(1) CROWDSOURCING DURING COVID. Monica Louzon pulled together data about “Kickstarter Anthologies in 2020”, analyzed, and graphed it. Among the things she learned —
…43.94% of the projects I reviewed were granted “Projects We Love” status by Kickstarter. To my surprise, this didn’t actually seem to impact the success of a campaign…
(2) WHAT IS FICTION FOR? [Item by Mike Kennedy.] Novelist Eliot Peper (Veil, et al.) and TechCrunch Managing Editor Danny Crichton had a conversation (via gmail) recently on what, if anything, speculative fiction can tell us about humanity and this past year: “Can speculative fiction teach us anything in a world this crazy?”
There’s an old saw from Mark Twain about how truth is stranger than fiction, and I think it’s fair to say we’ve lived through a very strange reality this past year. With all the chaos and change, we’re led to a foundational question: what’s the purpose of speculative fiction and its adjacent genres of science fiction and fantasy when so much of our world seems to already embody the fantastical worlds these works depict?
(3) MR. A MEETS MR. B. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In his autobiography In Joy Still Felt, Isaac Asimov discusses how he met Ray Bradbury for the first time on October 8, 1965.
I went to Newark to tape a talk show with David Susskind. It was my first nationally televised talk show since ‘The Last Word’ with Bergen Evans six years before.
This one was devoted to science fiction, and along with me were Lester del Rey and Ray Bradbury. It was the first time I had ever met Ray Bradbury, though of course we knew each other from our writings well enough to be on a first-name basis at once. Neither he nor I would fly on airplanes, so since I lived in Newton (Massachusetts) and he in Los Angeles it was clear that we wouldn’t meet often.
The session was not successful. Lester was in one of his talkative moods and gave neither Ray or myself much to do anything except stare at the ceiling, and Susskind had a list of questions, silly in themselves, from which he lacked the wit to depart. It meant all the interesting starts we made were muffled or killed when he asked the next silly question.
(4) MOST INFLUENTIAL SF MOVIES. ScreenRant calls these the “10 Most Influential Sci-Fi Movies Of All Time”. John King Tarpinian sent the link with a comment: “I would have rated number six and number seven as number one and number two.” And I personally think their #1 choice is nuts.
… Within the world of movies, the sci-fi genre has given audiences some of the most unforgettable films, some of which are considered among the best ever made.
But behind some of the most popular sci-fi movies are the movies that helped to inspire them. Many of these movies remain classics in their own rights, but fans might not be aware of how influential they have been to the genre. These ambitious projects broke new ground and paved the way for beloved movies that followed….
1/10 The Matrix (1999)
The Matrix is another movie that clearly drew from a lot of different sources, but eventually became something that would in turn inspire future movies. The movie really represented what the sci-fi genre could do, which is to show the audience something they have never seen before.
It has been parodied countless times but also inspired big-budget movies to be bold and original. From the action to the special effects to the ideas of the movie, The Matrix was all about proving the impossible to be possible.
(5) MEDIA ANNIVERSARY.
- May 2, 2008 — On this day in 2008, the first Iron Man film premiered in the United States. It was directed by Jon Favreau from a screenplay by Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway. It was produced by Avi Arad and Kevin Feige. The film stars Robert Downey Jr. , Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Shaun Toub, and Gwyneth Paltrow. It was nominated for a Hugo at Anticipation but lost out to WALL-E. Critics in general really loved it, it won a lot of awards other than a Hugo, it did great at the box office and audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it an exceptional rating of ninety-four percent.
(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
- Born May 2, 1890 – E.E. Smith, Ph.D. Arrived to great applause for The Skylark of Space (three sequels), likewise Galactic Patrol (two prequels, three sequels). Four more novels, ten shorter stories; more released posthumously, some with co-authors. First author named a Worldcon Guest of Honor (Chicon I the 2nd Worldcon). Helpful to all; first to receive the Big Heart (our highest service award). First Fandom Hall of Fame; SF Hall of Fame; Life Member of N3F (Nat’l Fantasy Fan Fed’n). In college (Univ. Idaho) president of Chemistry, Chess, Mandolin & Guitar Clubs; sang bass in Gilbert & Sullivan. Super-science so dramatic in his work, adventure-story tone of his time so resonant, that his literary ability – including characterization – was neglected then and is disregarded now, alas for SF which in seeking to do what he left untried could still learn from him. (Died 1965) [JH]
- Born May 2, 1921 — Satyajit Ray. Bengali filmmaker, screenwriter, graphic artist, lyricist, music composer and writer who is here for his genre fiction which fortunately has been translated into English for those like me who don’t read Bengali. Over a decade recently, three collections came in English The Diary of a Space Traveller and Other Stories, Classic Satyajit Ray and The Collected Short Stories) with most of his genre work in the collection. There are nine stories involving Professor Shonku, his most popular SF character. (Died 1992.) (CE)
- Born May 2, 1924 — Theodore Bikel. I was listening the other evening to him playing Tevye in the Fiddler on the Roof (“Light One Candle” to be specific) and as always was amazed by his singing voice. He was on Next Generation in order to play the foster parent to Worf in the “Family” episode playing CPO Sergey Rozhenko, Retired. That and playing Lenonn in Babylon 5: In the Beginning are the roles I want to note. Bikel also guest-appeared on The Twilight Zone in the “Four O’Clock” as Oliver Crangle. Well there is one minor other role he did — he voiced Aragon in the animated The Return of the King. By the way, Theodore Bikel’s Treasury of Yiddish Folk & Theatre Songs is quite excellent. (Died 2015.) (CE)
- Born May 2, 1925 — John Neville. I’ve mentioned before that Kage considered Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen to be one of her favorite films and John Neville was one of the reasons that she did so. You can read her review here. Among his other genre roles, Neville had a prominent recurring role in The X-Files as The Well Manicured Man. And he showed up playing Sir Isaac Newton on The Next Generation in the “Descent” episode. (Died 2011 (CE)
- Born May 2, 1938 – Bob Null. Served twenty terms as LASFS (Los Angeles Science Fantasy Soc.) vice-president. Often handled Logistics for Loscons (local convention), local Worldcons. Fan Guest of Honor at Loscon XXIII. Three-time recipient of Evans-Freehafer Award (service to LASFS); only one other person (Elayne Pelz) has done this since 1959 when the Award was first given. (Died 2010) [JH]
- Born May 2, 1942 — Alexis Kanner. His first genre appearance was on The Prisoner where he so impressed McGoohan in the “Living in Harmony” episode that he created a specific role for him in the series finale, “Fall Out” where he stands trial. He also has an uncredited role in “The Girl Who Was Death” in that series. His final known acting role was as Sor in Nightfall based off the Asimov story of the same name. (Died 2003.) (CE)
- Born May 2, 1946 — David Suchet, 75. Though rather obviously better remembered as Hercule Poirot, he does show up on in a Twelfth Doctor story, “Knock Knock”, simply called Landlord. Don’t let that deceive you. He’s appeared in some other genre work from time times to time including Greystoke — The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, Harry and the Hendersons, Dr. No — The Radio Play, Wing Commander, Tales of the Unexpected and Peter Pan Goes Wrong. (CE)
- Born May 2, 1948 – Anne Stuart, age 73. Ten novels, two shorter stories for us; a hundred novels all told. Three Ritas. Romance Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award. Has five sewing machines, that’s not too many. [JH]
- Born May 2, 1961 – Tom Arden. Eight novels, two shorter stories. Twoscore reviews for Interzone. Ph.D. under another name, dissertation on Clarissa. (Died 2015) [JH]
- Born May 2, 1972 — Dwayne Johnson, 49. Ok I wasn’t going to include him until stumbled across the fact that he’d been on Star Trek: Voyager as The Champion in the “Tsunkatse” episode. Who saw him there? Of course it’s not his only genre role as he was the Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns, played Agent 23 in Get Smart, voiced Captain Charles T. Baker In Planet 51, was the tooth fairy in, errr, the Tooth Fairy, was Hank Parsons in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, was Roadblock in G.I. Joe: Retaliation (Anyone watch these?), was a very buff Hercules in Hercules, voiced Maui in Moana, was Dr. Smolder Bravestone in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (not on my bucket list) and was one of the Executive Producers of Shazam! which gets a Huh from me. (CE)
- Born May 2, 1977 – Jessica Douglas, age 44. One cover, half a dozen interiors for us. “I show in galleries and museums around the world…. I primarily work in watercolors with gemstone additions. Most of my gemstones are bought from fellow rockhounders.” Here is Double Yule Dragon. Here is a narwhal. She made this Oroboros for Conduit 25 where she was a Guest of Honor. Here is No Place Like London. Here is The Grain Moon. [JH]
- Born May 2, 1980 – Rachel Harris, age 41. Three novels for us; a dozen others. Drinks Diet Mountain Dew. Homeschool mom. “Bookish people are the best people in the world.” [JH]
- Born May 2, 1983 – Jodi Meadows, age 38. A dozen novels (three with co-authors), half a dozen shorter stories. “I love crocheting, knitting, and spinning. In addition to several hand spindles, I share my office with three spinning wheels, named Bob, Rose, and Gideon.” Has read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, five by Jane Austen, Of Mice and Men, The Martian Chronicles. [JH]
(7) COMICS SECTION.
- Pearls Before Swine has a really bad Star Wars pun. Which is good, right?
- Frank and Ernest work up a kind of Covid’s Greatest Hits playlist.
(8) TROTS AND BONNIE. [Item by John A Arkansawyer.] She was my favorite of the National Lampoon comic artists. Now her collection is being published by the New York Review of Books! I’m not buying much, but I will buy this: “For 20 years, Shary Flenniken of Seattle lampooned her hometown in hilarious comic ‘Trots and Bonnie’” in the Seattle Times.
As a teenager growing up in the wildest days of the 1960s counterculture, Shary Flenniken bristled at the sleepy Magnolia neighborhood where her family had settled. She dreamed of finding adventure in far-off New York City and San Francisco, and her Seattle upbringing felt like a dreary dead end in comparison.
To while away the time until she could leave Magnolia behind, Flenniken told me over the phone recently, she got lost in her parents’ bookshelves. “They had really nice, big collections of New Yorker cartoons and Superman comics,” Flenniken says, and she’d soak up every line. “I just devoured that stuff. I was a super-reader.” Her father, a Navy admiral, was an amateur cartoonist, but his tolerance for irreverence only went so far. “My dad pretty much ripped up my early MAD magazines,” Flenniken says. “He was like that.”
… “Having a regular character is very important if you want to be successful doing comics, so your work should be character-driven,” she says. Flenniken decided to center her strip on a rebellious teenage girl not unlike herself. “I named her Bonnie, after a dog I had as a child,” she says. But every protagonist needs a sidekick to talk to, and so Flenniken sketched out Bonnie’s sardonic talking dog and named him Trots, “which had something to do with, um, pooping,” she says.
“Trots and Bonnie” ran in National Lampoon for 18 years, and the strip’s juxtaposition of elegant old-fashioned cartooning skill and filthy ultramodern comedy attracted a rabid fan base of cartooning aficionados. Bonnie and her faithful pup represent Flenniken’s raging id, let loose in retrospect on the manicured lawns of Magnolia….
(9) FOUR ON THE FLOOR. CNN reports “SpaceX mission: Four astronauts to return from five-month ISS mission”. In fact, they made it!
… On Saturday evening, the crew climbed aboard their spacecraft, which had remained fixed to the space station’s docking ports since the astronauts arrived in November. They undocked from the ISS at 8:37 pm ET, and will spend the night aboard their capsule as it freeflies through orbit. The spacecraft fire up its on-board engines to start safely descending back into the Earth’s thick atmosphere, and it’ll use a series of parachutes to slow its decent before splashing down off the coast Florida Sunday morning around 2:57 am ET….
In “SpaceX returns four astronauts to Earth in darkness” The Guardian covered their arrival.
…“We welcome you back to planet Earth and thanks for flying SpaceX,” mission control radioed moments after splashdown. “For those of you enrolled in our frequent flyer programme, you’ve earned 68m miles on this voyage.”
“We’ll take those miles,” said spacecraft commander Mike Hopkins. “Are they transferrable?” SpaceX replied that the astronauts would have to check with the company’s marketing department….
(10) TO MARS WITH TINKERBELL. The Adventurelandia.tumblr has photos and GIFs from Disneyland’s 1957 Mars and Beyond TV episode.
(11) THE WAIT IS ALMOST OVER. Wendy Whitman Cobb has a roundup of the coming possibilities at The Conversation: “Space tourism – 20 years in the making – is finally ready for launch”.
For most people, getting to the stars is nothing more than a dream. On April 28, 2001, Dennis Tito achieved that lifelong goal – but he wasn’t a typical astronaut. Tito, a wealthy businessman, paid US$20 million for a seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to be the first tourist to visit the International Space Station. Only seven people have followed suit in the 20 years since, but that number is poised to double in the next 12 months alone.
NASA has long been hesitant to play host to space tourists, so Russia – looking for sources of money post-Cold War in the 1990s and 2000s – has been the only option available for those looking for this kind of extreme adventure. However, it seems the rise of private space companies is going to make it easier for regular people to experience space.
From my perspective as a space policy analyst, I see the beginning of an era in which more people can experience space. With companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin hoping to build a future for humanity in space, space tourism is a way to demonstrate both the safety and reliability of space travel to the general public….
[Thanks to Michael Toman, JJ, John A Arkansaawyer, Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, John Hertz, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]
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(3) I’d love to see this interview, silly questions and all.
11) There was a Dan Brown novel about that once.
Clickity
5) Without the success of IRON MAN, there really is no MCU. Or it would rattle along badly as the DCEU is.
Paul Weimer says Without the success of IRON MAN, there really is no MCU. Or it would rattle along badly as the DCEU is.
It’s easily my favorite film of all the time that DC and Marvel have released to date with Guardians of The Galaxy being second. It’s everything such a film should be with not a single misstep in it.
And yes, the DCEU movie franchise is a frelling mess. Entertaining at times, but a complete mess.
IRON MAN was a gamechanger. The casting of Robert Downey Jr was inspired.
But it was also Marvel allowing different sorts of stories (Guardians of the Galaxy set in space with more humour, compared to Captain America Winter Soldier, compared to Black Panther) to be told within the universe that contributed to its success. They were using much more of the palette whereas DC, after finally getting a successful movie in The Dark Knight decided that grimdark was the secret to its success & so every subsequent movie went that way, despite the fact that DC comics are much much more diverse tonally.
@ Paul Weimer
The DCEU seems to be slowing down. Maybe after Black Adam, they can figure out where the hell they’re going. At least they are still pushing on in TV with Superman & Lois, Legends Of Tomorrow, Batwoman, and Naomi.
Rob Thornton says The DCEU seems to be slowing down. Maybe after Black Adam, they can figure out where the hell they’re going. At least they are still pushing on in TV with Superman & Lois, Legends Of Tomorrow, Batwoman, and Naomi.
I think the DCEU television universe has been far better than the Marvel television universe to date. I think it’s a willingness to let their creative cast have fun with the shows which they obviously are having. Of all the series, I like Legends Of Tomorrow the best by far.
Let’s not forget that a Green Lantern live series is being developed for HBO.
(3) I’m surprised that Asimov and Bradbury did not at least exchange pleasantries during the very first Worldcon, in NYC in July 1939. Both attended and there were maybe 200 people there at most. The impression I’ve always had about that event was that everybody went out of their way to interact in some way with everybody else who was there. But, based on Asimov’s account in his autobiography, that apparently was not the case.
4) I would put Forbidden Planet up there, as the inspiration for several TV shows, at least. And I’d like to claim that Just Imagine had great influence by killing the genre of comedic SF musicals for decades.
A lot of Doc Smith’s work is available as e-books, though they may be inconsistent in the way he’s named.
Bob Null also wrote some interesting programs for older computers – they use timing from the internal clock, so you want one that’s slow! One was strange attractors, where you can input the numbers and see what happens, and another was a kind of active screensaver, that ran various math-based graphics.
Re Doc Smith’s literary abilities – IMO, he’s very underrated. Oh, it’s all superscience… let me point out some things from Skylark, which I still love. For one, NONE of the women are bimbos, or screaming heroines. Dorothy had a doctorate in music… and when Duquesne and his henchman kidnap her, she kicks the henchman with both feet… and then snitches his gun. Margaret, who Duquesne’s supposed to get rid of, has undergone torture, and is a high-class bookkeeper.
Considering that he started writing that in 1919, and had help from a woman who was a family friend (and I have to wonder if she was a Suffragette), that’s a pretty modern view of women.
Rich Lynch: I’m surprised that Asimov and Bradbury did not at least exchange pleasantries during the very first Worldcon, in NYC in July 1939.
It’s possible that they did, and Asimov just didn’t remember meeting him. At that point, Bradbury had only had 5 stories published in zines by Ackerman, Madle, and LASFL (and it’s not clear whether his first issue of Futuria Fantasia had been released yet at the time of Worldcon). So it may just be that Bradbury was one face among many, at a whirlwind weekend where Asimov met a couple hundred new people.
4) I remember being stunned by the Matrix when I first saw it, it took special effects to a whole new level and really showed what was possible. Watching it now it doesn’t seem like anything special, but I see how it makes this list
“. . . Dr. Smolder Bravestone in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (not on my bucket list) . . .”
This movie was a ton of fun, much to my surprise.
JJ: There happens to be a convenient batch of reminiscences about the 1939 Worldcon in the Noreascon 3 Souvenir Book. Several of them mention Bradbury and Asimov, but each in separate contexts. There was plenty of opportunity for them to have met since they were in the convention hall at times, however, they weren’t there as often as you’d expect. It looks like Bradbury spent at least one entire day with friends at Coney Island, and Asimov spent the following day with the dissidents who organized a gathering that coincided with the last day of the convention.
(4) MOST INFLUENTIAL SF MOVIES.
Really? Matrix at number one and Terminator 2 at number two? 2001 is definitely the most influential SF film of all time, and Terminator is the only film in that series that should make any serious list of SF films.
(4) Without “Star Wars”, would there have been a “Matrix”?
P J Evans asks Without “Star Wars”, would there have been a “Matrix”?
No, indeed not. And an argument could easily be made that Star Wars Is the most influential film of modern era.
Now listening to Larry Niven’s Protector which is a splendid piece of fiction.
(4) MOST INFLUENTIAL SF MOVIES
I think influential is judged based on what comes after. A lot of influential things end up feeling very generic to later viewers, as every aspect of it gets copied and referenced endlessly by derivative productions.
And I don’t think cultural impact is quite the same as influential, particularly within a genre or medium. On this list, I’d probably cut both Godzilla and 2001. Both very big cultural impact wise, but limited in the ways future productions were shaped by them. Not a lot of direct copy-cats or scenes that get stolen everywhere you look. Where as it’s effectively impossible to make a modern SF movie without directly referencing some aspects of the rest of the list.
I’d probably add Jurassic Park to the list somewhere. Massively shaped everything that came after it.
Godzilla is the primary trigger for a whole subgenre – I think that’s plenty influential.
Meredith: Godzilla should be on there for sure. And is, of course. There are half a dozen on ScreenRant’s list I’d have on mine, in some order.
Forbidden Planet and The Road Warrior are very influential sff movies that I’d pick before Back To The Future and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, hard as it is to bump them from the top 10. How can one not see the DNA of Forbidden Planet in the Star Trek series, which itself is the genesis for so many other series. And The Road Warrior made dystopian storytelling big box office.
(6) I don’t mean to sound impertinent, but “Light One Candle” is not a song from Fiddler on the Roof, nor do I know of a cast recording of Fiddler starring Theodore Bikel (who played Tevye many times in touring productions but not on Broadway, as far as I can tell). I don’t doubt that Bikel sang and recorded “Light One Candle,” but it’s a Peter Yarrow song.
It’s not a bucket list movie but it and its sequel were decidedly fun, and a worthwhile way to spend a few hours. And the Rock does a great job playing a geeky teenager.
So, Covid test to come tomorrow, thanks to kids testing positive in not one but BOTH of my children’s classes (I suspect it’s another family with kids with the same age gap, but they make every effort to obscure the actual identity, and frankly, the measures in place to keep parents from too much interaction in person with the school also mean I don’t know which kids are related to which.) Wish us luck in not having picked it up, or protected by all the measures they’ve tried to keep in place, or however that works…
gottacook says I don’t mean to sound impertinent, but “Light One Candle” is not a song from Fiddler on the Roof, nor do I know of a cast recording of Fiddler starring Theodore Bikel (who played Tevye many times in touring productions but not on Broadway, as far as I can tell). I don’t doubt that Bikel sang and recorded “Light One Candle,” but it’s a Peter Yarrow song.
With my far les than perfect memory from brain trauma, it’s entirely possible that I thought I remembered him signing it. No harm intended.
gottacook: I’ll have to wait for Cat to explain what he was listening to. Your comments seem right to me.
I felt moved to poke around the internet for more info about this. There’s a record Theodore Bikel Is Tevye (1968)(Elektra) that I can’t find any other details about. For sure it doesn’t include “Light One Candle” which Yarrow didn’t originate until the Eighties. Interestingly, Bikel and Yarrow can be seen onstage singing together in this video of Temple Aliyah’s Light One Candle Hanukkah Concert — but my hearing isn’t good enough to discern what they’re singing!
ETA: While I was trying to post this, Cat answered.
(8) Trots and Bonnie was awesome.
The number of truly bad SF movies out there suggests that some of the more influential SF movies were probably pretty bad ones themselves! 🙂
I haven’t seen 2001 yet and I’m curious – what would people say the influence is there?
@Mike Glyer
Interesting! Yeah, Road Warrior would have been an interesting choice.
6) I first read the Lensman series when I was twelve and I enjoyed it tremendously(*) – but even at the time I remember thinking the writing was rough. That may be a little unfair – certainly the starkly incandescent beams of ravening force that trenchantly bite are part of the fun – but I think it’s best to be honest about the kind of pleasure to be found in “it was nothing like a sea cucumber”, or “armed and powered as only a planet can be armed and powered”, or “QX Cris? Really QX?”.
It’s possible to appreciate a thing and still be aware of its faults though, and, I still occasionally re-read and enjoy Galactic Patrol, Gray Lensman, and parts of Second Stage Lensmen.
(*) I was lucky enough not to find copies of Triplanetary and First Lensman until much later.
6) Smith is one of those authors I’ve never quite been able to get into, probably because none of his books were available to me during my Golden Age (10-12-ish); by the time I laid hands on used copies of the first few Lensmen books, I had kind of moved on to other things. Maybe someday I’ll give them one more shot.
@ Meredith
I haven’t seen 2001 yet and I’m curious – what would people say the influence is there?
In my very humble opinion, 2001 gave SF movies intellectual credibility in the mainstream above and beyond the pulp movies. Also, Kubrick was the first director to use movie special effects in a very visceral way, which impressed the hell out of everybody and raised the bar for special effects in blockbusters. After 2001, Lucas probably knew that Star Wars had to go that many steps farther to beat Kubrick.
@ Rob – according to Wikipedia Lucas approached Trumbull to form ILM, but Trumbull was busy on Close Encounters.
Confession time: I actually slept through the last 30 minutes of 2001 (to be fair, I’d been partying hard the previous night). I have however read both the short and the novel.
I can’t help but think Star Wars ought to be number 1 on that list.
OGH says ETA: While I was trying to post this, Cat answered.
Yeah I’ve gotten used to my brain remembering things that didn’t happen. It’s not getting better, and there are days that worse than others. Somedays are quite fine.
About Doc Smith, again: I see the two responses both talk about the Lensman series… whereas I was talking about the Skylark series.
For one, remember Doc was inventing this kind of story. It seems to me that you’re expecting him to write as though it had been written before, that New Wave had affected his writing, and as if he was writing in the last twenty or so years. Since you brought up Lensman… remember that it’s a straight military series, so perhaps comparing it to current military SF would be more appropriate. Say, just to pull a name out of my hat, Honor Harrington.
I also just thought, as I typed, that he started writing that as Hitler and the other fascists were taking over Europe, and I won’t presume that this did not affect his writing, and his enemies.
On the other hand, the Skylark series, a lot of it (I don’t care that much for Skylark Duquesne) is not military, but exploration (and doing science). For that matter, the Skylark of Space was the first story in literature to take us out of the solar system on a starship. Hadn’t happened before.
(7) COMICS SECTION. LOL at the “Frank and Ernest” playlist. It made me think of the M.A.S.H. and the CoronaVirus of pandemic-precursor stuff (did I get that link here originally? if so, for the repeat it) (ETA: which is a sort of MAS*H playlist for the pandemic).
Meredith (Audio) Moment!
Terminus by Peter Clines is the Audible daily deal for $3.95 for members — today only! This is in his loosely-coupled “Threshold” series; I love this SF-horror series (horror’s not usually my thing), which I highly recommend! It’s read by Ray Porter, who does a fantastic job, as always.
The previous books are related but not quite sequels to each other: 14, The Fold, and Dead Moon. But this novel really is a sequel to both 14 and The Fold; it answers questions raised in both, especially 14 (and has characters from both novels). So you really need 14 before this book, and while you could get away without it, you really need The Fold, too. You don’t technically NEED Dead Moon (only tangentially related; set on the moon), but it’s great, too, and if you like the series, I can’t imagine skipping it.
(4) “Most Influential” is of course a bit of a rubber term – but Star Wars is most probably the most influential of those.
Also I second Ryans suggestion of Jurassic Park – its not a great movie, but it certainly was quite influential. Im not sure of Independance day – which is a terrible movie, but also started the “big budget CGI fad”.
I also ask myself: Planet of the apes? 12 monkeys? Robocop? ET?
OK, these lists take more of my mental capacity that they should…
Seconding remarks above that JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE is a fun watch. It’s not a life-changing movie, but if you have a couple of spare hours and it’s easily available, there are a multitude of worse ways to spend those hours. And it shows Dwayne Johnson is willing to take on roles that poke fun at his usual film persona (and does a very good job at it).
From a literary standpoint, I think E,E, Smith’s best piece of writing was the close-to-mainstream munitions-plant section in TRIPLANETARY. From about fifty years on since last reading, as I recall it had more believable conflict and a greater depth of characterization than most of his work. (Which is, admittedly, not saying all that much.)
Inspired by this comment https://file770.com/winnipeg-in-2023-will-be-on-worldcon-site-selection-ballot/comment-page-1/#comment-1315420
“Ralph 124Click4Comments41+”
Ah, yes, Ralph 124c41+ – as I have a copy that I read, long ago, Sam Moskowitz was dead on, describing it as a marvelous work of technical prophecy, broken every few pages by a few atrocious words of plot.
In re: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, I’d like to third or possibly fourth the appreciation for it. And while Dwayne Johnson was very good in it, I’d say that it’s Jack Black’s movie. Johnson plays a geeky teenage boy transplanted (as it were) into the body of an action hero, something Johnson would only have to look back on his own life to understand. Black, however, plays a teenage girl transplanted into the body of an adult man, and does so, IMHO, with not only humour but also with taste and skill. It convinced me that Black is a much better actor than I had been giving him credit for up to that point.
@mark
I have read the Skylark series but I find very little of it has stayed with me, I’m afraid. I remember the ending of Skylark DuQuesne fondly, but that’s about it – and DuQuesne was a very late addition to the series, iirc.
As for his prose… I’m comparing with Leigh Brackett and C L Moore (my personal pulp favourites) who started a decade or so later but are hardly New Wave. (I could make a case for Edgar Rice Burroughs as a better craftsman, too, but I enjoy Smith more.)
Honor Harrington is far more constrained than the Lensman series, I think, even if Weber has about as many axes to grind. The constant widening of scope in Lensman is very much part of the fun. And Weber doesn’t do aliens as far as I know. It’s probably better to compare with the 90s New Space Opera – except they’re all in dialogue with the old pulp traditions in ways that make the comparison unfair.
@OGH
It’s a 45 single.
A-Side is “If I Were a Rich Man”; B-Side is “Sunrise, Sunset”
I only recently saw Jumanji for the first time, myself, and enjoyed it too.
I remember when Star Wars came out. When they were talking about the effects they referenced back to 2001. It was the benchmark to beat on model shots,
bill: Thanks, I was curious to know.
@Sophie
I really didn’t like the ending of Skylark Duquesne – he’s talking eugenics, and ruling an empire.
Not sure what you meant about “late” – Duquesne was there in all the books.
Honor Harrington, on the other hand – after about five or six books, she’d become Mary Sue, and Weber had set up Rob S. Pierre, in addition to Weber’s vehement anti-French Revolution (so I guess he’s pro-monarchy, and anti-99%), was a cardboard cutout of Snidely Whiplash.
6) I really enjoyed Theodore Bikel’s performance in “Family” (“I have all the specs and diagrams at home!”). Really, that whole episode was excellent.
I enjoyed Jumanji as well. Both The Rock and Jack Black are pretty talented guys, and more than that, they come across on the screen as supremely likeable guys and that goes a long way.