Poor ratings doomed The Whispers, the now-cancelled ABC TV series based on Ray Bradbury’s short story “Zero Hour.” Unfortunately, the fans of the summer series were left with a cliffhanger ending.
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Nichols has a better solution –
Most casual viewers will have no clue that The Whispers was “Zero Hour”. But if any of those are left disappointed by a lack of a solid conclusion, point them to the original short story – which has one of Bradbury’s finest endings.
Available exclusively at Don-Con will be a new edition of Lambert’s book, with 100 additional pages of new material and an elaborate latex slipcase sculpted and produced by Greg Duffy and Creature Revenge Studios. Pre-ordered copies can be picked up at Don-Con, and each order comes with a free admission.
While I have spent close to two years writing this book, I’m still uncomfortable with calling myself its author. That struck me in October of 2013, at the Son of Monsterpalooza show in Burbank, California, when I observed Don Post Jr. reminiscing with Bob Short and Bill Malone, two of the artists he employed in the 1970s. As they were looking at enlarged vintage catalog pictures and talking about the locations, props, and who was modeling what mask, it dawned on me that the Posts, along with everyone who worked for Don Post Studios, were the real authors of this book. These are their stories.
Don-Con takes place at St. Francis Xavier Church, Holy Cross Hall, 3801 Scott Rd. in Burbank.
The Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association’s 2015 Anthropomorphic Recommended List has been updated with submissions made from August through October 15.
This includes all of the anthropomorphic works published or released during 2015 that have been submitted by someone as being worth reading, looking at, or playing. Fred Patten asks fans to look it over and see if you have been missing anything.
Or if there is any 2015 work that you feel is worth recommending that is not on here, please submit it for the next update to [email protected]. It is almost the end of 2015, so do not delay!
What is it all about? Two men dressed up as Klingons go by underground railway (yes, it is the underground railway, although it goes above-ground in this scene) in Vienna, when they find out that a ticket controller is around. As they haven´t bought a ticket, they decide to confuse the ticket controller (by the way a pretty blonde woman) with Klingon language. But she also replies to them in Klingon and seems to know enough about Klingon culture, to call them “dishonourable worms”. What follows is an advertisement for the “Volkshochschule Wien”, a school where adults can take several courses, e.g. on languages. (Probably also Klingon …?)
Public voting for the winner continues until November 3 here (German language website).
(2) Richard C. White, in “World Building 101: The Village” at Black Gate, vents about cliché adventurers who return to the local village to spend their newfound treasure.
If you’re like me, that scene sounds awfully familiar. It’s appeared too often in bad fantasy stories, bad fantasy movies, and WAY too many role playing games. “But Rich,” you say, “the party has to have somewhere to spend their treasure. Otherwise, there’s no point in giving it out?”
And my response is, “You’re absolutely right, but for the wrong reasons.” Let me explain what I mean. (Good, otherwise this would be a darn short blog entry – Editor).
The biggest problem is, that scene above should be taking place in a large town or at least a small city. A medieval (or pseudo-medieval) village is not going to have jewelers or places to sell magic items (if you’re doing that kind of fantasy). The tavern is not going to have a bevy of barmaids and taverns do not traditionally sell food — that’s what the inn was for (if there even was an inn). And why in heaven’s name would you have a village that close to a dungeon populated by evil creatures anyway? Most sensible villagers would have packed up and moved to safer places years ago (if they hadn’t all been killed in their sleep by the monsters). No, this village in the scenario above seems to have only one purpose — to provide adventurers with a place to stay while they’re off looting the local dungeon de jure. Not only is that not realistic — it’s boring.
[Forrest J] Ackerman founded a cult magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland, and, more lucratively, became an agent for horror and science-fiction writers. He crammed an eighteen-room house in Los Feliz with genre memorabilia, including a vampire cape worn by Bela Lugosi and a model of the pteranodon that tried to abscond with Fay Wray in “King Kong.” Ackerman eventually sold off his collection to pay medical bills, and in 2008 he died. He had no children.
But he had an heir. In 1971, Guillermo del Toro, the film director, was a seven-year-old misfit in Guadalajara, Mexico. He liked to troll the city sewers and dissolve slugs with salt. One day, in the magazine aisle of a supermarket, he came upon a copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland. He bought it, and was so determined to decode Ackerman’s pun-strewed prose—the letters section was called Fang Mail—that he quickly became bilingual.
Del Toro was a playfully morbid child. One of his first toys, which he still owns, was a plush werewolf that he sewed together with the help of a great-aunt. In a tape recording made when he was five, he can be heard requesting a Christmas present of a mandrake root, for the purpose of black magic…
Four new films, including Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension and Vin Diesel’s The Last Witch Hunter, crowded into theaters this weekend and were swiftly pulverized and left for dead.
And John King Tarpinian says he saw only seven people in the audience at a showing of Bill Murray vehicle Rock The Kasbah.
Details are yet to be fully worked out, but will look something like the rest: she’ll come in the morning to post a thread where we can ask questions, then come back in the afternoon/evening to answer the posted questions and interact with folks for a while.
Yeah, this is cute — except that it looks just like the mass exercise and marching China used to have and North Korea still does — and “Imperial Stormtroopers”, had they existed, would have been used to rout the students and destroy the statues of the Goddess of Democracy in Tianamen Square in 1989.
Today “Tank Man” blocks the path of an AT-AT walker.
Thanks, Disney! Unfrozen, conventionally-buried-at-Forest-Lawn Unca Walt is a veritable whirligig in his grave right now.
(7) John Hertz responds to the notice in the October 23 Scroll about the passing of Harriett Klausner:
Of more immediate interest to us, Klausner was a pillar of Barry Hunter’s reviewzine Baryon, which came in the mail (Ned Brooks R.I.P.) for years. She read and wrote fluently and much, and wherever I formed an opinion of my own, well; she had few companions, perhaps no equals. I don’t believe I’ve seen a later issue than B 129 in 2014, but that if accurate is hardly conclusive in Fanzineland.
(8) I received this link to “The 40 Most Awesome Supergirl Covers” at Comic Book Resources with the admonition “For Historical Reference ONLY.” I’d say the covers are pretty tame – it’s CBR’s own Supergirl header that tends toward the cliché.
The evidence is right there in this trailer and the previoustwo. The desert planet of Jakku does not seem to have benefited all that much from the three-decades-old Rebel victory. Daisy Ridley’s character, Rey, appears to be a scavenger, and the planet is just littered with Imperial wreckage. If that hasn’t been cleaned up after 30 years, it’s a good sign that the Rebel Alliance has failed at statebuilding.
He also wonders why they didn’t revive the Senate or let the people know that Darth Vader switched sides minutes before he died.
Fortuitously for Netflix Canada subs, the company’s deal with Disney started with 2015 releases after the previous agreements for the pay-TV window with Corus Entertainment and Bell Canada expired. A Netflix rep confirmed “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is slated to come to the service in the country; under the terms of the deal, that will occur approximately eight months after the movie leaves theaters.
There is a four-acre piece of land in northwestern Box Elder County that very few people know about. Even fewer people recognize it as what it’s meant to be — its own country.
A decade ago, Zaq Landsberg, a man from New York, bought the land online with a unique goal in mind.
“The conceptual goal is I want it to become a real country,” Landsberg said. “I mean, that goal is not going to happen. It’s impossible, but going through the motions, (I’m) trying to make that happen.”
The area is known to Landsberg as the Republic of Zaqistan, and he is its president….
Zaqistan has its own flag, a border patrol gate, a supply bunker, a robot sentry that guards the land and even official passports.
“Zaqistan works the best, I think, when it’s wedged up against the real world, and when the passports circulate,” Landsberg said.
The passports look and feel real. You can even get them stamped when entering and exiting his land.
(12) What, wait, what? William Shatner was The Chairman on the original Iron Chef USA?
(This attempt to import the popular Japanese series preceded the later, successful Iron Chef America.)
There’s a short clip from an episode on YouTube. Chairman Shatner mugs for the camera starting at about :10.
(13) Ann Leckie fans have reported a great disturbance in the force!
[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, Gregory Benford, Will R., Jim Henley, John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
KCMO fan Nancy Nutt passed away October 22. She had seen a doctor recently, who “detected some heart issues” according to Tom Meserole.
Her friends testify to her creativity and sense of humor. Just one example is her Cthulhu Ski-Mask crochet pattern. A reviewer noted, “Nancy Nutt’s Cthulhu Ski Mask is decorated with pronounced eyebrows to give it that ‘evil look’ and has a number of tentacles that cover the mouthpiece. So at any point in time you’re on the slopes or at a party and want to want to take a swig of your favorite beverage, there’s no need to even remove the mask. Just part the tentacles like Moses did with the Red Sea and party on, Wayne.”
With a wide circle of friends, Nutt was fan guest of honor at ConQuesT in 1982, Archon 11 in 1987, and Conjuration 1999.
She served as the director of KaCSFFS, the Kansas City sf club, 25 years ago.
Her conrunning resume (as much as I could find with Google) included working logistics at Denvention in 1981 and co-chairing ConQuesT 19 in 1988.
The 2015 winners of the Deutscher Phantastik Preis for speculative fiction in the German language were announced at BuchmesseCon in Dreieich on October 17. (Via Nina Horvath at Europa SF, who provided the English translations.)
Best Novel in German language
Bernd Perplies: Imperium der Drachen – Das Blut des Schwarzen Löwen
Best Debut Novel in German
Silke M. Meyer: Lux & Umbra 1 – Der Pfad der schwarzen Perle
Best International Novel
Neil Gaiman: Der Ozean am Ende der Straße (The Ocean at the End of the Lane)
Best German Short Story
Vanessa Kaiser und Thomas Lohwasser: “Der letzte Gast” (published in the anthology Dunkle Stunden)
Best Anthology/Story Collection
Steampunk Akte Deutschland
Best Book Series
DSA – Das Schwarze Auge
Best Graphic Artist
Arndt Drechsler
Best Work on Secondary Literature
Christian Humberg & Andrea Bottlinger: Geek, Pray, Love: Ein praktischer Leitfaden für das Leben, das Fandom und den ganzen Rest
Guardians of the Galaxy, James Gunn and Nicole Perlman (Marvel Studios)
Best horror novel: The August Derleth Award
No One Gets Out Alive, Adam Nevill (Macmillan)
Best independent press
Fox Spirit Books (Adele Wearing)
Best magazine/periodical
Holdfast Magazine, ed. Laurel Sills and Lucy Smee (Laurel Sills and Lucy Smee)
Best newcomer: The Sydney J. Bounds Award
Sarah Lotz, for The Three (Hodder & Stoughton)
Best non-fiction
Letters to Arkham: The Letters of Ramsey Campbell and August Derleth, 1961–1971, ed. S.T. Joshi (PS Publishing)
Best novella
Newspaper Heart, Stephen Volk (The Spectral Book of Horror Stories)
Best short story
“A Woman’s Place,” Emma Newman (Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets)
The Special Award: The Karl Edward Wagner Award
Juliet E. McKenna
The winners were decided by the following jury members: Best anthology: Carole Johnstone, Elaine Hillson and Rhian Bowley. Best artist: Donna Scott, Jared Shurin and P.M. Buchan. Best collection: Dave Brzeski, Ole A. Imsen and Thana Niveau. Best comic/graphic novel: Jared Shurin, Jay Eales and Laurel Sills. Best fantasy novel (the Robert Holdstock Award): Aleksandra Kesek, Gary Couzens and Lucy Smee. Best film/television episode: Adrian Faulkner, Catherine Mann and Gary Couzens. Best horror novel (the August Derleth Award): Cate Gardner, Jim Mcleod and Laura Mauro. Best independent press: Bill Thompson, Elloise Hopkins, Robin K Hickson, Robin Lupton and Sarah Carter. Best magazine/periodical: Donna Scott, Mark West and Phil Sloman. Best newcomer (the Sydney J. Bounds Award): Ian Hunter, Lizzie Barrett and Simon Bestwick. Best non-fiction: Jason Arnopp, Johnny Mains and Laura Mauro. Best novella: Jo Thomas, Paul Holmes and Stephen Bacon. Best short story: Catherine Mann, Allen Stroud and David Tallerman. The Karl Edward Wagner Award was decided by a vote of the British Fantasy Society committee.
The physical award is a handmade wooden bookend featuring Lee Thompson’s BFS logo, commissioned from Sarah Goss, who works in traditional woodcarving and restoration.
During the Cold War, as the arms race between Soviet Russia and the United States escalated, the perceived threat of nuclear attack became increasingly heightened. In response, the U.S. developed procedures to protect its citizens should the worst happen. In 1956, the National Emergency Alarm Repeater—NEAR—warning siren device was implemented to alert citizens to a nuclear attack. Students were drilled in “duck and cover” practices at schools. Books with titles such as Nuclear War Survival Skills were issued. And the only means of protection against radiation in the event of such a catastrophe was a fallout shelter.
Designs for fallout shelters appeared in pamphlets, subway advertisements and displays at civil defense fairs. President Kennedy even got involved. In September 1961, the same month that the Soviets resumed testing nuclear weapons, Life magazine published a letter from the President advocating the use of fallout shelters. Rather terrifyingly, it was printed over an image of a mushroom cloud.
But that was just one of the many interesting graphical representations of the threat of annihilation. Below, check out our collection of fallout shelter designs and photographs that show just how people in the 1950s and 1960s tried to prepare for the unthinkable.
Most people attribute Germany’s Bauhaus school with the following: being on the vanguard of minimalist design, the paring down of architecture to its most essential and non-ornamental elements, and the radical idea that useful objects could also be beautiful. What may be overlooked is the fact that the rigorous design school, founded by modernism’s grandsireWalter Gropius, also put on marvelous costume parties back in the 1920s. If you thought Bauhaus folk were good at designing coffee tables, just have a look at their costumes—as bewitching and sculptural as any other student project, but with an amazing flamboyance not oft ascribed to the movement.
Some Writing Advice That’s Mostly Useless (And Why): The following writing advice is mostly useless — “Work on your motivation,” “Revise, revise, revise,” “Have a chaotic life,” “Just write,” “Know grammar and critical terms,” “Practice skills in isolation.”
World Building Historical Fiction using Military Thinking: Don’t fall down the rabbit hole of research or worldbuilding. Instead use a layered approach, focussing your world building as you descend from Strategic (villas exist and can be raided for supplies), through Operational (this villa sits on this ground amidst these fields), to Tactical (here is the ground plan of the villa and here are the people guarding it) level.
Day 5 of Kelly Kazek’s “13 Days of Alabama Halloween,” posted each day from Oct. 19-31 featuring an old news item, spooky legend, historical tale or fun list about All Hallow’s Eve.
“The Twilight Zone” TV series was groundbreaking for its time, not only for its spooky and supernatural content but for its social commentary. Twice, the show’s tales featured Alabama. A 1964 episode mentions Birmingham in a morality tale about hatred and the 1983 movie based on the series also references Alabama in a segment that features the Ku Klux Klan.
But the series has other Alabama connections: At least 10 Alabama actors had roles in the original and reboot of “The Twilight Zone” series, including some of the best-known episodes, such as “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.”
(7) Maureen O’Hara passed away October 24. Her resume was light on genre work, but included memorable fantasies like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Miracle on 34th Street, and Sinbad the Sailor, the latter with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. She never was nominated for a competitive Oscar but received an honorary Academy Award last year.
People dressed as Chewbacca and Stormtroopers from Star Wars attend the unveiling of the Darth Vader monument in Odessa on Friday. The monument, built around a bronze Lenin statue, is part of Ukraine’s de-communisation legislation which was introduced earlier this year. The Darth Vader character attending the event says that he is happy to be made into a monument while ‘still alive’
(9) Today’s Birthday Boy
October 24, 1915 — Bob Kane (cartoonist; co-creator of Batman) was born
(10) I only thought I had never heard of PewDiePie, the most-viewed YouTuber of all-time. Then I read that he does the Let’s Play! videos. My daughter has watched a bunch of those and shown me a couple.
The picture comes from astronomers at Germany’s Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Of course, this wasn’t a simple matter of an instantaneous point-and-click shot. Instead, to get the full spread, researchers spent a full five years taking photos, which they put into a single 46 billion pixel image.
(15) Haven’t had enough Star Wars trailer creativity yet? Science Vs. Cinema co-creator James Darling has mashed together the ultimate supercut for Star Wars: The Force Awakens using all three trailers and the Comic-Con BTS reel.
[Thanks to Michael J Walsh, James H. Burns, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day ULTRAGOTHA.]
Award-winning authors and social and physical science experts will gather at “Science Fiction Stories Night” and honor winners of the first annual Canopus Awards for Interstellar Writing on October 30 during 100 Year Starship’s® (100YSS®) fourth annual public symposium in Silicon Valley from October 29-November 1, at the Santa Clara Marriott in Santa Clara, California.
Poor ratings doomed The Whispers, the now-cancelled ABC TV series based on Ray Bradbury’s short story “Zero Hour.” Unfortunately, the fans of the summer series were left with a cliffhanger ending.
