommy bloggers.” Men go to freelance job boards. Women go to boards for Work At Home MOMS! You can’t just be a blogger or a freelancer who happens to be female. Is it any wonder we are often paid less for the same jobs?

As a female person of the professional blogging persuasion, I’m offended. What do you think? Does the term “mommy blogger” offend you? Why or why not?

And I’m sorry. I’m really very, very sorry.

Life During Fandom

(with apologies to Talking Heads and the rest of the universe)

Heard of a con that is loaded with guest stars
Pack up your dice and let’s go
Heard of a bookstore out by the highway,
A place the muggles don’t know
The sound of Stargates off in the distance,
I’ve got a D.H.D. now
Lived in a TARDIS, lived on Darkover,
I’ve lived all over Known Space

This ain’t no starship, this ain’t no dungeon,
this ain’t no fooling around
No time for Tolkien or timey-wimey
I ain’t got time for that now

Transmit the virus to the invaders
Hope they will blow up someday
I got three novels, a couple short stories
But they’re all fanfic for now
On my friend’s TV Trek II is starting
everyone’s ready to KHAAAAN!
I filk in the daytime, I slide in the nightime,
I might not ever get home

This ain’t no starship, this ain’t no dungeon,
this ain’t no fooling around
This ain’t no Watchmen or InuYasha,
I ain’t got time for that now

Heard about Warcraft? Heard of Avengers?
Heard about Trek on Blu-Ray?
You ought to know not to stand by the airlock
somebody throw you out there
I got some Buffy, some Game of Thrones here
to last a couple of days
but I ain’t got no comics, ain’t got no manga,
ain’t got no Skyrim to play

Why be a mundane? God, that’d be boring!
Gonna read Hunger Games now
Can’t roll for damage, can’t find my phaser
I ain’t got time for that now

Trouble with nanites, we got you covered
We like our John Williams loud
We got computers, we’re checking Twitter
We’re all on Pinterest now
We dress like Cylons, we dress like browncoats,
or in a fez and bow tie
I’ve changed my cosplay so many times now
I don’t know what I look like

You kill that ogre, I’ll get the darkspawn
We make a pretty good team
Don’t get exhausted, you’re out of hit points
You ought to get you some CON

Burned all my Twilight. What good is Twilight?
I’d rather slit my own throat.
My books are breaking all of my bookshelves
Ooh, look! New reprint of Dune!

I discovered Hitchhiker’s in the library of the stodgy girls’ school I attended. Think Catholic school, minus the Catholic but plus plus on the plaid uniforms. As you can guess, the library was dull enough to bring a tear to Giles’s eye (but a bit short on demonology texts for his tastes, I’d imagine). There were the obligatory copies of Emily Dickenson, a bust of Margaret Mead on the table, inspirational “reading is FUNdamental” posters on the walls.

And, way in the back, a whole shelf of science fiction.

Somebody in that school was a serious closet SF fan. It was like a hidden message for future likeminded students, a little cache of bliss among fifty-year-old copies of Great Expectations*. Besides Hitchhiker’s, there was Asimov’s The Caves Of Steel which introduced me to his Robots novels, some Heinlein juveniles including Podkayne of Mars – as well as Stranger In A Strange Land, which proves no real librarian ever looked at that shelf or they would have spirited such naughty tomes away from the innocent eyes of us young ladies.

I’d already become addicted to SFF through Star Trek, Buck Rogers, and the original Battlestar Galactica. Finding Hitchhiker’s was like a fresh delivery of lemon-soaked paper napkins. The library card filled with my initials. I went out and bought what was then a trilogy, in both book and audio form. I could quote parts from memory. My stodgy school became accustomed to the girl who wandered around muttering about Frogstar Fighters. They called me a nerd, but I didn’t care. The fact that somebody had written a bestselling series like Hitchhiker’s proved that I wasn’t the only one who thought science fiction was fun.

I must have discovered Doctor Who and Hitchhiker’s Guide around the same time (insert irony here), because I can’t remember which one I fell in love with first. I do remember that we didn’t get the Douglas Adams episodes for ages thanks to the ridiculous policies of our local PBS station, so by the time I saw The Pirate Planet I was already addicted to Hitchhiker’s. Part of the allure was the quintessential Britishness of it, during the 1980s when everything British was kewl. (I was am also a huge Duran Duran fan, which probably contributed to my infatuation.)

But there was something special about Hitchhiker’s. You couldn’t read it and not laugh your ass off. It was the perfect diversion because it was so ridiculous, so witty, and so British. The latter, as I discovered, doesn’t really translate. I bought a foreign language copy in France, in which Zaphod becomes Zippy Bibicy (as in, BBC) and Ford Prefect is Ford Escort because apparently that’s funnier in French. It just wasn’t the same. As Mickey Smith comments in the Doctor Who episode The Chrismas Invasion (which itself is an homage to Hitchhiker’s), if the world was ending the British would have tea. That’s a very Hitchhiker’s sentiment.

Over thirty years later, Hitchhiker’s has become such a part of our culture here in the U.S. that you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t know the meaning of the number 42 or the phrase “Don’t Panic!” Take some time today to celebrate The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, before that Frogstar Fighter Class D comes to get you.

* Don’t get me wrong. I like classic literature, just not Dickens. I’m more of your Mark Twain type. Sorry, Vincent.

A kitchen garden is a garden that provides food for the household. This might be anything from a couple of tomato plants in pots to a huge garden complete with raised beds. A kitchen garden for a castle is just a large-scale backyard veggie plot. Before the modern age, a kitchen garden would also include the herbs needed for vitally important medicines.

Accuracy is important because a mistake can jar a reader right out of your story. See if you can identify the problems with this snippet, which I wrote as an example:

Loren scrubbed sweat from his face, wishing for even a slight breeze to stir the summer air. The bandits’ attack had turned the fields into a morass of mud. He and Rosa scavenged what remained: squash, peas, a few windfall apples. Rosa fashioned a ragged wreath from pansies and delphiniums that brought some scant cheer to the sorry harvest.

We know it’s summer, but the story mentions harvesting peas. Peas are a cool-season crop that withers in the heat of summer. Here in zone 5 I usually sow them around March or April and again in August for a fall crop. And are they snap peas, snow peas, or shelling peas? Snap peas and snow peas don’t store well, so you’re more likely to eat them fresh. Dried shelling peas are the ones you’d find in a castle pantry.

You also don’t harvest apples in summer. The earliest apples you’re going to get will be in August, and those are typically for fresh eating, not storage. Your winter storage apples won’t be ready until October-ish. And the squash? You might be harvesting zucchini or summer squash (unless you’re me), but winter squashes like butternut ripen later. The flowers are another problem. Like peas, pansies prefer cold. You wouldn’t find them growing at the same time as summer flowers like delphiniums.

You could avoid these pitfalls by making up your own flora and fauna, but you don’t want to force your readers to check your world’s glossary every five seconds to find out that “finera” is an apple-like fruit that grows in summer. Here are some easy tips on how you can avoid obvious errors in your own writing when it comes to growing and harvesting vegetables.

Know Your Climate
There’s no way I’m ever going to grow citrus in Chicago. You need to consider your climate when describing what your characters grow for food. One way to do this is to apply the USDA zone map to your fantasy world, then check to see which vegetables grow best in that zone. Is your elven city more like Minneapolis or Miami?

Know Your Plants
Can’t tell a rutabaga from a rhubarb? Stick with easier choices instead. You can’t go wrong if you explain that your starving villagers subsist on onions, potatoes, and turnips all winter. I like this web site from the University of Illinois Garden Extension which describes vegetables that grow best here in Illinois.

Know Your Harvest
You don’t just pick stuff, toss it in a basket, and stick it in a root cellar. Some vegetables need to be processed before they can be stored. Processing might be canning, drying, or even freezing if your world has that capability. Perhaps your wizards have created magical “ice-boxes” powered by spells of cold!

You also can’t store certain foods together. Apples give off ethylene gas which causes potatoes to sprout. There are several excellent books on how to preserve food including The Big Book Of Preserving The Harvest and Putting Food By, which include detailed information on the best ways to harvest, prepare, and store various vegetables and fruits.

When in doubt, do a little research on what real-life kitchen gardeners do. A great place to start is Kitchen Gardeners International. You’ll find that the art of growing and storing food really hasn’t changed that much, giving you plenty of raw material for your next story!