The nominations for the 39th annual Razzie Awards to recognize the worst films of the year were announced today, a day before the Oscar nominees come out. There are genre works in several categories.
The 39th Annual Razzie Awards ceremony will be February
23, the night before the 91st Academy Awards.
Worst Picture
Gotti
The Happytime Murders
Holmes & Watson
Robin Hood
Winchester
Worst Actress
Jennifer Garner / Peppermint
Amber Heard / London Fields
Melissa McCarthy / The Happytime Murders and Life of the Party
Helen Mirren / Winchester
Amanda Seyfried / The Clapper
Worst Actor
Johnny Depp (Voice Only) /Sherlock Gnomes
Will Ferrell / Holmes & Watson
John Travolta / Gotti
Donald J. Trump (As Himself) / Death of a Nation and Fahrenheit 11/9
Bruce Willis / Death Wish
Worst Supporting Actor
Jamie Foxx / Robin Hood
Ludacris (Voice Only)/Show Dogs
Joel McHale / The Happytime Murders
John C. Reilly / Holmes & Watson
Justice Smith / Jurassic World: Fallen
Kingdom
Worst Supporting Actress
Kellyanne Conway (As Herself) / Fahrenheit 11/9
Marcia Gay Harden / Fifty Shades Freed
Kelly Preston / Gotti
Jaz Sinclair / Slender Man
Melania Trump (As Herself) /Fahrenheit 11/9
Worst Screen Combo
Any Two Actors or Puppets (Especially in Those Creepy Sex Scenes) / The Happytime Murders
Johnny Depp & His Fast-Fading Film Career (He’s doing voices for cartoons, fer kripesakes!) / Sherlock Gnomes
Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly (Trashing Two of Literature’s Most Beloved Characters) / Holmes & Watson
Kelly Preston & John Travolta (Getting BATTLEFIELD EARTH type Reviews!) / Gotti
Donald J. Trump & His Self Perpetuating Pettiness / Death of a Nation & Fahrenheit 11/9
Worst Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel
Death of a Nation (remake of Hillary’s America…)
Death Wish
Holmes & Watson
The Meg (rip-off of Jaws)
Robin Hood
Worst Director
Etan Cohen / Holmes & Watson
Kevin Connolly / Gotti
James Foley / Fifty Shades Freed
Brian Henson / The Happytime Murders
The Spierig Brothers (Michael and Peter) / Winchester
Worst Screenplay
Death of a Nation, Written by Dinesh
D’Souza & Bruce Schooley
Fifty Shades Freed, Screenplay by Niall
Leonard, from the Novel by E.L. James
Gotti, Screenplay by Leo Rossi and Lem Dobbs
The Happytime Murders, Screenplay by Todd
Berger, Story by Berger and Dee Austin Robinson
Winchester, Written by Tom Vaughan and The Spierig
Brothers
The Heinlein Society has opened its sixth annual scholarship essay contest for the 2019-2020 academic year. Three $2,000 scholarships will be awarded to undergraduate students of accredited 4-year colleges and universities —
Virginia Heinlein Memorial Scholarship — Dedicated to a female candidate majoring in engineering, math, or biological or physical sciences.
The Yoji Kondo and Jerry Pournelle scholarships — May be awarded to a candidate of any gender; in addition, “Science Fiction as literature” is an eligible field of study.
Applicants
will need to submit a 500-1,000 word essay on one of several available topics:
a. How Robert Heinlein affected my career choice. b. Discuss the ‘Golden Age of SF’ and Robert Heinlein’s role in it. c. Most of the Heinlein estate and literary legacy is devoted to commercial space activities (the mission of the Heinlein Prize Trust). Given that focus, consider Elon Musk (winner of the Heinlein Prize for Commercial Space Activities) and the Falcon Heavy launch with his Tesla Roadster with Starman inside. Discuss these events in comparison with Heinlein’s “The Man Who Sold the Moon”, and other works. Will our future expansion into space be government initiated, or private/commercial? Which is better? Which will ultimately be the way forward? d. Robert Heinlein said “The golden age of science has yet to begin.” Evaluate this statement compared to your technical field. e. Discuss the advantages to the human race of a permanent settlement on the Moon or Mars. f. The expansion of social media has led to widespread placement of devices by which your movement and private conversations can be monitored. Social media has also accelerated the clustering of like-minded interests into largely non-interacting ‘tribes’—the so-called ‘metadata’ gathering. Can you find and comment on the Heinlein stories that predicted these phenomena? g. How might advances in your chosen field of study affect how people live 50 years from now? What changes, good or bad, might society see?
The deadline to apply is April 1. Full guidelines and the application form are on the Society’s website: Society’s website. Winners will be announced on July 7, 2019.
The link leads to Reid’s academic Dreamwidth page for
the informed consent information. The link from there goes to SurveyMonkey. Reid’s
cover letter says:
Hello: I am a professor of Literature and Languages at Texas A&M University-Commerce (TAMUC) who is doing a research project. The project asks how readers of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Legendarium who are at least eighteen years old and who are atheists, agnostics, animists, or part of New Age movements interpret his work in the context of the common assumption that Tolkien’s Catholic beliefs must play a part in what readers see as the meaning of his fiction.
I have created a short survey which consists of ten open-ended questions about your religious and/or spiritual background, your experiences of Tolkien’s work, and your ideas about the relationship between religious beliefs and interpreting his work. It would take anywhere from thirty minutes to several hours to complete the survey, depending on how much you write in response to the questions. The survey is uploaded to my personal account at Survey Monkey: only I will have access to the responses. My research proposal has been reviewed by the TAMUC Institutional Review Board.
If you are eighteen years or older, and are an atheist, agnostic, animist, or part of a New Age movement that emphasizes spirituality but not a creator figure, you are invited to go to my academic blog to see more information about the survey. The survey will be open from December 1, 2018-January 31, 2019, closing at 11:30 PM GMT-0500 Central Daylight Time.
Complete information about the project and how your anonymity and privacy will be protected can be found at by clicking on the link:
(2) RETRO READING. The Hugo Award Book Club‘s Olav Rokne recalls: “The Retro-Hugo for Best Graphic Story was overlooked by enough nominators that it failed to be awarded last year. That’s a real shame, because I can tell you that there was a lot of work that’s worth celebrating.
It’s actually quite sad that it was forgotten last year, and I’m sincerely
hoping that people don’t neglect the category this year.” That’s the reason for
his recommended reading post “Retro Hugo – Best Graphic Story 1944”.
(3) A FEMINIST SFF ROUNDUP. Cheryl Morgan gives an overview of 2018 in “A
Year In Feminist Speculative Fiction” at the British Science Fiction
Association’s Vector blog. Morgan’s
first recommendation —
Top of the list for anyone’s feminist reading from 2018 must be Maria Dahvana Headley’s amazing re-telling of Beowulf, The Mere Wife. Set in contemporary America, with a gated community taking the place of Heorot Hall, and a policeman called Ben Wolfe in the title role, it uses the poem’s story to tackle a variety of issues. Chief among them is one of translation. Why is it that Beowulf is always described as a hero, whereas Grendel’s Mother is a hag or a wretch? In the original Anglo-Saxon, the same word is used to describe both of them. And why do white women vote for Trump? The book tackles both of those questions, and more. I expect to see it scooping awards.
(4) HONEY, YOU GOT TO GET THE SCIENCE RIGHT. Where have I heard that before? Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is netting all kinds of awards, but writing for CNN, physicist Don Lincoln opines that, “‘Spider-verse’ gets the science right — and wrong.” Of course, this is an animated movie and maybe Don is a bit of a grump.
CNN—(Warning: Contains mild spoilers)
As a scientist who has written about colliding black holes and alien space probes, I was already convinced I was pretty cool. But it wasn’t until I sat down to watch “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” that I understood the extent of my own coolness. There on the screen was fictional scientific equipment that was clearly inspired by the actual apparatus that my colleagues and I use to try to unlock the mysteries of the universe.
Amid the action, the coming-of-age story, a little romance and a few twists and turns, the movie shows a fictional gadget located in New York City called a collider, which connects parallel universes and brings many different versions of Spider-Man into a single universe.
(5) SFF TV EDITOR. CreativeCOW.net features a rising star in
“Editing
SYFY”.
When talking about her career path, you get the immediate sense that rejection isn’t a “no” for Shiran Amir. There’s never been an obstacle that’s kept her from living her dream. Shattering ceiling after glass ceiling, she makes her rise up through the ranks look like a piece of cake. However, her story is equal parts strategy and risk – and none of it was easy.
After taking countless chances in her career, of which some aspiring editors don’t see the other side, she has continually pushed herself to move onward and upward. She’s been an assistant editor on Fear the Walking Dead, The OA, and Outcast to name a few, before becoming a full-fledged editor of Z Nation for SyFy, editing the 4th and 9th episodes of the zombie apocalypse show’s final season, with its final episode airing December 28, 2018. She’s currently on the Editors Guild Board of Directors and is involved in the post-production community in Los Angeles.
And she’s only 30 years old.
(6) ARISIA. Bjo Trimble
poses with fans in Star Trek uniforms.
The con also overcame horrible weather and other challenges:
Logistics would like to thank everyone who helped us with what was probably our most difficult move-in ever. We tilted at elevators, bucket-brigaded thousands of pounds of stuff down 3 (actually 5) flights of stairs, dealt with dead trucks, and survived the cold. (Cont.)
Mythic worldbuilding and intentionality just weren’t staples of science fiction until the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and Frank Herbert were published. We’ll be doing an analysis of The Lord of the Rings and Dune, respectively–works that still stand out today because they are meticulously crafted.
Here are links to playlists for the first two seasons:
The first season covered the origins of SF up to John Campbell.
The second season covered the Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke era up to the start of the New Wave.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled
by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 20, 1884 – A. Merritt. Early pulp writer whose career consisted of eight complete novels and a number of short stories. Gutenberg has all of all his novels and most of his stories available online. H. P. Lovecraft notes in a letter that he was a major influence upon his writings, and a number of authors including Michael Moorcock and Robert Bloch list him as being among their favorite authors.
Born January 20, 1920 – DeForest Kelley. Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy on the original Trek and a number of films that followed plus the animated series. Other genre appearances include voicing voicing Viking 1 in The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars (his last acting work) and a 1955 episode of Science Fiction Theatre entitled “Y..O..R..D..” being his only ones as he didn’t do SF Really preferring Westerners. (Died 1999.)
Born January 20, 1926 – Patricia Neal. Best known to genre buffs for her film role as World War II widow Helen Benson in The Day the Earth Stood Still. She also appeared in Stranger from Venus, your usual British made flying saucer film. She shows up in the Eighties in Ghost Story based off a Peter Straub novel, and she did an episode of The Ghost Story series which was later retitled Circle Of Fear in hopes of getting better ratings (it didn’t, it was cancelled). If Kung Fu counts as genre, she did an appearance there. (Died 2010)
Born January 20, 1934 – Tom Baker, 85. The Fourth Doctor and my introduction to Doctor Who. My favorite story? The Talons of Weng Chiang with of course the delicious added delight of his companion Leela played by Lousie Jameson. Even the worse of the stories, and there were truly shitty stories, were redeemed by him and his jelly babies. He did have a turn before being the Fourth Doctor as Sherlock Holmes In The Hound of the Baskervilles, and though not genre, he turns up as Rasputin early in his career in Nicholas and Alexandra! Being a working actor, he shows up in a number of low budget films early on such as The Vault of Horror, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, The Mutations, The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb and The Zany Adventures of Robin Hood. And weirdly enough, he’s Halvarth the Elf in a Czech made Dungeons & Dragons film which has a score of 10% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Born January 20, 1946 – David Lynch, 73. Director of possibly the worst SF film ever made from a really great novel in the form of Dune. Went on to make Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me which is possibly one of the weirdest films ever made. (Well with Blue Velvet being a horror film also vying for top honors as well.) Oh and I know that I didn’t mention Eraserhead. You can talk about that film.
Born January 20, 1948 – Nancy Kress, 71. Best known for her Hugo and Nebula Award winning Beggars in Spain and its sequels. Her latest novel is If Tomorrow Comes: Book 2 in the Yesterday’s Kin trilogy.
Born January 20, 1958 – Kij Johnson, 61. Writer and associate director of The Center for the Study of Science Fiction the University of Kansas English Department which is I must say a cool genre thing indeed. She’s also worked for Tor, TSR and Dark Horse. Wow. Where was I? Oh about to mention her writings… if you not read her Japanese mythology based The Fox Woman, do so now as it’s superb. The sequel, Fudoki, is just as interesting. The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is a novella taking a classic Lovecraftian tale and giving a nice twist. Finally I’ll recommend her short story collection, At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories.
Born January 20, 1964 – Francesca Buller, 55. Performer and wife of Ben Browder, yes that’s relevant as she’s been four different characters on Farscape, to wit she played the characters of Minister Ahkna, Raxil, ro-NA and M’Lee. Minister Ahkn is likely the one you remember her as being. Farscape is her entire genre acting career.
(9) IS BRAM STOKER SPINNING?
It’s all about Scott Edelman:
Congrats to all creators who made the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards preliminary ballot! I'm pleased to note that regardless of who advances to the final ballot, and who thereafter wins or loses, I will retain my title as the losingest loser — the Susan Lucci of @HorrorWriters! Yay, me! pic.twitter.com/S6GUUYmgq4
(10) MAGICON. Fanac.org has added another historic
video to its YouTube channel: “MagiCon (1992)
Worldcon – Rusty Hevelin interviews Frank Robinson.”
MagiCon, the 50th Worldcon, was held in Orlando, Florida in 1992. In this video, Rusty Hevelin interviews fan, editor and author Frank Robinson on his career, both fannish and professional and on the early days of science fiction. Frank talks about the war years, the fanzines he published, the Ray Palmer era in magazines, his time at Rogue Magazine and lots more. Highlights include: working with Ray Palmer, discussion on the line between fan and pro writing, the story of George Pal’s production of ‘The Power’ from Frank’s story of that name, and Frank’s views on the impact of science fiction and of fantasy. Frank Robinson was a true devotee of the field – “Science fiction can change the world.”
(11) MUONS VS. MEGS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.]Those
cheering for the stupid-large shark in last year’s The Meg, may now know
what to blame for the lack of megalodons in the current age. A story in Quanta Magazine (“How Nearby Stellar Explosions Could Have Killed Off Large
Animals”) explains a preprint paper
(“Hypothesis:
Muon Radiation Dose and Marine Megafaunal Extinction at the End-Pliocene
Supernova”). Using iron-60 as a tracer,
supernovae have been tracked to a time of mass extinction at the
Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary 2.6 million years ago. The paper’s authors make
the leap from that to a hypothesis that a huge spike in muons that would have
occurred when supernova radiation slammed into Earth’s atmosphere could have
contributed to that extinction.
Even though Earth is floating in the void, it does not exist in a vacuum. The planet is constantly bombarded by stuff from space, including a daily deluge of micrometeorites and a shower of radiation from the sun and more-distant stars. Sometimes, things from space can maim or kill us, like the gargantuan asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. More often, stellar smithereens make their way to Earth and the moon and then peacefully settle, remaining for eternity, or at least until scientists dig them up.
[…] But the search for cosmic debris on Earth has a long history. Other researchers have demonstrated that it’s possible to find fossil evidence of astrophysical particles in Earth’s crust. Some researchers are pondering how these cosmic events affect Earth — even whether they have altered the course of evolution. A new study suggests that energetic particles from an exploding star may have contributed to the extinction of a number of megafauna, including the prehistoric monster shark megalodon, which went extinct at around the same time.
“It’s an interesting coincidence,” said Adrian Melott, an astrophysicist at the University of Kansas and the author of a new paper.
The road runs straight and black into the gloom of the snowy birch forest. It is -5C (23F), the sky is slate-grey and we’re in a steamy minibus full of strangers. Not very romantic you’re thinking, and I haven’t yet told you where we’re going.
My wife, Bee, had suggested a cheeky New Year break. Just the two of us, no kids. “Surprise me,” she’d said.
Then I met a bloke at a friend’s 50th. He told me how much he and his girlfriend had enjoyed a trip to Chernobyl – that’s right, the nuclear power station that blew up in the 1980s, causing the worst civilian nuclear disaster in history.
“Don’t worry,” my new friend declared, a large glass of wine in his hand. “It’s safe now.”
Companies are looking at mining the surface of the Moon for precious materials. So what rules are there on humans exploiting and claiming ownership?
It’s almost 50 years since Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the Moon. “That’s one small step for a man,” the US astronaut famously said, “one giant leap for mankind.”
Shortly afterwards, his colleague Buzz Aldrin joined him in bounding across the Sea of Tranquility. After descending from the steps of the Eagle lunar module, he gazed at the empty landscape and said: “Magnificent desolation.”
Since the Apollo 11 mission of July 1969, the Moon has remained largely untouched – no human has been there since 1972. But this could change soon, with several companies expressing an interest in exploring and, possibly, mining its surface for resources including gold, platinum and the rare earth minerals widely used in electronics.
We didn’t know much about the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program until now, but apparently, the Department of Defense has been focusing its efforts far beyond potential threats on Earth.
The Defense Intelligence Agency has finally let the public in on at least some of what it’s been up to by recently releasing a list of 38 research titles that range from the weird to the downright bizarre. It would have never revealed these titles—on topics like invisibility cloaking, wormholes and extradimensional manipulation—if it wasn’t for the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request put in by the director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Society, Steven Aftergood.
(16) STANDING TALL. BBC traces
“How Japan’s skyscrapers are built to survive
earthquakes” in a photo gallery with some interesting tech info. “Japan
is home to some of the most resilient buildings in the world – and their secret
lies in their capacity to dance as the ground moves beneath them.”
The bar is set by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. This was a large earthquake – of magnitude 7.9 – that devastated Tokyo and Yokohama, and killed more than 140,000 people.
For earthquakes of a greater magnitude than this benchmark, preserving buildings perfectly is no longer the goal. Any damage that does not cause a human casualty is acceptable.
“You design buildings to protect people’s lives,” says Ziggy Lubkowski, a seismic specialist at University College London. “That’s the minimum requirement.”
That’s because 85-year-old Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will have a cameo as a black-robed, law-defining minifigure in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, according to the film’s director, Mike Mitchell.
“These movies are so full of surprises. And we were thinking, ‘Who’s the last person you would think to see in a Lego film as a minifig?’ Ruth Bader Ginsburg!” Mitchell told USA Today. “And we’re all huge fans. It made us laugh to think of having her enter this world.”
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is stepping out in a new role — a gavel-wielding minifigure in @TheLEGOMovie 2! See the photos, exclusively revealed here: https://t.co/q7kypl4IeF
[Thanks to Greg Hullender, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip Williams.]
This is not the list
of finalists, nor are they called nominees: it is the list which HWA
members will choose from when they vote to determine the finalists. The final
ballot will be revealed next month. The Bram Stoker Award winners will be
announced in April at StokerCon 2019 in Grand Rapids, MI.
2018 Bram Stoker Awards® Preliminary
Ballot
Superior Achievement in a Novel
The
Shape of Water – Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus
Dark
Mary – Paolo Di
Orazio
The
Hunger – Alma
Katsu
The
Outsider – Stephen
King
Glimpse – Jonathan Maberry
Unbury
Carol – Josh
Malerman
Naraka – Alessandro Manzetti
Hazards
of Time Travel – Joyce
Carol Oates
Foe – Iain Reid
Frankenstein
in Baghdad: A Novel – Ahmed Saadawi
Dracul – Dacre Stoker and J.D. Barker
The
Cabin at the End of the World – Paul Tremblay
Superior Achievement in a First Novel
The Garden of Blue Roses – Michael Barsa
What Should Be Wild – Julia Fine
Breaking the World – Jerry Gordon
I Am the River – T.E. Grau
The Rust Maidens – Gwendolyn Kiste
Fiction – Ryan Lieske
The Honey Farm – Harriet Alida Lye
The War in the Dark – Nick Setchfield
The Nightmare Room – Chris Sorensen
Baby Teeth – Zoje Stage
The Moore House – Tony Tremblay
Superior Achievement in a Young
Adult Novel
Pitch
Dark – Courtney
Alameda
The
Wicked Deep – Shea
Ernshaw
Attack
of the 50 Foot Wallflower – Christian McKay Heidicker
Dread
Nation – Justina
Ireland
Wormholes:
Book One of Axles and Allies – Dani Kane
Sawkill
Girls – Claire
Legrand
Broken
Lands – Jonathan
Maberry
The
Night Weaver – Monique
Snyman
The
Wren Hunt – Mary Watson
The
Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein – Kiersten White
Superior Achievement in a Graphic
Novel
Abbott – Saladin Ahmed
Cursed Comics Cavalcade – Alex Antone and Dave James Wielgosz
Moonshine Vol. 2: Misery Train – Brian Azzarello
Redlands Volume 1: Sisters by Blood – Jordie Bellaire
Bone Parish – Cullen Bunn
Denver Moon: Metamorphosis – Warren Hammond and Joshua Viola
Destroyer – Victor LaValle
Gideon Falls Volume 1: The Black Barn – Jeff Lemire
Monstress Volume 3: Haven – Marjorie Liu
Infidel – Pornsak Pichetshote
Superior Achievement in Long
Fiction
Our Children, Our Teachers – Michael Bailey
The Barrens – Stephanie Feldman
Shiloh – Philip Fracassi
You Are Released – Joe Hill
Cruce Roosters – Brent Michael Kelley
Black’s Red Gold – Ed Kurtz
Dead Lovers on Each Blade, Hung – Usman T. Malik
The Devil’s Throat – Rena Mason
Body of Christ – Mark Matthews
Bitter Suites – Angela Yuriko Smith
Shape Shifting Priestess of the 1,000 Year War – Todd Sullivan
Superior Achievement in Short
Fiction
“All
Summers End” – Tom Deady
“Life
After Breath” – Tori Eldridge
“Cold,
Silent, and Dark” – Kary English
“The
Gods in Their Seats, Unblinking” – Kurt Fawver
“The
Woman in the Blue Dress” – Heather Herrman
“Mutter”
– Jess Landry
“Dead
End Town” – Lee Murray
“Glove
Box” – Annie Neugebauer
“Fish
Hooks” – Kit Power
“Her
Royal Counsel” – Andrew Robertson
“A
Winter’s Tale” – John F.D. Taff
“And
in Her Eyes the City Drowned” – Kyla Lee Ward
Superior Achievement in a Fiction
Collection
Something
Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked – Christa Carmen
Spectral
Evidence – Gemma Files
That
Which Grows Wild
– Eric J. Guignard
Coyote
Songs – Gabino
Iglesias
Octoberland – Thana Niveau
Frozen
Shadows: And Other Chilling Stories – Gene O’Neill
Apple
and Knife – Intan
Paramaditha
Occasional
Beasts: Tales – John Claude Smith
Garden
of Eldritch Delights – Lucy A. Snyder
Little
Black Spots – John F.D.
Taff
Dark
and Distant Voices: A Story Collection – Tim Waggoner
Superior Achievement in a
Screenplay
Hereditary – Ari Aster
The
Haunting of Hill House: The Bent-Neck Lady, Episode 01:05 – Meredith Averill
The Haunting of Hill House: Screaming Meemies, Episode 01:09 – Meredith Averill
Mandy – Panos Cosmatos and
Aaron Stewart-Ahn
Ghost
Stories – Jeremy
Dyson and Andy Nyman
Halloween – Jeff Fradley, Danny
McBride and David Gordon Green
Annihilation
– Alex Garland
Bird
Box – Eric
Heisserer
Overlord – Billy Ray and Mark L.
Smith
A
Quiet Place – Bryan Woods,
Scott Beck and John Krasinski
Superior Achievement in an
Anthology
A
New York State of Fright: Horror Stories from the Empire State – James Chambers, James,
April Grey and Robert Masterson
The
Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea – Ellen Datlow
Suspended
in Dusk II – Simon Dewar
A
World of Horror – Eric J. Guignard
Welcome
to the Show – Doug Murano
Hellhole:
An Anthology of Subterranean Terror – Lee Murray
The
Fiends in the Furrows: An Anthology of Folk Horror – David T. Neal and
Christine M. Scott
Phantoms:
Haunting Tales from Masters of the Genre – Marie O’Regan
Lost
Highways: Dark Fictions from the Road – Alexander D. Ward
Quoth
the Raven – Lyn Worthen
Superior Achievement in
Non-Fiction
Horror Express – John Connolly
Adapting Frankenstein: The Monster’s Eternal Lives in Popular Culture – Dennis Cutchins and Dennis R. Perry
The Howling: Studies in the Horror Film – Lee Gambin
Woman at the Devil’s Door: The Untold True Story of the Hampstead
Murderess – Sarah
Beth Hopton
We
Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror – Howard David Ingham
Sleeping with the Lights On: The Unsettling Story of Horror – Darryl Jones
It’s Alive: Bringing Your Nightmares to Life – Joe Mynhardt and Eugene Johnson
A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in Early American Cinema – Kendall R. Phillips
Wasteland: The Great Ward and the Origins of Modern Horror – W. Scott Poole
Uncovering Stranger Things: Essays on Eighties Nostalgia, Cynicism and
Innocence in the Series – Kevin J. Wetmore
Jr.
Superior Achievement in a Poetry
Collection
Artifacts – Bruce Boston
The Comfort of Screams – G.O. Clark
Bleeding Saffron – David E. Cowen
The Hatch – Joe Fletcher
Witches – Donna Lynch
Thirteen Nocturnes – Oliver Shepard
War – Marge Simon and Alessandro Manzetti
The Devil’s Dreamland – Sara Tantlinger
Candle and Pins: Poems on Superstitions – Jacqueline West
Winners of the 30th
Annual Producers Guild Awards announced in Los Angeles on January 19
included two genre works. The animated movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse followed up its Golden Globes win, and HBO
Films’ Ray Bradbury adaptation Fahrenheit
451 won for Streamed or Televised Motion Picture.
Green Book walked
away with the marquee prize, the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding
Producer of Theatrical Motion Picture. It also won at the Golden Globes this
month, making it the favorite for the Best Picture Academy Award.
The
full list of winners at the 30th annual Producers Guild Awards follows the jump:
PKD would have loved it — NBM Graphic Novels released Philip K. Dick, A Comics Biography on January 1.
Philip K. DICK: A Comics Biography
Laurent Queyssi, writer, Mauro Marchesi, art
One of the greatest writers in SF history, Philip K. Dick is mostly remembered for such works as Blade Runner, Minority Report and Total Recall. His dark fascinating work centered on alternate universes and shifting realities in worlds often governed by monopolistic corporations and authoritarian governments. His own life story seems a tussle with reality, going through five wives and becoming increasingly disjointed with fits of paranoia and hallucinations fueled by abuse of drugs meant to stabilize him. His dramatic story is presented unvarnished in this biography.
NBM has a sample page online where Dick is in conversation with Harlan Ellison about Dangerous Visions.
A new filming project is sweeping through Morgan County this week for a reboot television series of Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi/horror “Amazing Stories,” with shooting locations in Rutledge, Bostwick and right outside of Madison.
Filming begin on Monday, Jan 14 off Highway 83 outside of Madison and then moved to Bostwick, behind the Cotton Jin on Mayor John Bostwick’s farm. Downtown Rutledge is getting a full makeover this week for the filming project, which will shoot on Friday, Jan 18 and run into the wee hours of Saturday, Jan 19. Rutledge’s iconic gazebo underwent a paint job for the filming, and on Wednesday, Jan. 16, crews began covering the intersection of Fairplay Road and Main Street with dirt.
As an alternative to the text, you can listen to the audio adaptation of “Online Reunion” at Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, or Spotify.
The Verge also has “A Q&A with the author” where “Leigh Alexander discusses the world of ‘Online Reunion’ and the ‘compelling, fascinating, beautiful, terrifying car crash of humanity and technology.’”
In “Online Reunion,” author Leigh Alexander imagines a world in which a young journalist is struggling with a compulsive “time sickness,” so she sets out to write a tearjerker about a widow reconnecting with her dead husband’s e-pet — but she finds something very different waiting for her in the internet ether. A self-described “recovering journalist” with a decade of experience writing about video games and technology, Alexander has since branched out into fiction, including an official Netrunner book, Monitor, and narrative design work for games like Reigns: Her Majesty and Reigns: Game of Thrones.
The Verge spoke with Alexander about finding joy and connection online, preserving digital history, and seeing the mystical in the technological.
Victor LaValle and Julie C. Day entertained a huge audience with their readings. Victor read from a new novella and Julie read two of her short stories.
“After the initial statement of purpose, though, the show falls victim to both pacing problems and a certain lopsidedness. A show like this, with title and premise centered around what it would mean to be a pioneer on a new planet, encourages an excited sort of stargazing; that quite so much of it is spent exploring Hagerty’s family crisis saps the energy and spirit from a show that should have both in spades.”
Her son, Danny Karapetian, wrote on Facebook 1/13/19, “It is my very sad duty to report that my Mom Bettina passed away this morning. “She was an indefatigable force of nature, a talented and decorated writer, and a loving mother, sister, and friend to everyone she knew. I know how much she cared about all of you, and how much you all loved her.”
Quoting Jonathan Eller, Ph.D., Center for Ray Bradbury Studies, “Bettina was herself a successful writer, achieving great success on daytime TV dramas Santa Barbara (1987-1993), All My Children (1995-2003), Days of Our Lives (2007), and others. She won several Emmy Awards and Writers Guild of America Awards, and earned yet more nominations.”
…Daughter of famed science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, known mostly for his stunning novel Fahrenheit 451, and Marguerite McClure, Bradbury proved that the writing gene can be passed down. She studied Film/History at USC School of Cinematic Arts
NBC’s Santa Barbara was her first soap writing team in the early 1990s. She also wrote for both All My Children (and won three Daytime Emmys) and One Life to Live on ABC and later worked on Days of Our Lives, also for NBC.
(7) DAVIES OBIT. [By Steve Green.] Windsor Davies (1930-2019): British actor, died January 17, aged
88. Genre appearances include The
Corridor People (one episode, 1966), Adam
Adamant Lives! (one episode, 1967), Doctor
Who (three episodes, 1967), Frankenstein
Must Be Destroyed (1969), UFO (one
episode, 1970), The Guardians (one
episode, 1971), The Donation Conspiracy
(two episodes, 1973), Alice in Wonderland
(one episode, 1985), Terrahawks (voice
role, 39 episodes, 1983-86), Rupert and
the Frog Song (1985), Gormenghast
(two episodes, 2000).
(8)
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 19, 1809 — Edgar Allan Poe. I’ve got several several sources that cite him as a early root of SF. Anyone care to figure that out? Be that as it may, he certainly wrote some damn scary horror — ones that I still remember are “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Masque of the Red Death.” (Died 1849.)
Born January 19, 1930 – Tippi Hedren, 89. Melanie Daniels In Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds which scared the shit out of me when I saw it a long time ago. She had a minor role as Helen in The Birds II: Land’s End, a televised sequel done thirty years on. No idea how bad or good it was. Other genre appearances were in such films and shows as Satan’s Harvest, Tales from the Darkside, The Bionic Woman, the new version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Batman: The Animated Series,
Born January 19, 1932 – Richard Lester, 87. Director best known for his 1980s Superman films. He’s got a number of other genre films including the exceedingly silly The Mouse on the Moon, Robin and Marian which may be my favorite Robin Hood film ever, and an entire excellent series of Musketeers films. He also directed Royal Flash based on George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman novel of that name.
Born January 19, 1981 – Bitsie Tulloch, 38. Her main role of interest to us was as Juliette Silverton/Eve in Grimm. She also has played Lois Lane in the recent Elseworlds episodes of this Arrowverse season. However I also found her in R2-D2: Beneath the Dome, a fan made film that use fake interviews, fake archive photos, film clips, and behind-the-scenes footage to tell early life of that droid. You can see it and her in it here.
Since it’s the season for basking in all things dreadful, we decided to round up twenty-five of the greatest illustrations ever made for Poe’s work. Some are more terrifying, others more beautiful, but all fall somewhere on the spectrum of terrifyingly beautiful, and we can’t stop looking at them, just as we can’t stop reading the works of the great Edgar Allan Poe.
What’s the first image that pops into your head when you think of Edgar Allan Poe? Is it this ubiquitous one? Maybe it’s that snapshot of your old roommate from Halloween 2011, when she tied a fake bird to her arm and knocked everyone’s champagne glasses over with it. (Just me?) Or is it an image of Poe in one of his many pop culture incarnations? You wouldn’t be alone.
After all, Poe pops up frequently in contemporary culture—somewhat more frequently than you might expect for someone who, during his lifetime, was mostly known as a caustic literary critic, even if he did turn out to be massively influential. I mean, it’s not like you see a ton of Miltons or Eliots running around. So today, on the 210th anniversary of Poe’s birth, I have compiled a brief and wildly incomplete selection of these appearances. Note that I’ve eliminated adaptations of Poe’s works, and focused on cameos and what we’ll call “faux Poes.” Turns out it isn’t just my old roommate—lots of people really love to dress up as Edgar Allan Poe.
First on the list:
1949: Ray Bradbury, “The Exiles,” published in The Illustrated Man
As you probably know, Poe’s work has been massively influential on American literature. In a 1909 speech at the Author’s Club in London, Arthur Conan Doyle observed that “his tales were one of the great landmarks and starting points in the literature of the last century . . . each is a root from which a whole literature has developed. . . Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it?” But it’s not just his work—Poe as a figure has infiltrated a number of literary works, including this early Bradbury story, in which Poe (along with Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, Charles Dickens, and William Shakespeare) is living on Mars, and slowly withering away as humans on Earth burn his books. The symbolism isn’t exactly subtle, but hey.
(11) SHUFFLING OFF THIS
MORTAL COIL. Here’s something to play on a cold winter’s night — Arkham
Horror: The Card Game.
The boundaries between worlds have drawn perilously thin…
Arkham Horror: The Card Game is a cooperative Living Card Game® set amid a backdrop of Lovecraftian horror. As the Ancient Ones seek entry to our world, one to two investigators (or up to four with two Core Sets) work to unravel arcane mysteries and conspiracies.
Their efforts determine not only the course of your game, but carry forward throughout whole campaigns, challenging them to overcome their personal demons even as Arkham Horror: The Card Game blurs the distinction between the card game and roleplaying experiences.
(12) NO APRIL FOOLIN’. There’s
a trailer out for Paramount’s Pet
Sematary remake —
Sometimes dead is better…. In theatres April 5, 2019. Based on the seminal horror novel by Stephen King, Pet Sematary follows Dr. Louis Creed (Jason Clarke), who, after relocating with his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) and their two young children from Boston to rural Maine, discovers a mysterious burial ground hidden deep in the woods near the family’s new home. When tragedy strikes, Louis turns to his unusual neighbor, Jud Crandall (John Lithgow), setting off a perilous chain reaction that unleashes an unfathomable evil with horrific consequences.
(13) 1943 RETRO HUGO
ADVICE. DB has written a post
on works by Mervyn Peake, Lord Dunsany, C.S. Lewis, and Charles WIlliams
eligible for the Retros this year. It begins with an illustration —
This is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, as drawn by Mervyn Peake. Vivid, isn’t it? Peake’s illustrated edition of the Coleridge poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was published by Chatto and Windus in 1943, and is the first reason you should consider nominating Peake for Best Professional Artist of 1943,1 for the Retro-Hugos 1944 (works of 1943) are being presented by this year’s World SF Convention in Dublin. (The book might also be eligible for the special category of Best Art Book, for while it’s not completely a collection of visual art, the illustrations were the point of this new edition of the classic poem.)
Though remembered now mostly for his Gormenghast novels, Peake was primarily an artist. He had in fact 3 illustrated books published in 1943, and all three of them were arguably fantasy or sf.2
(14) F&SF FICTION TO LOVE. Standback took to Twitter to cheer on F&SF with a round-up of his favorite stories from the magazine in 2018. The thread starts here.
On the strength of this great trio, those of you nominating for not-a-Hugo award might seriously consider Benedict for the Campbell. And kudos to @fandsf for finding (and, so far, mostly keeping!) this great new writer. /6c
(15) RARE BOOKS LA. Collectors
will swarm to Pasadena on February 1-2 for this event —
Rare Books LA is a book fair that features more than 100 leading specialists in rare books, fine prints, photography, ephemera, maps, and more from throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. This prestigious event takes place at the Pasadena Convention Center.
Exhibitors
Rare Books LA will compromise of numerous exhibitors. There will be 60+ exhibitors that come from around the world to showcase their rare books. Expect to discover exhibitors who also showcase photography and fine prints. To view the list of exhibitors, click here.
Early humans were still swinging from trees two million years ago, scientists have said, after confirming a set of contentious fossils represents a “missing link” in humanity’s family tree.
The fossils of Australopithecus sediba have fueled scientific debate since they were found at the Malapa Fossil Site in South Africa 10 years ago.
And now researchers have established that they are closely linked to the Homo genus, representing a bridging species between early humans and their predecessors, proving that early humans were still swinging from trees 2 million years ago.
On the night of September 1, 1849, the nearly full Moon appeared over the town of Canandaigua, New York. At 10:30 P.M., Samuel D. Humphrey slid a highly polished, silver-plated copper sheet measuring 2–¾x1–¾ inches into his camera, which was pointed at the Moon.
Humphrey then exposed the light-sensitive plate to the shining Moon nine times, varying the length of exposure from 0.5 seconds to 2 minutes. After developing the plate with mercury vapor, he sent his daguerreotype to Harvard College.
Louis Daguerre, the Frenchman who explained the secret of the world’s first photographic technique in 1839, had daguerreotyped a faint image of the Moon, but the plate was soon lost in a fire. John W. Draper of New York City is credited with making the first clear daguerreotype of the Moon in March 1840, but this also was destroyed in a fire.
The rough and rocky landscape of Mars continues to take a toll on the wheels of NASA’s Curiosity rover. As part of a routine checkup, Curiosity snapped some new images of its wheels this week.
Most of the photos don’t look too alarming, but one in particular shows some dramatic holes and cracks in the aluminum.
(19) GLASS EXIT. If you
left the theater in a haze, Looper wants
to help you out:
[Thanks to Standback, JJ, Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, Michael Toman, Carl Slaughter, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Steve Green, Cat Eldridge and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew.]
At the moment I’m on a hand-me-down chain for The New York Times, which I don’t see regularly, in full, or soon.. So I just read the December 27, 2018, obituary (p. B12) for Larry Eisenberg, who died on the 25th a few days after his 99th birthday, a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, a director of the Rockefeller University electronics laboratory, a co-developer of a battery-operated cardiac pacemaker when earlier models were, well, wired.
His name meant iron mountain. No, not “Lawrence”; that’s laurel, “used by the ancient Greeks to crown the victors in the Pythian games…. Later, a crown of laurel was used to indicate academic honors.” No, that’s not from the Times, it’s Webster’s Second (I have the 3-vol. ed’n of 1949, among other dictionaries), accept no substitutes.
Dr. Eisenberg published fifty stories in our field, about Clarot in Dangerous Visions (1967), which the Times duly acknowledged “the noted anthology edited by Harlan Ellison”; and in Amazing, Asimov’s, Fantastic, Galaxy, If, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Venture, Vertex, Worlds of Tomorrow.
He contributed 13,000 comments to <nytimes.com>, “verse – mostly limericks – perfectly rhymed, (usually) metrically impeccable and always germane to whatever recent news item had caught his eye”, earning renown in the “lively, atomized, fiercely opinionated parallel universe of The New York Times’ online commenters.”
I shan’t end there. On paper his obituary was headed “Larry Eisenberg, 99; His Well of Limericks Never Ran Dry”. That’s good. But the electronic version has “Larry Eisenberg, 99, Dead; His Limericks Were Very Well Read”. I bow.
The Lefty awards will be voted on at the Left Coast Crime convention and presented at the Awards Banquet on March 30 in Vancouver, BC.
Lefty for Best Humorous Mystery Novel
Mardi Gras Murder by Ellen Byron (Crooked Lane Books)
Hollywood Ending by Kellye Garrett (Midnight Ink)
Nighttown by Timothy Hallinan (Soho Crime)
Death al Fresco by Leslie Karst (Crooked Lane Books)
The Spirit in Question by Cynthia Kuhn (Henery Press)
Scott Free by Catriona McPherson (Midnight Ink)
Lefty for Best Historical Mystery Novel (Bruce Alexander
Memorial) for books covering events before 1960
Four Funerals and Maybe a Wedding by Rhys Bowen (Berkeley Prime Crime)
The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday by David Corbett (Black Opal Books)
Island of the Mad by Laurie R King (Bantam Books)
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey (Soho Crime)
A Dying Note by Ann Parker (Poisoned Pen Press)
It Begins in Betrayal by Iona Whishaw (Touchwood Editions)
Lefty for Best Debut Mystery Novel
Broken Places by Tracy Clark (Kensington Books)
Cobra Clutch by A J Devlin (NeWest Press)
The Woman in the Window by A J Finn (William Morrow)
A Lady’s Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman (Kensington Books)
What Doesn’t Kill You by Aimee Hix (Midnight Ink)
Deadly Solution by Keenan Powell (Level Best Books)
Give Out Creek by J G Toews (Mosaic Press)
Lefty for Best Mystery Novel
November Road by Lou Berney (William Morrow)
Wrong Light by Matt Coyle (Oceanview Publishing)
Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny (Minotaur Books)
Under a Dark Sky by Lori-Rader-Day (William Morrow Paperbacks)
A Reckoning in the Back Country by Terry Shames (Seventh Street Books)
A Stone’s Throw by James W. Ziskin (Seventh Street Books)
To be eligible, titles must have been published for the first
time in the United States or Canada during 2018, in book or ebook format. (If
published in other countries before 2018, a book is still eligible if it meets
the US or Canadian publication requirement.)
Amazon has called the conclusions of a recent report into US author earnings flawed, after the Authors Guild suggested that the retail giant’s dominance could be partly responsible for the “a crisis of epic proportions” affecting writers in the US.
The report from the writers’ body, published last week, highlighted the statistic that median income from writing-related work fell to $6,080 (£4,730) in 2017, down 42% from 2009, with literary authors particularly affected. Raising “serious concerns about the future of American literature”, the writers’ body singled out the growing dominance of Amazon for particular blame. “Amazon (which now controls 72% of the online book market in the US) puts pressure on [publishers] to keep costs down and takes a large percentage, plus marketing fees, forcing publishers to pass on their losses to authors,” said the report.
But on Wednesday, Amazon took issue with the report’s conclusions. “The Authors Guild has acknowledged that there are significant differences between the data it compared in its recent survey and years prior, noting that ‘the data does not line up’,” said an Amazon statement. “As a result, many of the survey’s conclusions are flawed or contradictory. For instance, the survey also shows that earnings increased almost 17% for traditionally published authors and 89% for independent [self-published] authors, and that full-time authors saw their median income rise 13% since 2013.”
(2) OVERSAUCED. Cora
Buhlert wrote an emphatic dissent from Lee Konstantinou’s Slate article “Something Is Broken in Our Science Fiction” (linked in
the Scroll a few days ago). Buhlert’s post is titled “Science Fiction
Is Dying Again – The Hopepunk Edition”
…And now science fiction is dying again. Or rather, it already died in the 1980s and has been shambling along like a mirroshaded cyberpunk zombie ever since. For inspired by the hopepunk debate that broke out in late December (chronicled here), Lee Konstantinou weighs in on cyberpunk, hopepunk, solarpunk and the state of science fiction in general as part of Slate‘s future tense project (found via File 770). And this is one case where I wish I could use the German phrase “seinen Senf dazugeben” (literally “add their mustard”) instead of the more neutral English “weigh in”. Because Lee Konstantinou absolutely adds his* mustard, regardless whether anybody actually wants mustard or whether mustard even fits the dish….
…Outreach to underserved and underrepresented writers in the SFF community
Again, the most important aspect of this, as the most underserved and underrepresented writers in the SF/F community are conservatives and Christians. These groups feel like they’re not welcome anywhere within the sphere of publishing, and it needs to change.
I’m confident Ms. Kowal will enact change here, which is the primary reason for my endorsement. I also volunteer to act as an ambassador to the conservative/Christian writing communities on her behalf, as many writers feel they can safely speak with me in confidence, when their concerns might get them ostracized or their businesses hurt if they voice their issues elsewhere. With me in such a role, we can repair the bridge in fandom so we can make it about books again, and selling for authors, and not about petty political squabbles.
Ms. Kowal has demonstrated to me personally that she is sincere in this effort by attempting to assist me with Worldcon 2018 when they horribly discriminated against me last year because of my outspoken beliefs, and because I was under threat of physical harm being done to me at their convention by extreme left-wing agitators. The cycle of victim blaming must stop, and Kowal has assured me SFWA will not be an organization that will treat conservative authors as 2nd class citizens. This is a human rights issue and very big for me!
But Kowal also puts her money where her mouth is. When I was coming up and needed promotion as a writer, Kowal featured me on her blog not just once—but twice, and the second after I’d already become a prominent outspoken conservative within the community. She cares about books FIRST – and this is what sets her apart from others.
I’m excited for her tenure so I can finally join the professional guild (as is my due) without being shut down and held to standards others within SFWA are not.
Discovery season one seemed like a declarative end of a chapter with the Federation-Klingon war coming to its conclusion. Why did you choose to start the second chapter by bringing in the Enterprise, considering its notoriety?
We discover in season one that Michael has a relationship with Spock. The mystery of why Spock, who we’ve known for over 50 years, has never mentioned his sister, is huge. It felt like there was no way we were going to be able to answer that question in one or two episodes. It was easily going to be the substance of a whole season. This season is a deep-dive into that relationship and what went wrong, their history and where they’re headed. That excited me. It’s the unwritten chapter of how Spock became the character that we meet in the original series. We’ll come to understand that were it not for his relationship with Michael, many of the things we know and love about Spock may not have flowered in the way that they did.
…Launching into this first episode reminded me that I do actually like these characters. I felt happy to see Michael, Tilly, Saru and Stamets again. Also, Discovery remains visually impressive, it’s easily the best looking Star Trek. The promised story arc appears to be a mysterious simultaneous signal from five points across the galaxy — a signal that Spock knows something about and which (apparently coincidentally) Captain Pike has been tasked with investigating….
(6) COSTA BOOK AWARDS. The 2018 Costa
Book Awards, a general literary prize in the UK, have a winner of genre interest — Stuart Turton won the
First Novel award for The Seven (or 7 1/2) Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.
At a party thrown by her parents, Evelyn Hardcastle will be killed – again. She’s been murdered hundreds of times, and each day Aidan Bishop is too late to save her. The only way to break this cycle is to identify Evelyn’s killer. But every time the day begins again, Aidan wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is desperate to stop him ever escaping Blackheath……
Stuart Turton is a freelance travel journalist who’s previously worked in Shanghai and Dubai. He’s the winner of the Brighton and Hove Short Story Prize and was longlisted for the BBC Radio 4 Opening Lines competition. TV rights for The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle have been optioned by House Productions. He lives in West London with his wife and daughter.
Judges: ‘Impossibly clever, genre-busting murder mystery that feels like a mash-up of Cluedo, Sherlock and Groundhog Day.’
(7) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “WCFF-Dream” on Vimeo is an animated version of “I Dreamed a Dream” with many cute animals that was shown at the World Conservation Film Festival in October.
(8) PEARLMAN OBIT. Alan
R. Pearlman (1925-2019) has died at the age of 93. The New
York Times notes he was —
Founder of ARP Instruments and designer of its early synthesizers, which were used in Star Wars: A New Hope (R2-D2’s beeps), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (that infamous 5-note sequence, shown being played on an ARP 2500), and the 1980’s version of the Dr. Who theme.
(9) TODAY’S
BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat
Eldridge.]
Born January 18, 1882 – A.A. Milne. Oh Pooh has to count as genre, doesn’t he? Certainly that an exhibition entitled “Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic” appeared at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London shows his place in our culture. There’s also Once on a Time, a rather charming fairy tale by him. And though it isn’t remotely genre, i wholeheartedly recommend The Red House Mystery, a Country House Mystery that’s most excellent! (Died 1956.)
Born January 18, 1933 – John Boorman, 86. I will admit that he does not at all have a lengthy genre resume though it’s quirky one nonetheless as it manages to encompass one howlingly horrible film being Zardoz featuring Sean Connery in diapers and Excalibur giving us a bare breasted Helen Mirren as Morgana. Did you know by the way that Robert Holdstock wrote the novelisation of The Emerald Forest which he directed? He also directed Exorcist II: The Heretic which frankly the less said about, the better.
Born January 18, 1937 – Dick Durock. He was best known for playing Swamp Thing in Swamp Thing and The Return of Swamp Thing and the following television series. His only other genre appearances were in The Nude Bomb (also known as The Return of Maxwell Smart) and “The First” of The Incredible Hulk. (Died 2009)
Born January 18, 1953 – Pamela Dean, 66. Her best novel is I think Tam Lin though one could make an argument for Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary which Windling claims is her favorite fantasy novel. Her Secret Country trilogy is a great deal of fun reading. Much of her short stories are set in the Liavek shared universe created by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly. Alll of these are now available on all major digital platforms. According to the files sitting in my Dropbox folder, there’s eight volumes to the series. They’re wonderful reading. End of plug.
Born January 18, 1955 – Kevin Costner, 64. Some of his films are his genre films are really atrocious, to wit Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Waterworld, The Postman and the recent Dragonfly but I really like his Field of Dreams and his acting in it as Ray Kinsella is quite excellent. Not quite as superb as he was as “Crash” Davis in Bull Durham but damned good. I forgot until just reminded that he was Jonathan Kent in both Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I know that’s two more horrid films he’s been in.
Born January 18, 1960 – Mark Rylance, 59. Prospero’s Books, an adaption of The Tempest which I really want to see, The BFG and Ready Player One are the films he’s been in. An active thespian, he’s been in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Royal Opera House, Hamlet at American Repertory Theater and Macbeth at Greenwich Theatre to show but a few of his appearances.
Born January 18, 1968 – David Ayer, 51. Film director, producer and screenwriter. Recent genre film from him were Suicide Squad and Bright, both of which have Will Smith in them and both of which, errr, were utter crap. He’ll be directing Gotham City Sirens which will not presumably have Will Smith in it. Yes I’m being snarky.
(10) SIGNS OF SPRING. Jonathan
Cowie announced that the Spring edition of SF2 Concatenation is now online,
with its rich mix of con reports, articles, seasonal giant news page and loads of
book reviews.
In a paper titled “Lego — The Toy of Smart Investors,” Dobrynskaya analyzed 2,300 sets sold from 1987 to 2015 to measure their price-return over time. She found that collections used for Hogwarts Castles and Jedi star fighters beat U.S. large-cap stocks and bonds, yielding 11 percent a year. Smaller kits rose more than medium-sized ones, similar to the size effect in the Fama-French model (though the relation isn’t exact).
Lego sets that focus on superheroes, Batman and Indiana Jones are among the ones that do best over time. The Simpsons is the only Lego theme that has lost value, falling by 3.5 percent on average.
(12) DANISH CRIME
FICTION AWARDS. The winners of the 2018 Danish Criminal Academy Awards
for the best Danish crime fiction have been announced.
The Harald Mogensen Prisen for the best thriller went to Jesper Stein for his novel Solo.
The Danish Criminal Academy’s debut award was won by Søren Sveistrup for the thriller novel “Kastanjemanden” (The Chestnut Man).
The Palle Rosenkrantz Award for this year’s best foreign thriller novel has been awarded to Michael Connelly for Two Kinds of Truth. The award recognizes the best crime fiction novel published in Danish. It is named in honour of Palle Rosenkrantz (1867-1941), who is considered the first Danish crime fiction author; his novel Mordet i Vestermarie (Murder in Vestermarie) was published in 1902.
(13) J FOR JANUARY AND JOY.
Cora Buhlert’s guest post “Space Opera and Me”
is part of the Month of Joy project of the Skiffy
and Fanty Show:
At the time, a friend asked me why I always watched Star Trek, even though I’d seen much of it before and it was all the same anyway. “You watch soap operas, don’t you?” I asked her. She nodded and said, “Yes, to relax.” – “Well, Star Trek is my soap opera,” I told her.
I was on to something there, because there are similarities between space operas and soap operas beyond the fact that both started out as derogatory terms including the word “opera”. Both soap operas and space operas (and actual operas for that matter) offer larger-than-life drama with a huge cast of characters. Both offer the grand spectrum of emotion, love and hate, birth and death, weddings and funerals. However, space opera has aliens, ray guns, starships and space battles to go with the melodrama.
Another thing that unites space operas and soap operas is that no matter how fascinating the settings, how shocking the twists, how grand the melodrama, what makes us come back for more are the characters. The best space and soap operas feature people (in the loosest sense of the term) we want to spend time with, whether it’s in the mundane surroundings of Coronation Street or Lindenstraße or on the deck of a starship or the surface of an alien planet.
(14) FLOCKS OF HUGO RECOMMENDATIONS.
Nerds of a Feather makes its collective
picks in several Hugo categories at each post. Examples are included below.
(15) HOW WE GOT HERE. An article in this
week’s Nature reminds me of the old
t-shirt design pointing out “You are here” — “The
Once and Future Milky Way” [PDF file].
Data from the Gaia spacecraft are radically transforming how we see the evolution of our Galaxy.
There was a a smashup between the young Galaxy and a colossal companion . That beast once circled the Milky Way like a planet around a star, but some 8 billion to 11 billion years ago, the two collided, massively altering the Galactic disk and scattering stars far and wide. It is the last-known major crash the Galaxy experienced before it assumed the familiar spiral shape seen today. Although the signal of that ancient crash had been hiding in plain sight for billions of years, it was only through the Gaia space probe’s data set that astronomers were finally able to detect it.
Simulation software that can create accurate “digital twins” of entire cities is enabling planners, designers and engineers to improve their designs and measure the effect changes will have on the lives of citizens.
Cities are hugely complex and dynamic creations. They live and breathe.
Think about all the parts: millions of people, schools, offices, shops, parks, utilities, hospitals, homes and transport systems.
Changing one aspect affects many others. Which is why planning is such a hard job.
So imagine having a tool at your disposal that could answer questions such as “What will happen to pedestrian and traffic flow if we put the new metro station here?” or “How can we persuade more people to leave their cars at home when they go to work?”
This is where 3D simulation software is coming into its own.
Architects, engineers, construction companies and city planners have long used computer-aided design and building information modelling software to help them create, plan and construct their projects.
But with the addition of internet of things (IoT) sensors, big data and cloud computing, they can now create “digital twins” of entire cities and simulate how things will look and behave in a wide range of scenarios.
We’re looking at Saturn at a very special time in the history of the Solar System, according to scientists.
They’ve confirmed the planet’s iconic rings are very young – no more than 100 million years old, when dinosaurs still walked the Earth.
The insight comes from the final measurements acquired by the American Cassini probe.
The satellite sent back its last data just before diving to destruction in the giant world’s atmosphere in 2017.
“Previous estimates of the age of Saturn’s rings required a lot of modelling and were far more uncertain. But we now have direct measurements that allows us to constrain the age very well,” Luciano Iess from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, told BBC News.
Shows including Bird Box helped Netflix end 2018 with more than 139 million subscribers, adding 8.8 million members in the last three months of the year.
Bird Box was watched by 80 million households in its first four weeks after release
The firm reported quarterly revenue of $4.2bn (£3.2bn), up 27% from the same period in 2017.
You can tell a lot about an animal from the way it moves, which is why scientists have been recreating the movements of an extinct crocodile-like creature called Orobates pabsti. Orobates lived well before the time of the dinosaurs and is what’s called a ‘stem amniote’ – an early offshoot of the lineage which led to birds, reptiles and mammals. Using 3D scans of an exquisitely preserved Orobates fossil – and an associated set of fossilised footprints – researchers were able to build a dynamic computer simulation of the creature’s movement. The simulation incorporates data from extant animals such as lizards and salamanders to create more realistic motion as it walks along. And the simulation didn’t just stay on a computer; the researchers tested the models in the real world using a Orobates robot, helping bring this ancient creature to life.
[Thanks to
Cora Buhlert, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, Chip Hitchcock, SF Concatenation’s
Jonathan Cowie, Cat Eldridge, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Alan Baumler, Martin
Morse Wooster, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs
to File 770 contributing editor of the day Patrick Morris Miller.]
