Season's Greetings

Hope everyone has/had a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Rockin' Solstice, Good Eid (yeah, I know I'm a bit late on that), Cheery Festivus, Transcendent First Lunar Orbit, Wonderful Winter, Super Summer (for the S.Hemispherians on the flist), and otherwise generally pleasing time of any other holiday I missed.

Since the holiday season is ideally, for families, I have something family themed. Another Prisoners of Gravity episode! This one deals with the treatment of "family" in SF, Fantasy, and Comics!

Part One: Gregory Benford on the changing nature of families, Spider Robinson, Generation Ships, Robert J. Sawyer about how families survive in Generation Starships in Golden Fleece, Pamela Sargent on the prevelance of dysfunctional families in SF, Christopher Hinz on why most of the families he writes about are broken. Lewis Shiner on autobiographical elements in his own work, Spider Robinson on his story "Serpent's Teeth", and becoming a parent
Part Two: Ken Oppel on The Live-Forever Machine and whether he sees 'broken families' becoming more prevelant, and practical reason to get rid of parents when writing, particularly kid's books, Garfield Reeves-Stevens on Dark Matter's main character's family life, Matt Wagner on the comic Grendel and the importance of family in it, Bill Sienkiewicz on Stray Toasters and the abusive family life in it, Neil Gaiman on abuse in Violent Cases, Fabian Nicieza on the Superhero Team as surrogate family, specificially in his in New Warriors (he also pronounces his own name)!
Part Three: Kevin Eastman on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Guy Gavriel Kay on the importance of family in the renaissance and in Tigana, and family members betraying each other, Pamela Sargent on family in her Venus books, Robert J. Sawyer on Golden Fleece

And speaking of Family, I've done my Xmas shopping, finally, this morning after work.