WSFA Press Publishes Valentine Novella

Dream_Houses_Cover-115x160Genevieve Valentine’s “first-ever novella,” Dream Houses, is being published by the Washington Science Fiction Association Press – and will be available first to members of Capclave, October 10-12, in Gaithersburg MD where Valentine is one of guests of honor.

She says this will be a limited print edition, the first 250 of which will be signed.

Pre-orders are being taken by the Press for the Trade Hardcover edition (only). Books will be shipped no earlier than October 13. The cost is $25.

What is this story about? Here’s the hook —

It takes a certain type to crew a ship that drops you seven years at a time into the Deep. Kite-class cargo ships like Menkalinan get burned-out veterans, techs who’ve been warned off-planet, medics who weren’t much good on the ground. The Gliese-D run isn’t quite the end of the line, but it’s getting there. No cachet, no rewards, no future; their trading posts get Kites full of cargo that the crew never ask questions about, because if it’s headed for Gliese-D, it’s probably something nobody wanted.

A year into the Deep, Amadis Reyes wakes up. Menkalinan is sounding the alarm; something’s wrong. The rest of the crew are dead.

[Thanks to Michael J. Walsh for the story.]

A Narnia Original

Tolkien & Lewis posterAttractive Films is pointing Tolkien & Lewis for an Easter 2015 release. Would you like to guess the only character who has been cast to date, and who that performer will be?

This is not another File 770 trivia quiz, so no use guessing Ray Bradbury. No use guessing anyone you might expect to see playing Tolkien or Lewis — or any other man.

The movie’s first announced cast member is Jill Freud. She is slated to play a social worker. However, she has a much greater claim to fame than that. Jill Freud could be called the real-life Lucy Pevensie from C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books. As a little girl, she provided Lewis’ inspiration for the character.

Freud gave an interview to The Hollywood Reporter in July. Here is an excerpt.

How did you find out that you were the inspiration for the Lucy character in the “Narnia” books?

Douglas Gresham, Jack’s stepson, wrote me a letter. He needed answers to something or other and ended with, “I suppose you realize that you were the inspiration for Lucy?” I hadn’t known until then — perhaps 10 years ago. I was absolutely thrilled. It’s like being told you were the real Lady Macbeth! …

How did you first come to the Kilns?

I was to be evacuated there — it was arranged to be at the end of the summer term. I went up there and was introduced to Minto [Lewis’ companion, Mrs. Moore], who sort of vetted me. She said to the convent, “she’ll do.” We had ration books in those days — and you got one egg a week. But Minto had 25 hens and she needed hen food. So she asked whether she could use my ration book for hen food and she would send me some eggs. So once a month I got a box containing 12 beautiful fresh eggs — whereas everyone else was getting one stale egg a week from the grocers. I did very well — so every month I wrote and thanked her, and that’s why she said when I had finished my O levels (at age 16), “Would you like to come down for a little holiday?”

What were your first impressions of Lewis?

When I first went up to the Kilns, Jack was away giving one of his lectures to the RAF, and he came back there after a couple of days — and I didn’t know he was C.S. Lewis. He was just “Jack,” and I thought he was Minto’s adopted son. I had already read The Screwtape Letters, which was my favorite book. So I was devastated when I looked at the bookshelf and put the two names together and realized that Jack Lewis was C.S. Lewis. For three days I couldn’t bring myself to speak to him — I was so overawed.

After the war she was trained at the Royal Academy of the Arts. She worked most of her professional life as Jill Raymond, appearing in several pictures and numerous TV episodes. She later married Sir Clement Freud, a grandson of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.

As a clever bit of casting, in Lewis & Tolkien, Freud, now 87, will be playing the social worker who brings her younger self to the Lewis household.

Today’s Birthday Boy 9/24

Born September 24, 1936: Jim Henson

Jim Henson was the beloved creator of the Muppets. However, an entirely different universe and collection of characters led him to attend his first World Science Fiction Convention.

The Dark Crystal, which Henson co-directed with Frank Oz and co-wrote, was released in 1982. The movie’s creatures and characters were based on the conceptual artwork of Brian Froud.

Jim Henson and producer Gary Kurtz promoted the film at Chicon IV, the Worldcon held in Chicago in September 1982.

Curiously, what is misidentified on The Dark Crystal “Making of” page as a photo from the 1982 Worldcon (below), actually is from a 1983 ceremony in France. Craig Miller, who worked on the film’s convention PR, verified that Froud did not attend Chicon IV. The correct identification (repeated below) comes from an entry at Jim Henson’s Red Book.

Jim Henson, Brian Froud, a French official, and Gary Kurtz at the “Exposition de Cristaux Geants” in Paris, 1983. Between the official and Kurtz is a Skeksis, a creature from The Dark Crystal.

Jim Henson, Brian Froud, a French official, and Gary Kurtz at the “Exposition de Cristaux Geants” in Paris, 1983. Between the official and Kurtz is a Skeksis, a creature from The Dark Crystal.

Also released in 1982 was The Dark Crystal computer game by Sierra Online — a re-creation is available for free play here.

(And Taral will appreciate it if I mention that his beloved Fraggle Rock, another Henson project, started shooting that same year in Toronto.)

Henson came to the Worldcon again in 1983, when it was held in Baltimore. Henson made a presentation about The Muppets Take Manhattan, then fielded questions about the Muppets and the world of The Dark Crystal. Henson spent some time wandering around the convention afterwards.

Although Henson did not come to the 1984 Worldcon, his presence was still felt. Two entries in the L.A.Con II masquerade re-created characters from The Dark Crystal. The following year, a participant had the chance to show him a folio documenting the presentations, and got back a nice letter about them.

A Dark Crystal-themed masquerade entry from L.A.con II.

A Dark Crystal-themed masquerade entry from L.A.con II.

Just like those costumers, many creative people were and continue to be inspired by Henson’s artistic vision.

Arthur C. Clarke, Salesman

By Bill Higgins: I know perfectly well that he doesn’t belong to fandom — he belongs to the entire world. Still, it was a bit startling to hear my favorite author’s voice come out of my TV tonight. In tiny letters at the lower right of the screen was ARTHUR C. CLARKE 1964. Sir Arthur was talking about what the future would be like.

“The only thing we can be sure of about the future is that it will be absolutely fantastic.”

Eventually it became clear that this was a commercial for BMW automobiles. These days, advertisers frequently park a copy of their commercial on Youtube:

It was uploaded last February, so I guess it took me a long time to notice the campaign.

This may be the first of Sir Arthur’s posthumous ads I have seen, but even before his death he lent his image to commercials. Here’s a spot for *Omni* magazine from 1980, with speechifying about the future very similar to the 1964 sound clip featured in the 2014 BMW ad above:

“One thing is certain: It will be wider and more wonderful than ever dreamed of by any poet or dramatist of the past.”

No doubt other examples of Clarkean pitchmanship could be turned up. Magazine ads, perhaps?

Two Days Left in Bradbury Auction

A little over two days remain on the Nate D. Sanders auction of the Bradbury estate.

Everyone seems to find something appealing in the catalog, and not what one might expect. There have been three bids on a brick from the home of Edgar Allan Poe that Bradbury owned, the latest for $1,183.

At this hour the bidding on Ray Bradbury’s Retro Hugo is up to $7,321.

Yet there have been no bids on the plaque given Bradbury when he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. (Of course, that may be because they want $15,000 for it.)

The Guardian’s Alison Flood wrote an entire article about George Bernard Shaw’s spade, once owned by the man Bradbury called “the greatest playwright of our century.”

Bradbury, a lifelong fan of Shaw’s, was given the spade as a Christmas present. Shaw had used the tool to plant a mulberry tree on his 80th birthday, in 1936. In the lengthy, unpublished poem, titled GBS and the Spade, Bradbury wrote of how, holding it, he could feel the Nobel laureate’s influence:

I hold the dear spade in my hands,
Its vibrant lightnings strike and move along my arms,
The ghost of Shaw climbs up through me
I feel a fiery brambling of chin
I feel my spine
Stand straight as if a lightning bolt had struck
His old voice whispers in my ear, dear boy
Find Troy, go on, dig deep, find Troy, find Troy!

Dean Ellis Illustrated Man COMPA sterling silver tray Bradbury was given when he was GoH of the 1986 Worldcon currently has a top bid of $500.

And the item I’d be most interested in owning, the Dean Ellis painting published as the cover of The Illustrated Man, has attracted 13 bids. At the moment it’s going for $27,583.

Classic FMZ at NY Art Book Fair 9/26

Tattooed Dragon Meets Wolfman“The Tattooed Dragon Meets The Wolfman: Lenny Kaye’s Science Fiction Fanzines 1941-1970” curated by Johan Kugelberg will be exhibited by Boo-Hooray at the NY Art Book Fair from September 26-28.

Lenny Kaye, who gained fame as a guitarist for The Patti Smith Group, and through his work on the compilation album Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedlic Era, 1965-1968, first was a Sixties fanzine fan. He published Obelisk, Sadistic Sphinx, Hieroglyph, and Pharoah, and belonged to the Spectator Amateur Press Society. Come see his collection this weekend.

How Bill Rotsler’s hand-stenciled cover for a 1960 issue of his fanzine Tattooed Dragon became the exhibit’s icon is nowhere answered, but the phrase is the kind of quasi-referential nonsense beloved by fans of that era. (Like my APA-L zine named Galactic Jive Tales.) It’s certainly an attention-getting choice.

As for the art, I’m sure there are readers of this blog that recognized the work as Rotsler’s as soon as they saw it.

Boo-Hooray’s post about the exhibit includes many images of the more graphically ambitious mimeo (and hekto!) fanzine covers from the era.

The exhibit also gives its name to a 196-page small press edition of essays about fandom and fanzine art reproductions which they will happily sell you for $40.

Exhibit curator Johan Kugelberg founded Boo-Hooray in 2010 to support the archival work he began as a collector and enthusiast. He has created comprehensive collections in the fields of punk, hip hop, and counter-culture, focusing on printed works, ephemera, photography, and book arts.

The NY Art Book Fair takes place at MoMA PS1, located at 22-25 Jackson Avenue on 46th Avenue, Long Island City, NY. There will be over 350 booksellers, antiquarians, artists, institutions and independent publishers, from 28 countries. Over 27,000 people attended last year’s fair.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

Two More Volumes of Ellison Soon To Be Published

A pair of Harlan Ellison collections, one fiction and one nonfiction, are approaching the launching pad.

Subterranean Press is readying The Top of the Volcano: the Award-Winning Stories of Harlan Ellison, with the 23 stories that have won Harlan the most hardware. Michael Whelan will provide the dustjacket art.

Table of Contents

  • ‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman
  • I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
  • The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World
  • A Boy and His Dog
  • The Region Between
  • Basilisk
  • The Deathbird
  • The Whimper of Whipped Dogs
  • Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54’ N, Longitude 77° 00’ 13” W 225
  • Croatoan
  • Jeffty is Five
  • Count the Clock That Tells the Time
  • Djinn, No Chaser
  • Paladin of the Lost Hour
  • With Virgil Oddum at the East Pole
  • Soft Monkey
  • Eidolons
  • The Function of Dream Sleep
  • The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore
  • Mefisto in Onyx
  • Chatting with Anubis
  • The Human Operators with A.E. Van Vogt
  • How Interesting: A Tiny Man

Then, Harlan Ellison’s Endlessly Watching will soon be available from Harlan Ellison Books. It’s a follow-on to Ellison’s 1989 Stoker Award-winning book of film criticism, assembling the 35th through 50th installments of his column for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction plus other comments, reviews, opinions, panegyrics and rages never gathered in one place.

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Bringing “u” To The U.S.

Klingon TheOpera“u” the Klingon opera has been performed in Europe since 2010. Now the creative team is drumming up interest in a 2015 U.S. tour via its website and Facebook.

The libretto of “u” is taken from the story of Kahless the unforgettable.

Betrayed by his brother and witness to his father’s brutal slaying, Kahless is pitted against his bitter enemy the mighty tyrant Molor. To regain his honor he must travel into the underworld, create the first Bat’leth, be united with his true love the lady Lukara and fight many epic battles.

“u” was composed by Eef van Breen to a libretto by Kees Ligtelijn and Marc Okrand (the leading Klingon linguist) under the artistic direction of Floris Schönfeld. The music is performed on “indigenous Klingon instruments.”

Klingon instruments used in the opera "u".

Klingon instruments used in the opera “u”.

Here’s a clip.

[Thanks to Francis Hamit for the story.]

2014 Utopiales Shortlist

PRIX_3Finalists for 2014 European Utopiales Prize have been announced. Given by the Nantes International Science Fiction Festival, the prize rewards a novel, or a collection, published in French during the eligibility period whose author is a citizen of a country belonging to the European Community. The prize has a cash value of 2000 euros.

  • 7 secondes pour devenir un aigle by Thomas Day, Éditions Le Bélial
  • Juste à temps by Philippe Curval, Éditions La Volte
  • L’Opéra de Shaya by Sylvie Lainé, Éditions Actusf
  • La longue terre by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, Éditions L’Atalante
  • Sumerki by Dmitry Glukhovsky, Éditions L’Atalante

The award jury includes Jean-Pierre Dionnet (writer, scriptwriter and journalist), Florence Porcel (writer, journalist and actress) and Guillaume Choplin (reader).

[ Via Europa SF.]