Episode 146: Spear by Nicola Griffith
Lez Geek Out!cast
Andi and Lise discuss and deeply appreciate multiple award-winning spec fic writer Nicola Griffith’s novel Spear (current Nebula finalist!)—a queer Arthurian story that will bring you right into the era from a perspective you didn’t know you absolutely needed. If, like them, you grew up on Arthurian/Camelot stories, Spear is like coming home to the... Continue Reading →
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Episode 145: The Last of Us: One and Done/Fun
Lez Geek Out!cast
Andi and Lise jumped into the current zeitgeist and watched the first episode of the first season of The Last of Us on HBO Max, the TV series adapted from the video game of the same name (by Naughty Dog and Sony Interactive Entertainment, released in 2013). The storyline involves a post-apocalyptic U.S. in which... Continue Reading →
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Rerun Episode 124: A Conversation with Karin Kallmaker
Lez Geek Out!cast
Lise is laid up this week and can’t get the latest episode edited and uploaded. While she recovers, please enjoy this conversation with Karin Kallmaker.
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Episode 144: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: Does it Hold up?
Lez Geek Out!cast
Andi and Lise watched the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (the whale movie!) to determine if it holds up after all these years. Here, the Star Trek crew has to save Earth from destruction by an alien probe. To do that, they need…whales. Trust us on this! It’s a great plot device!... Continue Reading →
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Episode 143: Wednesday, Season 1
Lez Geek Out!cast
Andi and Lise rave about season 1 of the Netflix series Wednesday, which follows Wednesday Addams (a fabulous Jenna Ortega) of the iconic Addams family as she’s expelled from yet another high school and ends up at Nevermore Academy, a school for paranormal misfits where her parents first met. While there, Wednesday navigates tensions with... Continue Reading →
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Episode 142: A Pale Light in the Black, by K.B. Wagers
Lez Geek Out!cast
Andi and Lise loved K.B. Wagers’ A Pale Light in the Black, the first installment of Wagers’ NeoG series. A fast-paced, diverse character-driven space opera meets sports story meets mystery with some of their fave elements: strong diverse characters with issues we can all relate to; space opera adventure; found family; sporting competition; creepy mystery. ... Continue Reading →
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Episode 141: National Treasure: Edge of History: One and Done/Fun
Lez Geek Out!cast
In this episode, Andi Marquette and Lise MacTague discuss the first episode of Disney Plus’ new series National Treasure: Edge of History, based on the movies but starring a different cast with interesting takes on the characters and some of the issues they’re dealing with. Like the movies, this is a quest-themed movie that Andi... Continue Reading →
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Episode 140: What’s up in 2023!
Lez Geek Out!cast
Andi and Lise chat about the changing of the year, taking stock, calendars, and a few of the things they’re looking forward to in terms of books, TV shows, and games, and also their dreams to win powerball and fund game studios. Lise: Tears of the Kingdom, the next Legend of Zelda game, available in... Continue Reading →
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Episode 139: HoliGAY Movies
Lez Geek Out!cast
For this, the last show of 2022, Andi and Lise watched some LGBTQ Holiday (Christmas) movies based on a list published by Cosmopolitan Magazine (we know. We were all “WHAT?” too). They chat about the movies they saw, and throw out some other recommendations (also on the list). And also, Happy Holidays to all y’all! ... Continue Reading →
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Episode 138: The Tangleroot Palace: Stories by Marjorie Liu
Lez Geek Out!cast
Andi and Lise loved this collection of self-curated short stories (plus one novella) by majorly award-winning spec fic writer Marjorie Liu. These stories represent a collection from roughly 2009 until more recently, and span a range of spec fic genres, including paranormal, post-apocalyptic, fairy tale, superhero, and steampunk. Liu writes multi-layered character-driven stories that will... Continue Reading →
info_outlineAndi and Lise are way into the first collected volume, “Awakening,” of the multiple award-winning comic series Monstress (Image Comics) by writer Marjorie Liu and artist Sana Takeda, who combines elements of manga and Art-Deco in the portrayal of this grim world wracked by violence, racism, slavery, and war. The protagonist, Maika Halfwolf, is the descendant of a wolf-goddess, but there’s something else inside her that’s older and stronger and it may or may not be key to saving this world, in which most of the world’s human population despises Arcanics – the human/deity hybrids like Maika. The sadistic witch-scientists called the Cumaea may hate them the worst, and they capture Arcanics and run terrible, painful experiments on them.
The world-building in this epic fantasy series includes steampunk and magic and nods to Asian history and culture but also Egyptian mythology as it explores themes of survival and violence, the commodification of mixed-race bodies, and women’s rage and power, and how the latter can corrupt. The world of Monstress is almost entirely female and WOC, to which Andi and Lise say, MORE OF THIS, PLEASE.
Lise also highly recommends the second season of She-Ra, Princesses of Power, streaming on Netflix while Andi is sad about the end of the AMC series Into the Badlands, though she does think it didn’t do justice to its female and queer characters in the end.
https://lezgeekoutcast.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/lgo_55_monstress.mp3