''Glorifying Terrorism'' is a 2007
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
anthology edited by
Farah Mendlesohn
Farah Jane Mendlesohn (born 27 July 1968) is a British academic historian, writer on speculative fiction, and active member of science fiction fandom. Mendlesohn is best-known for their 2008 book '' Rhetorics of Fantasy'', which classifies fanta ...
, which was compiled in direct response to the
Terrorism Act 2006
The Terrorism Act 2006 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that received royal assent on 30 March 2006, after being introduced on 12 October 2005. The Act creates new offences related to terrorism, and amends existing ones. Th ...
. Every story in the anthology has been specifically designed to be illegal under the Act's prohibition on any publication "indirectly encouraging the commission or preparation of acts of
terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
," including "every statement which glorifies the commission or preparation (whether in the past, in the future or generally) of such acts," and the anthology's introduction begins with the explicit statement that "(t)he purpose of the stories and poems in this book is to glorify terrorism."
Critical response
The ''
Morning Star'' offers the anthology a "rousing cheer", declaring its contributors to be "top-notch" and stating that it has "too many highlights to list"; it also states that the authors will not be prosecuted, because they are "too respectable and, mostly, too white".
Blair gets one in the eye from sci-fi
, the '' Morning Star'', 1 April 2007 (accessed 17 October 2009)
Contributors
* Kathryn Allen
*Chaz Brenchley
Chaz Brenchley (born 4 January 1959 in Oxford) is a British writer of novels and short stories, associated with the genres of horror, crime and fantasy. Some of his work has been published under the pseudonyms of Ben Macallan and Daniel Fox. Cha ...
*Marie Brennan
Marie Brennan is the pseudonym of Bryn Neuenschwander, an American fantasy author. Her works include the ''Doppelganger'' duology ('' Doppelganger'' and its sequel '' Warrior and Witch'', respectively retitled ''Warrior'' and ''Witch'' on late ...
*Hal Duncan
Hal Duncan (born 21 October 1971, real name Alasdair) is a Scottish science fiction and fantasy writer.
His works have been listed in the New Weird genre, but he prefers not to ascribe his writings to any genre.
Life
Hal Duncan was born in Ki ...
* Suzette Haden Elgin
* Kira Franz
* Van Aaron Hughes
* Davin Ireland
* Gwyneth Jones
*Vylar Kaftan
Vylar Kaftan is an American science fiction and fantasy writer. A Clarion West Workshop graduate, she lives on the U.S. West Coast.
Kaftan's short story "Civilisation" is included in Farah Mendlesohn's anthology '' Glorifying Terrorism'', and ...
* Lucy Kemnitzer
* H. H. Løyche
*Ken MacLeod
Kenneth Macrae MacLeod (born 2 August 1954) is a Scottish science fiction writer. His novels ''The Sky Road'' and ''The Night Sessions'' won the BSFA Award. MacLeod's novels have been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke, Hugo, Nebula, Locus, an ...
*Una McCormack
Una McCormack (born 13 January 1972) is a British-Irish academic, scriptwriter and novelist. She is the author of ''The Baba Yaga'' (2015) and ''The Star of the Sea'' (2016), two books in the ''Weird Space'' series from UK science fiction publish ...
* Adam Roberts
* Elizabeth Sourbut
* Katherine Sparrow
* Kari Sperring
*Charlie Stross
Charles David George "Charlie" Stross (born 18 October 1964) is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy. Stross specialises in hard science fiction and space opera. Between 1994 and 2004, he was also an active writer for the magazine ' ...
*Rachel Swirsky
Rachel Swirsky (born April 14, 1982, in San Jose, California) is an American literary, speculative fiction and fantasy writer, poet, and editor living in Oregon. She was the founding editor of the PodCastle podcast and served as editor from ...
*Lavie Tidhar
Lavie Tidhar ( he, לביא תדהר; born 16 November 1976) is an Israeli-born writer, working across multiple genres. He has lived in the United Kingdom and South Africa for long periods of time, as well as Laos and Vanuatu. As of 2013, Ti ...
* James Trimarco
*Jo Walton
Jo Walton (born 1964) is a Welsh and Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She is best known for the fantasy novel ''Among Others'', which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012, and '' Tooth and Claw'', a Victorian era novel ...
* Ian Watson
*Ian Whates Ian Whates is a British speculative fiction author and editor. In 2006 he launched the independent publishing house NewCon Press. He lives with his partner Helen in Cambridgeshire.
As of 2009 Whates is currently a director of both the Science Fict ...
References
External links
*{{Isfdb title, id=467491
2007 Panel discussion with Farah Mendlesohn, Ken Macleod, and Charlie Stross
at archive.org
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
2007 Panel discussion with Farah Mendlesohn
on CBC Radio
CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...
's '' The Current'' (requires RealAudio
RealAudio, or also spelled as Real Audio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fi ...
)
Novels about terrorism
Science fiction anthologies
Terrorism laws