Monthly Archives: September 2012

A Sound Idea

Posted on by

C. J. Cherryh’s first trilogy of novels set in the Foreigner Universe will be produced as a “Movie in Audio.”

What do you mean, Mike? An audiobook? A radio play?

Puh-leeze, that kind of thinking is so 1990! As scriptwriter Sable Jak told Sci-Fi London —

The talking book or book on tape is just that, one guy just reading the book to you. This is, essentially, audio drama, but not like those old radio plays with a bit of dialogue and some footsteps and then someone banging two coconuts together for a horse, this is a full soundscape, with atmospherics and state-of-art sound effects, rich dialogue taken directly from the novels, and a completely original music score.

Sable Jak’s website says the projected budget of more than $250,000 will be raised on Kickstarter; the campaign has yet to begin.

Audio Cinema Entertainment, the production company, has already selected several voice actors and received Cherryh’s approval:

Cast as the only human in the story, Bren Cameron, is horror artist and voice actor: Wednesday Wolf. Helen Hayes award winning actress Gin Hammond will bring the role of the Assassin’s Guild bodyguard Jago to life and the actress/singer Jane Cater will provide the pivotal role of Ilisidi. A fourth main character has not yet been cast.

[Thanks to Francis Hamit for the story.]

Future Worldcon Bidders

Posted on by

Here is a summary of ongoing bids for the Worldcon pieced together from the presentations at Chicon 7 and online discussions I’ve seen since then, with some Machiavellian speculation thrown in for seasoning.

2015

There are bids for Helsinki, Orlando and Spokane.

Helsinki, Finland: The recently announced bid for Helsinki in 2015 is chaired by Eemeli Aro, with a committee of (so far) Andrew Adams, Jukka Halme, Lisa Hertel, Crystal Huff, Johan Jönsson, Kristoffer Lawson, Jeff Orth, Ann Marie Rudolph, Nicholas Shectman, Heikki Sørum and Megan Totusek.

The website explains, “We’re an international crew of conrunners, with a Finnish core, and we’re hoping to build the most international Worldcon yet.”

Site selection is less than a year away, but the bid has not proposed a date for the con or identified its facilities.

In fact, fans feel obligated to begin a discussion of the new Helsinki in 2015 bid with mutual assurances that it is real. Not long ago the chair Eemeli Aro and two other top leaders were pushing Mariehamn, Finland in 2016, aka Wårldcon 2016. So far as the internet is aware, they still are.

Nevertheless, Helsinki bidders made a presentation to the Chicon 7 business meeting and ran a bid table at the recent FenCon. Helsinki has styled itself as a real bid from the start, in contrast to the Bermuda Triangle committee which took awhile to become seduced by the possibility of actually winning the 1988 Worldcon. (They made a real race of it before losing to New Orleans.)

The Mariehamn bid’s overarching advantage was that site selection voting for 2016 is to be done at Loncon 3 in the UK. There is no better timing for a European bid that wants to win, as European membership in the current year’s Worldcon will be at its peak. (Remember that The Hague defeated the LA in ’90 bid by a hefty margin at a site selection vote also held in the UK.)

Yet the serious Helsinki bid is sprinting toward an immediate up-or-down vote at a North American Worldcon against two bids for U.S. cities. Do they like their chances anyway?

If not, might this be a subtle way to party on with less risk of winning?

Or could there be an even deeper game involved? Does the committee have a contingency plan to roll over the Helsinki bid to the better year with the benefit of increased public awareness? In recent years several other bids have kept running after an initial defeat, Chicago victoriously, but KC and Columbus both losing the second time around.

Orlando, Florida: Adam Beaton chairs the Orlando bid committee. They propose to hold the con over Labor Day weekend, September 2-6 at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort at Walt Disney World.

Others on the Orlando committee in addition to Beaton are Mary Dumas, Robbie Bourget, John Harold, Eva Whitley, Lynda Manning-Schwartz, Charles Schwartz, Colette Fozard, Adam Ferraro, Pam Larson, Thomas Safer, Arthur Sanders, Katie Katz and Patricia McConnell.

The bid styles itself as a revolutionary approach to Worldcon running, committing to outreach, lowering Worldcon costs, and getting the next generation of fandom excited about Worldcon. These principles are discussed in detail in “The Orlando Manifesto”.

Spokane, Washington: The bid is being run by Alex von Thorn. Bobbie DuFault and Sally Woehrle are the prospective Worldcon co-chairs if they win. Spokane’s dates would be August 19-23.

They propose to use the Spokane Convention Center and nearby hotels, the largest being the Doubletree, Red Lion at the Park and the Red Lion River Inn.

The announced committee is: John Ammon, David Glenn-Anderson, Patricia Briggs, C.J. Cherryh, Bobbie DuFault (Convention Co-Chair), Jane Fancher, Bruce Farr, kT Fitzsimmons, Jerry Gieseke, Char Mac Kay, Randy Mac Kay, Tim Martin, Michael Nelson, Carole Parker, Pat Porter, Gerald Power, Rhiannon Power, Sharon Reynolds, Susan Robinson, Marah Searle-Kovacevic (Bid Vice-Chair), Chris Snell, Danielle Stephens, Bill Thomasson, Tom Veal, Alex Von Thorn (Bid Chair), Tracy Williams, Mike Willmoth (Hotel Negotiation), Sally Woehrle (Convention Co-Chair), Drew Wolfe, Kate Mulligan Wolfe, Chris Zach.

2016

There is a bid for Kansas City, and with caveats, Mariehamn.

Kansas City, Missouri: KC in 2016 proposes to hold the con August 17-21 at Bartle Hall and the Kansas City Convention Center. They have signed a contract with the rights of first refusal with their proposed facilities.

Co-Chairs of the bid are Diane Lacey, Jeff Orth, and Ruth Lichtwardt. The committee is: Chaz Boston-Baden, Margene Bahm, Warren Buff, Aurora Celeste, Barry Haldiman, Sheril Harper, Parris McBride Martin, Tim Miller, James Murray, Paula Murray, Mark Olson, Priscilla Olson, Jesi Lipp Pershing, John Pershing II, John J. Platt IV, Keith Stokes, Beth Welsh, Ben Yalow, Jim Young. No longer named as part of the bid committee is René Walling.

Mariehamn, Finland in 2016, aka Wårldcon 2016: Eemeli Aro and Johan Jönsson are co-chairs, and Jukka Halme is vice chair. The bidders made a presentation at Smofcon last December and when challenged about facilities, Eemeli Aro raised the possibility of anchoring a cruiseliner in the harbor for the duration of the con.

2017

There are three bids in various early stages of activity, Montreal, New York, and Nippon.

Montreal, Canada: Originally announced as a 2019 bid at the 2011 Smofcon, the Montreal committee reportedly now is setting its sights on 2017, in competition with a declared Nippon bid and a possible NY bid.

The Montréal group would bring the con back to the Palais de Congrés, the 2009 Worldcon facility.

René Walling, who chaired that Wordcon, made Montreal’s bid presentation at Smofcon.

New York: Mr. Shirt and his wife, Stacey Helton McConnell, reportedly are considering making a run at hosting a Worldcon in New York for the first time since 1967.

NYC didn’t make a presentation at Chicon 7. According to Petrea Mitchell, the New York bid did not intend to begin active campaigning until 2013.

Some have expressed resistance to a Worldcon run by a pseudonym, while others are undisturbed by people using handles as their fannish identity following the example of the internet.

Nippon: The official site for the bid is www.nippon2017.org which has no information at all, and a www.nippon2017.us site “independent of and not associated with the Bid Committee, but dedicated to encourage and assist them in returning the Worldcon to Japan” which has almost as little to say. Neither site lists committee members or a proposed date.

Andrew Adams told fans at the 2011 Smofcon that the Japanese bid planned on using the same venue in Yokohama as the Nippon 2007 Worldcon. But information shared at Chicon 7 indicated the bid committee is looking at two other sites, also in the greater Tokyo area, in Chiba, and Makuhari Messe in Saitama.

The Nippon in 2017 bid is immediately handicapped by questions about the huge loss incurred by the 2007 Worldcon in Japan whose full dimensions were only revealed this month. Bid spokespersons say funding for 2017 is separate. In a move to bolster their credibility they’ve added Vince Docherty to lead the finance division. A great deal more will need to be done to persuade voters that it is economically practical to hold another Worldcon in Japan.

2018

A New Orleans group is considering launching a bid.

The New Orleans in 2018 Pre-Bid Committee is Raymond Boudreau (Chair), Michael Guerber, Cordelia (Colin) Murphy, Rebecca Smith, Stu Segal, Jessica Styons and Kendall Varnell.

Committee member Jessica Styons told File 770, “Obviously we are in the early stages of building support, gauging interest and staking a claim but we are interested in all comments, offers of support and assistance.” Rebecca Smith, chair of CONtraflow, also is working on the bid.

2019

No bids.

2020

The one serious bid is for New Zealand.

New Zealand in 2020 is led by Norman Cates, a past DUFF delegate. The general committee members are Kevin Maclean (New Zealand),Maree Pavletich (New Zealand), Lynelle Howell (New Zealand), Malcolm Fletcher (New Zealand), Louise McCully (New Zealand), Struan Judd (New Zealand), Daphne Lawless, Andrew Ivamy (Queensland, AU Agent), James Shields (European Agent).

The committee says it’s an open question where they’d hold a Worldcon. There are said to be two facilities in Auckland and one in Wellington that could support a 1500-3000 member con.

A Nightmare Awakes

Posted on by

John Joseph Adams, Editor

R.J. & Julia Sevin, Publishers

The new online horror magazine Nightmare from publisher John Joseph Adams and Creeping Hemlock Press arrives October 1.

Launched with funding obtained from a successful Kickstarter campaign, Nightmare will be home to a wide range of horror fiction, from zombie stories and haunted house tales, to visceral psychological horror.

Issue #1 features all-new fiction by Jonathan Maberry, Laird Barron, Genevieve Valentine and Sarah Langan.

Issue #2, due in November, will contain new fiction from Ramsey Campbell and Desirina Boskovich, as well as classic reprints by award-winning authors Joe Haldeman and Poppy Z. Brite.

Edited by bestselling anthologist John Joseph Adams, the monthly Nightmare will run two pieces of original fiction and two fiction reprints, a feature interview, an artist gallery showcasing the cover artist, and “The H Word,” a monthly column about horror. Ebook issues will come out the first of every month and be available for sale in ePub format via the Nightmare website.

Nightmare online will also include nonfiction, fiction podcasts, and author Q&As.

Each issue’s contents will be serialized on the website throughout the month, with new features publishing on the first four Wednesdays of every month.

The full press release follows the jump.

Continue reading →

Bradbury Review Features Drafts, Ideas

Posted on by

The third issue of The New Ray Bradbury Review, available from Kent State University Press, is devoted to Bradbury’s unpublished fragments and notes:

A prolific writer, Bradbury composed openings for stories that he never finished, together with pages of notes, sketches, and drafts that he kept in suspension for possible use in some form at some place in various narrative projects he was considering, as well as fragments of completed stories that are now lost. These pages are of great interest to anyone drawn to Bradbury’s creative mind, for they reveal his imagination at its most spontaneous. Readers will be excited to discover in this issue Bradbury’s sketches for “The Venusian Chronicles,” revealing a landscape and characters that, while clearly incomplete, carry on the themes of The Martian Chronicles. Included is a checklist of Bradbury’s extensive fragments, compiled by Donn Albright and Jonathan R. Eller.

The New Ray Bradbury Review is edited by William F. Toupounce, professor of English and adjunct professor of American Studies in the Institute for American Thought at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story.]

Happy Birthday Mark Hamill

Posted on by

Mark Hamill at MidAmeriCon in 1976.

Luke Skywalker turns 60 on September 25 – can you believe it?

Mark Hamill, born in 1952, began playing the iconic role over three decades ago in the original Star Wars (since retitled Star Wars plus-or-minus 3, if I recall.) And in those days everybody in the production company worked overtime to interest fans in their movie because it wasn’t even a sure bet to be released!

Hamill and producer Gary Kurtz traveled to MidAmeriCon, the 1976 Worldcon, to make the appeal. They did a Q&A together and Hamill posed with the exhibit of art and props from the movie. Nobody knew who he was yet. The convention daily newzine got his name wrong and came back with a correction in the next issue: “It’s Mark Hamill, not Mike Hamill …”

The editors of Rocket’s Blast Comic Collector interviewed Mark at the Worldcon and took the accompanying photo. The interview appeared in their October 1977 issue – six months after the release of Star Wars, by which time every sf fan knew his name.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story.]

Corflu Fifty Picks Hansen

Posted on by

The Corflu Fifty will bring UK fan Rob Hansen to Corflu XXX in Portland, OR next May reports Arnie Katz in Fanstuff #21.

Hansen wrote the epic history of British fandom THEN with the help of the late Vince Clarke.

The Corflu Fifty is an outgrowth of the successful one-off fundraisers that brought Bruce Gillespie and William Breiding to Corflu Titanium in 2004 and Harry Bell to Corflu Quire in 2006. Andy Porter came up with the idea of getting a group of fans to commit to giving 25 dollars or 15 pounds annually to the cause. Rob Jackson and Curt Phillips are the current co-administrators.

Cooking With Leftovers

Posted on by

NASA wants to build an orbital outpost at Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 2 with parts left over from the $100-billion International Space Station according to documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.

At L-2, where the combined gravities of the Earth and moon reach equilibrium, an outpost can be kept in place with minimal power.

Called the gateway spacecraft, it would support a small crew and serve as a staging area for future missions to the moon or Mars.

To get there, NASA would use the massive rocket and space capsule that it is developing as a successor to the retired space shuttle. A first flight of that rocket is planned for 2017, and construction of the outpost would begin two years later, according to NASA documents….

From NASA’s perspective, the outpost would solve several problems.

It would give purpose to the Orion space capsule and the Space Launch System rocket, which are being developed at a cost of about $3 billion annually. It would involve NASA’s international partners, as blueprints for the outpost suggest using a Russian-built module and components from Italy.

So by keeping everybody’s rice bowl full NASA might grease the way through White House and Congress.

And that’s the best we can hope for from government-run space research? Sounds like we’d better keep watching the skies for entrepreneurial space development.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story]

It Is The End, My Friend

Posted on by

Richard Thompson’s last Cul-de-Sac strip ran Sunday, September 23 – or as Michael Cavna says it in his blog, Comic Riffs:

ALICE OTTERLOOP HAS danced on her last manhole. Petey Otterloop has read his last “Little Neuro” comic (we can relate, brother). And thousands of “Cul de Sac” fans feel as bereft as Mr. Danders, the caged class guinea pig, suddenly left alone in the dark.

Thompson is retiring the strip due to his struggles with Parkinson’s Disease.

Cavna also ran printed numerous tributes from the artist’s colleagues.

Thompson came out of fanzine fandom. Many of his cartoons appeared in the 1980s and 1990s in such fanzines as Stephen Brown and Dan Steffan’s Science Fiction Eye, Ted White and Dan Steffan’s Blat! and the Disclave program book.

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster for the story.]

Who’s on First – Every Year

Posted on by

Dale L. Skran Jr. declares in his guest editorial for The MT Void #1720 that it’s time to end Doctor Who’s dominance of the Best Dramatic – Short Form Hugo:

The 2012 Hugo awards have just been announced, and the DOCTOR WHO Episode “The Doctor’s Wife” won Best DOCTOR WHO Episode of the Year. The 2nd place was taken by “The Girl Who Waited,” and the 3rd place by “A Good Man Goes to War,” also a DOCTOR WHO episodes. This Hugo was once given to non-DOCTOR WHO dramatic presentations, but since this has not happened in a while, the term “Short Form Hugo” will no longer be used, and instead was replaced by “Best DOCTOR WHO Episode of the Year.” …

It is too painful to continue. I submit to you that DOCTOR WHO was *not* the best SF TV show during the entire period from 2006 to 2012 with the exception of one program produced by this Whedon, who has the unfair advantage of being very talented and inventive.

Mark Leeper counters with some interesting points in his follow-up editorial:

You cannot determine quality democratically. You can only determine popularity by a vote. It is a misinterpretation of the Hugo to assume that the voting picks the best nominee. It chooses which nominee has delivered the most pleasure. And in theory that really can be DOCTOR WHO year after year.

Skran wants to redefine the category to cover series instead of individual episodes: at least that way Doctor Who can’t take up more than one slot on the ballot.