Monthly Archives: September 2013

Trunk Music

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A long-forgotten dystopian novel by Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has been produced as a play and is drawing sellout crowds in Stockholm.

The novel, written when Reinfeldt was 28, is set in the future (2013) after Social Democrats have been running Sweden for 20 years. The story is a Randian dystopia of makers and moochers, except they’re called the Fools and the Sleeping Brains.

The Fools work themselves to death paying for the welfare state while the Sleeping Brains sit in front of their televisions all day on the Fools’ dime.

The purpose is self-evident from this comment by dramatist Johanna Emanuellsson, who “felt it was incredibly important to make this work accessible to the Swedish public ahead of next year’s elections.”

But producer Amanda Almerén Persson likes to think she is assisting the public to see the PM’s uncensored political views.

“It’s easy to assume we are on the other side of the political divide, but this isn’t placard theatre, we are not trying to make the text ironic,” the producer explained. “We’re giving this text an honest to god chance. It’s not often that rightwing politics finds its way onto the stage.”

The only part that’s not easy to understand is the sellout audiences. Consider this analogy — if George W. Bush had written an sf novel and his opponents made it into a play, Democrats would not be flocking to the stage version.

So should I conclude that Reinfeldt’s story is actually entertaining?

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the story.]

Serling Conference in LA

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Rod Serling

Rod Serling

Ithaca College’s 2013 Rod Serling Conference will be held November 8-9 at the Hilton Los Angeles/Universal City. Sessions already announced are —  

  • Reading by Anne Serling, author of As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling
  • 1964 Holiday Gift From Rod Serling: Carol for Another Christmas by Gordon Webb
  • An Exploration of Anti-War Themes in Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Episodes by Michael Moodian
  • “Assault” on “The Maritime Zone”: Rod Serling’s Screenplay of a Jack Finney Novel by Joseph Zarzynski
  • Sending in the Extremists to the Cornfield: Rod Serling’s Crusade Against Radical Conservation by Mark Boulton
  • Serling and the Kennedy Administration by Amy Boyle Johnston
  • Singing the Body Electric: The Symbiotic Relationship Between The Twilight Zone and the Literature of Speculative Fiction by Don Pizzaro
  • Westport in Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone by Arlen Schumer

There will also be a bus tour ($25 extra) to visit Rod Serling’s star on the Walk of Fame, the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a place where the “Hollywood” sign can be photographed.

The Serling Conference is held every two years. Serling taught at Ithaca College from 1967 to 1975 and its campus is home to the Rod Serling Archives.

Themes of past conferences included “Submitted for Your Approval” in April 2006, “The Life and Legacy of Rod Serling” in March 2008, and “Celebrating 50 Years of The Twilight Zone” in 2009. The conferences present research, anecdotes, and an opportunity to view some of the classics of early television. The proceedings from past conferences are available here [PDF, 7 MB].

Rowling To Pen New Fantasy Movie

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8C8959729-130912-ent-fantasticbeasts-vmed_blocks_desktop_smallIt would be a sin to leave money on the table and that’s one sin Warner Bros. will never be accused of when it comes to exploiting the Harry Potter franchise. So the studio has set J.K. Rowling to work writing the screenplay for a new series of movies based on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a fictitious textbook used at Hogwart’s.

The story will be set in New York 70 years before the beginning of the Harry Potter series, and focus on Newt Scamander, the textbook’s author. It is not a prequel, says Rowling, “but an extension of the wizarding world.”

Rowling said the idea for a “Fantastic Beasts” film had come from Warner Bros., and she soon realized she could not entrust another writer with her creation.

“Having lived for so long in my fictional universe, I feel very protective of it,” she said. “I already knew a lot about Newt.”

“As I considered Warner’s proposal, an idea took shape that I couldn’t dislodge. That is how I ended up pitching my own idea for a film to Warner Bros.”

Apex Editors Stepping Down

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Editor-in-Chief Lynne M. Thomas will leave Apex Magazine after the December 2013 issue.

“I’m in need of break, after which I’m looking forward to exploring new opportunities and projects,” she wrote.

She added that Managing Editor Michael Damian Thomas is also leaving. “As many of you know, Michael and are a team. Nothing would have been possible without him.”

Apex Magazine has twice been nominated for the Best Semiprozine Hugo under the Thomases’ editorship.

[Via SF Site News.]

Start Publishing’s Halloween Contest

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Your 250-word tale of death, terror, madness or the supernatural could be a winner in Start Publishing’s Halloween horror story contest.

Submit entries to [email protected] by the deadline, October 21. Writers are also asked to tweet @startpublishing confirming the submission.

Start Publishing will randomly select five stories for Michael J. Martinez author of Daedalus Incident to choose one winner. Martinez is going to critique the winner’s horror story and give special writing tips.

The winner will be announced on Start Publishing’s Twitter and Facebook pages on October 31.

The winning horror story will be featured on the Start Publishing blog and the company’s November newsletter. The winner will also be able to select one FREE eBook from the Start Publishing/Night Shade Books catalog.

Burns: Shatner and West Together Again

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By James H. Burns: Seeing your story about William Shatner and Adam West at the Salt Lake Comic Con spurred me to remember that this was actually a REUNION.

In the early 1960s, Shatner starred in a pilot for a TV series about Alexander the Great!  The film, entitled Alexander the Great, wound up appearing on ABC’s Off To See The Wizard, a 1967/68 Friday night series of family films, hosted by cartoon versions of L. Frank Baum’s characters…

The movie is odd, but certainly not terrible, and is easily available (although for many years, was actually quite rare). Shatner is in fine young athletic form, with Adam West as his best friend, General Cleander, and also features Joseph Cotten and a villainous John Cassavetes!

(Intriguingly, on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. DVD set bonus material, David McCallum remembers being offered the lead in a proposed Alexander the Great series, which may or may not have been this film! To go from the petite McCallum, to Shatner, seems much of a quantum leap!)

Also, the corridors of my own memory remember Shatner co-hosting one of those Battle of the Network Stars-type programs in the late ’70s (or possibly early ’80s), but one that featured the guests performing feats of derring-do.  I clearly remember an excited Shatner interviewing West, as the latter had just completed driving a race car.

One, or both, I believe, commented, kidding, something like it was a meeting of two 1960s pop culture heroes!

Observing 9/11

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James H. Burns, who contributes here often, has republished his 9/11 thoughts at The Thunder Child —

I was just thinking of the guts it took for the actors who resumed their places on the stage so soon after that day in September.

‘Remember the courage it took, for some of us, just to walk down the street. And these folks were resuming one of the toughest challenges, in the arts.

For some, no doubt, it was a blessed respite. A chance to escape the horror, as they inhabited a character, or sang and danced in a chorus.

For others, the first steps into the theatre had to be like walking through quicksand.

Click on the link to see the rest.