A Hollywood bomb that made money, a cable hit with a future, and the perpetual love feast that is the Worldcon, all in today’s Scroll.
(1) James Earl Jones played B-52 bombardier Lt. Lothar Zogg in Dr. Strangelove.
It was his seventh professional credit. In five of his first 10 roles he was cast as a doctor. That early typecasting wasn’t enough to get him the part of Dr. Strangelove himself, though… Jones first appears in this YouTube clip at :40.
James Earl Jones would establish his greatness as an actor a few years afterwards on Broadway, earning a Tony as the lead in The Great White Hope, and an Academy Award nomination in the film version of the play. Because of his prominence in mainstream entertainment, gigs like voicing Darth Vader or Mufasa in The Lion King seem like sidelines, however, Jones has often worked in genre, fantasy and offbeat productions.
He played alien abductee Barney Hill in a 1975 TV movie, Thulsa Doom in Conan the Barbarian, the warrior Umslopogaas in Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986), reclusive author Terence Mann in Field of Dreams (1989), and also has been in many obscure genre and animated productions.
(2) J. Michael Straczynski, interviewed by Comic Book Resources, is cautiously optimistic about a second season of Sense8.
While the streaming service hasn’t officially given the green light to second season, a promising gesture occurred when Netflix hosted a “Sense8″ panel during the Television Critics Association summer press tour with cast and creators in attendance, including Straczynski who updated the status of a possible renewal. “We’re still awaiting word,” he said on stage. “We’re in the process. We’re waiting for a final determination. We’re cautiously optimistic, but ultimately it’s Netflix’s call.”
If the call does come, Straczynski said he and the Wachowskis have already given plenty of thought to the next phase of the “Sense8” universe. “We’re looking at expanding that as far as logic goes,” he said. “What’s kind of fun about the characters is that what they’re sharing are not necessarily [powered] – like, in other concepts, which might be superpowers, flight. They have ordinary abilities, and we’re trying to say that there is value and merit and power in [that] – whether you’re an actor or you are a martial arts person or a bus driver, you have something to contribute.”
(3) You have til tomorrow to bid on a copy of the American first edition of Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. Currently up to $2,400.
(4) “7 Science Fiction Publishers that Pay $750+ for Short Stories” seems to have valid info (I checked the Analog entry and it is good) even if the page itself is an ad for writing jobs.
(5) Today’s birthday boy – Clifford D. Simak, three-time Hugo winner, for “The Big Front Yard” (1959), “Grotto of the Dancing Deer” (1981), and one of my very favorite sf novels, Way Station (1964). He was named a SFWA Grand Master, received a Bram Stoker Award for Life Achievement, and won the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award.
After the original Dean of Science Fiction, Murray Leinster, passed away, Isaac Asimov considered only two writers had earned the right to succeed to the unofficial title, saying in The Hugo Winners: 1980-1982 (1986) “the only writer who can possibly compete with [Clifford D. Simak] as ‘dean of science fiction’ is Jack Williamson, who is four years younger than Cliff but has been publishing three years longer.”
Clifford Simak
(6) Artist Bob Eggleton predicts the demise of the Worldcon art show in “We LOVE Worldcon….but here’s what happened…”
Back in the 1980s, it was commonplace for us Pro Artists to schlep or ship our work to the convention. The 80s was a great time, SF looked good, major authors were doing major works, the covers were the best they’d ever been. Costs were low. Even in the 90s it was still viable. I can remember in 1996 shipping 3 large boxes of artwork to the LACon of that year in Anaheim. It was a lot of fun, I won a Hugo in fact. The boxes cost me something like $300.00 each way for a total of $600 and change. I made something like $4500 in the show, so including everything, I still made money.
….It’s the shipping costs that it all comes down to vs the return in sales that are not always congruent. So while people ask “What happened to all the name artists?”….it’s simply cost that we can’t do this anymore. My personal view is also that, Worldcon has changed and few people are interested in the physical art like they used to be, with all the interest in digital media. And it has become a lot of work to prepare for these events. My memories are long and I will always remember the good times, but, they’ve passed. I see a future of an artshow-less Worldcon, due to insurance costs and lack of manpower and, as digital art becomes the mainstay, a lack of physical art.
(7) Dave Freer’s “Show me” at Mad Genius Club is a one-man roundup post.
In this case I’m talking about all those folk who have been telling us ‘we’re doing it wrong’. You know precisely the sort of individuals I’m talking about. They’ll tell me I’m an evil cruel man for killing a chicken or a wallaby… but they have never done it. They’ve never been faced with a choice of that, or no food (let alone meat). They buy a product in the supermarket… which magically makes it appear in the freezer. They’ll tell you that you did your book all wrong and that it is terrible and full of typos… but they haven’t written one. Or if they have, they didn’t have to survive the mill of the slush-pile as I did (or self-pub), but thanks to their ‘disadvantages’ and connections had a publisher pay an editor to help, and proof reader to clear some of those typos. They’ll tell you that the puppies efforts are dragging sf back in time (yes, JUST in time), yet they’ve done nothing to alter the catastrophic plunge of sf/fantasy sales from traditional publishers. If you force them to confront the figures showing they’ve been part of excluding anyone to the right of Lenin from traditional publishing and the various awards (which, it seems extremely likely, downgraded the sale-value of those awards, and the popularity of the genre… they’ll tell you there might be a problem (but of course nothing like as bad as you make it out to be) and we, the puppies just did it wrong.
(8) But never let it be said the Puppies haven’t left their noseprint on the field. Dave Hicks’s cover art for Novacon 45’s progress reports is themed for GoH Stan Nicholls’s Orcs fantasies. Here’s the topical #2.
Art by Dave Hicks.
[Thanks to David Langford and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Snowcrash.]
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And I vote…
1. GOD STALK!
[Runs out of the room. Hits the light switches by the door. Darkness. Confusion. P.C. Hodgell is avenged!]
Haven’t participated in the brackets before; if that doesn’t disqualify my vote now, I’d like to register one for The Last Unicorn, with runner up status going to abi’s filk of the princess’s song. (It was instantly recognizable, which I think is really impressive given the simplicity of the original.)
I would also like David Freer to know that I caught and killed* my own damn dinner today and he can shut up.
*By boiling it alive. Mwahahaha.
Nicole….ooooh, lobster?
Nah. Crawfish. Apparently the creeks here in Boulder are teeming with them.
NelC said
If Le Guin is Eowyn does that make Kyra Meridoc Brandibuck
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
Mike,
No plantations but I am sure the Mines of Pluto will be dangerous. The moons’ tidal stresses will make tunnel collapse an ever present danger.
@Cassy: I fear you have been corrupted by the movie version. That’s:
“No living man may hinder me!”
“No living man am I! You look upon a woman…”
Wait, Kyra hasn’t closed the bracket?! Okay, first time I’ve read these pages and not missed my chance and had the energy to vote and…etc. 😉
The Tombs of Atuan – Ursula K. Le Guin
🙂 (I won’t be offended if I’m confused and missed my chance after all…just haven’t seen the “end results” posting here or on the 8/4 thread….)
My suggestion is for a No Award lottery. The host draws a random seat number whenever No Award wins. This way at least a Puppy has a slim chance of going home with a Hugo – even if it doesn’t have a name on it.
1. THE TOMBS OF THE LAST SMALL UNICORN GODS
The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
The fact that Earthsea, along with Heinlein, was my gateway drug into SF as a child, and I only read Unicorn last year, possibly affects my vote to a great extent. Nevertheless, there it is.
Going to call voting on the bracket closed shortly.
Voting is now closed. There were a couple of what I can only call protest votes (God Stalk was mentioned, and also Orphans of Chaos), but the rest of the votes were for on-bracket works.
And the results are:
WINNER (TIE): Small Gods, Terry Pratchett – 25 votes
WINNER (TIE): The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin – 25 votes
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle – 23 votes
I kid you not.
@Kyra
Holy Crap. If you’re sure you can deal with a preferential ballot, can I suggest one with Small Gods, Tombs of Atuan, and LotR?
I didn’t vote and now you will never know which of the books I’d have voted for, it could have been any of the ones set in the Kargish lands with a labyrinth.
I suppose a three way tie would have been the only more unlikely outcome 🙂
Thanks for organizing all these, Kyra!
> “If you’re sure you can deal with a preferential ballot, can I suggest one with Small Gods, Tombs of Atuan, and LotR?”
I decided to handle it a different way because I wanted to throw in two runners-up, and adding those would take it from 6 possible permutations to keep track of to 120 possible permutations to keep track of. But the net effect will be the same as if it had been a preferential ballot.
David Goldfarb, in my defense, I just re-watched the movie last Sunday, so that’s why that version was stuck in my head. But I should have looked it up….
Wait!
That’s the book dialog? Because for that particular passage the movie dialog is much better then. So much better it”s almost embarrassing for Tolkien.
Because for that particular passage the movie dialog is much better then.
Burn the heretic!
Look, I know people love JRRT. But not only does the movie dialog play, which the book dialog does not, the book dialog is a much cleaner allusion to Odysseus and Polyphemos. (“No man is killing me!”) Also, in the movie, Eowyn doesn’t belabor what our eyes can see, by picture or narrative description: “Look! I’m female!”
@Jim Henley, I completely disagree with you about what plays, I find the book text much more poetic, and more, for want of a better word, epic, as compared to action movie one-liner. It flows, and builds, and speaks much more for the character.
For the record:
But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.
I know people love JRRT. But not only does the movie dialog play, which the book dialog does not, the book dialog is a much cleaner allusion to Odysseus and Polyphemos.
Except that wasn’t what Tolkien was going for. He was going for MacBeth:
MacBeth:
Thou losest labor.
As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed.
Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
I bear a charmèd life, which must not yield
To one of woman born.
MacDuff:
Despair thy charm,
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb
Untimely ripped.
The movie dialogue in the confrontation between Eowyn and the Witch-King is shallow and cliched at best. The exchange in the book is leaps and bounds better.
I knew this conversation felt familiar.
“I am No Man” Doesn’t Cut It: The Story of Eowyn
@Exarch Cathedra and Aaron: I bow before the passion of your error. You will hear no further argument from me. 😉
I liked quite a few(but not all) of the changes PJ made in the films. My favourite change was Theoden’s arc. His doubt and retreat to Helms Deep(which is a refuge instead of the fortified forward position it is in the books), felt more real than Tolkien having him jump up raring to go. It should take time to come out of his fugue, since while magic was involved in his invalidism, much of the effect was from the poisoning of his mind by Wormtongue.
@Tintinaus: Yow. One of the changes I really hated was Theoden’s arc, turning him from a powerful man deluded by honeyed lies into a magically wrecked imbecile. It stole from him his autonomy, and made him less responsible for his actions, making his redemption less powerful. In the book, he’s a man deluded by his fears who reaches and finds glory in the end.
I also really hated with PJ did with Faramir. Hates it, my precious, hates it forever!
and what he did with Denethor.
He took a book that could be loved by 12 year olds and made a movie for 12 year olds.
Lyndy
This I think proves my point rather than yours to my mind. I found the enfeeblement of Theoden slightly off putting but mostly incidental.
All Gandalf does in the books is toss Grima out and find Theoden’s sword in Grima’s chest, yet Theoden is instantly converted to Gandalf’s cause. That I found unbelieveable. PJ makes Theoden’s turn around a staged prosess from doubt back to honour.
While I wasn’t super-happy with Farimir in the films, I think his and Boromir’s back story in the extended cut fleshes out PJ’s reason for that change and at the same time making Boromir’s desire for the ring and betrayal more understandable.
Tolkien waved Boromir and Denethor’s failure as being because the men of Gondor being lesser that they were of old, which is very squicky if you stop and think on one of its possible implications(raising of lower class into power making a morally and genetically inferior people)
The change to Denethor I hated. The gluttony scene was a disgrace. While the book show him to be fallen the film robbed him of all the good qualities he still retained
All Gandalf does in the books is toss Grima out and find Theoden’s sword in Grima’s chest, yet Theoden is instantly converted to Gandalf’s cause. That I found unbelieveable.
And bring Theoden into the light. The redeeming and healing power of light is a recurring theme in the books. Also, Gandalf’s power is to kindle the hearts of men – to give them strength and hope so they can fight.
And yet Galdalf never manages such a stark heel turn with anyone but Theoden.
Aaron, you make it sound more like Theoden went from being brainwashed by Grima to being brainwashed by Gandalf.
Unsurprisingly, I don’t agree. In the book, Theoden is a great man who has lost his way. He has allowed his own fears and mortality to overwhelm him. He is the architect of his downfall. I have known too many people to go down this rathole, it is a very human flaw. Gandalf recalls him to himself, reminds him that he’s not yet dead. Theoden is transformed, in part because he is, truly, a great man. A hero of his age. Jackson steals his agency. His very human failing, that of being afraid of age and death, is externalized in such a way that it ceases to be a human experience.
The one place where I truly liked the movie better than the book was the death of Boromir. That was wrenching, horrific, and ultimately redemptive. It makes me cry every time I see it. It does not work as well for me, in the book. I think it’s because the arrow impacts are so amazingly visceral, on screen, in a way that his death in the book is not.
And yet Galdalf never manages such a stark heel turn with anyone but Theoden.
The only other character Gandalf comes across who is similarly positioned is Denethor, and there Gandalf has to contend directly with the influence of Sauron via the Palantir – a fact Gandalf doesn’t know until it is too late. We do see Gandalf’s influence elsewhere though, such as his role in keeping the men of Gondor fighting even when Denethor turns to despair.
Aaron, you make it sound more like Theoden went from being brainwashed by Grima to being brainwashed by Gandalf.
I suppose one could call it “brainwashed” if one wanted to. It is a religiously oriented message – Sauron and Saruman deal in despair and fear, while Gandalf counters them with light and hope. They are all essentially angelic or demonic beings clad in human form, so their influence is by nature supernatural, although both Gandalf and Saruman seem to act far less directly than Sauron does – Saruman relying primarily upon the slow insinuations of his lackey Grima and Gandalf relying primarily upon the power of simple sunlight, fresh air, and a reminder of the man Theoden once was.
It does not work as well for me, in the book. I think it’s because the arrow impacts are so amazingly visceral, on screen, in a way that his death in the book is not.
Well, in the book, the entire fight takes place off-stage and is only described later.
It occurs to me–and I feel stupid for never wondering it before–that “Man” has a very specific meaning in Tolkien’s world. So if no MAN can kill the Witch-King, Elrond could still have knocked his crown off and taken his lunch money.
Someone will undoubtedly tell me why I’m wrong here, but it kinda seems he’s changing up “man” for male and “man” for humans on this one…
(Also, I like the movie bit better.)
RedWombat, Meriadoc was able to injure him because Merry wasn’t a Man, either. So your point about Elrond is a good one.
Thank you, Cassy!
I’d even accept that Elrond Half-Elven couldn’t do it because of the human bit, but Glorfindel shoulda been able to feed the Witch-King dirt.
I’d even accept that Elrond Half-Elven couldn’t do it because of the human bit, but Glorfindel shoulda been able to feed the Witch-King dirt.
Glorfindel was the one who made the prophecy about the Witch-King. The interesting thing is that it was not a pronouncement of invulnerability, but rather a prophetic vision of the future. Glorfindel’s line was:
Note that Glorfindel didn’t say “no man can kill him”, he said “no man will kill him”. The Witch-King’s hubris was in taking this to mean he couldn’t be killed by a man, as opposed to merely a prediction that he wouldn’t be killed by a man.
I’d read it more as over-interpreting “can’t be killed by a man” as “can’t be killed” – because who else is there? Just like Macbeth thinks “no man born of woman” means “no man” (means “no-one”)
@Kathodus- Back in the day, my roommate Spike McPhee (I don’t see his name in print enough) called the Heinlein opus “Time Enough for Typos” because of how many he caught. Spike actually went back and highlighted them all, I just slogged through.