September 2008 Archives

Neal Stephenson's Books Are Too Large

Positive science fiction inspires people to act and influence positive change.I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a world of slackers who can do nothing more than complain about "the man" and "the system." I want people to be inspired to get the education and do the work necessary to get us off the planet. To fix the environment. To figure out systems that don't need to go through destructive boom and bust cycles. To extend our lifespans. To discover wholly new frontiers. To create new life. To develop true artificial intelligence. To make workable nanotechnology. To create space elevators. We will not do this by wallowing in sorrow; we will not do this by bemoaning our fate; we will not do this by laying about on the couch.

• Paul Kincaid's review of Mike Ashley's Gateways to Forever: The Story of Science Fiction Magazines from 1970 to 1980. 
• Alvaro Zinos-Amaro's review of Gabriel McKee's The Gospel According to Science Fiction: From the Twilight Zone to the Final Frontier. 
• Niall Harrison's review of Michael Chabon's Maps and Legends. 
• Jonathan McCalmont's review of Studies in Modern Horror, edited by NGChristakos.

This autumn BBC Children in Need is offering you a fantastic prize. The BBC will take you and up to three friends or members of your family backstage at the BBC Wales studios near Cardiff on November 8th or 9th.

It's the home of Doctor Who, Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures. You'll see what goes on behind the scenes and how the BBC brings all those other worlds to life, meeting set designers, costumiers, make-up artists and monster makers Millennium FX.

JUMPER :)
Does teleporting
cause limbs to atrophy? No!
It makes you quite buff.

• Terminator Salvation now that The Sarah Connor Chronicles is back on air again it makes the promise of a new Terminator film all the more exciting. Watch the teaser trailer again, imagine how good it could be and roll-on May 2009.
• Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Amazon say they've dispatched it. Hurrah!
  
• Heroes. The cool BBC trailers have got me excited, hopefully it will live up to it's unfulfilled potential. It starts in the US tonight and in the UK, on BBC Two, on Wednesday 1st October at 9pm.

The stories they read were great: during his tale, Mamatas shifted slowly in my mind into the very slightly new category of that guy who wrote the Cthulhu mythos story in the style of Raymond Carver. And after [David] Levine's reading, I have him mentally categorised now as "The Ted Chiang of Toontown".

Yes - it has been [slipped]  - to the 1^st of October - there was a glitch with the ISBN number and some bookstores do have it already, but very few.  All will be on course for the 1^st though,

SFSignal has a good post summarising all the SF TV programmes starting in the US this Autumn.

I'm interested in seeing Heroes, The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Fringe.

Heroes is going to be shown on the BBC shortly. I thought they were aiming for the same week as the US but this seems to have slipped as the date now appears to be 25th September.

The Sarah Connor Chronicle will be shown on Virgin 1, although I can't find any mention of when it starts. (The Virgin 1 site is really rubbish).

Fringe will be shown on Sky One this Autumn.

Also worth mentioning is that ITV2 had the first series of Pushing Daisies and so will presumably get the second.

Shows not mentioned that I want to see are The Clone Wars and Dollhouse. Presumably The Clone Wars will be on the UK Cartoon Network? And I've no idea about Dollhouse yet.

Sky is a satellite, subscription channel. Virgin 1 and ITV2 are free digital channels. And of course the BBC is paid for by the mighty licence fee.

After four-and-a-half years, I am resigning as an Interzone co-editor. I do not take this decision lightly, but it is what I feel I must do. The reason is simple: like a rock band where one musician quits because she/he doesn't like the musical direction the band is taking (the well-known 'musical differences'), I am unhappy with the direction and tone the fiction in Interzone will be taking.

We are, however, a little perplexed at the idea that Jetse's departure has been caused by a change in Interzone's "direction and tone". No such change was identified or discussed at any time within the team. The three remaining fiction editors do not feel there has been any shift in our editorial process, quality standards, ethics or strategy.

"I asked the contributors to this anthology to write about paradigm shifts--technological, scientific, political, or cultural--and how individuals and societies deal with such changes."

"It is my hope that reading these stories inspires some to plant their own seeds of change--that when we see something wrong, we'll do something about it"

Laundry day 

See you there 
Under things 
Tumbling 
Wanna say 
Love your hair 
Here I go 
Mumbling 
With my freeze ray I will stop the world 
With my freeze ray I will find the time to find the words to 
Tell you how 
How you make 
Make me feel

So here's a suggestion. We get over the sci-fi thing. We can still keep talking about SF and science fiction, but we should give up the knee-jerk sense of insult whenever the sci-fi label is applied to what we do. To the outside world, we're like music bores getting upset with the term "hi-fi". It should be "high-fidelity", doncha know. If we still need a term to isolate the tacky end of the genre, I've got one right here. We can call it "crap sci-fi", like the rest of the world does.

1. Star Wars - YES!
2. Harry Potter And The Philospher's Stone - Hmmm
3. The Last Starfighter - YES! (I so wanted to play that game)
4. My Neighbor Totoro - Never heard of it, but it's Miyazaki
5. Time Bandits - YES!
6. The Dark Crystal - maybe, it's muppets
7. WarGames - YES! YES!
8. Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang - YES! The scary child catcher will be good for them.
9. Goonies - YES!
10. Back To The Future - YES! YES!