“It has a spell put on it by an old fakir,” said the sergeant-major, “a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow. He put a spell on it so that three separate men could each have three wishes from it.”
A fascinating classic horror story that has definitely withstood the test of time. I don’t usually enjoy short stories but it seems Jacobs knew his craft because he didn’t leave us wanting.
Panellists: Foz Meadows, L.M. Myles, Tansy Rayner Roberts,Sarah Shemilt, Christi Scarborough
At the end of last year, to mark ten years since the broadcast of the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the BBC, Naomi Alderman made a special edition of the Radio 4 programme Front Row, featuring interviews with cast, creator, and critics. Among other things, she asked what the show’s legacy had been, and whether the right lessons — female characters written as well as men, given as much narrative importance as men, and surrounded by other women — had been learned. Following on from her discussion, our panel will ask: who are Buffy’s heirs? (And you can listen to the original programme here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03m7zmq)
Panellists: Martin McGrath, Carrie Vaughn, Roz J. Kaveney (GR),Takayuki Tatsumi, Laurie Penny
One of the defining political issues of our time, societal inequality is showing up on-screen in films like In Time, Elysium and The Dark Knight Rises, and TV shows such as Continuum and Arrow. How successfully do these works engage with the issues they raise? Is the imagery they use at odds with the narratives they follow? And what would radical anti-inequality SF look like?
Why does SF hate poor people? It seems to echo the media’s hate for the poor.
Panellists: Paul Cornell, Robin Hobb, Freda Warrington, Liz Bourke, Sophia McDougall
Urban fantasy is a broad church. To some, it’s the genre of “Wizard of the Pigeons” and “War for the Oaks“; to others, it means Sam Vimes patrolling the streets of Ankh Morpork, orLocke Lamora conning his way through Camorr. Most recently, it has become synonymous with werewolves, vampires and hot detectives. What holds together the urban fantastic? Are different strands of the genre in conversation with each other? And how important is the influence of the stuctures and tone of other genres like crime fiction?
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