News: June 2008 Archives
John Scalzi is asking What Are the New SciFi Classics? over at SciFi Scanner. ie. post 1991 SF films, that are classics. His suggestions are:
- The Matrix
- Ghost in the Shell
- The Incredibles
- 12 Monkeys
- Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
Which sounds like a good list, although I still haven't seen Ghost In The Shell or 12 Monkeys.
The only obvious film I can think of that is missing and should be in there at the expense of another is Primer, which is, as you may know, mind-blowingly awesome.
Jonathan McCalmont's latest Futurismic column (Blasphemous Geometries) is online and entitled How to define a genre … and why not to bother...
Scientists have proved that 86.4% of all arguments in genre boil down to disagreements over what does and does not fit within a particular genre or subgenre.
Excellent stuff. Personally I definitely prefer saying "this is what I call Science Fiction" rather than the tick-list definition approach.
The 67th World Science Fiction Convention, known as Anticipation, will
take place in Montréal, Québec, Canada from Thursday, August 6th
to Monday, August 10th, 2009.
Their programme participant application is now online, so fill it in if you fancy taking part in a panel etc.
Fancy asking Iain Banks a question?
In a few weeks’ time, the one and only Iain [M] Banks will be participating in an email QandA session, which will be conducted via the official Iain Banks website at www.iain-banks.net.
All the details are on www.orbitbooks.net
Send your best question (just one per correspondent, please), by email, to orbit@littlebrown.co.uk, with the subject line ‘Iain [M] Banks QandA Suggestion’. The deadline for submissions for this first session is July 9th.
At Alt.Fiction last year I saw him speak and asked him what advice he had for new writers. Apart from the usual "write lots" he also said that there's no such thing as a perfect novel. In other words, finish it, edit it, but eventually let it go, and write something else.
Woah. I want it now.
The 2008 Locus Awards winners have been announced, with Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union taking best SF Novel.
Issue 15 of Postscripts (by PS Publishing) has a rather amazing line-up. Here's the full list and a here's a quick, personal list of authors with stories in the issue that make me go "oooh":
Keith Brooke, Ray Bradbury, Brian Stableford, Eric Brown, James Lovegrove, Stephen Baxter, Paul Di Filippo, Jay Lake, Ian Mcdonald, Justina Robson and loads of Paul McAuley.
Plus a guest editorial by some bloke called Sir Arthur C. Clarke.
As someone who has tended to see Postscripts as more Fantasy than SF, this issue seems like the perfect rebuttal.
In the build up to the first part of the Doctor Who finale tomorrow, the BBC have part one of a video interview with Billie Piper, which is only available in the UK.
No spoilers (bar the obvious one), and no rumours.
Talking of lightsabers, here's The 10 Best Lightsaber Mash Ups.
Via Gareth
Via SF Signal here's the American Film Institute's Top 10 Science-Fiction Films
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
- Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
- E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982)
- A Clockwork Orange (1971)
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
- Blade Runner (1982)
- Alien (1979)
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
- Back to the Future (1985)
Not really a lot to complain about there. A top ten list with no controversy, how very controversial.
Jonathan McCalmont has launched a new website called Fruitless Recursion:
Fruitless Recursion is an online journal devoted to discussing works of criticism and non-fiction relating to the SF, Fantasy and Horror genres. It will cover biographies, substantial works of critical theory, collections of reviews as well as any interviews, profiles or examinations of any other works that are deemed to be fitting.
Issue 0 is online now, with a review of Paul Kincaid's collection What It Is We Do When We Read Science Fiction, and a review of Joanna Russ's collection The Country You Have Never Seen.
If you write reviews you should also note that it's a paying market:
Fruitless Recursion is first and foremost interested in reviews and critical reactions to works of criticism and non-fiction relating to the SF, Fantasy and Horror genres. These can include biographies, works of critical theory, collections of interviews or overviews of other critical journals.
If you don't want to see a huge spoiler for Doctor Who, close your eyes!
Spoilers ahead....
Bungie.net has the news that Tobias Buckell is to write the next Halo novel:
Halo: The Cole Protocol will be the sixth novel set in the Halo Universe. Tobias S. Buckell, author of Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin will pen the novel, which reveals the location of the Spartan Gray Team and "takes readers into an unexplored conflict of the Human-Covenant War where unlikely alliances are formed and shattered..."
I don't quite see the point, but a group of Jericho fans are running a Save Jericho Again campaign.
The group paid for the advertising time through a fund-raising campaign which generated more than $6,000 in three weeks.
Personally I loved the first series and thought the second series was interesting but flawed. But if it's finished, it's finished. Surely?
Strange Horizons reviews Torchwood, season two, and made me laugh:
So imagine that you're a TV show. You're having a nice evening with your other half, you've enjoyed a good meal and some fine wine, and now things are getting a little more... intimate. When the phone rings at some crucial moment, what do you do? You do nothing, because you've got no friends and there's no woman stupid enough to be left alone with you—everyone's worked out that all you do is talk about your pain like it's big and impressive. So you sit there, hope for renewal, and wonder where it all went so wrong. Because you're Torchwood.
Oooh, I like the new Clone Wars trailer:
UPDATE
Well, the trailer I embedded didn't stay on Vimeo long and anyway it had French subtitles!
Best just to go to the Star Wars site and watch it.
Orbit are running a series of posts where author's describe their own books, including Sean Williams on Saturn Returns:
Saturn Returns is a complicated psychological piece (with lots of explosions)
...and...
(The third book is, naturally, a car-chase.)
Ha.
I understand that Neil Gaiman has been approached to write for the popular TV series "Doctor Who," for broadcast in 2010.
And that's it!
Watch Neil's blog for any comment.
Well, using an elastic definition of simultaneously probably, but that's still very nice.
According to a speech given at the Banff World Television Festival by Jana Bennett, director of BBC Vision, the BBC will be airing the third season of Heroes simultaneously with it broadcast on NBC in the States.
Is that the first time the BBC have done that? What other shows have been shown the same time in the UK and the US on the BBC?
Via SFX
Every year Strange Horizons has a fund drive. Why? Direct from the site...
...we depend on your help to keep our magazine going. All of our staff members contribute their time and energy for free, but our authors and artists do get paid. We are committed to paying professional rates for high-quality fiction, poetry, art, and nonfiction. In this fund drive, we're hoping to raise $6000, which is about one-third of our annual budget. We are hoping that you, Dear Reader, will help us reach that goal.
Go to their Strange Horizons 2008 Fund Drive page to donate some cash.
The Official Doctor Who site has updated it's FAQ which has loads of categories (including jobs!) and has answers to such questions as:
Is Russell T Davies leaving the show?
Yes, Russell will be overseeing the Doctor Who specials in 2009 and will be replaced by series writer Steven Moffat for Series Five.
Will Freema Agyman return?
Yes, she is set to appear again later in Series Four.
Will Billie Piper Return?
Yes, she is set to appear later in Series Four.
Which you probably knew anyway.
And answers to such questions as this:
Are the Time Lords really dead?
The Doctor is the last of the Time Lords. We've no details of any other survivors, including Susan, The Rani, Romana or Chancellor Flavia. Please don't email us about this.
STOP EMAILING THEM! OKAY?
Joe @ The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log has the details of David Tennant's appearance on Andrew Marr's very serious political Sunday monring show. I'm going to just paste the conversation (with minor edits) as Joe typed it (thanks!) because it made me laugh a lot...
Andrew Marr : “Everybody who’s heard that you’re coming on has asked me to ask you the same question.â€
David Tennant : “What’s that?â€
AM : “Are you going to do another series?â€
DT : “Yes, well… I’ve not really been asked yet…,â€
AM : “I think it’s a reasonable guess that you will be asked,â€
DT: “Well then, if and when I’m asked I’ll consider the question…â€
Ho, ho. Watch the video here.
Today's Guardian has a decent length interview with Charles Stross:
"Many science fiction writers are literary autodidacts who focus on the genre primarily as a literature of ideas, rather than as a pure art form or a tool for the introspective examination of the human condition," he says. "I'm not entirely at ease with that self-description."
With a smiling Jobsian picture too.
Allan Steele emailed to say that he has a new website for his Coyote series of novels, www.coyoteseries.com. The site includes video, a podcast, a short story, background material to the novels, a forum, artwork and more.
I've never read anything by Allan Steele (I seem to say that endlessly and the list gets longer instead of shorter...), which is clearly wrong because he is a Hugo winner (1996 for Best Novella) and I'm trying to read every Hugo winner...ever. Eventually. Anyway, I can't comment on how intriguing the material is for a fan, but there are some summaries for new readers to try and tempt you.
I also want to comment on the covers of the books (seen at the bottom of the front page). Here are two examples:
Immediately I guessed that the top row (left above) were the US covers and the bottom row (right above) were the UK versions. And I was right, the versions I'm not keen on are the Ace editions, the versions I think are quite groovy are the Orbit editions. Which proves that at least one side of the marketing machine is doing a good job.
The TLS and Michael Chabon sum it up better than me...
Munificent artists can’t be contained within the arbitrary distinctions between literature and genre, the “serious†and the “entertainingâ€. Chabon doesn’t need to reach for his gun to dispatch such distinctions. He simply redefines them: “All literature, highbrow or low, from the Aeneid onward, is fan fictionâ€.
If you are not bored of the never ending SF vs Literature debate Jake Seliger has an essay on the subject. He begins:
Why does so little science fiction rise to the standards of literary fiction?
...and continues...
...the more science fiction I read, the more I realize so much of it just doesn’t have the skill in narrative, detail, character, sympathy and complexity, language, and dialog that readers of literary fiction demand. I still like a lot of science fiction, but most of it now causes me to roll my eyes and skip pages: characters have no life, the books have no lifeness, clichés abound, and strong setups devolve into variations on cowboys and indians.
He uses Day Of The Triffids as an example of not great literature. Well, yes. That's not exactly a surprise though is it?! But there's as many crap "Literary Novels" as there are SF novels. And there are plenty of SF novels that can be considered "literary". If you're short of ideas may I suggest reading all of the Clarke Award shortlists as a start.
Something I tend to agree with more is the discussion about SF novels and length and series. Jake says:
...one came from an agent who said he found the idea intriguing but that science fiction novels must be at least 100,000 words long and have sequels already started.
Most modern SF is around that length (or much longer), yet there's loads of great classic SF that's plenty shorter. But as usual I can find exceptions both The Road and The Carhullan Army are (excellent) modern SF novels which are surely shorter than 100,000 words (just looking at their thickness on my shelf).
As regards sequels, they generally annoy me unless the whole story is envisaged as a finite multi-book arc - in other words one story published as many books ala The Baroque Cycle. Yet there are exceptions to that too, The Culture, and The Sprawl series to name just two.
And in the end, it's a business, and the publishers decide what they want, going on what they think sells.
It's easier just to give up on generalisations, because a good novel is a good novel, no matter how many words, or what genre, or how much it sells .
David J. Williams' The Mirrored Heavens has a great web site to accompany the novel. I guess that a decent web site is somewhat expected these days (and this is the second site I've blogged about today), but I'd like to mention The Mirrored Heavens particularly for it's great artwork and submersive qualities (want to see a picture of a Mark VII particle beam cannon/standard mounting-sat?!). I can't find a mention of who the artist(s) are on the site, but I like it.
I haven't read the book yet, but it's now on my reading list.
David also has a blog on the site.
The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway (which I'm currently reading) has a new website. It's one of those flash sites where you spend ages clicking on things to see what happens. You'll either love it or hate it, depending on whether you are a hardened veteran of the html+css wars.
Personally I think it's quite funky, especially the recipe for Flapjacks.
Just reiterating this in case anyone here doesn't read Torque Control, tomorrow is the BSFA/SFF joint AGM in London. Here's the schedule:
1000 Doors Open
1030 Opening, then Guest - Geoff Ryman
1130 Panel: The BSFA - Historical Footnote or Force for the Future?
1230 SFF AGM
1300 Lunch break
1400 BSFA AGM
1430 Guest - Peter Weston
1530 Break
1545 Panel: Fan Media in the Dock - the legal status of fan art and fiction.
1645 Close
1700 Pub
The venue is Conway Hall.
And the cool thing? It's free. The other cool thing? Apart from the AGMs it's open to all.
I'm going, come and say hello.
Bad news: Torchwood will be back in 2009
Good news: You only have to suffer it for a week.
Yesterday I was reading the Metro (briefly, I was bored) and was slightly amazed to see a paragraph or two about the new Captain Britain comic, written by Paul Cornell and art by Leonard Kirk. Along with Paul Cornell saying something about how he felt sorry for Gordon Brown. What?! I forgot the exact quote because I left the Metro on the bus, like you're supposed to. But fortunately The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log has a nice summary, including a panel and the exact quote. So now I don't have to worry about finding it.
Solar Flare has more news of the Survivors Remake From BBC
Survivors is currently filming in Manchester with an intended broadcast in the UK of Autumn 2008 on BBC One.
Sounds like it could be cool. An Apocalyptic TV show is just what I need to compliment my current Apocalyptic reading.
Futurismic has a new story online VERITAS NOS LIBERABIT by Kristin Janz
