Monthly Archive: July 2007

Campbell and Sturgeon Award Winners

  • News
  • July 10, 2007

The 2006 John W. Campbell Memorial Award and 2006 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award were presented at the Campbell Conference this past weekend in Kansas City. Each award was voted for by a jury of experts.

The Campbell Award, for best science fiction novel, went to Ben Bova’s Titan.

The Sturgeon Award, for best science fiction short story, was given to Robert Charles Wilson’s "The Cartesian Theater," from the anthology Futureshocks.

Also at the Campbell Conference, the Science Fiction Research Association presented several awards:

  • the Graduate Student Paper award, to Linda Wight for "Magic, Art, Religion, Science: Blurring the Boundaries of Science and Science Fiction in Marge Piercy’s Cyborgian Narrative"
  • the Mary Kay Bray Award, for the "best essay, interview, or extended review to appear in the SFRAReview during the year," to Ed Carmien for  his review of The Space Opera Renaissance edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
  • the Thomas D. Clareson Award for Distinguished Service, for "outstanding service activities-promotion of SF teaching and study, editing, reviewing, editorial writing, publishing, organizing meetings, mentoring, and leadership in SF/fantasy organizations,"to Michael Levy
  • the Pioneer Award, for "best critical essay-length work of the year" to Amy J. Ransom for "Oppositional Postcolonialism in Québécois Science Fiction,"  from the July 2006 issue of Science Fiction Studies
  • and the Pilgrim Award, honoring "lifetime contributions to SF and fantasy scholarship," to Algis Budrys.

[via SF Scope]

DENNIS O’NEIL: (Hey, Dude, ain’t he ever gonna git done yakkin’ about) Continued Stories

  • News
  • July 10, 2007

Last week, we were discussing the cons of continued stories, specifically what’s wrong with them, and we posited that they have a major problem in the difficulty new readers (or audiences) have in understanding the plot and characters. I said that there were remedies for this problem and now I’ll suggest, a bit timidly, that though remedies exist, nothing is foolproof.

Which brings us to the second difficulty with this kind of narrative, one closely related to the first. A potential reader who knows that the entertainment in front of him is a serial and that he’s missed earlier installments might think he’s come to the party too late, and so he won’t be tempted to enter it. Admittedly, this has more to do with marketing than stortytelling, but anyone who thinks that sales departments and creative departments aren’t entwined tighter than the snakes on a ceduceus isn’t paying attention.

There are probably more cons, but let’s let the subject rest with those two – we don’t want to beat anything to death, do we? – and proceed on to the pros.

Pro number one: Serialized stories build audience/reader loyalty. If you like the story you’ll want to learn what happens next and how the problems are solved and you’ll keep returning to satisfy your curiosity.

Pro number two (and this, to me, is the biggie): Serials present storytelling opportunities rare in other forms, if they exist at all. Continued narratives allow the storyteller to present a complex plot and a lot of subplots, as well as stuff that might not directly relate to the plot(s) but is, well, amusing.

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Comics News, Links & Reviews

  • Uncategorized
  • July 9, 2007

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Living Between Wednesdays has discovered some very weird Marvel toys, and documents them for our amusement. (That one there makes me want to sing: "Macho, Macho Spider! I’ve got to be a macho spider!…"

Chris Sims (of Invincible Super-Blog fame) has been annotating all of the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter comics so far, and he continues his streak with the new nine-page story in the hardcover collection of the Guilty Pleasures adaptation. Thrill to the snark about Sausage-on-a-Stick! Witness a whole string of eyball-closeup panels! Meet the man known as…Dolph!

The Charleston Gazette reviews DMZ: Body of a Journalist, the second collection of the DC Comics series written by Brian Wood and illustrated by Riccardo Burchielli.

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SF Awards Announced at Readercon

One of the science fictional world’s classiest conventions, Readercon, was held this past weekend in the suburbs of Boston, and your intrepid reporter was there. There wasn’t anything much comics-related happening — Readercon famously concentrates on the written word to the excusion of everything else — but two awards were presented over the weekend, which may be of interest.

SF Scope has a full report on the winners of the Rhysling Award, for science fictional poetry. Rich Ristow’s “The Graven Idol’s Godheart” won in the short category (fewer than 50 lines), while the long category winner was Mike Allen’s “The Journey of Kalish.”

The Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, funded by the heirs of Paul Linebarger (who wrote science fiction as Cordwainer Smith) to promote dead and obscure authors worthy of wider appreciation, went this year to Daniel F. Galouye, author of Dark Universe and Simulacron-3, which was filmed as 1999’s The Thirteenth Floor. (SF Scope, again, has a longer report.)

 

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Fifth Doctor Promoted To King Arthur

  • Uncategorized
  • July 9, 2007

davisonkingarthur-3957694My lord — it’s been days since we ran anything about Doctor Who. What sort of a comic book weblog are we if we don’t talk about a British TV show?

Peter Davison, a.k.a. the fifth Doctor (and star of Campion and The Last Detective), is set to play King Arthur in the West End production of Monty Python’s Spamalot. The 56-year-old, also known for his role as Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small, starts July 23.

The musical, based on 1975’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail, has won three Tony Awards on Broadway. Loosely based on the legend of King Arthur, Spamalot features flatulent Frenchmen, a legless knight and a killer rabbit. It was written by former Python Eric Idle, who incidentally recently unveiled his long-promised next project Not The Messiah (He’s A Very Naughty Boy) at Toronto’s Luminato festival.

So it wasn’t just an Idle promise.

Harry Potter Mania!

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It seems that every news outlet in the world is scrambling to keep up with the Harry Potter frenzy. And I know you people at home are wondering, "How can I keep up with all of these mildly diverting stories that all rehash the same three or four facts?" Well, friends, wonder no more, for we have gathered those stories for you, in the handy "hyperlink" format, for your clicking pleasure. Please, no applause…it’s what we’re here for.

The Boston Globe manages to find some doom-and-gloom in the story of how the Harry Potter books got millions of kids to read long, complicated books: some of those kids might not be reading much else! (Shock! Horror!)

Continuing the all-Harry-all-the-time drumbeat, the Minneapolis Star Tribune anatomizes the secrets of Harry’s appeal.

And the Arizona Republic ponders the musical question: Will Harry Potter become a classic?

The Austin Statesman-American worries that young fans will abandon books entirely after Deathly Hallows. (Just as millions of Americans have given up on television after the Sopranos finale.)

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Joe Dante launches Trailers from Hell

  • Uncategorized
  • July 9, 2007

Joe Dante, who directed the Gremlins films, Small Soldiers, Matinee, Amazon Women on the Moon and five episodes of Eerie, Indiana, is launching a new website.  According to Variety, Trailers from Hell lets directors record commentary tracks to scary movie trailers, which you can then pick up on line or on your cell phone. 

Besides Joe, other directors on the site are Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz), Mick Garris (the television versions of The Shining and The Stand), and Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary). 

You can see the site at trailersfromhell.com, and Sprint’s Fun Little Movie channel.

Kahn Fired From Daily Planet

  • Uncategorized
  • July 9, 2007

perry1-3659529"Pauline" Kahn, a.k.a. Carrie Fisher, is no longer editor of The Daily Planet. Oh, Pauline, we hardly knew ye.

She’s being replaced on the Smallville series by Hidden Palms / The O.C.‘s Michael Cassidy. According to TV Guide.com, Cassidy will appear in at least six episodes and will be the next love interest of Lois Lane, doubtlessly leaving Oliver Queen all a-quiver.

Don’t know if he’ll be playing Perry White. The character was previously on Smallville a couple seasons ago, as played by 60 year-old Michael McKean, who just happens to be married to Martha Kent herself, Annette O’Toole. Since Cassidy is a mere 24 years old, such casting will look a little bizarre.

Hmmmm. Bizarr-o?

Artwork copyright DC Comics and/or Warner Bros. Animation. All Rights Reserved.

F&SF News & Links

The Slush God quotes from a bunch of writers who have seen the Transformers movie, most notably Cherie Priest, who made me laugh out loud with things like “I think that now I can DIE OF AWESOME POISONING because that was more awesome than a whole SWIMMING POOL THAT HAS BEEN FILLED WITH AWESOME, and then someone shoves A PAIR OF GIANT DUELING ALIEN ROBOTS INTO THE SWIMMING POOL, and there’s a UNICORN STANDING IN THE BACKGROUND, GRANTING WISHES and SHITTING DIAMONDS.”

Maureen McHugh explains the attitude of a writer towards a work in progress, via this handy chart.

Jacob Weisman, publisher of Tachyon Publications, recently got married, and both Frank Wu and Susan Palwick were there. The best part: they recited the Green Lantern oath (the one written by Alfred Bester) to each other as part of the ceremony.

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Too Many Bat-Baddies

Reports have been surfacing all weekend that both Two-Face and The Riddler will be joining The Joker in The Dark Knight, sequel to Batman Begins. If so, I hasten to point out that this is the sort of thing that killed the last round of Bat-films: too many villains.

One can hope that, at worst, we will see these guys in their pre-presumed identities.  Then the movie will choke on an overdose of foreshadowing, but  that beats the camera having to pick favorites for each shot. Nothing would beat two hours of Batman taking on The Joker, pure and simple.

Damn. And I really liked Batman Begins.

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