Gardner Dozois is the winner of the 2016 Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction, known as the Skylark Award, presented this weekend at Boskone 53.
The award is given annually by NESFA to a person “who has contributed significantly to science fiction, both through work in the field and by exemplifying the personal qualities which made the late ‘Doc’ Smith well-loved by those who knew him.”
The Skylark Award. This one was given to Terry Pratchett in 2009.
(1) CROTCHETY GOES TO TOWN. Amazing Stories’ Steve Davidson gets his Boskone report off to a fast start with a post about Day 1.
I’m at Boskone this weekend, hanging out with the fans, loquaciously displaying my intimate knowledge of arcana on several panels and availing myself of various perks offered by this long-running (53rd year) convention that was launched as a bid for the 1967 Worldcon.
It’s operated by the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA), one of the longest running fan clubs in the country.
One of the things NESFA does is clear out their library and make the clearances available on a freebie table. Last year, someone snagged a bunch of large-size Analogs out from under my reaching hand (‘sigh’). This year I was one of the first ‘gleaners’ to hit the table and was rewarded with:
several D series Ace Doubles; a good-sized stack of early Locus fanzines; same for File 770; a handful of Groff Conklin paperback anthologies (filling in a couple of gaps. The paperbacks are shortened versions of the hardback anthologies Conklin produced over the years.); a couple of Lee & Miller hardbacks; a NESFA anthology of Lester Del Rey shorts (edited by our own Steven H. Silver); the remaining issues of Galileo magazine that I didn’t have (complete run now!). (Galileo was a “semi-prozine” from back in the late 70s); a few issues of Infinity digest magazine, and a smattering of this and that interesting looking items.
I’m thinking a loquacious displayer would be a great subject for an Audobon drawing.
(2) HARTWELL REMEMBERED. Boskone ran a David Hartwell memorial panel.
David Hartwell memorial. David is "in attendence" – Kathryn has his creamains in the box. #boskone #boskonenews pic.twitter.com/3NqdDdUXYH
— Laurie Mann – Watching… (@lauriedtmann) February 20, 2016
(3) THE NEW WAY TO BE HAPPY. Authors shared their excitement over the Nebula Award announcement.
ZOMG I'M AN ANDRE NORTON NOMINEE AND AM VERKLEMPT I'm going to the Nebula Awards!! I LOVE EVERYTHING AND ALL OF YOU pic.twitter.com/WGroPxFafe
— Fonda Lee ** news and updates** (@FondaJLee) February 20, 2016
https://twitter.com/crashwong/status/701093269648728064
https://twitter.com/kellyoyo/status/701100288015466496
(4) WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO PWN IT TOO? David Brin leads off “Science Fiction and Freedom” with this book deal —
While in San Francisco for a panel on artificial consciousness, I had an opportunity to stop by the headquarters of the Electronic Frontier Foundation — dedicated to preserving your freedom online and off. As part of their 25th year anniversary celebration, EFF released Pwning Tomorrow, an anthology of science fiction stories by Bruce Sterling, Ramaz Naam, Charlie Jane Anders, Cory Doctorow, David Brin, Lauren Beukes, and others. You can download it for a donation to this worthy organization.
(5) TODAY IN HISTORY
(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
(7) MUSICAL MISSION. In San Diego on March 31, the Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage 50th Anniversary Concert will be performed by a symphony orchestra.
Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage brings five decades of Star Trek to concert halls for the first time in this galaxy or any other.
This lavish production includes an impressive live symphony orchestra and international solo instruments. People of all ages and backgrounds will experience the franchise’s groundbreaking and wildly popular musical achievements while the most iconic Star Trek film and TV footage is simultaneously beamed in high definition to a 40-foot wide screen.
The concert will feature some of the greatest music written for the franchise including music from Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek: Insurrection, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Starfleet Academy and much more. This never-before-seen concert event is perfect for music lovers, filmgoers, science-fiction fans and anyone looking for an exciting and unique concert experience.
(8) PERCEPTIONS ABOUT DISABILITY. At The Bias, Annalee Flower Horne covers a lot of ground in “The Geeks Guide To Disability”.
I want the science fiction community to be inclusive and accessible to disabled people. I want our conventions and corners of the internet to be places where disabled people are treated with dignity and respect. I’m hoping that if I walk through some of the more common misconceptions, I can move the needle a little–or at least save myself some time in the future, because I’ll be able to give people a link instead of explaining all this again.
What is Disability?
This may seem like starting from first principles, but a lot of the misconceptions I’ve encountered within the science fiction community have been rooted in a poorly thought-out model of what the term ‘disability’ means….
(9) THE “TO BE HEARD” PILE. Escape Pod has done a metacast about the stories they ran that are eligible for the Hugos.
(10) LONG FORM EDITOR. George R.R. Martin, in “What They Edited, The Third”, posts an impressive resume from Joe Monti of Saga Press, the new science fiction imprint of Simon & Schuster/ Pocket Books.
(11) PRIVATE LABEL. From the Worldcon in the city where everything’s up to date….
Hey, lookit! @MidAmeriCon2 brought their own whiskey to #Boskone! That's cool. pic.twitter.com/Z9qfjHowQJ
— Crystal M. Huff, ? ? (they/them) (@crystalvisits) February 21, 2016
(12) FINNISH SNACKS. Things are up to date in Helsinki, too, but there’s a reason you don’t see reindeer roaming the streets….
Happy to introduce #Boskone to reindeer pate! Room 407 tonight! pic.twitter.com/E9QLZuHdaP
— Worldcon 75 (@worldcon75) February 21, 2016
(13) AND SPEAKING OF EATING. Scott Edelman says a second episode of his podcast Eating the Fantastic has gone live, with guest Bud Sparhawk.
Bud Sparhawk
I chatted with Bud—a three-time Nebula finalist and Analog magazine regular—about how Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions anthology inspired him to become a writer, what it was like to write for three different Analog editors over four decades, the plotters vs. pantsers debate, and more.
Edelman ends, “If all goes well, Episode 3 will feature writer, editor, and Rosarium Publishing owner Bill Campbell.”
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Rose Embolism, and Gerry Williams for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Soon Lee.]
The city of Chicago on February 16 asked a federal judge to lift an order barring George Lucas from starting construction of the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum along the Lakefront while litigation plays out. However, Judge John W. Darrah, who has been presiding over the lawsuit for 15 months, ruled he isn’t willing to allow construction while the case against it is still pending.
The lawsuit by the nonprofit Friends of the Parks contends that the planned museum “violates the public trust because it will be built on the submerged waters of Lake Michigan and that a privately held museum is not in residents’ best interests.”
The city had hoped to duplicate the success of the Chicago Cubs owners who got a comparable construction ban repealed by a judge in April 2015. They were allowed to start work on view-obstructing enhancements to Wrigley Field while an active lawsuit between the ballclub and neighboring rooftop owners remained unsettled.
According to the Chicago Tribune, a city attorney told the judge during the hearing that museum officials have begun to “consider other cities and other sites that it may relocate to.”
DNAinfo Chicago reports —
Darrah, however, seemed unmoved by the argument Wednesday, saying he has 400 pending cases on his docket. The case has a number of upcoming court dates, including a hearing scheduled for Feb. 24.
“If you want to ask my 399 other [plaintiffs] if you can go first, go ahead,” he said.
Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel said last week he would consider a different site but first would have to talk to Lucas and his wife, Mellody Hobson.
If Lucas gives up on Chicago and offers his Museum to another city, it will be the second defeat he has suffered since his original proposal to build on the grounds of the Presidio failed to gain acceptance in San Francisco.
Cat Rambo writes: “People I know of whose invitations were withdrawn from WeAreAllSF are myself, Caren Gussoff, Kris Rusch, and Dean Wesley Smith. I understand the con is new and that they bit off a lot, and I’ve got no hard feelings. Caren and I are planning on going to Vegas that weekend.
“My impression is that a large percentage of guests got cut.”
The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) has announced the 2015 IFMCA Awards for excellence in musical scoring.
The award for Score of the Year goes to composer John Williams for his work on the massively popular and successful epic science fiction fantasy “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” from director J. J. Abrams…. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is also named Best Score for a Fantasy/Science Fiction/Horror Film, and wins the Film Music Composition of the Year award for the film’s conclusive end credits suite, “The Jedi Steps and Finale”. These are the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth IFMCA Awards of Williams’s career, and it marks the third time he has been awarded Score of the Year, after “Memoirs of a Geisha” in 2005, and “War Horse” in 2011.
Composer Michael Giacchino is named Composer of the Year, having written four outstanding works spanning multiple genres in the past year. His work in 2015 includes scoring the emotional Disney/Pixar film “Inside Out,” which is also named Best Score for an Animated Film; the ambitious science fiction adventure “Jupiter Ascending,” which was nominated in multiple genres including Score of the Year; the fantastical adventure “Tomorrowland,” which was nominated for Film Music Composition of the Year; and the massively successful action-adventure “Jurassic World,” which built on John Williams’s score for the first film…
FILM SCORE OF THE YEAR
COMPOSER OF THE YEAR
BREAKTHROUGH COMPOSER OF THE YEAR
FILM MUSIC COMPOSITION OF THE YEAR
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A DRAMA FILM
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A COMEDY FILM
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLER FILM
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A FANTASY/SCIENCE FICTION/HORROR FILM
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR AN ANIMATED FEATURE
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A DOCUMENTARY
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A TELEVISION SERIES
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE FOR A VIDEO GAME OR INTERACTIVE MEDIA
BEST NEW ARCHIVAL RELEASE – RE-RELEASE OF AN EXISTING SCORE
BEST NEW ARCHIVAL RELEASE – RE-RECORDING OF AN EXISTING SCORE
BEST NEW ARCHIVAL RELEASE – COMPILATION
FILM MUSIC RECORD LABEL OF THE YEAR
SPECIAL AWARD
[Thanks to Steve Vertlieb for the story.]
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has announced the nominees for the 50th Annual Nebula Awards, the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, and the Andre Norton Award for Outstanding Young Adult Science Fiction or Fantasy Book. The awards will be presented in Chicago at the Palmer House Hotel on May 14.
Novel
Novella
Novelette
Short Story
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
By David Doering: LTUE—affectionately pronounced “lootee” despite the spelling, is a great hybrid of con, symposium, and workshop. Author Dan Wells calls it “the learning con” to differentiate it from the “spectator cons” like the Comic Con-type.
Here’s the logo—notice the ingenious design combining SF, Fantasy, and the fannish feline “Luna” in the negative space. Neat, huh?
This year set new records:
LTUE continues to be the largest writers and creators conference in the Intermountain West.
Attendees from around the globe—as far as Saudi Arabia and Australia.
Guests of honor were Kevin J Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, and Shannon Hale. Other notables were the Writing Excuses team: Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinette Kowal (our Toastmaster); L.E. Modesitt, Dave Farland, Larry Correia, editors Stacy Whitman and Lisa Mangum, artist Brian Hailes, Eric James Stone, and Michaelbrent Collins.
United Airlines needed 3 planes to get GoHs Kevin J Anderson and Rebecca Moesta to Salt Lake from Denver…Not only does United break guitars but it also breaks planes. Two had mechanical issues half way and had to turn back. (Wait. If you’re half way and have to turn around, wouldn’t it just be easier to fly the rest of the way to Salt Lake than turn around?? It’s only 400 air miles.)
(Despite this, KJA had a kind word to summarize his visit to LTUE:
Kevin J Anderson also introduced a new measurement for writer productivity: the “Sanderson”. Based on Brandon’s 10K average word count of writing a week, Kevin jocularly says he only does about .1 Sanderson a week. (Which makes me feel like I only do like .005 sandersons.)
[Another term I heard for the first time, but likely is common amongst fantasy writers, was “horse dragon”—a dragon you can ride. Dd]
KJA’s main address was his life story on becoming a writer. Afterwards, Kevin complimented the LTUE audience as attentive and appreciative. “I give this talk at comic cons and the audience does politely laugh at the right parts. Here it was like I was speaking to a roomful of people like me 30 years ago eager to become writers.”
Todd Gallowglass, probably the finest professional live storyteller in fandom, gave a wonderful 15 tale of Scottish bravery to the LTUE banquet on Saturday night. (Yes, we still do a banquet to meet the hotel’s request for a food function.) After Todd’s storytelling with active audience participation, he thanked everyone because everyone really _wanted_ to participate when he signed to have them do cheers, oohs and aahs.
A real highlight was Shannon Hale’s main address on diversity. Shannon, though, didn’t stand up and be a firebrand to castigate. Instead, she noted how few boys come to her autograph sessions and, if they do, they say “well, my sister really likes your books”. She says she writes her books for human beings, so why does her being female or the title have “princess” in it make boys uncomfortable? Even young boys. Where does this start? This should be something we can fix today.
The most egregious example was of one school (of the 100 or so she visits each year) which said that boys didn’t need to attend her assembly—overtly indicating that either her books or her as an author would not be of interest to boys.
Mary Robinette Kowal’s toastmaster speech at the banquet was a sidesplitting recounting of her working with a malfunctioning marionette during a live performance of Sleeping Beauty(?) with recorded dialog. The ambiguous dialog suggested a whole different meaning to the scene when the maiden encounters the witch where the witch could only perform one action: a stroking movement with her hand.
Programming at LTUE primarily focuses on creators—writers, screenwriters, or artists—but there’s plenty of serious academic content. I loved the last presentation on Saturday “Time Travel” presented by surprisingly enough Salt Lake Comic Con’s own Bryan Brandenburg (who serves as their head of marketing). This was an intense, Einsteinian discussion with lots of “meat”:
Okay, yes, that was one of his slides, but the rest of the content was in fact very scientific:
Einstein’s well accepted relativity physics states that time travel is possible, when one object is traveling faster than another object, especially as one object approaches the speed of light, relative to the other.
The earth and all of its inhabitants are traveling near the speed of light relative to a number of other objects in the universe. So has our future already happened, relative to some other observer in the universe?
HIGHLIGHTS (And Lowlights)
Here’s a dreadful picture of me during setup. Looks like the baby’s due in about three months. Egads. Smile’s pretty good. And the t-shirt with the Steve Keele-designed logo for Westercon 67 looks great! (Some are still available!)
David Doering
Here’s Shannon Hale, author of fantasy series like the Princess Academy books, doing her main address. Note one of our mascot “Douglas” the dragon on the podium. (Wonder why LTUE would choose the name “Douglas”?)
Shannon Hale
Here’s some of the main guests discussing writing natural dialog. Notice how Brandon doesn’t need to have a nameplate. (Yes, we did record some events with permission to share on our Youtube channel.)
Here’s the Writing Excuses podcast recording six sessions live at LTUE. Another super great event, and sadly one I didn’t get to hear or see. So I don’t know what the headbands are all about.
Yes, there’s gaming at LTUE. And with Brandon Sanderson involved, it’s quite a tournament!
Expanded dealers room—like most cons, its books with some jewelry and a massage parlor. More unusual is that Barnes and Noble has four tables full of hardcovers and paperbacks and do a brisk business. Great support from our local B&N.
Even our libation station got kudos!
I missed this one. Dang, our first “official” after party too. (Keeping with fannish tradition, it was held the first night of the con.)
New this year is a full Professional Development track. LOTS of great feedback on this!
Something very unique to Utah cons:
Another unique aspect at LTUE? Actual full rooms for 9AM panels:
9am panel, first day of LTUE, and there's a great turnout. pic.twitter.com/Mag8VeTiMq
— Eric James Stone (@EricJamesStone) February 11, 2016
Other good wrap-ups:
I was able to hang out my dearest friends for three days and talk the craft of writing – what else does a boy need? If you get the opportunity to go next year, please do so – you will not regret it.
LTUE 2016 was, as each LTUE before it, well worth attending. Over the years I’ve started to see it as the writing convention to attend, and I have no reservations in saying that if you want to attend a convention to help with your writing, this one should be it. Dozens of high-profile, A-list authors, all offering as much advice as they can while still having fun.
Me? I’m definitely signing up for next year. I learned a lot, met a lot of great people, and had an absolute blast.
Kevin J. Anderson offered a really great analogy with respect to writing…there are a couple of ways to make popcorn: you can take a clean pan, put it on the oven burner, add exactly 1 tablespoon of oil and evenly spread the oil across the entire surface of the pan. You then turn the burner up to get the pan to exactly the right temperature – no more, no less. Then you select the perfect kernel of popcorn from your container of popcorn, and place it in the exact center of the pan where the heat is perfect. Then wait as the ripples form, and then (hopefully) when the kernel pops you immediately remove it to a paper towel to soak up the excess oil. Then you turn off the burner, let the pan cool, and then wash it and clean it so the pan is in pristine condition. Then you repeat the entire process all over again.
Or, of course, you can just dump all the popcorn in, not really be able to predict in advance which kernel will pop or which direction it will pop. In the end, you’ll have a whole bowl full of popcorn either way, but in the first case you may starve to death before you get there.
An arrest was made the same day File 770 alerted readers to the theft of a van carrying rare books in Berkeley on February 16. However, the van and most of the books have not been recovered.
Police caught one of the pair who tried to sell a few of the books to clerks at a local bookstore. The clerks became suspicious and called the authorities.
Police arrested Joshua Anderson, 30, of Concord after he and a companion allegedly tried to sell four of the stolen books — worth an estimated $13,000 — to Moe’s Books on Telegraph Avenue. Anderson, who had two outstanding warrants for his arrest, was arrested on suspicion of possessing stolen property. He is being held on $45,000 bail in the Berkeley jail. His companion has not been apprehended.
The books belong to Lawrence Van De Carr, a Chicago rare-book dealer. Van De Carr had driven a 2008 silver Ford Econoline XLT van with 30 boxes of books to Pasadena last weekend for an antiquarian book fair. On Monday, he drove to Oakland to stay at a friend’s house. He parked the van outside the home in the 200 block of Whitmore St., near 51st and Pleasant Valley. When he got up on Feb. 16 around 10 a.m., the van was gone, he said.
The boxes contained rare modern signed first editions, including literary works and science fiction books. Van De Carr estimates they are worth $350,000. He is not insured for the loss of the books.
Less than three hours after the theft was discovered, an attempt was made to sell some of the books at Moe’s in downtown Berkeley. (Hey, I’ve been in Moe’s!)
A short time later, around 1 p.m., two men came into Moe’s with four rare books. They started to talk to one of the clerks and got him to pay $100 for two science-fiction books published by Arkham House, according to Anthony, another Moe’s worker who was standing near the clerk. One of the books was A Hornbook for Witches: Poems of Fantasy by Leah Bodine Drake, one of only 553 known copies, said Van de Carr. It is considered one of the rarer books published by Arkham House and is worth around $2,200. The other was Always Comes Evening by Robert E. Howard
The clerk buying the books had been out to lunch when the call about the theft came, so he hadn’t known to be on the alert, said Anthony, who had taken the call. Anthony suggested to his co-worker that the two sellers go upstairs to the rare-book room to sell the other books. One of those was a signed, limited first edition of Pylon by William Faulkner, worth around $8,500, and the other was a limited edition of No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, worth around $1,300, said Van De Carr. Taken together, the four books were worth $13,000, he said.
“I thought they had a classic phony story: ‘The uncle died,’” said Anthony, who did not want his last name used because one of the men is still at large. “To my ears, ‘my uncle died,’ is equal to ‘the cat ate my homework.’”
While the two men were taking the elevator upstairs, Anthony called the rare-book room and told the clerk to stall the men. He then called Berkeley police, who arrived around 10 minutes later. The officers wanted to know how Anthony knew the books were stolen, and while they listened to the explanation, the two men got suspicious.
They bolted. One was caught nearby, the other got away.
Van De Carr says the theft will put him out of the rare book business.
Van de Carr in front of his booth at a rare book show in New York. Photo: Lawrence Van De Carr
[Thanks to Petréa Mitchell and John King Tarpinian for the story.]
(1) LONGEST EVER 1-HOUR EPISODE. A Kickstarter is raising $15,000 to produce “A Skyboat Audiobook of Harlan Ellison’s Star Trek Teleplay”.
On the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the launching of Star Trek – the Original Series, we want to make the FIRST-TIME-EVER, 6-hour AUDIOBOOK, full-cast version of Harlan Ellison’s book THE CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER.
To clarify, this book contains Harlan Ellison’s original teleplay; NOT the one eventually filmed. This is the episode which won the Writers’ Guild Award for best dramatic hour-long script. The filmed teleplay also won Harlan a Hugo Award. The book also contains Harlan’s Essay on the controversy backstory, and several tributes from his colleagues.
Roles will be voiced by LeVar Burton, John Rubinstein (a Tony Award winner, as Captain Kirk), Scott Brick, Jean Smart (Emmy Award winner as Edith Keeler), Harlan Ellison, Stefan Rudnicki, J. Paul Boehmer, Richard McGonagle, David Gerrold, D.C. Fontana, Richard Gilliland, Jim Meskimen, Orson Scott Card, and Robert Forster.
In addition, Harlan Ellison has narrated his essay describing the before, during, and after of the controversy surrounding the episode, which has been voted as the most beloved episode of the Star Trek® series. It also includes:
- Harlan’s rewrite of the Prologue and Act One to eliminate the controversial “Jewels of Sound” drug-dealing elements that the censors and powers-that-were objected to at the time,
- plus two screenplay treatments written by Harlan,
- and tribute essays from authors and colleagues who-were-there.
Gabrielle de Cuir also has an article on the Kickstarter page detailing the many differences between Ellison’s original script and the aired episode which include —
The original opening sequences contain the “Jewels of Sound” subplot that was so controversial at the time, and eventually was eradicated from the teleplay altogether. We have several characters in this version that did not appear in the final: the villains Beckwith and LeBeque, the iconic Trooper (the Verdun veteran) and a delightfully surly Cook.
(2) CLAGS WORKSHOP. CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Studies in New York City will host “Sci-Fi Alien(ation): Diversity Under Attack, Racism, Homophobia, & Sexism at Hugo Awards & Beyond” on April 8, 2016.
A panel discussion of scholars and science fiction authors including André Carrington, Jennifer Marie Brissett, Craig Laurance Gidney dissect racism, homophobia, and sexism in the world of sci-fi publishing and fandom in general, and the highly-publicized hate campaign at the 2015 Hugo Awards. A group calling itself the “Sad Puppies” gamed the voting system to assure that most award nominees were white, male, and straight, voicing public statements about gay, black, and women’s themes and authors ruining the genre. Many non-white, queer, and women authors have received rape threats and death threats in association with this campaign. This episode mirrors “gamer-gate,” where similar rape and death threats against women in the video game industry who have complained about sexism.
In contrast to GamerGate, which had all of the following things, during last year’s Hugo controversy I did not hear about: people fleeing their homes in response to threats, calling the police for protection (Crazy Uncle Lou, though, did try to get the police to screw Sasquan), filing for restraining orders, and being stalked at con panels by hostile bloggers. The things that happened were bad enough – and some Puppies assuredly tried to interest GamerGaters in getting involved. Hopefully the actual workshop will stick to valid parallels between the two controversies.
(3) BUILDING A RABBIT HOLE. Publishers Weekly tells why the owners of Kansas City’s The Reading Reptile are leaving that business in “Kansas City Booksellers Launching ‘World’s First Explorastorium”.
Kansas City booksellers Pete Cowdin and Deb Pettid, who have owned The Reading Reptile for more than 25 years, intend to close the bookstore Pettid founded in 1988 by the end of March so that they can develop “the world’s first explorastorium,” a project that they have been conceptualizing for the past year. The proposed museum, modeled upon San Francisco’s Exploratorium and St. Louis’s City Museum, and called The Rabbit Hole in homage to Alice in Wonderland, will allow visitors to physically immerse themselves in the narratives of beloved children’s books through interactive exhibits and galleries. There will also be regularly scheduled presentations and workshops led by touring authors and illustrators to complement the full-scale 3-D installations, which will change every three or four months.
The mission of The Rabbit Hole, which is being set up as a nonprofit, is to “create new readers on an unprecedented scale” in a world where “only around 50% of parents read aloud to their kids on a regular basis.”
A prototype of one component of The Rabbit Hole has been installed in a temporary leased space in Kansas City’s Crossroads neighborhood. The prototype is a full-scale, walk-through exhibit bringing to life The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau by Jon Agee, who has assisted the Rabbit Hole team in creating it. The grand opening of this Rabbit Hole prototype will be held on April 9.
(4) THOSE BRONZE AGE SOPHISTICATES. Photos and a videos accompany the BBC article “Bronze Age wheel at ‘British Pompeii’ Must Farm an ‘unprecedented find’”.
“The existence of this wheel expands our understanding of Late Bronze Age technology, and the level of sophistication of the lives of people living on the edge of the Fens 3,000 years ago.”
(5) THE ICELAND CON COMETH. Fans in Iceland have plans to launch a new convention this year.
Icecon 2016 is a science fiction and fantasy fan convention that will be held in the heart of Reykjavík, Iceland, this fall. On the 28th to the 30th of October, Iðnó theatre ( idno.is) will be filled with the fantastic.
There will be panels, readings, a Halloween masquerade and other events.
Information on registration, membership fee, guests of honour, program and accommodation coming soon. All information will be posted on this event-page and a forthcoming homepage. Any interested parties can also email us at icecon2016(at) gmail.com
Icecon 2016 is supported by Reykjavik UNESCO City of Literature ( bokmenntaborgin.is/en/)
Hello Twitter! #icecon2016 is a #scifi #fantasy fan convention that will be held in Reykjavík, Iceland from 28-30th of Oct. Spread the word!
— IceCon 2024 (@icecon_2024) February 17, 2016
(6) DREAM DESTINATIONS. I mentioned the NASA space travel posters before, however, this particular webpage displays the entire collection as large thumbnails, and also has a link to the JPL store if you want to order a literal printed poster.
(7) UNDERGROUND REVOLUTION. The Society of Illustrators in New York City will exhibit “The ZAP Show: A Cultural Revolution” from March 2-May 7 on the main floor.
No one could have known that when struggling illustrator R. Crumb self-published Zap Comix #1 in 1968 and began hawking copies in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, history would be made. By the arrival of issue #4 (1969) and Crumb’s Zap collective (S. Clay Wilson, Victor Moscoso, Rick Griffiin, Gilbert Shelton, Robert Williams, and Spain Rodriguez) fully formed, the artists had broken every Comics Code taboo imaginable — and then some. Zap spawned an entire underground comix industry, establishing an adult market for the comics medium that, in turn, set new standards for creators’ rights and ownership that one day would liberate mainstream comic books from the tyrannical grip of corporate publishers, paving the way for literary work by the likes of Art Spiegelman, Lynda Barry, Chris Ware, and Daniel Clowes, among others.
(8) MEYEROWITZ ART DISPLAY. About the same time, the Society of Illustrators will exhibit on the third floor “Rick Meyerowitz in the National Lampoon” from March 1-April 23.
Rick Meyerowitz was a prolific contributor of both artwork and written pieces for National Lampoon from its first issue in 1970 until close to its last in 1991. He collaborated with many of the magazine’s writers on an astonishing variety of topics and themes. Among his most notable works were the “Mona Gorilla” (Mona Lisa as a gorilla); “DODOSAURS: The Dinosaurs That Didn’t Make It” (which he and Henry Beard turned into a 1983 book); the widely recognized poster for the movie Animal House; and most recently, “DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD: The Writers and Artists Who Made The National Lampoon Insanely Great,” published by Abrams as a coffee table size visual history of the Lampoon. A documentary film of the same name was released last year.
(9) NURTURING TALENT. Gregory N. Hullender says Rocket Stack Rank “has a new article comparing the Campbell-eligible writers with the stories we reviewed in 2015 with an eye towards figuring out which editors were the most supporting of new writers in 2015” – “Nurturing New SF Short-Fiction Talent in 2015”.
(10) PLAQUE FOR TONI WEISSKOPF. The National Fantasy Fan Federation has circulated a picture of Toni Weisskopf’s Neffy Award.
(11) HARPER LEE OBIT. Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, died February 19 at the age of 89.
“This is a sad day for our family. America and the world knew Harper Lee as one of the last century’s most beloved authors,” Hank Conner, Lee’s nephew and a spokesman for the family, said in a statement Friday morning.
“We knew her as Nelle Harper Lee, a loving member of our family, a devoted friend to the many good people who touched her life, and a generous soul in our community and our state. We will miss her dearly.”
Conner’s statement indicated that “Ms. Lee passed away in her sleep early this morning. Her passing was unexpected. She remained in good basic health until her passing.”
(12) A REALLY BIG SANDBOX. The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog knows “How One Mashup Artist Got Legal Permission to Pair Calvin & Hobbes with Dune”.
Calvin & Muad’Dib picked up international attention after a shout-out from io9 in September of 2014, and this attention led to an immediate DMC takedown. But unlike most bloggers, Joe lawyered up.
“I did this because it was clear that I wasn’t profiting in any way from Calvin and Hobbes,” Joe says. “There were no advertisements on my blog, nor did I sell or intend to sell any merchandise or even ask for donations. I felt I had a solid ground to defend myself, and I also happen to believe that most DMCA takedowns are inherently unjust due to the ‘guilty until proven innocent’ nature of DMCA.”
Joe entered into talks with the lawyers of Calvin & Hobbes’ publisher. Though he never spoke directly to Watterson, he did succeed in his goal: Calvin & Muad’Dib went back up six months later, in February of 2014.
“We worked out a licensing deal where I could continue to make comics in the way I intended, and the Calvin & Hobbes lawyers could be ensured that abuse of Bill Watterson’s original works would not occur,” Joe says of the discussion. Every comic on his site now comes with a reminder that the mash-up is legit: “Calvin and Hobbes: © and ™ Bill Watterson, used with permission.”
(15) TWENTIETH CENTURY FANAC. At Amazing Stories, R. Graeme Cameron opens his time capsule: the script of his 1989 talk about fanzines to the Vancouver Public Library.
There exist people who have never earned a penny writing, yet have published thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of words. They belong to FANDOM. Fandom is something more than merely fans of Science Fiction in its various forms: books, magazines, movies, comic books, etc. Fandom is a mode of behaviour, of attitude, an approach to organized appreciation of Science Fiction which is universal among fans, so that fans as far apart as America and Soviet Russia have enough in common as to establish an immediate rapport should they meet.
People writing for no money! That’ll never catch on… And look who’s one of the people doing it –
FILE 770 is quite a renowned perzine. Mike Glyer has been producing it for a longtime. This is the 77th issue. It’s a kind of NEWSZINE really, reporting on conventions, writers, fan activities, fan feuds, and other fanzines. But it is a one-man operation, so I classify it as a perzine.
(14) ROAD WARRIOR. Someday soon Larry Correia will live at the end of Yard Moose Mountain Road. First he has to build the road. The mountain came built-in….
When we built our current house it was all open fields around us. There were houses near, but we had a little room to breathe. I’m a country boy at heart. I don’t like people all up in my business. We even had a moose come and live in our yard. That’s why we started calling it Yard Moose Mountain. He just kind of camped out under my son’s bedroom window, then he’d wander out and eat our neighbor’s trees, but he never messed with my trees. Good moose.
It was really nice.
Over the last five years our area slowly filled in, until one day I woke up, and realized that rather than living in the country anymore, we were living in a small neighborhood. Sure, it was a nice commuter neighborhood (I’ve got 12 doctors in my ward, no joke) and the people are about as nice as you could possibly ask for, but it was still a neighborhood. We landscaped and put in a fence for privacy, but it has lost its charm. Add to that, I’d retired from my finance manager job a few years ago to just be a full time author, so I no longer needed to be close enough to the city to commute.
Being a failed D List nobody hack pulp writer with an irreparably damaged career who will never be a *real* author and who can’t even manage to get measly five hundred people to a book signing, my income had still somehow gone up dramatically, but we’d not really changed our standard of living (well, except for more guns and minis, but those don’t count). Plus, because I have a pathological hatred of debt I had been making lots of extra house payments, to the point that I’d knocked 27 years worth of our 30 year mortgage payments out in 5. Because screw debt.
So last year we decided we wanted to move, and this time we were going to move someplace where we’d never have to move again….
(15) TODAY IN HISTORY
(16) YOUR SCIENCE QUOTE OF THE DAY. From CNN: “Hubble image: Dormant black hole, in a word, is gargantuan”.
“Black holes don’t suck,” van der Marel said. “That’s a common misconception. Material that happens to be moving in the direction of the black hole falls in because gas has friction that gets eaten [by the black hole]. Once the black hole has eaten all the gas there it can just move on and it will be dormant until it gets another dose of material that it can consume.”
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Addressee Unknown .]
File 770’s post in January about We Are ALL SF con began with a long list of the announced guests and reported the organizers were going forward despite the lack of response to their Indiegogo funding appeal.
Yesterday, however, Lou J. Berger announced that the con has withdrawn some benefits offered to some guests of honor:
Some emails went out today to a select subset of our Guests of Honor, informing them that we had, in our exuberance, overstepped our ability to host as many GoHs as we had hoped.
Location constraints, including room capacities, make our attendee list limited, and the income that this group can provide therefore has a ceiling. As we mentioned in an earlier post, we have had to cap our attendance at 1,200 members. This is for economic reasons, not because we don’t like the GoHs that received the email.
Folks, we asked everybody we love to be Guests of Honor, and with only a couple exceptions, everybody said “yes!”
It breaks MY heart to have to ask some of our Guests to help contribute toward their own attendance, but we are not in a position (unless we double our membership rates) to afford everybody who agreed. I know that this email ruffled feathers. I know that MY name is on the front of this convention, and I accept sole responsibility for this situation.
Ocean Shores, Washington is a small community. They are SO excited to have us coming in November. They have bent over backwards to be accommodating, and we are grateful to them for their support.
My cell phone number is 303.601.4284. If you received one of these emails, please know that you are STILL a valued Guest of Honor, but that we don’t see a way to completely fund your entire experience.
Please, please call me and yell at me.
This is not a slight against you, and any indication that it might have been was unintentional.
File 770 became aware of the story because Steve Fahnestalk wrote on Facebook how unhappy he is with the situation:
Lynne Fahnestalk and I had been invited to be guests at the We Are All SF convention in November, and they promised us transportation, room and board. I just got an email from a board member of the con saying they were withdrawing the transpo, room and board, but we could get a free membership, and could buy a banquet ticket and possibly get a hotel discount. I didn’t tell her where she could put it, but told her it was extremely unprofessional. We don’t plan to attend.
Curious how many other guests might have dropped out, I compared the names in the January post against those still shown on the We Are ALL SF honored guest page. So far the only name missing is Donna Barr. (Fahnestalk wasn’t on the list there when I wrote in January.) On the other hand, Greg Bear, Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Ken Burnside, Satyros Phil Brucato, and the band Telesterion have been added in the last month.
Not all the news is bad. They have sold out the banquet.