Your host will be on the road for a couple days attending Nic Farey’s wedding to Jennifer AlLee on February 29. I have prepared a couple of Scrolls in advance.
(1) A RINGING ENDORSEMENT. Tor.com has the story – “Star Trek’s Best Writer/Director EVER Has Joined the Crew of CBS’ New Star Trek TV Show”.
Star Trek fans of every shade just received the best news: writer/director Nicholas Meyer is joining CBS’ new Star Trek television show, which is set to debut in 2017 with Bryan Fuller producing.
Not sure who Nicholas Meyer is? He’s the guy who saved Star Trek from obscurity and made it smarter than you ever realized. Here’s why this is possibly the best geek-related news of the past 20 years.
(2) AUTUN PURSER. See Autun Purser Illustration, the online gallery, portfolio and shop for a gifted part-time illustrator and full-time deep sea ecologist.
I am a lifelong science fiction fan and I have enjoyed some success with my series of travel posters, advertising travel to destinations from unusual fiction — the ‘Fantastic Travel Destinations’. The majority of these are available for print purchase direct, or from various bookshops and conventions.
Click to see the artist’s fantastic travel posters – first up, Arrakis. Purser also did the cover and some of the interiors for the 24th issue of the Hugo-winning Journey Planet, plus artwork for Gollancz covers, and numerous other works.
(3) DELANY. Here’s a one-hour interview with Samuel R. Delany at the University of Pennsylvania on February 16.
(4) ELIZABETH EISENSTEIN OBIT. Elizabeth Eisenstein died January 31 at the age of 92 reports the New York Times.
A retired faculty member of the University of Michigan, Professor Eisenstein was renowned for “The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe,” first published in 1979. Spanning two volumes and nearly 800 pages, the work has been translated into many languages and remains in print…..
“It’s quite unusual for an academic book to achieve its 25th anniversary and still be vital to the discourse in the field,” Professor Baron, a historian at the University of Maryland, said. “Her book continues to be reviewed as if it just came out.”
In “The Printing Press as an Agent of Change,” Professor Eisenstein argued that the development of movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century helped inaugurate a set of sweeping social changes thanks to the authoritative, widely tangible dissemination of information it allowed.
“What printing did was to standardize texts,” Professor Baron explained. “So you would have numerous people all over Europe reading exactly the same thing. Information had a much greater reach, a much wider audience, a much greater impact.”
(5) TERRI WINDLING’S QUIET MORNING. Artist Terri Windling, in “A Quiet Morning in the Studio”, uses a compelling 1974 essay by Ursula K. Le Guin as the frame for some fine dragon and unicorn pencil drawings, and a couple of dog photographs.
(6) NEXT COMPANION. Screen Rant speculates about 12 actors whose selection as the next companion would be a Doctor Who dream cast. Number 6 —
Eleanor Tomlinson is known for a variety of roles, most recently that of Georgiana Darcy in the BBC Miniseries Death Comes to Pemberley and currently as Demelza Poldark in Poldark. Still relatively young and establishing her place in the British acting world, a companion role on Doctor Who would serve not only to bring awareness to her talent, but also help guide her in refining her skills.
Tomlinson’s sweet, young and endearing nature would allow audiences to relate to her and set her up to become a fan favorite. But much like Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), youth would give younger Whovians a reason to connect with her and be impressed by the talent she brings to the role. Tomlinson would play off Capaldi’s Doctor extremely well.
(7) NOT ENTIRELY ALTERNATE HISTORY. Destination Planet Negro by Kevin Wilmott (co-writer of Spike Lee’s Chiraq). Release date May 20, 2016.
“Three brave explorers in search of a better place… instead found Kansas City…”
I’m not making this up! But the trailer has a review quote from Ray Bradbury, so somebody’s making it up…
(8) MAYBE THERE’S STILL SOME LUCK IN IT. During Heritage Auction’s Rare Books Signature Auction on April 6 the public will have a chance to bid on assorted Harry Potter items – including the very chair used by J.K. Rowling as she wrote the first two books of the Harry potter series.
In 2002, she decorated one of the chairs from her welfare days—taking care to paint “I wrote Harry Potter while sitting in this chair” on the seat’s apron—and donated it to a private charity auction for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Her philanthropy inspired her fans as well who used their own communities to bring awareness to social causes, including the non-profit organization The Harry Potter Alliance.
(9) CTHULHU BREW. Narragansett has introduced I Am Providence Imperial Red Ale.
Taste & Enjoy: I Am Providence pours a mysterious dark red with a complex amalgam of flavors. The blend of malts lead to flavors of biscuits and sweet caramel, and the Warrior and Citra hops bring aromas of pine and citrus that meld on the palate to create an intriguing balance.
The History: The latest chapter in the Lovecraft Series pays tribute to Lovecraft’s adoration for his hometown by heralding his famous words – “I Am Providence.” Later inscribed on his gravestone in 1977, this resonant phrase lives on as a tribute to Lovecraft and anyone who has ever called Providence home.
(10) ANOTHER TOLKIEN. Simon Tolkien, grandson of J. R. R. Tolkien, and the eldest child of Christopher Tolkien, is keeping up a family tradition. From Publisher’s Lunch:
Simon Tolkien’s NO MAN’S LAND, the story of a boy who grows up between the turbulent years of 1909 to 1919, starting life as an impoverished child in London who moves to a hard-living coal mining community and is subsequently adopted by the wealthy owner of an Edwardian country house, where he and the owner’s younger son become fierce rivals for the same girl, a rivalry that leads them to develop a murderous hatred for one another which affects all the characters around them, in a novel of faith, class, and war including the horrors of the Battle of the Somme which has profound effects on them all, [sold] to Nan Talese at Nan A. Talese, in a pre-empt, by [agent] Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA).
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Will R., and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
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Fi(fth)rst!
First, and really uninterested in any of these items.
Hrmph. Twice-ly incorrect, as the comments to (5) contain a couple of nice, apparently spontaneous poems. Comments worth reading!
Forth. Will commence reading to see if anything is of interest.
Those Autun Purser “travel posters” are actually pretty darn neat.
ETA – first fifth; next person gets to be proper fifth!
(7) NOT ENTIRELY ALTERNATE HISTORY.
Wha…?
2) Autun Purser: certainly worth considering for Fan Artist. Does anyone know of a way to tell what works were published in 2015, or should I write her?
For later novels she took a more traditional approach and used a pen.
Doctor Science: Does anyone know of a way to tell what works were published in 2015, or should I write her?
The Westville poster (which is neat, both the art and the caption) seems to be dated Dec. 2015–not sure about the others.
Double fifth!
(1) A RINGING ENDORSEMENT. – “He’s the guy who saved Star Trek from obscurity and made it smarter than you ever realized.” – In that case someone misspelled Ira Steven Behr/ Ron Moore
(6) NEXT COMPANION. – All I want is that we get a bit more variety than “young British woman”.
(9) CTHULHU BREW. – @Camestros – next Sunday Beer review?
Another round of “Fan or Pro?”
I just posted about Arvalis, best-known for the “Realistic Pokemon” series. I classified him as “Fan Artist”. He’s also been suggested at SP4, but they figured since most of his work these days is commissions, it counts as Pro Artist.
What do the current rules say?
I’ve started to draft revised Pro and Fan Artist categories, and my inclination is to put publicly-available works created for commission under “fan art”, along with images that the artist sells on their Society 6/Cafepress/etc shop. Mostly this is because so many small-scale artists pick up spare change doing this sort of thing, and because the art, the images, are available to the public for free.
Craving that postcard set.
Number ten: not sure what you mean here as Simon Tolkien’s been writing mysteries for awhile now. Not my cup of tea but others do like them.
Reminder: I already called Fifth! on these robo-scrolls. Checkmate, SJWs!
Doctor Science: he may be making money, but under Hugo rules, he’s still a Fan Artist. I think your inclination is correct. Your declination and azimuth, no idea. 🙂
An I Am Providence would be great…
Star Trek also did good things for Nicholas Meyer. Well, one good thing. I didn’t think much of him at all up to that point, and I had to admit he’d done better with the movies than anybody else before him did. That was the beginning of me liking anything he did, and just in time for me to really enjoy his 1985 movie, Volunteers. (I hope the Suck Fairy has stayed away from it. I want to continue liking it.)
@Doctor Science: Autun Purser did the cover of the June 2015 Journey Planet.
http://www.rocketstackrank.com/2016/01/2015-fan-artists.html#AutunPurser
I did once look up how many of those great travel posters were created in 2015, by the laborious method of seeing when Google first records their presence. As I recall, all but one were from earlier years. (I therefore decided against nominating Purser because the 2015 work is scanty.) I’d rather have someone confirm that, though.
Also, I finally read Carter Scholz’s 2015 novella “Gypsy” and was blown away by it. Rigorously exploring ideas, but focusing on characters that give it emotional depth, and written with great precision and beauty (perhaps a surprising word to apply to a work so idea-heavy and grim). Thoughts
(10) That sounds a lot like the beginning of the manga JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. It has less vampires and manly men though, I bet.
The single sentence quoted from Publisher’s Lunch re the Simon Tolkien book is 129 words long. You’d need a friggin’ Scottish war-piper for someone with the lung capacity to speak it without stopping for breath.
(Brought to you by Grump of the Day.)
Clicky.
::ticky::
I’d think the Pluto travel poster would be from 2015, as it uses information from New Horizons.
The good folks of MidAmeriCon finally located my Mom on their list, so now we’ve both get Hugo PINs.
@Doctor Science: Wow, thanks for the link to Arvalis’s stuff; that’s cool, and I like the animated one. Bookmarking for later perusal…gotta get back to Harrison Squared.
Ebook deal drive-by! A Crown for Cold Silver (sequel coming in late May) by Alex Marshall is on sale for $1.99 from Orbit (uses DRM), at least in the USA. FYI!
This interested me when it came out, and I read a couple of positive reviews of it. Veeeery tempting.
Seconding Vasha’s enthusiasm for “Gypsy”. It’s a powerful, gripping story; it keys into a lot of themes and issues we know well, but it looks at them in a new way, with insight and resonance.
It does a fantastic job mixing hard science ideas, big-issue observations, and vivid characters, and arranging them all into a powerful story arc.
It’s a heck of a piece. (Also hella depressing. It is not a cheerful story.)
Looks like I’ll have to go read Gypsy then. Turns out I bought the issue months ago but totally forgot to read it!
Standback: Seconding Vasha’s enthusiasm for “Gypsy”.
Thanks, both of you. I’ve requested the Outspoken Authors: Gypsy Plus… collection from my library.
It doesn’t sound… uplifting — but it sounds good.
Is “downlifting” a thing?
@Mark: I also enjoyed “Cleanout” in that F&SF issue, particularly if you enjoyed Kelly Links “The Faerie Handbag.”
(That F&SF issue is also notable for my third time placing in their humor competitions! Except they mixed up the entries, and misattributed my entry :-/ BUT I still get the one-year subscription, so ‘tsall good 🙂
Their competitions are quick and fun, and clever folks like y’all are sure to have better material than me. You should enter, yes you definitely should!)
Standback: Is “downlifting” a thing?
*snort*
I loved Kelly Links’ “The Faerie Handbag”. I’m dismayed to see that the only way to get Naomi Kritzer’s “Cleanout” is by buying a back issue. May get to it eventually…
(9) is described by people drinking it as “squamous” and “rugose”, and consuming large quantities may result in the perception of architecture as non-Euclidean.
Reduction Watch:
Steven Erikson’s first Malzaran book, Gardens of the Moon is in the UK Kindle Daily Deal. Not read it, understand it to be well received by the people that like that sort of thing.
VE Scwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic is in the Monthly deal, listed in Crime and Thriller’s for no obvious reason.
Just reread Unidentified Funny Objects 4, the latest in the UFO series of humorous speculative fiction edited by Alex Shvartsman, and remembered how much I enjoyed it. Definitely nominating Shvartsman for Best Editor (short form); he’s done 4 UFO anthologies and one came out last year, so he qualifies.
In addition to UFO 4 and Mothership Zeta 1, does anyone have good recs for humorous or fun short speculative fiction which came out last year? I’m in the process of filling out my ballot, and since I’m in the mood for some happy and fun stories, I’d love to read some that came out last year to see if I like them enough to nominate them.
@nickpheas
Malazan is big fat epic fantasy that has the disadvantage of taking the entirety of Gardens of the Moon to really get a reader oriented. I spent the first book trying to figure out the world, but then I was sold and IN.
Why A Darker Shade of Magic should be in the Crime and Thriller…that makes no sense.
I’d just like to point out that today is the Presidential primary election day in twelve U.S. states. If you live in one of them and did not early-vote, please consider getting out to your polling place and making your voice known. This is especially important if your preferred candidate is neither Trump nor Clinton, both of whom are considered to have strong leads over their competitors in most of those states.
Seriously, me: “make your voice known”? You couldn’t decide between “voice heard” and “choice known,” so you decided to screw up both of ’em?
Back to your corner!
I’d definitely describe A Darker Shade of Magic as a fantasy-thriller. It has cool fantasy scenery, but most of the story focuses on racing between the cities collecting for plot coupons and epic battles of hand-wave-y magic.
So I could really see it working well classified as “thriller,” despite the cool fantasy premise. It works better for me as a thriller than it does as a fantasy book, because I honestly felt like the fantasy elements were primarily backdrop, giving us some clear “good guys/bad guys/boring guys” divisions, and not much time was spent on developing the premise into a coherent or interesting setting, into working out the rules of magic, and other things I’d look for in a “straight” fantasy book.
Doesn’t mean I’d remove the “fantasy” label; it seems odd for it not to be there. But for it also to be categorized as a Thriller – yeah, that makes sense to me.
I’m a baritone, if it helps any.
@Steve Wright:
::splurts coffee out of his nose::
@Standback
Not sure about the tenor of these comments…
@TheYoungPretender
True, I think some of it clearly strikes a false note.
@ Standback
If you responded to Stephanie S’ post on the puppies, would you give me a link to it?
@ Rev Bob
Seconded! And Democrats Abroad is having a global primary that will elect 7 voting delegates to the Democratic Convention.
Overseas USians should be registering to vote now (if they haven’t already done so) for the general election. The current law requires them to re-register in every year in which they wish to vote. Useful sites for the form are those of the US Vote Foundation and the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP).
I’m just tone-deaf to these comments.
Soprano here.
My spouse and I are going to the polls as soon as work is over. Somehow I managed to overlook early voting this year and am kicking myself; I like the security of getting it done early. But definitely today. Still waffling over whether to vote in the primary I favor, or for the sanest candidate among the ones in the other primary.
Also–gulp–bought membership and reserved hotel room for MidAmeriCon2. First WorldCon, here I come!
On what do you bass that assessment?
Vasha (et al):
I’ve heard from Purser, and her posters 45 through 51 are 2015. The Journey Planet cover and the Clarion West poster would also count towards Fan Artist. IMHO this is a reasonable “body of work” for consideration.