(1) AUTHENTIC STAR WARS CHOW. “Seen at the local coffeeshop,” says Will R. “Like the Ewoks themselves, I’m not sure this was such a great idea, but at least they’re getting in the spirit.”
(2) HERE’S WHO THEY CALLED. Yahoo! TV spotted “the first official photo of the new ‘Ghostbusters’”.
1st official image from #Ghostbusters shared with the fans 1st! @ghostbustershq @paulfeig @gbfans @GBNewsdotcom pic.twitter.com/hg76rsEI1i
— ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? (@protoncharging) December 16, 2015
(3) NOT AGHAST. Neil Gaiman is in talks to adapt Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast for the screen reports the Guardian’s Alison Flood.
Gaiman, a fan of the series, revealed last week that he was set to begin discussions about turning the novels into a film. “Tomorrow we start talking to studios, and will soon find out which of them wants to make Mervyn Peake’s wonderful Gormenghast as a movie,” he wrote on Twitter, later retweeting a fan who had advised him: “do not let Peter Jackson anywhere near it. I don’t want to watch 9 Gormenghast films. I ?would?, but I don’t want to.”
Fabian Peake, Mervyn Peake’s son, welcomed the possibility. “It is wonderful news that progress is being made on the filming of my father’s books. Plans for making a film, with Neil Gaiman as the writer, have been going on for a while now,” he said, describing himself as “very excited by the prospect of a Gormenghast film”.
(4) TRICK QUESTIONS. Steve Davidson at Amazing Stories has posted a 100 question “Fannish Survey”.
The questions were generated as I reviewed my own Fanhistory, comprised of both personal experience and acquired knowledge. It’s meant to be an exploration of the many different things of which the fannish community is comprised. But by no means all. A thousand question survey would not come close to covering the field. So I’ve restricted myself to a mere 100.
I refer to the survey as an exploration because the intent is more about encouraging survey takers to look into the history and culture and mores and sheer craziness the questions touch on, than it is about getting the answers right or demonstrating your mastery of the subject.
If even one question causes a fan to scratch their head and resort to Google, I’ll consider this exercise a success.
And on that score: please be honest with the survey and with yourself. Don’t use the internet or that copy of Harry Warner’s All Our Yesterdays sitting on the corner of your desk to help you figure out what the right answer is. You might get tripped up in the process because sometimes there isn’t a right answer. There may be an optimal answer, one requiring a little fannish logic to unravel, but in the end, sometimes “I don’t know” may be the correct answer. Which is your clue to do a little exploration of your own. Fannish culture is a rich and varied one, filled with many weird and wonderful geeky, nerdy things that have proven, through the evolutionary process of history, to be of interest and value to fans.
(5) JESSICA JONES REVIEW. Abigail Nussbaum is back with “Show Me a Hero: Thoughts on Jessica Jones “.
This is not to say, however, that Jessica Jones is only conventional. If the show lacks its own style, it more than makes up for it by having a very definite point of view–that of a show by, about, and for women. This goes all the way down to the smallest details, such as the fact that bit parts that in almost any other series would have been filled by men almost as a matter of course–roles like a courier delivering a package, a guest on a radio talk show, or a drug dealer–are here played by women. Or the fact that the show casts many of its recurring and guest roles with middle-aged characters actresses like Carrie-Anne Moss, Robin Weigert, Jessica Hecht, and Rebecca De Mornay. Or the fact that it features three gay women. Even closer to the core of its story, the show continues to prioritize female characters and female relationships. Its central relationship is between Jessica and her foster-sister Trish (Rachael Taylor), and though both women have romantic subplots–Jessica with handsome bar owner Luke Cage (Mike Colter, whose own MCU Netflix series will debut next year); Trish with police officer Will Simpson (Wil Traval), another of Kilgrave’s victims who tries to join Jessica’s fight against him–ultimately both of these men are treated as sideshows to the season’s main love story between the two sisters. And then, of course, there’s the thing that everyone has been talking about, the fact that Jessica Jones is explicitly, unabashedly, a show about rape, abuse, and recovering from them.
(5) MORE FALLOUT. Joe Abercrombie reviews Fallout 4.
It’s taken five years for Fallout 4 to appear, but it’s been well worth the wait. There’s a cracking opening – classic Fallout both expanded on and condensed – in which you witness the fall of civilisation, are put into deep-freeze as part of one of Vault-Tec’s sinister experiments, and wake to a strange, new, and horrible future in the post-nuclear wasteland. The action this time around moves to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and though with Minutemen, Lexington and Bunker Hill there are shades of revolutionary stylings the focus mostly returns to Fallout staples like vault suits, raiders, super mutants and the Brotherhood of Steel, and is stronger for it.
(6) ALTERNATE HISTORY? Michael J. Walsh assures me this Netflix ad aired during the Republican candidates’ debate the other night.
Frank Underwood – FU2016 – House of Cards
(7) PROBABLY NOT A SPOILER BUT YOU WERE WARNED. Drew McWeeny answers the question “Who Played The Voice Of BB-8 In ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’?”
One might think that BB-8’s “voice” would simply be created in the same way that R2-D2’s was, with the outstanding sound team on the film following in Ben Burtt‘s footsteps. Instead, this is how comedian/actor/omnipresent film personality Bill Hader described his work on the film to me today when I asked him what “vocal consultant” consisted of:
“JJ f**king around with this sound effects app on his iPad that was attached to a talk box operated by me. It looked ridiculous but it made BB-8’s voice. At first I tried doing a voice, but we all agreed it sounded too human.”
… Ben Schwartz, known to many for his stellar work as Jean-Ralphio on “Parks and Recreation,” was also credited as a “BB-8 Vocal Consultant,” so I guess they both contributed to the final version of what we hear onscreen.
(8) YULE BE SORRY. The Verge’s Chris Plante, in “Five hours of Darth Vader’s burning corpse will replace your Yule Log”, points to a YouTube video.
…But then you hear a soft, crackling sound coming from the living room. The warm glow of Christmas bends around the corner of the hall, and you follow it, believing the holiday and its flickering decorations will provide a reprieve from Star Wars mania. Surely, you think, someone wouldn’t pervert Christmas for the sake of crass consumerism.
And there you see it, roaring on the television. Your goofy Five Hours of Yule Log DVD has been swapped with five hours of Darth Vader burning in a funeral pyre. You fall to your knees, raise your credit card hands into the air, and you scream….
Plante also published some Jedi theology he later received as feedback from a reader who suggested it would be more accurate to say “Five Hours of Darth Vader’s burning suit will replace your Yule Log.” Because you can’t slip this kind of thing past trufans…
(9) DARTH VADER’S RESUME. Julie Bort on Business Insider, in “This is What Darth Vader’s Resume Would Look Like If He Were Job-Hunting,” tells how the website Enhancv would pump up Darth Vader’s resume in case the Sith Lord was on the Evil Job Market. This state-of-the-art resume looks like a clever infographic.
Let’s say you are the Sith Lord Darth Vader, when your employer, the evil Emperor, decides he doesn’t need your services anymore and lays you off. Maybe he appoints another Sith, and for reasons known only to his own black heart, doesn’t dispense with you in his typical way by ending your life.
You’ll find yourself suddenly jobless, but with a lot of specialized skills that are surely valuable to some other incarnation of evil being.
One catch: You’ll need a résumé. And given your previous work history, a boring, old-school résumé won’t do. You’d need something snazzy. Something that can capture your skill, your personality, and the eye of a new nefarious lord you can serve.
The folks at résumé-writing startup Enhancv came up with this résumé of Darth Vader for just such an occasion. Enhancv offers an online service that automatically critiques your résumé with suggestions to improve it….
(10) VADER’S CHARMS: “All the sugar plus the dark side,” promises John King Tarpinian.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, and Michael J. Walsh for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
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All right, I’ll join the cat brigade. Here are my current three: Marlene (6 months old in photo, but now full-grown), Phosphor, and Norby.
(Well, and then there are the backyard ferals. Barbecue Cat (fascinated by the barbecue) and Shy Cat showed up in consecutive summers to raise kittens; we caught everyone and got the kittens socialized and the mothers spayed. Junior Cat (who looks just like another tom that used to roam the neighborhood) seems to have a den elsewhere, but stops by often enough that we were able to trap him and get him neutered.)
@Hampus,
What happens if you forget to mix the paint?
The ungrateful residents of Diamond City will refer to you as the clown who ruined a perfectly good wall.
Can you give them the Megaton treatment?
Re: Gormenghast.
I guess I’m alone in wanting a film of Titus Alone.
Also, re: Galapagos tortoises
It looks like (shock horror) that getting rid of introduced species makes a huge difference to their breeding. See this recent story about the Espanola Tortoises sudden breeding spurt: http://www.livescience.com/48484-galapagos-giant-tortoises-bounce-back.html
4.
Where are people finding out what they got right or wrong?
I thought I filled it out, clicked “submit” (or whatever it was) and got a thanks, but no score.
Bum.
@Iphinome
Can you give them the Megaton treatment?
Sadly, it was not a viable option.
RedWombat, cool news about the tortoises! (I want to write “torti” but that would be wrong.)
With regard to the survey, I was disappointed not to get a tally of how many correct answers I got. I’m pretty sure I got 80-90%. The ones I didn’t get are some details of First Fandom; I’m not quite THAT old. And some stuff with East Coast/West Coast fandoms. But my first fanac was an APA. With mimeo stencils….
I agree that there were things that required multiple answers. And I’ve “smo-o-o-o-othed” with Tucker, but not on an airplane.
@Ed
Fair enough, I don’t play low karma anyway. It makes me feel bad. In new Vegas I only did the House and Legion endings once each because ick, and in 3 I always step into the chamber myself.
@Petréa Mitchell: I love the look of your kitties, indoors and out. 🙂 Thanks for sharing those!
My long-time friend, caregiver, etc., Frances (who really co-owns these new kitties here) came by a while last night. She likes to run the laser pointer up walls and along ceilings. My kitties scrutinize this.
RedWombat: Guys! Guys! They found Galapagos tortoises related to Lonesome George! They’ve definitely got a male and female and they’re waiting on DNA from another 32 tortoises! They think they can bring them back! HOW COOL IS THAT?!
That is SOOPER-COOL!
Also, flu-shot: yay! me, too!
And, cats: here is
minethe one that owns me.I’d be worried about eating Darth Vader cereal about choking on it and having my wife think I was making a joke.
Hmm, one of my cat photo links didn’t come through correctly. Here are Barbecue Cat and Shy Cat.
Hasbro has decided that it wants to build a gargantuan cross-franchise cinematic universe too! This could be gloriously terrible.
Go home, Hasbro, you’re drunk.
Just dropping a quick link that might be of interest to the group:
I stumbled across a reading challenge, The Definitive 1950s sf reading that references Worlds Without End which is a database of books, reading community, reviews, all sorts of stuff.
Am looking for STUFF for an article I’m writing on “Identity” (relating to the sf community, and literature, so all the issues around “identity politics” and changes in the fandom(s) and also the new works by writers). This link came up when I was looking for information on challenges (in the context of why some challenges are so controversial).
(I actually caught up on my grading for the first time this term last night, which means I’m free…..until the final drafts roll in the end of this week, yikes. But it’s almost over!).
@Robin: Hey, neat!
@Petréa:
I suspect Hasbro has been looking with envious eyes at Marvel.
I still haven’t forgiven Hasbro for what they’ve been doing to Dungeons and Dragons.
Hah. Although I’m not sure if Hasbro was ever responsible for those execrable D&D movies, talking of Hasbro and movies.
@Peace: Courtney Solomon got his D&D film rights deal in 1994. Wizards of the Coast bought TSR in 1997. So Hasbro’s at two removes from that. As of this year, there’s a deal between Solomon and Hasbro that lets Warner Brothers proceed with a new one, but nothing’s on Hasbro from the earlier ones.
Somewhere 12 year old me is squeeing at the possibility of a Micronauts movie. There is less squee regarding a Micronauts/GI Joe/Rainbow Brite/Garbage Pail Kids/whatever crossover movie.
Also, that D&D movie (if it existed, which I firmly refuse to admit) was a blight and an affront to all that is good and decent.
Don’t be silly. There aren’t any girls’ toy lines in those crossover properties.
That is depressingly true. And to clarify: I don’t want the Micronauts to cross over with anyone. My dream project would probably be either an adaptation of the Mantlo/Golden Marvel comics (which obviously isn’t going to happen) or some kind of standalone science fantasy/planetary romance story.
@petrea – awesome kitties! Thanks for sharing.
RedWombat: Guys! Guys! They found Galapagos tortoises related to Lonesome George! They’ve definitely got a male and female and they’re waiting on DNA from another 32 tortoises! They think they can bring them back! HOW COOL IS THAT?!
Super duper cool!
Matt Y I’d be worried about eating Darth Vader cereal about choking on it and having my wife think I was making a joke.
LOL scary thing is I can picture that too – not just your wife but other households with similar humor.
Kitteh pictures: I’m enjoying them all but it’s also making me want to get some and we’re not ready yet.
@petrea – your cats are lovely. We had one the color of the one in back, who was a real sweetheart. Sadly, after years away from pets, now i’m allergic to pet dander, so I’ve switched my allegiance from cats (and a select set of dogs I can stand) to lizards*. And keep my very large collections loose, spread all over the planet, rather than limit my holdings to what i could have in a rented house…
*Note – I do not include anything big enough to take down a human, so alligators, crocodiles, and komodo dragons, NOT my fault. Particularly not in charge of salties.
I put up my review of ‘Force Awakens’ here, if anyone wants to read it:
http://fraggmented.blogspot.com/2015/12/my-review-of-star-wars-force-awakens.html
Sorry, none for me, thanks. I’m on a spoiler-fast.
I was a bit dubious about The Force Awakens, given the abomination that was Star Trek Into Darkness — but I was greatly pleased with the movie.
I loved what they did with the two main characters and with those returning from the original franchise, and I felt that TFA lived up to the zeitgeist of the original trilogy. I am hopeful that Abrams will continue this trend in the next two movies.
Peace Is My Middle Name: Sorry, none for me, thanks. I’m on a spoiler-fast.
It’s okay, Peace, you can read it — Seavey’s review is actually for Star Wars: The Farce Awakens. He apparently went to the wrong theatre. 😀
Can I ask that people please Rot13 their “Star Wars” discussion maybe?
That could work.
I’m also going to open a post where people could make comments with spoilers in clear. I will have to avoid reading them myself, I haven’t seen the movie yet either.
Obviously, people will want to NOT tick the box there til they’re ready to see that kind of discussion.
Sorry, Peace, I deliberately made my comment vague and un-spoilery, so I didn’t think that it needed to be rot13-ed.
@JJ:
I didn’t think so either. But I’m getting a little nervous about it. It’s at least a week until I’ll be able to see it. I don’t want to put undue pressure on people who would enjoy calling out to each other, which means I may have to retreat from the internet for a bit.
@Mike Glyer:
Or that could work, too. Bless you.
The Star Wars: The Force Awakens SpoilerFest is here.
Here’s the most recent photo of Tyr, our Sealpoint Siamese. Weight equivalent to a large sack of potatoes*, with a brain to match.
*nearly 20 pounds
This week’s reading in the Kyra-archy was in the genre of 2015 Doorstopper SFF. Two books that each clocked in around 700 pages and have a throw weight that makes them handy weapons as well as reading material.
Winter, by Marissa Meyer. The conclusion to this series of well-known fairytales reinterpreted as a science fiction story. It ends pretty much as it began, half with the audience murmuring, “Oh! How clever!” in appreciation, and half with them raising their eyebrows and saying, “… Really?” In particular for the latter, way too much of the plot of this one depended on the bad guys having overconfidence to the point of being Dumb As Rocks. Nonetheless, I’d rate it as Not Bad.
Cold Iron, by Stina Leicht. This one, however, I’d rate as Pretty Darn Good. Flintlock fantasy about a nation of elves with a Finnish flavor, fighting an invasion from without and their own rotten culture from within. I like that it throws you in the middle of things and expects you to pick up the nuances as you go along, without a lot of obvious infodumps to explain How Things Work. It hasn’t leapt to the top of my potential Hugo Nominee list, but it’s definitely joining the currently ~4 or so books that are duking it out for the fourth or fifth slot on my list.
Re Cold Iron. I do think Stina jumped up in her writing from her UF fantasy with her turn into Epic fantasy, agreed.
Guys! Guys! They found Galapagos tortoises related to Lonesome George!
Go, tortoises, go!
(I grew up with box turtles. I’ve seen them getting it on. I’ve also seen nesting and just-hatched-that-day baby turtles. It ain’t easy with a shell.)
My husband warned me off Winter and Cold Iron. He said they hit too many of my triggers as well as tropes I hate around the triggers. I’m sorry to miss both. Winter was a part of a series I mostly enjoyed. The reviews for Cold Iron sound like the writing is great but I’d have problems with the content.
@Joe H.
The problem is that Marvel owns all the good bits of ROM and Micronauts so any movie has to start from scratch mostly.
The bad part about it is that Marvel made a very good offer for the rights to ROM, which by itself is worthless, so they could build on the very good comics.
@Bruce Arthurs: Tyr may be dumb, but sure is handsome.
What Mr. Baugh just said.
As the end of the year approaches, and everyone makes lists because that’s what ya do, here’s my current ratings on the books I’ve read which were published in 2015. Although there are quite a few still on my To Be Read list, of course!
THE GREAT. Knocked my socks all the way over to the next continent.
Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie
THE VERY GOOD. Knocked my socks off into the next room.
Half the World, by Joe Abercrombie
The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson
Last First Snow, by Max Gladstone
Shadow Scale, by Rachel Hartman
The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin
The Mystic Marriage, by Heather Rose Jones
The First Bad Man, by Miranda July (not SFF)
Cold Iron, by Stina Leicht
The Gracekeepers, by Kirsty Logan
THE QUITE GOOD. I liked these a lot.
A God in Ruins, by Kate Atkinson (not SFF)
Lair of Dreams, by Libba Bray
The Lie Tree, by Frances Hardinge
The Rest of Us Just Live Here, by Patrick Ness
THE PRETTY GOOD. These were enjoyable.
Half a War, by Joe Abercrombie
The Darkest Part of the Forest, by Holly Black
Magisterium: The Copper Gauntlet, by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare
Trigger Warning, by Neil Gaiman
Sorceress, by Claudia Gray
Unspeakable, by Abbie Rushton (not SFF)
The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, by Catherynne M. Valente
Kitty Saves the World, by Carrie Vaughn
Stories of the Raksura Volume II, by Martha Wells
THE OK. Books that I liked reading just fine at the time but they really didn’t leave a huge mark.
Dead Heat, by Patricia Briggs
End of Days, by Susan Ee
The Need for Better Regulation of Outer Space, by Pippa Goldschmidt (mostly not SFF)
Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee (not SFF)
Winter, by Marissa Meyer
Serpentine, by Cindy Pon
Railhead, by Philip Reeve
A Darker Shade of Magic, by V. E. Schwab
Originator, by Joel Shepherd
THE NOT REALLY VERY GOOD. Books that just didn’t do it for me, even if widely admired or by authors I usually like.
Six of Crows, by Leigh Bardugo
Dearest, by Alethea Kontis
Archivist Wasp, by Nicole Kornher-Stace
The Ruby Circle, by Richelle Mead
Soundless, by Richelle Mead
The Buried Life, by Carrie Patel
The Chimes, by Anna Smaill
Persona, by Genevieve Valentine
The Just City, by Jo Walton
So we’re not actually going to see official GI Joe/My Little Pony crossover material.
@David Shallcross:
My Little Pony has had a massive resurgence in popularity recently. The Hasbro thing looks like trying to breathe new life into unfashionable old properties.
GI Joe could crossover with Equestria Girls. With FiM proper though it’d be a stretch, this season showed us what pony war is like, non magical humans wouldn’t have a chance.
Belated reminder to vote in the second heat of the Science Fiction Movie Bracket! Such classics, so scifi, much head cloths, wow. (Here in 7747, the Doge meme is still alive and well.)
@Mike Glyer & JJ
As it turns out I was right – I’m not eligible for the free one, but my favourite Nurse Practitioner bent the rules a bit and gave me one anyway. 🙂
@RedWombat
Yay, tortoises!
@Petréa Mitchell, Bruce Arthurs
Yay, kitties!
@Sylvia Sotomayor
Your kitty pic doesn’t seem to working for me. 🙁 I get an Error 404.
David Shallcross :
The bit where the Joes find out they’ve all developed cutie marks is going to be difficult to film with a G rating…
I’ve thought about getting armor for my freakishly large ragdoll, Kahuna. It would have to be speced for tank.
I made it about 10 chapters into Cold Iron before I set it aside. Didn’t care about the characters, didn’t care about the politicking, wasn’t interested in the world building. It wasn’t bad, but nothing I read signaled it was going to be anything other than standard-issue epic fantasy, which I no longer want to read.
@Charon, I’m thinking that what you need isn’t armor so much as it is heavy pendants and stuff to braid into Kahuna’s hair.