Category Archives: Like Show Business

Star Wars Rebels – A First Peek

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Star Wars Rebels, Lucasfilm’s new animated series, is coming to Disney Channel in 2014.

The action-filled series is set between the events of Episode III and IV — an era spanning almost two decades never-before explored on-screen. Star Wars Rebels takes place in a time where the Empire is securing its grip on the galaxy and hunting down the last of the Jedi Knights as a fledgling rebellion against the Empire is taking shape.

Executive producer Dave Filoni offers some general thoughts about Rebels to Pablo Hidalgo in this video from StarWars.com:

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story.]

Get Ready To Read Tolkien’s “The Fall of Arthur”

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British readers are reminded by Tolkien Society chairman Shaun Gunner that a brand new J.R.R. Tolkien epic, The Fall of Arthur, will be released in that country on May 23. (The book was released in the U.S. yesterday.)

Gunner comments:

We are all used to seeing Tolkien’s stories set in Middle-earth, but this is the first time we’ve ever seen Tolkien write about legendary Britain. We know Tolkien loved the powerful alliterative verse of Anglo-Saxon epics so Tolkien’s own re-imagining of Arthur’s downfall in this format will make for an interesting read. This is fundamentally important in terms of considering Tolkien’s academic career and his wider creative process, but it will also be fascinating to see how The Fall of Arthur – written before The Hobbit – may have parallels in Tolkien’s other stories.

It is always important when a new book is published by such a well-known and much-loved author, but this is particularly special due to the poetic format and subject matter. I am in no doubt that we will see the same skill and creativity on display in The Fall of Arthur as in Tolkien’s other works – this book will be a permanent feature of the Arthurian canon for centuries to come and will add to Tolkien’s own reputation as one of the most brilliant writers this country has ever produced.

HarperCollins says Tolkien set aside this work to write The Hobbit. It was left untouched for 80 years:

The Fall of Arthur recounts in verse the last campaign of King Arthur who, even as he stands at the threshold of Mirkwood is summoned back to Britain by news of the treachery of Mordred. Already weakened in spirit by Guinevere’s infidelity with the now-exiled Lancelot, Arthur must rouse his knights to battle one last time against Mordred’s rebels and foreign mercenaries.

Christopher Tolkien edited the manuscript and wrote three essays for the book, (1) about the literary world of King Arthur, (2) the deeper meaning of the verses, and (3) his father’s work to bring it to a finished form.

I Guess This Isn’t News

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By Andrew Porter: I tried to get a press pass for Book Expo America, coming up the end of this month, but couldn’t qualify.

Apparently when I send links and news items to the people, news blogs and interested parties on my list (what I think of as my Usual Suspects), it’s not news, nor is it anything that Book Expo’s registration forms can categorize.

So I won’t be there. I will be at a party Baen Books is running on May 31 for Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, authors of the Liaden Universe series. Baen tells me that I don’t need a badge to attend their party.

Most of the people I worked for are all dead, anyway; among the most recent was Walter Zacharius, publisher of Lancer Books when I worked there in 1967-68. I’d liked to have given a whole bunch of photos I’d taken over the years of Peter Workman to his family (I guess I can do this directly at the company, any time).

My first BEA — then called the American Booksellers Association, ABA convention — was during a Disclave some time in the 60s or 70s, when both were held simultaneously in Washington’s Sheraton and Shoreham Hotels. I remember when the exhibits were little card tables, set up by publishers in the Shoreham’s garage. ABA grew, of course, and the first one I actually registered for was in 1975.

I have my memories of glorious parties at the conventions, for instance the party for The Name of the Rose at the Washington DC mansion of the Italian Ambassador to the US, canapes served around a swimming pool set in a hillside; DAW’s 10th anniversary party on a riverboat in New Orleans; watching the first performance of the Rock Bottom Remainders, with Amy Tan in a silver lamé dress, and famous writers belting it out (recently rediscovered several rolls of color photos of the performance); the Playboy parties at the Mansion in Chicago, and in 1992 at Hugh Hefner’s house in LA (and the horror when everyone who worked at Playboy Press was killed when their DC-8 crashed on take-off from Chicago, en route to ABA in LA); and the press party for Newt Gingrich’s Tor book, Window of Opportunity, in the Capitol Building’s Mike Mansfield caucus room, during the 1984 ABA.

Present were Gingrich, Tom Doherty (see my photo of the pair on page 22 of the August 1984 SFC), various authors, and Reagan-era politico Lynn Nofziger. There was an awkward moment when Nofziger enthusiastically asked the room whether everyone was going to get behind President Reagan’s re-election bid. Dead silence greeted this, and Nofziger suddenly realized that the room was full of liberal New York publishing types, not dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. He left shortly after.

Memories: Bantam changing the color of their booth each day; the tiger at the Brigham Young University Press booth; McGraw-Hill’s enormous sand castle, finished minutes before the end of the convention; lots of press screenings of upcoming films, including Alien, before release, before anyone knew about John Hurt’s chest-bursting scene (I shut my eyes); Goonies, before the pirate ship was inserted in the closing scene, and the actors starred in amazement at an empty horizon; all the Star Wars films; and countless others.

I used to do a guide to the SF/Fantasy/Horror on display at the convention, complete list lists of genre authors signing, relevant freebies, and other facts, done by going to the Publishers Weekly offices where PW allowed me evening access to their original publisher forms. Where are Genevieve Stuttaford, Barbara Bannon, Sybil Steinberg, Sonja Bolle, the wonderful photographer Helen Marcus, now? (I still have incriminating photos of a much younger Calvin Reid and thousands of others, and my “Honorary Important Person” badge as authorized and signed by a passing Garrison Keillor.)

Eventually my guide, which started at several pages, shrank to two, then finally one. The number of SF publishers and relevant booths dwindled; genre authors fell to a handful; most editors stopped coming. I did the 20th and last Guide in 2002, the same year I was fired from the magazine I started in 1979, Science Fiction Chronicle.

I find it inexplicable that I’m still doing news, still sending out links and articles more than 50 years since I was a columnist in Science Fiction Times — is it an obsession or just a disease?

Oh well. A nice run. See some of you at (some) of the parties.

– Andrew I Porter

PS: Hey, look, it’s that young lad, Calvin!

Calvin Reid. Photo by and copyright © 2013 Andrew Porter.

Calvin Reid. Photo by and copyright © 2013 Andrew Porter.

Into Darkness, With Popcorn

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startrekmovie
Cineholics reviewer (and past TAFF delegate) Jacq Monahan likes the new Star Trek movie:

The iconic Enterprise crew is back again, fresh from a mission that results in an endangered Spock (Zachary Quinto) rescued by Kirk (Chris Pine) in a manner that violates a key Starfleet Prime Directive while on a primitive, volcanically-challenged planet. And that’s just the first ten minutes.

She rates the film a four on a five-point scale.

Trek Movie Premiere

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Jean Martin poses at right. Photo by Owen DeLong.

Jean Martin poses at right. Photo by Owen DeLong.

Starfleet International ship members joined the press and promotion winners at a special premiere of Star Trek: Into Darkness on May 15 in Redwood City, CA. Science Fiction/San Francisco’s Jean Martin attended in uniform and wrote up the event for the San Francisco Examiner with this added fashion insight:   

For the new movie, “Star Trek: Into Darkness,” costume designer Michael Kaplan used the Original Series Starfleet uniforms as inspiration but made them look a bit more modern and even more figure-hugging. The result is young, hip and ready to be embraced by a new generation of fans and costumers.

And is the film good? Jean says the audience enthusiastically applauded at the end.

Pointy-Eared Pals

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capetownArt

Zachary Quinto provided an affectionate video introduction of Leonard Nimoy for Entertainment Weekly’s CapeTown Film Festival earlier this month.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

Both appear in the new Star Trek movie, Nimoy uncredited.

*** ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT (DIDN’T YOU PAY ATTENTION THE FIRST TIME?) ***

Peter Weller, who had the title role Buckaroo Banzai (discussed here recently), plays a strident Starfleet admiral in the new movie.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story.]

Will Writers’ Union of Canada
Admit Self-Published Authors?

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The Writer’s Union of Canada will vote this month whether to revoke its long-standing policy of not accepting self-published authors. The 1,900-member organization spent the past year gathering feedback from its chapters around the country. The CBC reports there are strong voices on both sides of the issue:

Armin Wiebe, author of Tatsea, The Salvation of Yasch Siemens and The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz has taught young writers while practicing his own craft.

“In other areas of the arts it is not considered unseemly to produce your own music recordings, mount productions of your own play, or to rent a gallery space to hang your own art show,” Wiebe said.

“I have no objection to self-published authors joining TWUC as such… My problem with most of the self-published books I have read or tried to read is a serious lack of editing, both substantive and copy editing. Those are services that a good publisher will invest money in, so if you self-publish you should invest in it too.”

Poet and associate publisher at Great Plains Publications Maurice Mierau agrees with Wiebe about the importance of an editor, but he thinks the lack of editorial oversight should bar people wanting to join the writers’ union.

“It seems to me that in a world where almost anyone can publish almost anything, and less people actually read books of any kind, that TWUC should not admit members who have never dealt successfully with a so-called gatekeeper,” Mierau says.

[Thanks to John Mansfield for the story.]

Ellison’s Trademarks

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Harlan Ellison registered his name as a trademark in 2001. I learned this yesterday and it made me wonder if that was a regular thing among science fiction writers. My search on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website shows it is not.

Heinlein and Asimov, the two Americans in science fiction’s Big Three, were trademarked posthumously, Heinlein by the trustees of the Heinlein Prize in 2011, and Asimov by his estate in 2000. Asimov’s marks, registered for use in connection with science products, science toys, and educational materials and services have since been abandoned.

Beyond them, I found nothing. I tested several other writers’ names, picked for their marketing savvy (if this was a good idea, surely they’d have done it) or commercial success or historical significance. There is no record of a trademark application for the names of John Scalzi, George R. R. Martin, Robert Silverberg, Mike Resnick, Connie Willis, Orson Scott Card, John W. Campbell, Gardner Dozois, or even Philip K. Dick. So this is not something everybody does.

But during the past decade or so Ellison, through his Kilimanjaro Corporation, trademarked his name and several other properties (some now lapsed) — Working Without A Net (2000, cancelled), Edgeworks Abbey (2001, live), Edgeworks (2002, cancelled), and Dangerous Visions (2006, live).

Working Without a Net by Harlan Ellison first appeared as a book Ivanova was reading in an episode of Babylon 5. Ellison later gave the title to a weekly series of commentaries he did for Galaxy Online in 2000. Finally, in 2008, Ellison told a radio audience he has signed with a “major publisher” to write his memoirs, tentatively called Working Without a Net.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

Orange Mike Makes Headlines in Britain

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When Rachel Johnson, a British editor and journalist who contributes to the Daily Mail, discovered her Wikipedia bio had been edited to take out a reference to her degree, she assumed the simplest way to fix an error in the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit was to do it herself. She didn’t realize that ran afoul of a Wikipedia canon against editing material about yourself.

Johnson told the anecdote in her May 11 column with the headline ”Shown the red card… by Wikipedia’s ‘Orange Mike’”. Readers of File 770 will immediately recognize that nickname belongs to “Orange Mike” Lowrey, well-known fan and one of the Wikipedia’s most active editors.

Johnson wrote:

So, NEEKS who get Firsts are virtually unemployable, which is good news for all of us beta-brains.

I was feeling quite smug about my 2:1 till I was told that, according to Wikipedia, I don’t have a degree at all.

As I still have regular finals nightmares, not to mention a BA, I felt this was a bit rich. So I went on Wiki and deleted this outrageous slur from my biog (someone has written that I ‘failed to complete my course’).

The next day I was emailed a sharp rebuke by a moderator called ‘Orange Mike’ for editing my own page. So I stand corrected – but so far, my entry doesn’t.

Remarkably her complaint appeared as a London Evening Standard news story two days later, given the headline “Rachel Johnson in the grip of Wikipedia’s ‘Orange Mike’” – with the added interesting detail that Johnson’s brother is the Mayor of London.

Rachel had, in fact completed her Greats degree, the same course that brother Boris took, and emerged with a 2:1, the same result as him.

Her Wikipedia entry now stands corrected, with a link to the article as proof. But how will others, without a national newspaper column, correct theirs?

I suppose that’s a rhetorical question, however, on the occasions I’ve found myself crosswise of a Wikipedia editor “Orange Mike” mediated the solution. Obviously he’s willing to help those without national newspaper columns, too.

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

Classic Flash Gordon Rocket For Sale

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Flash Gordon rocketAn aluminum rocket ship model originally seen in Just Imagine (1930) and later featured in three Flash Gordon serials is being offered on eBay for $250,000.  

Universal markThis original miniature was used by Fox Films and Universal Pictures in the 1930′s. The model was swung through the air and brought to life with sparklers, smoke and added sound effects! It features a heavy, aluminum body and a door that folds down into stairs. It is clearly stamped “UNIVERSAL MOVING PICTURES” and “PROPERTY OF FOX FILMS CORPORATION 249″.

The model is 18 inches long, and has a 8-1/4 inch wingspan. It can be taken apart into two sections, as shown in the photos.