New Dillon Exhibit

Dillon Exhibit 

The exhibit of Visions and Dimensions Selected works of Fantasy & Science Fiction by Leo and Diane Dillon will open with a cocktail reception on May 28 from 6 – 8 P.M at Fusion Designs Gallery. Visitors will have a chance to meet the artists and view their work.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

The Mind of Neil Gaiman

Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune culture critic, devoted a recent column to Neil Gaiman:

You are inside the mind of Neil Gaiman, winner of the 2009 Chicago Tribune Young Adult Book Prize, and it is a delicious and confusing and dangerous place to be — because anything can happen, and probably will.

The admission price for this journey is not cheap. Not because Gaiman’s books are unreasonably expensive or difficult to obtain at the library. Rather, the steep cost is due entirely to his insistence that all riders must surrender their doubts, their cynicism, their pessimism, their bad moods and their slingshots. (All right, you can keep the slingshots — but we’re watching you.)

It’s an entertaining survey of Gaiman’s influence over popular culture.

I also wanted to mention the link because Keller’s title makes me nostalgic for the days of “Freeman King, culture critic,” a recurring send-up of Alastair Cooke and Masterpiece Theatre on the old Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour.

[Thanks to Steven Silver for the link.]

A Triple Shot of Bradbury

(1) Back in 1971 the Apollo 15 crew named Dandelion Crater in honor of Ray Bradbury’s book, Dandelion Wine, says John King Tarpinian. “It was first seen from what was called Station 6 on Apollo 15’s tour of the lunar surface. Unfortunately, the trip to Front (Station 5) was cancelled so there are no close-up images of Dandelion. This is the best known image.”

(2) Sam Weller introduced Ray Bradbury by video when illness prevented the famed writer from appearing in person to receive an honorary degree from Columbia College Chicago a couple weeks ago.

The college also marked the end of the school year with a parade down Michigan Avenue. This year including a Bradbury theme in the spectacle: his characters come to life and, in Ray’s absence, Weller dressed up as Ray Bradbury!

(3) Item three is a photo of John King Tarpinian in the basement of UCLA’s Powell Library reading the Fahrenheit 451 commemorative plaque to Ray Bradbury. Dennis Etchison is in the background. 

John King Tarpinian reading plaque to Ray Bradbury

SF in LA: Patricia Rogers’ Photo Album

You can pack a lot of stfnal adventure into a week in LA if you time it right. Patricia Rogers picked the last week of April and set some kind of record – and she has picture to prove it.

Here are some photos from my whirlwind trip to LA which was pretty much all SF all the time. Harlan, Nebulas, Eaton Conference, book stores, LA Festival of Books, and best of all (time) – Ray Bradbury invited me over his house! Gosh I love him! Thought y’all would enjoy seeing them. 

Patricia Rogers even stopped to help clean up fire debris at Len Wein and Christine Valada’s house. Afterward, looking at the photo of her smudged face she wondered, “Maybe I should have worn a mask – Huh?!” 

SF Writers Visit with Homeland Security

A couple of years ago Arlan Andrews, Greg Bear, Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven and Sage Walker got their pictures in USA Today when they represented Sigma at a Homeland Security conference. Sigma is a kind of think tank where science fiction writers share insights about the future with agencies laying real-world plans. 

This week Sigma sent sf writers Arlan Andrews, Catherine Asaro, and Greg Bear to another DHS conference and they made the papers again. The Washington Post reported:

Harry McDavid, chief information officer for Homeland Security’s Office of Operations Coordination & Planning, had a question for Catherine Asaro, author of two dozen novels, about half of them devoted to her Saga of the Skolian Empire. She also has a PhD in physics. McDavid’s job involves “information sharing” — efficiently communicating information about response and recovery across agencies, states, business sectors. How, he wanted to know, did Asaro come up with the Triad system in her novels of flashing thoughts instantly across the universe?

“It evolved along with the story,” Asaro said. Basically, she applied principles of quantum theory — one of her specialties as a physicist — to a fictional theory of “thought space.”

McDavid has no plan to add telepathy to Homeland Security’s communications strategy. That wasn’t the point of his question — or of the agency’s invitation to science fiction writers in the first place. He’s looking for ways to break old habits of thought.

“We’re stuck in a paradigm of databases,” McDavid said later. “How do we jump out of our infrastructure and start conceptualizing those threats? That’s very cool.”

Sigma’s website shows around 40 authors are in the group. The website looks homemade, and its content is rather uneven. However, what they do is illustrated by Michael Swanwick’s gem of an editorial, “Fresh Flowers and Small Robots: The Open-Security Airport of 2010”. Swanwick sketches a compelling near-future vision where TSA does its business quite differently, and “Most amazingly, nobody takes their shoes off.”

Sigma’s news page, regrettably, occupies the other end of the quality spectrum. A group striving to impress prospective clients with its professionalism should not be repeating headlines that read:

DARPA, who teamed up with Dan Quale to invent the Internet…

If somebody wants to give props to Dan Quayle, spell his name right. But stop portraying Quayle as someone trying to poach credit that another Vice-President once claimed for creating the internet. Everyone just ends up looking foolish.

[Thanks to Francis Hamit and Andrew Porter for the link.]

Le Guin Comics

When Book View Café publicized that it was offering, in the tradition of Bunditsu: The Art of Cat Arranging, Ursula K. Le Guin’s comic “Cat T’ai Chi”, I clicked that link in a hurry.

Just a few modest little doodles, but I won’t be hypocritical about this. If she’d sent them to my fanzine I’d have printed them without hesitation and bragged to the world, too. There is no doubt, I’m a fan.

More Le Guin’s comics will feature in Book View Café’s Thursday Specials, including “Pilllow Book for Cats” and “Supermouse.” These exclusives to Book View Café join other Le Guin rarities like her early screenplay “King Dog.”

Shenandoah Spy, the Board Game?

Francis Hamit’s Civil War novel The Shenandoah Spy just racked up another 5-star review on Amazon, the book’s 13th favorable review overall.

Hamit adds, “I have set up a LinkedIn group about The Shenandoah Spy to help build a FAQ.  I also have Board Game rights on offer there and am already talking to one potential producer.” I look forward to that — I spent many hours playing military board games in high school.

Hamit also was recently interviewed about his novel by Lillian Cauldwell on Passionate Internet Voices Talk Radio. A podcast of that interview can be accessed here.

Help Rebuild Len Wein’s Comic Collection

Rebuild Len Wein's Comic Collection

When Len Wein and Christine Valada’s home burned on April 6, as Craig Miller explained, “The master bedroom and bath were burned out. The walls still stand but everything inside, including the ceiling, is gone. Nearby rooms had extreme heat and smoke damage and smoke damage runs throughout. DVDs, artwork, awards, etc. are gone forever.”

Wein’s friend Mark Evanier realized that even though insurance should provide the money to restore the house, many things, including Wein’s comics, were not covered.  Evanier thought it was a particular shame that Wein had lost the collection of comics he himself had worked on – and Evanier knew that, at least, could be fixed:

Some of us thought it would be grand if his friends and fans pitched in to help him recreate those shelves of the comic books he’s worked on.

So the crusade as been launched. At the “Let’s Rebuild Len Wein’s Comic Book Collection Project” site there is a frequently-updated PDF list of what they want, with lineouts of what’s been received. It looks as if half of the needed titles have already been secured, but dozens more are still being sought.

[Thanks to David Klaus for the link.]