April 2004 Archives

Jeff Noon talks about the film options on his books. ", I received the news that the producers, Pathe, have not renewed their option on the film of Vurt." Shame Vurt would make a remarkable film if done correctly. The good news "is that a production company called Tall Stories have taken an option on Falling Out Of Cars, with myself writing the screenplay." Fingers crossed.

The BBC Farscape site has a great page on how to swear in the Farscape universe, including audio clips.

Rick Berman has said that he has begun working on a new Star Trek film. He gave little away about the plot of the film, but he did say it would be a prequel. [Via BBC]. Get ready to do all that explaining over and over again...so he'll grow up to be who?

So in pursuing my Clone Wars For All campaign I decided to lurk around the official Star Wars forums. Quite a few people mentioned the problem that the cartoons could not be downloaded for free outside of the US but everyone seemed to have a solution. Kazaa. Hmmm, not exactly happy about that, how about a legal alternative? Time to email LucasFilm.

The Star tries to define and separate Science Fiction and Fantasy and has fun discussing books and movies on the way.

China Miéville reviews in Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life in the Guardian.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer has a nice article on the rise of the pacific northwest as a place of residence for science fiction writers. Includes quotes (probably all second hand) from Ursula K. Le Guin, Timothy Zahn, Vonda McIntyre, Neal Stephenson, William Gibson and more.

The BBC's excelllent Get Writing site now contains an article by Stephen Baxter on writing Science Fiction. It covers

• Finding inspiration
• Developing your ideas
• World-building
• Future and alternate histories
• How to inspire a sense of wonder
• Plus his top ten SF short stories

So you want to start reading Science Fiction? Where do you start? Well that's a great question because there is so much great stuff to read (and every year there's more). So here's a few sites to help you on your way.

Toyota are planning a sci-fi tech fest for Expo-goers . The exhibit includes plans to depict a world free of traffic accidents using the single-seater, capsule-shaped "i-unit" vehicle, which will have built-in sensors to automatically dodge other vehicles. Ahh the dream of driver free cruising ala Gold Coast.

Will Smith will be driving an Audi in I Robot. Don't remember that in the stories. The futuristic thing about the car is that it has spheres for wheels. Not sure how they attach to the chasis.

Neal Asher's The Skinner gets a review in the New York Times. Sounds like the book has only just made it across the pond. I read it a while back and although I didn't exactly enjoy some of it I thought it was a brilliantly fresh book.

Gardner Dozois has posted a message on the Asimov 's Discussion Boards talking about his move to step down as Editor.

The Mumpsimus - displaced thoughts on misplaced literatures. Brilliant, intelligent blog from Matthew Cheney. [Via SFSignal]

RevolutionSF reviews the Star Wars Party Book. It includes SW-themed foods, games and decorations. [Via SFSignal]

Hmmm, so I could get this for the kids then....

Brian Aldiss goes Weird. BBC Radio 4 to broadcast new science fiction show 'Weird Science'. [Via SFCrowsNest]

Sounds very cool. Here's an interview from Front Row to whet you're appetite.

The Oxford English dictionary commenced a project back in 2001 to solicit reader citations of the earliest uses of science words. ... An interesting graph on the site shows date of word origin by decade. [Via Slashdot]

So according to the graph it's all been downhil since the 40's.

The Clone Wars cartoon series has continued its run recently. It seems to have got a great reception, as did the first batch of episodes. Personally I can't give you an opinion because I haven't seen them. I have been denied the ability to view them and quite frankly I think that it is shocking.

The original novelizations of the Star Wars trilogy are re-released to coincide with the DVD release. I've still got my Return of the Jedi book, and I have the Marvel version of The Empire Strikes Back. Never read the original Star Wars book though...bit of course I'm going to.

There's a replica of the Delorean Time Machine in Back To The Future up for auction on eBay [Via Slashdot]. Not sure if the Flux Capacitor is in working order.

Salon's running a double feature on Stephenson today: a long interview with Neal, and a review by Andrew Leonard. [Via BoingBoing]

I'm still fighting my way through Quicksilver. I go through spells of enjoying it then finding it dull. The real problem is not having enough time to read (of course). But also with the book being so thick I don't tend to lug it around with me and read a chapter whilst making a cup of tea or whatever. Instead it sits, large and heavy on the table, the big tome. Anyway, enough procrastinating I want to read Confusion so I will finish it. The interview is well worth reading with some great quotes...

First Dave Pringle leaves Interzone, now Gardner Dozois is stepping down from Asimov's [Via BoingBoing]. Well hopefully the magazines are in good hands and the fresh life will lead to a new(?) resurgence in the short story market as opposed to its collapse (we're doomed! etc.)

Steven Den Beste gives a long Ultra Hard SF account of space battles. [Via PseudoPalms]. It reminds me of one of those tedious RPG's where space battles were realistic but consequently no fun at all!

StarWars.com has released details of the extras on the DVD versions of the original trilogy (released 21st September in case you've been on another planet). All I can say is <keanu>whoah</keanu>. I guess the one that will get the most press is

"In this exclusive preview, George Lucas discusses Anakin's descent, with a first look at the new Vader costume forged for Episode III. "

However I'm quite looking forward to seeing the original trailers and tv spots, seeing as I can't actually remember them.

The Disembodied Brain "Taking sci-fi and fantasy far, far too seriously." A SF blog, interestingly hosted by the San Diego Union Tribune.

Analog and Asimov's magazines presented their annual awards during the April 16 Nebula weekend festivities in Seattle. [SciFi.com news]

Winners include Lucius Shepard, John Varley and Michael Swanwick.

SCI FI Channel's upcoming original series Battlestar Galactica begins production this week in Vancouver, B.C., the network announced. Based on the December 2003 miniseries that became the most-watched cable miniseries of the year, Galactica returns to SCI FI Channel as a one-hour weekly drama in early 2005. [SciFi.com news]

The ragtag fleet back in full effect. Just please don't discover Earth in the second series, find out that you can jump really high and start acting like the series is in fact CHIPS.

Cory Doctorow has posted the speech that would have been his Nebula acceptance, if he had won. In Neil Gaiman style it's not one for children!

A nice account of the Nebula banquet from Byte Me Online.

Computer whiz gets $11.5m deal (Australian)
A COMPUTER whiz has pulled off an $11.5 million deal to develop computer games based on the television science fiction series Stargate SG-1 . [Yahoo! News]

No details of what the game would be like yet, but at a wild guess....first person shooter, one level per stargate, etc etc.

SFSignal.com, nice looking SF weblog.

The Nebula winners have been announced. Locus has the obligatory terrible photo of the winners. Elizabeth Moon won best novel for Speed of Dark and there's another one for the mantelpiece for Neil Gaiman, Coraline winning best novella.

Amidst all the hoo haa of the Hugo nominations the BSFA awards seemed to go a bit unnoticed. It took a few days (seemed like weeks in the blogosphere) before the news seeped through, mainly due to a mention on the SFWA site, although Locus also mentioned it. A quick shout at Locus, get a RSS feed for your news (or ATOM if you prefer). Why didn't the awards page on the BSFA site send out the news like a flare into the blogopolis?

Wired News: Paying Homage to Science Fiction
... Paying Homage to Science Fiction. ... Analog Science Fiction and Fact editor Stanley Schmidt is on the board of advisers for the Science Fiction Museum. ... [Google Alert results for: science fiction]

Lots about the new museum in the blogosphere, Wired have done one of the best pieces about it.

Malkovich Hitches On 'Galaxy'
John Malkovich will join the cast The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a movie based on Douglas Adams' SF radio show and book, for Spyglass Entertainment/Walt Disney Pictures, according to The Hollywood Reporter. [SciFi.com news]

...and Martin Freeman is Arthur Dent. Sounds intriguing.

Video: We Still Do A Little Bit
There are still times when you need to roll up your sleeves and do things the old fashioned way. [StarWars.com]

The third Episode III web documentary is online for the general public (as opposed to hidden away behind a Hyperspace subscription). The previous two are well worth watching too if you haven't seen them, the big highlight being the chance to see Anakin Skywalker's new haircut!

Well here it is Big Dumb Object is finally live. Welcome and I hope you enjoy it. So what is this site? It's a Science Fiction blog. What's a blog? Oh no, I'm not going there. Better people than me have tried and failed to nail down what a weblog is. What I can tell you though is what to expect from this site.

Is this thing on?