Brian Showers’ The Bleeding Horse and Other Ghost Stories has won the Dracula Society’s “Children of the Night Award”. (The official site has yet to be updated at this writing.)
[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]
Brief Haldeman Update
“Nothing’s changed for Joe. He’s just healing,” is Gay Haldeman’s update for September 24.
Stan Winston Props Up for Bid
Props, costumes and set-pieces belonging to Stan Winston, Academy Award-winning visual effects creator, will be auctioned October 8-9 by Profiles in History. The items, some enormous in size, come from the Jurassic Park, Terminator and Predator film franchises, movies like A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and many more.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of these items will fund the new Stan Winston Visual Effects Scholarship at the University of Southern California Film School.
The full press release appears after the jump.
Snapshots 31 Flavors
Here are 9 developments of interest to fans:
(1) I just discovered Beth Bernobich’s hilarious “Secret Diary of Clueless Newbie” (though it’s been around for years.) These little satires on the foibles of wannabe writers are funny! I won’t copy a whole entry, but here’s a line from one:
Handed in resignation to stupid day job boss and spend day looking at Ferraris. Red is nice. Might do novel manuscript in red also. With ZapfChancery font.
You might like the Star Trek themed entry, too.
(2) Kim Stanley Robinson surprises readers by documenting that Virginia Woolf was a fan of Olaf Stapledon, and praises at length the heirs of Stapledon responsible for the current golden age of British science fiction.
(3) We seem to be going through a cycle where the game of Monopoly appears in a lot of news articles. For example, it’s central to the latest story about methods British airmen used to escape POW camps in World War II:
It’s a story that will forever change the way you think of the phrase, “Get Out of Jail Free.”
During World War II, as the number of British airmen held hostage behind enemy lines escalated, the country’s secret service enlisted an unlikely partner in the ongoing war effort: The board game Monopoly…
Included in the items the German army allowed humanitarian groups to distribute in care packages to imprisoned soldiers, the game was too innocent to raise suspicion. But it was the ideal size for a top-secret escape kit that could help spring British POWs from German war camps.
The British secret service conspired with the U.K. manufacturer to stuff a compass, small metal tools, such as files, and, most importantly, a map, into cut-out compartments in the Monopoly board itself.
(4) For years old-time LASFSians have met annually at Clifton’s Cafeteria to celebrate the club’s October anniversary in one of their old haunts. It’s getting to be that time of year again, and as usual the presence of Ray Bradbury assured the LA Times would cover the event. A photo gallery is here. The one bothersome thing is that the Times has lost track of LASFS’ full name, referring to it only as the “Science Fiction Society.”
(5) There can’t be too many folks named Gasperik. I wonder if the fellow shown here working on Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a relative of that well-known LASFSian and inspirer (if that’s a word) of Niven/Pournelle characters, the late Frank Gasperik?
(6) Fans know that the sign hanging outside the Inklings’ favorite pub, The Eagle and Child, features a picture of Ganymede borne aloft by Zeus in the form of an eagle. A myth, of course. Yet it does not seem impossible something like it really happened, considering what this report from New Zealand tells about a recently extinct giant eagle:
Sophisticated computer scans of fossils have helped solve a mystery over the nature of a giant, ancient raptor known as the Haast’s eagle which became extinct about 500 years ago, researchers said Friday. The researchers say they have determined that the eagle – which lived in the mountains of New Zealand and weighed about 40 pounds (18 kilograms) – was a predator and not a mere scavenger as many thought.
Much larger than modern eagles, Haast’s eagle would have swooped to prey on flightless birds – and possibly even the rare unlucky human.
(7) Time magazine feels Wikipedia is on the verge of giving us “the Web’s first major ecosystem collapse”:
Instead of prairie grasses, Wikipedia’s natural resource is an emotion. “There’s the rush of joy that you get the first time you make an edit to Wikipedia, and you realize that 330 million people are seeing it live,” says Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation’s executive director. In Wikipedia’s early days, every new addition to the site had a roughly equal chance of surviving editors’ scrutiny. Over time, though, a class system emerged; now revisions made by infrequent contributors are much likelier to be undone by élite Wikipedians. Chi also notes the rise of wiki-lawyering: for your edits to stick, you’ve got to learn to cite the complex laws of Wikipedia in arguments with other editors. Together, these changes have created a community not very hospitable to newcomers. Chi says, “People begin to wonder, ‘Why should I contribute anymore?'” – and suddenly, like rabbits out of food, Wikipedia’s population stops growing.
(8) The US military is getting back in the airship business — see page 8 of this article in Newsweek. Lockheed Martin’s website has art and photos of the High Altitude Airship.
(9) Tim Powers confirmed to Locus that his novel On Stranger Tides has been optioned by Disney. Elements in his story will be used to concoct a fourth Pirates of the Carribean movie.
[Thanks for the links included in the post goes out to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, James Hay and Steven Silver. ]
Earhart Flight Goggles to Auction
- Amelia Earhart’s goggles
Profiles in History is adding Amelia Earhart’s flight goggles, worn during her historic 1932 record-breaking solo transatlantic flight, to their upcoming auction of Hollywood memorabilia taking place October 8-9, 2009. These goggles were on loan to and exhibited in the Earhart case next to her Lockheed Vega at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum from 1993-98.
“These goggles are the single most important flight worn aviation artifact to ever be offered at public auction,” said Joe Maddalena, president of Profiles in History.
Interest is heightened because the Amelia Earhart movie will be released a short time after the auction.
Other flight-related items included in the auction are astronaut Gus Grissom’s worn Mercury flight suit and Neil Armstrong baseball cap worn after splash-down and recovery from the historic Apollo 11 mission to the moon.
The full press release appears after the jump.
Haldeman, Varley
Are 2009 Heinlein Award Winners
Robert A. Heinlein Award medallion
Dale S. Arnold of the Baltimore SF Society reports:
Joe Haldeman and John Varley are the winners of the Robert A. Heinlein Award for 2009. The Robert A. Heinlein Award is for outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings to inspire the human exploration of Space. Winners are selected by a committee of SF authors originally selected by Mrs. Virginia Heinlein and chaired by Robert Heinlein’s friend Dr. Yoji Kondo. The award prize consists of a wall plaque certificate, large sterling silver medallion and lapel pin. The likeness of Robert A. Heinlein, as rendered by Arlin Robbins, is featured on each of these items.
The Baltimore Science Fiction Society provides logistical support for the award and maintains a website where winners are permanently recorded.
[Thanks to Dale S. Arnold for the story.]
I’m Sorry, I’ll Write That Again
Having been passed under the harrow for publishing a major collection of interviews with horror writers that failed to include any women, British Fantasy Society chair Guy Adams has posted an apology:
When James [Cooper] brought the manuscript to me with a view to our publishing it I know he intended no sexism in his selection of the authors but I feel deeply sorry that I didn’t flag the omission at the time.
It is disgustingly simple for a man not to notice these things, a blindness to the importance of correct gender representation that I feel embarrassed to have fallen into.
The next two volumes in the series are considerably more balanced in their table of contents but that doesn’t change the fact that I dropped the ball on this initial volume.
Adams has also told Alison Flood of the UK Guardian that he’d like to do a second collection to balance the score:
Speaking this morning from Spain, Adams said he would ideally like to publish – “by way of apology” – a book of interviews with female horror authors. “It seems the only viable alternative but the difficulty is that I don’t know if we can afford to,” he said. “I do feel embarrassed and I’m happy to stick my hand up – I took my eye off the ball.”
[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the link.]
Joe Haldeman Hospitalized
Joe Haldeman remains in intensive care at a Cincinnati hospital after surgery on September 19 for a twisted bowel and severe pancreatitis.
Gay Haldeman told SFF.net readers on September 23 that he is still “critically stable” in ICU on a respirator. More details in her post.
[Thanks to Dave Locke for the link.]
Update 09/24/2009: Changed link as recommended in Joel Zakem’s comment.
Bheer Can Tower to the Moon
Someone posted the image above on a sports-themed message board and I thought those poor mundanes were missing a lot because they’d never heard of the Bheer Can Tower to the Moon.
Dave Rike was among the Bay Area fans who created that Tower of fable in the mid-1950s (Terry Carr and Bob Stewart contributed as well). Rike retraced its history in an article for Mimosa 15 (talking about himself in third person):
While Dave Rike might have been the first to refer to the Tower in print that doesn’t mean that the idea was entirely original with him. It might have been at one party or another that one of the gang would idle away his time while listening to endless fannish talk of the others by attempting to stack up some empty bheer cans. (If they’re drunk by a fannish sort then they become bheer instead of beer cans.) All cans at that time were made of steel instead of extruded aluminum and might have stacked easier. “Hey, Bob, what’re trying to do there?” “Oh, I dunno, jes’ thinking that if I had enough cans I could build a tower that’d reach up to the moon.” “Oh yeah, well you buy the bheer and I’ll drink it for ya.” Something like that. Dave doesn’t remember any attempt to set up a Tower but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
The Tower cast a figurative shadow over fandom in decades to come. I’m sure that’s why the late Randy Bathurst sculpted a beanie-wearing bheer can cranking a mimeo for the original FAAn Awards. And rich brown, Dr. Gafia, said in his faannish lexicon:
Occasionally, even today, partying fans at conventions will construct such a Tower out of bheercans in Terry Carr’s memory. At Magicon [1992] this was attempted on a night when the moon was not visible but Art Widner was heard to intone, “If we build it, it will come.”
My own unforgettable experience with the Tower tradition happened while I was co-chairing the 1978 Westercon. We used the hotel’s Presidential Suite as our evening hospitality suite, serving Heineken in bottles (Poul Anderson was GoH) and other beverages in cans. Both side bedrooms were left open for the party, including mine, but one night I was so exhausted I crashed on my bed while the party carried on without me. I awoke in the middle of the night to discover that everyone had gone, leaving the doors wide open. Before going, fans had stacked all the empties in a pyramid on a coffee table, almost reaching the ceiling – the traditional bheer can tower. And lastly, I discovered my wristwatch had been stolen from my arm while I slept.
Not J.R.R. Bond
Tinker, Tailor, Tolkien, Spy? Hardly. But that’s what headlines are inviting readers to believe.
“JRR Tolkien trained as British spy” declares Telegraph.co.uk.
“Tolkien’s Spy Past Inspires Hunt For Hobbit, Rings Spooks” says the Wired headline.
Britain’s intelligence-agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is displaying documents from J.R.R. Tolkien’s three days spent training at the Government Code and Cypher School in a new exhibit at its restricted, employees-only museum. The Telegraph reports:
According to previously unseen records, Tolkien trained with the top-secret Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS).
He spent three days at their London HQ in March 1939 – six months before the outbreak of the Second World War and just 18 months after the publication of his first book, The Hobbit.
When the war started, GCCS deciphered Enigma traffic and broke other German ciphers and codes. That’s the work Tolkien auditioned for — not to carry out espionage in the field.
Nor was this a deep secret. In 2006, Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond’s The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide listed the information in the March 27, 1939 entry of the Chronology, which reads: “Tolkien begins a four-day training course in cryptography at the Foreign Office.”
Whether Humphrey Carpenter, author of Tolkien: A Biography, knew about this is less clear. All he says about the beginning of the war is that Tolkien volunteered as an air raid warden: “There were, however, no German air attacks on Oxford; nor was Tolkien required, was were a number of dons, to undertake work for the War Office or other government departments.”
If Tolkien wasn’t required, we know he was asked. The GCCS offered Tolkien £500-a-year offer to become a full-time recruit. He turned them down.
Journalists wonder why he went through the process, indicating to instructors he was “keen” for the work, then rejected the offer. Nobody knows. Not even GCHQ’s historian.
Intending no reflection on Tolkien’s patriotism (after all, he served in combat in WWI), I wonder: Was it the pay? Was £500 good money in 1939? Maybe one of you Tolkien scholars knows what he was making then. Was Tolkien asked to take a pay cut? Or did he turn down a raise?
Historic data on the compensation of Oxford dons isn’t easy to find even with the help of Google, though I did learn that the famous Professor Frederick Lindemann earned £900 in 1919 while holding the chair of experimental philosophy and running the Clarendon Laboratories. However, professors of science are generally paid better than those in the humanities, so knowing Lindemann’s compensation rate 20 years earlier may not be much help in estimating what a professor of Anglo Saxon languages made in 1939.
Or could it be possible Tolkien just went through the process to see if they had any cool ideas he could filch for his created languages?
[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the link.]