(1) AWARDS AT AUSSIE NATCON. Opening night at Continuum 15, the Australian National Convention, saw Lucy Sussex and Julian Warner win a special prize for their services to the Nova Mob and Melbourne fandom generally. The committee also presented Bruce R. Gillespie with the Eternity Award for his long-time fannish achievements. (Still looking for a photo of the latter.)
June is Pride Month, and here are 56 outstanding short stories with LGBT characters from 2018 that were finalists for major SF/F awards (9), included in “year’s best” SF/F anthologies (5), or recommended by prolific reviewers. 37 are free online!
This list could be useful for making nominations for the 2019 Gaylactic Spectrum Awards for Best Short Fiction (published in 2010-2018). Anyone can nominate through June 30, 2019. Stories from 2018 are below.
Thanks to a sure(ish) grip on Marvel’s mutants-as-metaphor approach to storytelling, the film brings a classic comics storyline to life. Sure, it’s melodramatic — but that’s the X-Men for you.
…Characters turn against one another in ways that the comics had ample time to lay plenty of track for, but that the film can’t and doesn’t. The dialogue is clunky, and at times it turns so deeply purple you expect it to break into “Smoke on the Water” — but hey, it’s X-Men. The closest thing we get to a joke is a scene in which McAvoy gets to call up the surprising smarminess he brought to the Xavier character in First Class, as he soaks up the adulation of a grateful nation at an event in the White House.
(4) FANHISTORY REMEMBERED. Usually when this happens it’s a hoax convention bid that decides it’s serious after all, however, Femizine was a fanzine created under a pseudonym that took on a serious life of its own. Now featuring on Rob Hansen’s UK fanhistory site THEN:
‘Joan Carr’ did not exist. She was created as a hoax to be played primarily on the Nor’west Science Fantasy Club (NSFC), who then met regularly in Manchester. Hiding behind that pseudonym was a man – H. P. ‘Sandy’ Sanderson. Though initially edited by him, FEMIZINE soon developed a life of its own, becoming a rallying point for female fans in the UK during the 1950s. This was the decade in which women first really began to assert themselves in the hitherto male-dominated SF fandom of these isles. In this context FEMIZINE is a fanzine that is both historically and culturally significant. FEMIZINE ran from 1954 to 1960 and saw fifteen issues in all, plus mini versions bound into a couple of combozines.
Note: As with most fanzines that are many decades old you will occasionally encounter words and attitudes that would be unacceptable today. Decades from now similar warnings may well be considered necessary for today’s fanzines as social attitudes continue to evolve.
Rob Hansen has two issues already scanned in and adds, “We are
hoping to upload one issue per week.” He’s also assembled a contemporary photo gallery of many
of those who contributed to ‘FEZ’.
In May 2019 a biopic on J.R.R. Tolkien, simply entitled Tolkien was released. While there has been no shortage of opinions on the film, I wanted to add some thoughts on it for those who follow this podcast. Two guests join me to share a hopeful perspective about the movie while acknowledging its shortcomings. They are Dr. Diana Glyer, a respected scholar on Tolkien and Lewis, and Brenton Dickieson who is a Lewis scholar nearing his completion of Ph.D. studies on Lewis.
…At least yesterday’s first test launch of the Blue Streak was a success. Although there was a problem with sloshing of the propellant as the fuel tanks emptied which caused the rocket to roll about quite a bit in the last few seconds of its flight and to land short of its intended target zone, the instrumentation along the flight corridor acquired a huge amount of useful information about the rockets performance. I was so thrilled with the news of the Blue Streak flight that I even phoned my former supervisor Mary Whitehead last night to hear more about it (and I’m going to have to give my sister the money for that long-distance trunk call, which I’m sure will be expensive).
Mary was at the Range for the launch and she told me that the rocket looked spectacular as it rose up into the blue sky out of its cloud of orange exhaust. She’s especially proud of the fact that the zigzag pattern you can see on the Blue Streak was her idea. It enables the tracking cameras to make very accurate measurements as the rocket rolls after leaving the launchpad. Using the pattern, the cameras can easily measure if, and how far, the rocket rolls depending on where that diagonal was relative to the top and bottom stripes. I know she’s looking forward to seeing how well this worked.
I’m looking forward to the next test flight, and Australia’s further involvement in the Space Age!
We continue to update historical data for past Hugo Awards as data becomes available to us. If you have historical Hugo Award data (such as nominating and voting statistics) that are not shown on the page for that year’s Awards, please contact us so we can add it.
Thirty-five years ago in Moscow, working on what he says was “an ugly Russian” computer that was frankensteined together with spare parts, Alexey Pajitnov started a side project that has become the second-best-selling video game of all time: Tetris.
…Two years later, in 1986, it became the first computer game from the Soviet Union to be released in the West, Engadget reports. Since then it has sold more than 170 million copies around the world, adapting to a vast array of consoles and platforms over the years. In other words, it was and continues to be a commercial juggernaut that has touched lives of hundreds of millions of players.
(10) TODAY’S
BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born June 7, 1909 — Jessica Tandy. Though her genre career came late in life, her films were certainly some of the most charming made — Cocoon, Batteries Not Included for which she won a Saturn Award for Best Actress and Cocoon: The Return. Both of the Cocoon films saw her nominated for the same Award. Well one film isn’t charming — Still of the Night is a psychological horror thriller. (Died 1994.)
Born June 7, 1932 — Kit Reed. Her first short story, “The Wait” (1958), was published by Anthony Boucher in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. She would write more stories than I care to count over her career for which she was nominated for the James Tiptree Jr. Award three times. I’m not at all familiar with her novels, so do tell me about them please. Amazon has very little by her, but iBooks has a generous amount of her fiction available. (Died 2017.)
Born June 7, 1944 — Mildred Downey Broxon, 75. Author of three novels and some short stories, heavy on Nordic-German mythology. The Demon of Scattery was co-written with Poul Anderson. There are no digital books available for her and her printed editions are out of print now. I see no sign that her short fiction has been collected into a volume to date.
Born June 7, 1952 — Liam Neeson, 67. He first shows up in genre films as Gawain in Excalibur and as Kegan in Krull. He plays Martin Brogan In High Spirits, a film I enjoy immensely. Next up is the title role in Darkman, a film I’ve watched myriad times. He’s Dr. David Marrow in The Haunting which I’d contend is loosely off of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Now we get him as Qui-Gon Jinn in The Phantom Menace. Followed unfortunately by his horrid take as Ra’s al Ghul in Batman Begins and as a cameo in the The Dark Knight Rises. Now he voiced Aslan with amazing dignity in The Chronicles of Narnia franchise and I hope voiced Zeus as well in the Titans franchise.
Born June 7, 1954 — Louise Erdrich, 65. Writer of novels, poetry, and children’s books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. Her genre work includes according to ISFDB the Ojibwe series of The Antelope Wife which won a World Fantasy Award and The Painted Drum, plus stand-alone novels of The Crown of Columbus (co-written with her husband Michael Dorris) and Future Home of the Living God.
Born June 7, 1954 — Anthony Simcoe, 50. Ka D’Argo in Farscape, one of the best SF series ever done. If you don’t watch anything else, just watch the finale, The Peacekeeper Wars as it’s fairly self contained. Farscape is the SF he did. If you can find a copy, Matt Bacon’s No Strings Attached: The Inside Story of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop is a wonderful look at the creation of the creatures on the show including D’Argo facial appendages.
Born June 7, 1972 — Karl Urban, 47. He’s in the second and third installments of The Lord of the Rings trilogy as Éomer. He has was McCoy in the Trek reboot franchise, Cupid on Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, John Kennex on Almost Human, Vaako in the Riddick film franchise, and Judge Dredd in Dredd. For the record, I liked both Dredd films.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
Half Full illustrates more benefits of printed books.
USA Today says they serve the best burger in Michigan. But what did John and I think of it? Well, for that, you’ll have to give this episode a listen.
John’s a four-time finalist for the Bram Stoker Award, starting back with his first novel, The Memory Tree, in 2008. He won the following year in the category of Long Fiction for “Miranda,” for which he also won a Black Quill Award. His short fiction has been published in Cavalier (his first, in 1983), Twilight Zone, Weird Tales, Dark Discoveries, and other magazines, plus anthologies such as You, Human and Haunted Nights. His most recent novel is The Murder of Jesus Christ.
We discussed how seeing his sister’s portable typewriter for the first time changed his life forever, the way he launched his career by following in Stephen King’s men’s magazine footsteps, why he’s so fascinated by time and how he manages to come up with new ways of writing about that concept, which writer’s career he wanted when he grew up and how buying a copy of Carrie changed that, the reason a science major has ended up mostly writing horror, the most important thing he learned from a night school’s creative writing course, which of his new novel’s controversial aspects concerned him the most during creation, and much more.
The mash-up provided by the Pirates as they headed to the airport for a road trip on Thursday afternoon is one of the biggest convergences of realms and universes we’ve seen in a long time — maybe ever. Here’s a preview, featuring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman and Robin, Wolverine (in and out of costume) and … Jesus:
“It was very strange because it was a relatively clear day and we weren’t really expecting any rain or thunderstorms,” Casey Oswant, a NWS meteorologist in San Diego, tells NPR. “But on our radar, we were seeing something that indicated there was something out there.”
So the meteorologists called a weather spotter in Wrightwood, Calif., near the blob’s location in San Bernardino County. Oswant says the spotter told them the mysterious cloud was actually a giant swarm of ladybugs.
The phenomenon is known as a ladybug “bloom,” and while this one appears particularly large, Oswant says it’s not the first time local meteorologists have spotted the beetles.
(15) WE KNEW THAT. BBC reports “Ultimate
limit of human endurance found”. Wait, they didn’t already discover
this when Freff stayed awake through nearly the entire 1972 Worldcon?
The ultimate limit of human endurance has been worked out by scientists analysing a 3,000 mile run, the Tour de France and other elite events.
They showed the cap was 2.5 times the body’s resting metabolic rate, or 4,000 calories a day for an average person.
Anything higher than that was not sustainable in the long term.
The research, by Duke University, also showed pregnant women were endurance specialists, living at nearly the limit of what the human body can cope with.
A stone believed to be about 12,000 years old and engraved with what appears to be a horse and other animals has been discovered in France.
The prehistoric find by archaeologists excavating a site in the south-western Angoulême district, north of Bordeaux, has been described as “exceptional”.
…According to the institute, the most visible engraving is that of a headless horse, which covers at least half of the stone’s surface on one side.
“Legs and hooves are very realistic,” Inrap said on its website (in French), adding: “Two other animals, smaller, are also slightly incised.”
(17) DERN MOMENTS. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Ted Chiang’s Exhalations
collection. Not done reading it yet; they’re rich enough (or whatever the term
is when it’s not denseness of prose but something else that, well, I can’t
think of the right term for) that I’m finding I’d druther not read more than
0.5 – 1.5 per “session.”
Michael
Swanwick’s The Iron Dragon’s Mother. Both via my public library. I don’t
know if that makes these “Dern moments.” The library’s mobile app
means that as soon as I learn about, or think of, a given book, e.g., reading
about it in a scroll, or seeing it listed in Locus, etc., I can do a
quick reserve. (If it’s sufficiently advanced news, and not yet in their system
even as an “ordered but not yet here” I’ll suggest it as a purchase.)
(18) TWIN PLANETS. After President Trump shared his amazing
understanding of the structure of the Solar System —
For all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking about going to the Moon – We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we are doing, including Mars (of which the Moon is a part), Defense and Science!
(19) FAN ART COMMANDS BIG TICKET PRICE. The owner is asking
C$4,189.49 on eBay for Vaughn Bodé’s original drawing published as the cover of
Ontario
Science Fiction Club #2 in June 1968 – which makes it one of the items
that appeared in the eligibility year before Bodé won the Best Fan Artist Hugo in 1969.
Nasa is to allow tourists to visit the International Space Station from 2020, priced at $35,000 (£27,500) per night.
The US space agency said it would open the orbiting station to tourism and other business ventures.
There will be up to two short private astronaut missions per year, said Robyn Gatens, the deputy director of the ISS.
Nasa said that private astronauts would be permitted to travel to the ISS for up to 30 days, travelling on US spacecraft.
…The new commercial opportunities announced on Friday are part of a trajectory towards full privatisation of the ISS. US President Donald Trump published a budget last year which called for the station to be defunded by the government by 2025.
(21) FIRST BUCK ROGERS FILM. This Buck Rogers film short was
made for the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair by the owner of the comic strip.
[Thanks to Carl Slaughter, Andrew Porter, rcade, Cat Eldridge,
Chip Hitchcock, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, and Mike Kennedy
for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor
of the day Kaboobie, who’s may be wondering why I used this on a Friday.]
The nominees are award-eligible works and persons first
nominated by fans and members of the Australian NatCon which have been compiled
into a ballot by a sub-committee elected at the previous National SF Convention
business meeting.
The Ditmars will be presented at the 2019 Australian
National SF Convention, (Continuum 15)
in Melbourne, June 7-10, 2019.
The
following section details the contents of the preliminary ballot. (Note that
the final ballot will include a “No Award” option in each category.
Best Novel
Devouring Dark, Alan Baxter, Grey Matter Press.
The Subjugate, Amanda Bridgeman, Angry Robot.
Faerie Apocalypse, Jason Franks, IFWG Publishing
Australia.
City of Lies (Poison Wars 1), Sam Hawke, Tom Doherty
Associates.
The Beast’s Heart, Leife Shallcross, Hodder &
Stoughton.
Tide of Stone, Kaaron Warren, Omnium Gatherum.
Best Novella or Novelette
“Triquetra”, Kirstyn McDermott, in Triquetra, Tor.com
“Cabaret of Monsters”, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in Cabaret of Monsters, The Creature Court.
“The Dragon’s Child”, Janeen Webb, in The Dragon’s Child, PS Publishing.
Best Short Story
“The Art of Broken
Things”, Joanne Anderton, in Mother of Invention, Twelfth Planet
Press.
“A Man Totally Alone”,
Robert Hood, The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories: Terrifying Tales Set on
the Scariest Night of the Year!, Skyhorse Publishing.
“The Heart of Owl
Abbas”, Kathleen Jennings, in Tor.com.
“Junkyard Kraken”, D.K.
Mok, in Mother of Invention, Twelfth Planet Press.
Best Collected Work
Sword and Sonnet, edited by Aidan Doyle, Rachael K. Jones and E. Catherine Tobler, Ate Bit Bear.
Mountains of the Mind, Gillian Polack, Shooting Star Press.
Mother of Invention, Rivqa Rafael and Tansy Rayner Roberts, Twelfth Planet Press.
A Hand of Knaves, Leife Shallcross and Chris Large, CSFG Publishing.
Tales from the Inner City, Shaun Tan, Allen & Unwin.
Best Artwork
Cover art, Likhain, for Mother
of Invention, Twelfth Planet Press.
Cover and internal illustrations,
Shauna O’Meara, for A Hand of Knaves, CSFG Publishing.
Best Fan Publication in Any Medium
Earl Grey Editing, Elizabeth Fitzgerald.
Pratchat, Elizabeth Flux, Ben McKenzie,
Splendid Chaps Productions.
SF Commentary, Bruce Gillespie.
Galactic Suburbia, Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra
Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts.
Best Fan Writer
Liz Barr, for writing in
squiddishly.
Bruce Gillespie, for writing in SF
Commentary and ANZAPA articles.
Best Fan Artist
INSUFFICIENT
NOMINATIONS FOR ANY FAN ARTIST
Best New Talent
Elizabeth Fitzgerald
Sam Hawke
Bren MacDibble (aka Cally Black)
Leife Shallcross
William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review
Damien Broderick, for Pscience
Fiction, McFarland.
Damien Broderick, for Consciousness
and Science Fiction, Springer.
Tansy Rayner Roberts, for Gentlewomen
of the Press, Sheep Might Fly.
Cat Sparks, for “The 21st
Century Catastrophe: Hyper-capitalism and Severe Climate Change in Science
Fiction” PhD exegesis.
(1) SIXTY MINUTES. Here’s video of what happened during “Seanan McGuire’s Continuum 13 Guest of Honour Hour.”
On Sunday 11th June, 2017, Seanan McGuire hosted a Guest of Honour hour in which she answered questions at Continuum 13. Unfortunately, not every person waited for a microphone to ask their question. Seanan’s answers are still amazing and you can get the context from the answer. Continuum 13 was the 56th Australian National Science Fiction Convention.
(2) MORE CONTINUUM 13 GOODNESS. There was a special cake at the launch party for Seanan McGuire’s Down Among the Sticks and Bones, but since the Wayward Children series it’s part of is not a zombie series, the cake imagery was probably a callout to her Newsflesh series.
“Can you name a story element that NEEDED to change for TV in order for the show to work?”
Miller had to become much more active in the show. Losing the internal monologue of prose always means finding ways to make the same points in a way that a camera can see them.
“An unforeseen change?”
I hadn’t realized how important it was going to be to pull Drummer forward, or how much that was going to pay off.
“A change that met the most resistance from yourselves or the TV writers?”
There’s a moment in the book when Muss explains to Miller that he’s a joke to the other cops. It’s a gut-punch in the books, and we all fought to find a place for it in the show, but it just didn’t fir anywhere.
“A change that you wish had been made in the books if you had the chance to go back?”
Nope. The books are the books and the show is the show. There are some places in the book where I’d make things a little clearer than I think we left them. Why Ashford acts the way he does, what exactly the timeline of Julie Mao was. It’s all in the books, but sometimes I think I’ve made things clear that are still a little smokey.
Cult TV show ‘The League of Gentlemen’ is set to officially return after writer Reece Shearsmith announced that he was working on a script for the warped sitcom’s revival.
The show, which follows the lives of residents in the bizarre village of Royston Vasey, originally aired on BBC 2 between 1999 and 2002, before a full-length film was released in 2005.
Now, the show’s revival has been confirmed, after talk emerged of an anniversary special earlier this year.
(7) TAXONOMY TIME. In “Municipal Fantasy”, Danny Sichel advocates for a subgenre distinct from urban fantasy,
There’s urban, and there’s fantasy… and there’s the space between them. An enforced separation between the modern world – the urban environment – and the magic.* They’ve developed separately over the years (which is typically shown as leading to a certain degree of stagnation in the magic). The magic is hidden from the science and technology, and so it does not advance while they do.
…But what if this weren’t so?
If we undo those justifications… if we assume their opposite… we get fantasy where magic has openly come back into the modern world, or been revealed to the general public to have been here all along. Or, alternately, magic has openly been around long enough that an equivalent to our modern technological society has developed. And, perhaps most importantly, that magic is an issue of public policy.
I propose that this subgenre be called: “MUNICIPAL FANTASY”.
“What’s the difference between ‘municipal’ and ‘urban’?”, you might be wondering. “Don’t they mean essentially the same thing?” And in a way, they do, but synonyms are never exact. They both refer to cities… but ‘urban’ is a general feeling, an environment, a mood. ‘Municipal’, conversely, implies more of a system, with regulations and public services. ‘Urban wildlife’ is raccoons eating your garbage and ‘urban legends’ are just stories you heard about a friend of a friend of a friend, but “municipal wildlife” feels like the raccoons are only eating the garbage because it’s their job, and “municipal legends” feels the story won’t be told outside city limits.
(8) TODAY IN HISTORY
June 24, 1983 — Twilight Zone – The Movie premiered theatrically.
June 24, 1987 – Spaceballs opened in theatres.
June 24, 1997 — U.S. Air Force officials release a 231-page report dismissing long-standing claims of an alien spacecraft crash in Roswell, New Mexico, almost exactly 50 years earlier.
A group of more than 600 students gathered in one place and dressed as Harry Potter to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first book in the series.
England book publishers Bloomsbury Books shared a photo of the hundreds of students as they set the Guinness World Record for most people dressed as Harry Potter in one gathering in celebration of the release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Another NASA mission using lasers to peer at Earth is named Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2). Scheduled to launch in 2018, ICESat-2 will use an array of six lasers — three paired beams — to track ice-sheet thickness and changes across Greenland and Antarctica, so that scientists can better estimate the risks posed by melting ice due to climate change, panel member Brooke Medley, a research associate with Earth Sciences Remote Sensing at the Goddard Space Flight Center, told the Future Con audience. ICESat-2 is continuing the work started by an earlier mission, ICESat-1, which was the first satellite to deploy lasers from space to measure surface elevation in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, according to NASA. The amount of ice cover in those two regions is enormous: Greenland’s area is about three times the size of Texas, while Antarctica is roughly twice the size of the contiguous United States — far too big to accurately measure elevation changes from the ground or by airplane, Medley said. ICESat-2 will conduct multiple passes overhead at an altitude of 299 miles (481 kilometers), and its lasers will gather data that will enable researchers to calculate ice volume and track changes over time.
(11) SHORT SUBJECTS. Doris V. Sutherland offers insights and intriguing comments in “2017 Hugo Reviews: Short Stories” at Women Write About Comics. Here’s an excerpt from the review of Amal El-Mohtar’s award-nominated story.
“Seasons of Glass and Iron” shows both a knowledgeable and playful attitude towards fairy tale conventions. In the world of the story, magic operates on a numeric basis, a reference to fairy tales’ fondness for certain numbers, the three little pigs, the seven dwarfs, and so forth. While Amira is granted a constant stream of golden apples that materialise from nowhere, she is allowed only one at a time: she must eat her present apple before the next one will appear. But once Tabitha arrives, and Amira begins sharing the apples with her, this changes: Tabitha is allowed seven apples at a time.
“I think it’s the magic on me,” she says. “I’m bound in sevens—you’re bound in ones.” On a more symbolic level, the story opens with Tabitha musing about the significance of shoes in fairy tales, from Cinderella’s glass slippers to the red-hot iron shoes worn by Snow White’s stepmother. To Tabitha, shoes represent marriage, although they are not her first choice of symbol. “I dreamt of marriage as a golden thread between hearts—a ribbon binding one to the other, warm as a day in summer,” she says. “I did not dream a chain of iron shoes.”
The story is not as revolutionary as it seems to think it is. After all, revisionist fairy tales form a longstanding tradition in feminist circles, one that has been practiced by authors from Andrea Dworkin to Angela Carter. “Seasons of Glass and Iron” adds a queer-positive angle, but in an era with entire anthologies devoted to LGBT SF/F, this is not particularly groundbreaking. When Tabitha and Amira get together at the end, it seems as inevitable as Sleeping Beauty being awoken with a kiss or Cinderella finding her Prince. But then, perhaps that is a sign that the revisionism has worked.
(12) BURRITO-ING FOR DOLLARS. Dan Sandler suggested charity might benefit from an audio collaboration between John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton:
You & @wilw should make a charity burrito cookbook together. You write it and he does the audio version (in increasingly disgusted tones)
Patty Jenkins’ movie will achieve the milestone shortly after topping the $600 million mark on Wednesday.
Director Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman continues to make history in its box-office run.
Sometime Thursday or Friday, the Warner Bros. and DC superhero tentpole will eclipse the $609.8 million earned worldwide by Phyllida Lloyd’s Mamma Mia! (2008) to become the top-grossing live-action film of all time from a female director, not accounting for inflation.
Wonder Woman also has a strong shot of passing up Kung Fu Panda 2‘s $665.7 million to become the top-grossing film of all time from a female filmmaker with solo directing duties. Jennifer Yuh Nelson helmed the 2011 animated sequel.
Starring Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman passed the $600 million mark at the worldwide box office on Wednesday, finishing the day with a cume of $601.6 million, including $289.2 million domestically and $312.4 million internationally.
There’s no denying it: the arrival of Wonder Woman has dealt a massive blow to Hollywood sexism, after years of male superheroes dominating the spotlight in any and all blockbuster franchises. Judging by Wonder Woman‘s opening weekend sales, the idea that ‘women don’t sell’ in superhero shared universes may be permanently vanquished (for DC’s universe, at least). But given how well Diana takes on sexism in the movie itself, it only seems fair that the real-world result should be as big a victory for the feminist ideals of equality, punching the patriarchy squarely in the nose (in front of and behind the camera).
Their list begins:
15. The Amazons Crush The Bechdel Test
…But when Queen Hippolyta and Antiope discuss the Amazons’ duty, the conversation between Diana’s two mother figures is most certainly about her, and not the absent God of War looming somewhere on the planet. For Hippolyta, her mother, all motivation is based in keeping Diana safe, even selfishly turning her back on the Amazons’ duty for her own blood. For Antiope, she wishes to train Diana not because it is required to kill Ares, but because it is Diana’s destiny, and in service to the realization of her potential.
And the first time viewers realize they’re watching two accomplished actresses over the age of 50 discussing their daughter’s future in a superhero blockbuster… well, it becomes clear how rare such a scene really is.
This close look at Wonder Woman’s history portrays a complicated heroine who is more than just a female Superman with a golden lasso and bullet-deflecting bracelets. The original Wonder Woman was ahead of her time, advocating female superiority and the benefits of matriarchy in the 1940s. At the same time, her creator filled the comics with titillating bondage imagery, and Wonder Woman was tied up as often as she saved the world. In the 1950s, Wonder Woman begrudgingly continued her superheroic mission, wishing she could settle down with her boyfriend instead, all while continually hinting at hidden lesbian leanings. While other female characters stepped forward as women’s lib took off in the late 1960s, Wonder Woman fell backwards, losing her superpowers and flitting from man to man. Ms. magazine and Lynda Carter restored Wonder Woman’s feminist strength in the 1970s, turning her into a powerful symbol as her checkered past was quickly forgotten. Exploring this lost history adds new dimensions to the world’s most beloved female character, and Wonder Woman Unbound delves into her comic book and its spin-offs as well as the myriad motivations of her creators to showcase the peculiar journey that led to Wonder Woman’s iconic status.
As a source of adaptation fodder, King is a studio executive’s godsend, because his work is trend-proof. Scan the long, long list of King adaptations and the standout quality will be the steadfastness of it all; ebb and flow as the cultural tides may, King’s work has never lost its luster or lucre. And its eclecticism is the key to King’s perennial popularity; his style never falls out of fashion because King has never defined it to mean one thing in particular.
(17) LITRPG. The English version of Survival Quest, the first in Russian LitRPG Vasily Mahanenko’s The Way of the Shaman, was met with 236 mostly 4 and 5 star Amazon reviews, says Carl Slaughter. The latest in the series, The Karmadont Chess Set, came out in April 2017.
[Thanks to Mark-kitteh, JJ, Carl Slaughter, Todd, Cat Eldridge, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day clack.]
The final ballot for the Australian SF (“Ditmar”) Awards for 2017 has been released. It differs from the preliminary ballot (run here a few days ago) only in the addition of Ian Mond to the finalists for the William Atheling Jr. Award for Criticism or Review. (Congratulations, Mondyboy!)
Voting is now open to members of Continuum 13, the 2017 Australian National Convention, and to members of Contact 2016 who were eligible to vote in the 2016 Award. The voting deadline is May 14.
The Ditmars will be presented at Continuum 13 in Melbourne
Best Novel
The Grief Hole, Kaaron Warren, IFWG Publishing Australia.
The Lyre Thief, Jennifer Fallon, HarperCollins.
Squid’s Grief, D.K. Mok, D.K. Mok.
Vigil, Angela Slatter, Jo Fletcher Books.
The Wizardry of Jewish Women, Gillian Polack, Satalyte Publishing.
Best Novella or Novelette
“All the Colours of the Tomato”, Simon Petrie, in Dimension6 9.
“By the Laws of Crab and Woman”, Jason Fischer, in Review of Australian Fiction, Vol 17, Issue 6.
“Did We Break the End of the World?”, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in Defying Doomsday, Twelfth Planet Press.
“Finnegan’s Field”, Angela Slatter, in Tor.com.
“Glass Slipper Scandal”, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in Sheep Might Fly.
“Going Viral”, Thoraiya Dyer, in Dimension6 8.
Best Short Story
“Flame Trees”, T.R. Napper, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2016.
“No Fat Chicks”, Cat Sparks, in In Your Face, FableCroft Publishing.
“There’s No Place Like Home”, Edwina Harvey, in AntipodeanSF 221.
Best Collected Work
Crow Shine by Alan Baxter, Ticonderoga Publications.
Defying Doomsday, Tsana Dolichva and Holly Kench, Twelfth Planet Press.
Dreaming in the Dark, Jack Dann, PS Publishing.
In Your Face, Tehani Wessely, FableCroft Publishing.
Best Artwork
cover and internal artwork, Adam Browne, for The Tame Animals of Saturn, Peggy Bright Books.
illustration, Shauna O’Meara, for Lackington’s 12.
Best Fan Publication in Any Medium
2016 Australian SF Snapshot, Greg Chapman, Tehani Croft, Tsana Dolichva, Marisol Dunham, Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Stephanie Gunn, Ju Landéesse, David McDonald, Belle McQuattie, Matthew Morrison, Alex Pierce, Rivqa Rafael, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Helen Stubbs, Katharine Stubbs and Matthew Summers.
The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
Earl Grey Editing Services (blog), Elizabeth Fitzgerald.
Galactic Chat, Alexandra Pierce, David McDonald, Sarah Parker, Helen Stubbs, Mark Webb, and Sean Wright.
Galactic Suburbia, Alisa Krasnostein, Alex Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts.
The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond.
Best Fan Writer
James ‘Jocko’ Allen, for body of work.
Aidan Doyle, for body of work.
Bruce Gillespie, for body of work.
Foz Meadows, for body of work.
Tansy Rayner Roberts, for body of work.
Best Fan Artist
Kathleen Jennings, for body of work, including Illustration Friday series.
Best New Talent
T R Napper
Marlee Jane Ward
William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review
Kat Clay for essays and reviews in Weird Fiction Review
Tehani Croft & Marisol Dunham, for Revisiting Pern: the great McCaffrey reread review series.
Tsana Dolichva, for reviews, in Tsana’s Reads and Reviews.
Kate Forsyth, for The Rebirth of Rapunzel: a mythic biography of the maiden in the tower, FableCroft Publishing.
Ian Mond, for reviews, in The Hysterical Hamster.
Alexandra Pierce, for reviews, in Randomly Yours, Alex.
Gillian Polack, for History and Fiction: Writers, their Research, Worlds and Stories, Peter Lang.
The nominees are award-eligible works and persons first nominated by fans and members of the Australian NatCon. They are then compiled into a ballot by a sub-committee elected at the previous National SF Convention business meeting.
The Ditmars will be presented at the 2017 Australian National SF Convention, Continuum 13 in Melbourne
Best Novel
The Grief Hole, Kaaron Warren, IFWG Publishing Australia.
The Lyre Thief, Jennifer Fallon, HarperCollins.
Squid’s Grief, D.K. Mok, D.K. Mok.
Vigil, Angela Slatter, Jo Fletcher Books.
The Wizardry of Jewish Women, Gillian Polack, Satalyte Publishing.
Best Novella or Novelette
“All the Colours of the Tomato”, Simon Petrie, in Dimension6 9.
“By the Laws of Crab and Woman”, Jason Fischer, in Review of Australian Fiction, Vol 17, Issue 6.
“Did We Break the End of the World?”, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in Defying Doomsday, Twelfth Planet Press.
“Finnegan’s Field”, Angela Slatter, in Tor.com.
“Glass Slipper Scandal”, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in Sheep Might Fly.
“Going Viral”, Thoraiya Dyer, in Dimension6 8.
Best Short Story
“Flame Trees”, T.R. Napper, in Asimov’s Science Fiction, April/May 2016.
“No Fat Chicks”, Cat Sparks, in In Your Face, FableCroft Publishing.
“There’s No Place Like Home”, Edwina Harvey, in AntipodeanSF 221.
Best Collected Work
Crow Shine by Alan Baxter, Ticonderoga Publications.
Defying Doomsday, Tsana Dolichva and Holly Kench, Twelfth Planet Press.
Dreaming in the Dark, Jack Dann, PS Publishing.
In Your Face, Tehani Wessely, FableCroft Publishing.
Best Artwork
cover and internal artwork, Adam Browne, for The Tame Animals of Saturn, Peggy Bright Books.
illustration, Shauna O’Meara, for Lackington’s 12.
Best Fan Publication in Any Medium
2016 Australian SF Snapshot, Greg Chapman, Tehani Croft, Tsana Dolichva, Marisol Dunham, Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Stephanie Gunn, Ju Landéesse, David McDonald, Belle McQuattie, Matthew Morrison, Alex Pierce, Rivqa Rafael, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Helen Stubbs, Katharine Stubbs and Matthew Summers.
The Coode Street Podcast, Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
Earl Grey Editing Services (blog), Elizabeth Fitzgerald.
Galactic Chat, Alexandra Pierce, David McDonald, Sarah Parker, Helen Stubbs, Mark Webb, and Sean Wright.
Galactic Suburbia, Alisa Krasnostein, Alex Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts.
The Writer and the Critic, Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond.
Best Fan Writer
James ‘Jocko’ Allen, for body of work.
Aidan Doyle, for body of work.
Bruce Gillespie, for body of work.
Foz Meadows, for body of work.
Tansy Rayner Roberts, for body of work.
Best Fan Artist
Kathleen Jennings, for body of work, including Illustration Friday series.
Best New Talent
T R Napper
Marlee Jane Ward
William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review
Kat Clay for essays and reviews in Weird Fiction Review
Tehani Croft & Marisol Dunham, for Revisiting Pern: the great McCaffrey reread review series.
Tsana Dolichva, for reviews, in Tsana’s Reads and Reviews.
Kate Forsyth, for The Rebirth of Rapunzel: a mythic biography of the maiden in the tower, FableCroft Publishing.
Alexandra Pierce, for reviews, in Randomly Yours, Alex.
Gillian Polack, for History and Fiction: Writers, their Research, Worlds and Stories, Peter Lang.
The 2016 Aurealis Awards shortlist has been announced by the Western Australian Science Fiction Foundation. Judging coordinator Katharine Stubbs reports there were over 800 entries across the 15 categories. Click on the link to see the members of the judging panels.
The Aurealis Award winners and the recipient of the Convenors’ Award for Excellence will be announced at a ceremony at the Australian National Convention in Perth on April 14.
Stiletto, Daniel O’Malley (Harper Collins Publishers)
Threader, Rebekah Turner (Harlequin Australia)
Convenors’ Award for Excellence Nominees
The Convenors’ Award for Excellence is awarded at the discretion of the convenors for a particular achievement in speculative fiction or related areas in that year that cannot otherwise by judged for the Aurealis Awards.
This award can be given to a work of non-fiction, artwork, film, television, electronic or multimedia work, or one that brings credit or attention to the speculative fiction genres.
The convenors consider all eligible entries, but there is no shortlist generated, and only the winner is presented at the ceremony. The eligible nominations received for the award are:
This year’s nominees are:
Claire Fitzpatrick – “Why Do People Like Horror Movies?”[Aurealis]
Writing non-fiction is a passion of mine, which I am hoping to turn into a serious academic career. It is my joy and pleasure to research horror and explore its various avenues. I am hoping you will see the dedication I put into my article, and the seriousness of my intent to educate people on horror.
Claire Fitzpatrick – “Dark Fantasy Versus Horror: Why Are Their Differences Important? And Which Genre Should You Introduce to Your Children First?”[Aurealis]
Horror can also be for children! Childhood is scary. Kids live in a world of insane giants, they are generally powerless, and Horror teaches children the ability to recognise fear with themselves, which can be helpful in times of stress. I wrote this piece for my daughter – she’s 4 and loves scary stories. Horror is good for the soul.
Claire Fitzpatrick – “Body Horror And The Horror Aesthetic” [Aurealis]
Body horror is a genre that transcends pure fear and manifests in a physical form. It delves into or most primal instincts as human beings. Body horror—which describes creations deemed ‘outside of nature’—is seen as some hideous deformity, but it’s extremely beautiful. I love to write about body horror – indeed, body horror is my passion. This article explains body horror, and why it’s such an interesting branch of horror.
Elizabeth Fitzgerald – Earl Grey Editing [http://earlgreyediting.com.au/]
As well as working as an editor, Elizabeth is a prolific reviewer who has produced many reviews of Australian works. She also writes a regular collection of “loose leaf links”, which collect links relevant to writers, readers and publishers, focusing on topics such as conventions, equity, awards and competitions. All of this work combines to create a valuable contribution to the Australian speculative fiction field.
Felicity Banks – Scarlet Sails
A rollicking pirate adventure where you choose what kind of pirate you are.
Kate Forsyth – The Rebirth of Rapunzel: A Mythic Biography of the Maiden in the Tower [FableCroft Publishing]
Showcasing an astonishing level of research in a highly readable and engaging form, The Rebirth of Rapunzel delves into the mythology of the Rapunzel fairy tale and examines the historical and storytelling background to the piece. Packaged with several related articles and other pieces, the book is both a factual exploration of a fictional creation and a beautiful reading experience in and of itself. Non-fiction collection
Nalini Haynes – Dark Matter Zine [http://www.darkmatterzine.com/]
For the past 6 years Dark Matter Zine has published interviews and panel discussions featuring science fiction and fantasy authors and publishers as well as reviews of science fiction and fantasy stories and articles about conventions, events and science fiction and fantasy culture. To date Dark Matter Zine has over 109 podcasts, 94 videos, 90 guest blogs and over 1300 reviews. As blogger-in-residence for the ACT Writers Centre I have also featured SFF authors in interviews for the mainstream community. Webzine
Seanan McGuire, urban fantasy and horror author, filk composer, and cartoonist, has been confirmed as the Guest of Honour at LexiCon 2017, the 38th New Zealand National SF and Fantasy Convention.
She has also been named International Guest of Honour by Continuum 13 in Melbourne, the 2017 Australian National Science Fiction Convention.
Seanan McGuire is the author of the October Daye and InCryptid urban fantasies and the Newsflesh novels (under the pseudonym Mira Grant). She also records CDs of her original filk music and is the creator of the autobiographical web comic “With Friends Like These…”
Winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, her novel Feed (as Mira Grant) was named as one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2010. In 2013 she became the first person ever to appear five times on the same Hugo Ballot.
LexiCon co-chair Cassie Hart said, “There are a lot of fans in our membership who are very much looking forward to hearing her speak, and sing,” says Cassie. “Plus, we’ve just finished finalising our Fan Guest of Honour as well, so you can expect another announcement very soon!”
LexiCon is being held at the Suncourt Hotel in Taupö, New Zealand from June 2-4, 2017 (Queen’s Birthday Weekend).
The 2015 Aurealis Awards shortlist has been announced by the Western Australian Science Fiction Foundation.
Judging coordinator Tehani Wessely said there were over 750 entries across the 15 categories. In the inaugural Sara Douglass Book Series Award, nearly 200 books were recommended across 55 series.
The winners as well as the recipient of the Convenors’ Award for Excellence will be announced at a ceremony at the Australian National Convention in Brisbane on March 25.
2015 Aurealis Awards – Finalists
BEST CHILDREN’S FICTION
A Week Without Tuesday, Angelica Banks (Allen & Unwin)
The Cut-Out, Jack Heath (Allen & Unwin)
A Single Stone, Meg McKinlay (Walker Books Australia)
Bella and the Wandering House, Meg McKinlay (Fremantle Press)
The Mapmaker Chronicles: Prisoner of the Black Hawk, A.L. Tait (Hachette Australia)
BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL / ILLUSTRATED WORK
The Undertaker Morton Stone Vol.1, Gary Chaloner, Ben Templesmith, and Ashley Wood (Gestalt)
The Diemenois, Jamie Clennett (Hunter Publishers)
Unmasked Vol.1: Going Straight is No Way to Die, Christian Read (Gestalt)
The Singing Bones, Shaun Tan (Allen & Unwin)
Fly the Colour Fantastica, various authors (Veriko Operative)
Meeting Infinity, Jonathan Strahan (ed.), (Solaris)
The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 9, Jonathan Strahan (ed.) (Solaris)
Focus 2014: highlights of Australian short fiction, Tehani Wessely (ed.) (FableCroft Publishing)
BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL
In The Skin of a Monster, Kathryn Barker (Allen & Unwin)
Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club, Alison Goodman (HarperCollins)
The Fire Sermon, Francesca Haig (HarperVoyager)
Day Boy,Trent Jamieson (Text Publishing)
Illuminae, Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (Allen & Unwin)
The Hush, Skye Melki-Wagner (Penguin Random House Australia)
BEST HORROR NOVEL
No Shortlist Released
BEST FANTASY NOVEL
In The Skin of a Monster, Kathryn Barker (Allen & Unwin)
Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club, Alison Goodman (HarperCollins)
Day Boy,Trent Jamieson (Text Publishing)
The Dagger’s Path, Glenda Larke (Hachette Australia)
Tower Of Thorns, Juliet Marillier (Pan Macmillan Australia)
Skin, Ilka Tampke (Text Publishing)
BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL
Crossed, Evelyn Blackwell (self-published)
Clade, James Bradley (Penguin)
Illuminae, Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (Allen & Unwin)
Their Fractured Light, Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (Allen & Unwin)
Renegade, Joel Shepherd (Kindle Direct)
Twinmaker: Fall, Sean Williams (Allen & Unwin)
SARA DOUGLASS BOOK SERIES AWARD
The Chronicles of King Rolen’s Kin [The King’s Bastard (2010), The Uncrowned King (2010), The Usurper (2010), The King’s Man (2012), King Breaker (2013)], Rowena Cory Daniells (Solaris Press)
The Watergivers [The Last Stormlord (2009), Stormlord Rising (2010), Stormlord’s Exile (2011)], Glenda Larke (HarperVoyager)
The Lumatere Chronicles [Finnikin of the Rock (2008), Froi of the Exiles (2011), Quintana of Charyn (2012)], Melina Marchetta (Penguin Random House)
Sevenwaters [Daughter of the Forest (2000), Son of the Shadows (2001), Child of the Prophecy (2002), Heir to Sevenwaters (2009), Seer of Sevenwaters (2011), Flame of Sevenwaters (2013)], Juliet Marillier (Pan Macmillan Australia)
The Laws of Magic [Blaze Of Glory (2007), Heart Of Gold (2007), Word Of Honour (2008), Time Of Trial (2009), Moment Of Truth (2010), Hour Of Need (2011)], Michael Pryor (Random House Australia)
Creature Court [Power and Majesty (2010), Shattered City (2011), Reign of Beasts (2012)], Tansy Rayner Roberts (HarperVoyager)
The preliminary ballot for the 2016 Australian SF (“Ditmar”) Awards has been posted for review. Changes may be made before the final ballot is set if discrepancies are found.
The Ditmar Awards will be given at Contact 2016, the Australian National SF Convention, to be held in Brisbane March 25-28.
Best Novel
The Dagger’s Path, Glenda Larke (Orbit)
Day Boy, Trent Jamieson (Text Publishing)
Graced, Amanda Pillar (Momentum)
Lament for the Afterlife, Lisa L. Hannett (ChiZine Publications)
Zeroes, Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, and Deborah Biancotti (Simon and Schuster)
Best Novella or Novelette
“The Cherry Crow Children of Haverny Wood”, Deborah Kalin, in Cherry Crow Children (Twelfth Planet Press)
“Fake Geek Girl”, Tansy Rayner Roberts, in Review of Australian Fiction, volume 14, issue 4 (Review of Australian Fiction)
“Hot Rods”, Cat Sparks, in Lightspeed Science Fiction & Fantasy 58 (Lightspeed Science Fiction & Fantasy)
“The Miseducation of Mara Lys”, Deborah Kalin, in Cherry Crow Children (Twelfth Planet Press)
“Of Sorrow and Such”, Angela Slatter (Tor.com)
“The Wages of Honey”, Deborah Kalin, in Cherry Crow Children (Twelfth Planet Press)
Best Short Story
“2B”, Joanne Anderton, in Insert Title Here (FableCroft Publishing)
“The Chart of the Vagrant Mariner”, Alan Baxter, in Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan/Feb 2015 (Fantasy & Science Fiction)
“A Hedge of Yellow Roses”, Kathleen Jennings, in Hear Me Roar (Ticonderoga Publications)
“Look how cold my hands are”, Deborah Biancotti, in Cranky Ladies of History (FableCroft Publishing)
