Today's Fan Fiction Friday installment is one of the stranger bits of fan-produced fiction around. It exists on multiple levels: As an adaptation of a well-known fantasy novel; as an expansion upon that novel; as a commentary on the novel; and as a couple of naked chicks in bed.
Those of you who live in San Francisco may know what I'm talking about: Heatherly and Julie's Fantasy Bedtime Hour, which features the literary criticisms of Our Heroines, Heatherly and Julie, as they read and discuss Lord Foul's Bane.
In bed.
Naked.
Four pages at a time they go through the book, despite being "ill-equipped to handle fantasy novel concepts." To help them along the way, a variety of different experts on the book hop into bed with them and answer their questions. In addition, Heatherly and Julie also direct short dramatizations of the book which help them demonstrate their grasp of the material.
So far, they're up past page 300 somewhere already; and the best part, for those of us who don't live in San Francisco (or Portland, Maine); is that the first twenty-two episodes are available for download, at a heady 64 megabytes or so of Quicktime goodness apiece.
Friday, March 04, 2005
Quatermass remake
The 1950s British TV sci-fi Quatermass was shown live, and not much got recorded, so I only know most of it from the scripts and stills and a few clips. (There's a pretty good Hammer film of the third story, and sorry hammed-up films of the other two.) The scripts were beautifully eerie, full of growing strangeness and menace, and I'd have given a lot to see the full series. I just hope that when they do the new live production, they record it all this time.
Good Heavens.
I have a theory that the total amount of Trekkerism in the universe remains constant. Thus, the smaller Trek fandom gets, the more passionate it becomes.
How else do you explain this THREE MILLION DOLLARS?
THREE MILLION DOLLARS to bring back one of the lowest-rated shows on television. That's TEN TIMES the Farscape fund. In two weeks.
It amazes me that such loyalty to Trek remains (no need to beat my opinion of the show into the ground), but that's almost beside the point now. This is a rather difficult effort to ignore. It may be a watershed moment in the history of television.
THREE MILLION DOLLARS.
Man.
How else do you explain this THREE MILLION DOLLARS?
THREE MILLION DOLLARS to bring back one of the lowest-rated shows on television. That's TEN TIMES the Farscape fund. In two weeks.
It amazes me that such loyalty to Trek remains (no need to beat my opinion of the show into the ground), but that's almost beside the point now. This is a rather difficult effort to ignore. It may be a watershed moment in the history of television.
THREE MILLION DOLLARS.
Man.
Thursday, March 03, 2005
That Which Does Not Kill Me Makes Me Stagger
New Scientist is reporting on a controversial new weapons system being developed and tested by the Office of Naval Research and the Universities of Florida and Central Florida. The weapon is a laser system designed to cause a burst of superheated plasma when it hits a target.
So far, so good, of course; that's pretty much what all high-powered lasers would do. It's also why lasers designed to cut through things have to be pulsed: The plasma cloud at the point of impact tends to interfere with the laser beam otherwise; pulsing the laser allows the plasma to disperse in between "shots."
With this laser, however, the burst of plasma is the whole point of the exercise: The expanding plasma carries an electromagnetic pluse across the body of the person on the receiving end, triggering intense sensations of pain. The design parameters are for the weapon to cause excruciating pain to a target up to 2 kilometers distant. Between the EMP and the force of the plasma burst, it is expected to be able to knock someone to the ground and leave them writhing in pain without permanently injuring them.
This is not the only such project under development: Taking a slightly different tack, DARPA is working with an Indiana company called Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems to create what has been described as a "wireless taser" which shoots a column of plasma at a target, and then uses that column of plasma to conduct the electrical charge. Future versions are expected to use — wait for it — lasers to ionize the air between the gun and the target before zapping the electric charge down the column of ionized air.
These weapons are all supposed to be non-lethal; they are primarily designed for crowd control. Critics, however, are understandably concerned about the fact that the job of the Florida researchers appears to be one of carefully figuring out how to make the EMP as painful as it possibly can be. The idea of doing controlled experiments whose purpose is the infliction of maximum pain on the subjects certainly does have a certain air of Josef Mengele to it; and many experts on pain have serious doubts about the non-permanence of the damage involved.
In the meantime, though, it looks like weaponeers have managed to create something which has always been considered purely science-fictional: A laser which can be "set to stun."
So far, so good, of course; that's pretty much what all high-powered lasers would do. It's also why lasers designed to cut through things have to be pulsed: The plasma cloud at the point of impact tends to interfere with the laser beam otherwise; pulsing the laser allows the plasma to disperse in between "shots."
With this laser, however, the burst of plasma is the whole point of the exercise: The expanding plasma carries an electromagnetic pluse across the body of the person on the receiving end, triggering intense sensations of pain. The design parameters are for the weapon to cause excruciating pain to a target up to 2 kilometers distant. Between the EMP and the force of the plasma burst, it is expected to be able to knock someone to the ground and leave them writhing in pain without permanently injuring them.
This is not the only such project under development: Taking a slightly different tack, DARPA is working with an Indiana company called Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems to create what has been described as a "wireless taser" which shoots a column of plasma at a target, and then uses that column of plasma to conduct the electrical charge. Future versions are expected to use — wait for it — lasers to ionize the air between the gun and the target before zapping the electric charge down the column of ionized air.
These weapons are all supposed to be non-lethal; they are primarily designed for crowd control. Critics, however, are understandably concerned about the fact that the job of the Florida researchers appears to be one of carefully figuring out how to make the EMP as painful as it possibly can be. The idea of doing controlled experiments whose purpose is the infliction of maximum pain on the subjects certainly does have a certain air of Josef Mengele to it; and many experts on pain have serious doubts about the non-permanence of the damage involved.
In the meantime, though, it looks like weaponeers have managed to create something which has always been considered purely science-fictional: A laser which can be "set to stun."
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
The New Model Starfleet
[Okay, so it's Wednesday. I'll try to make up in verbosity what I lacked in timeliness]
How tall is today's tale? Just over a quarter of a million miles tall. And the best part is that it's all true, even if it is eerily similar to a tale told by a man who was, himself, half-fictional.
It all starts around 1638 or so. In Scotland, the National Covenant was pushing back against Charles I of England's attempts to "reform" the Scottish Church. The military and political reversals Charles was to experience would lead, in a few short years, to the "Short Parliament," the "Long Parliament," and, finally, the English Civil War. Into this environment arrived John Wilkins, a young churchman of respectable (if unspectacular) birth and a certified genius for mathematics and natural philosophy.
He also seems to have had a natural gift for not pissing people off, which was no mean feat in those days.
As a result of these gifts, he swiftly progressed from being a small-time vicar to being personal chaplain to a variety of increasingly powerful and influential figures — such as William Fiennes, and the King's nephew, Prince Charles Louis — who were to spend the next several years trying to kill each other. Not only did Wilkins come through that era unscathed, he went on to marry Oliver Cromwell's sister, become a close advisor to Richard Cromwell, and still survive the Restoration with only the slightest of inconveniences (Lavoisier would be so jealous).
Indeed, he is best known today for his accomplishments after the return to power of Charles II: specifically, the founding of the Royal Society, for which he was the first Secretary; and his treatise An Essay Toward a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, which contained quite sophisticated analyses of the ontology of natural language, and its explication in the construction of new, artificial languages (thus demonstrating, of course, that "Ontology Recapitulates Philology").
But just because his main claims to fame came after 1660 does not mean that he was sitting on his hands or kissing up to important people for the first 46 years of his life; far from it. In fact, in 1641, on the eve of the Civil War, he published Mercury, or the Secret and Swift Messenger, the first English-language work on cryptography (which is just the sort of thing that comes in handy during a Civil War).
Even that wasn't his first unique contribution, however: Before it, in 1640, he wrote what might be thought of as the Cosmos of its day, A Discourse Concerning a New Planet, which set forth in layman's English the discoveries and revelations of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and other cutting-edge scientists.
But even that was not his first work: In 1638, he wrote a curious book entitled The Discovery of a World in the Moone, or, A Discourse Tending to Prove That 'Tis Probable There May Be Another Habitable World in That Planet. As the title indicates, he felt that the Moon was a simple terrestrial sphere like the Earth, and that, as a result, it was likely to be inhabited.
While he understood that there was no requirement for it to be inhabited, he — like many leading natural philosophers of his time — considered it only reasonable to assume that if God had created a whole great additional world, He would naturally not let it go to waste. And just as humans had spread their presence across the whole of the habitable Earth (and Canada), it was natural for him to assume that the Moon was likewise occupied by its natives.
Being English, however, he went one step further than most individuals who had embarked upon that same course of speculation: He reasoned that creatures living on the Moon represented a vast, untapped market. Just think of the possibilities for trade and commerce! And so, in the third edition of his book, published in 1641, he began to lay forth the steps which would be necessary to undertake such a mission.
He was, as Dr. Allan Chapman described in a lecture at Gresham College, living in "a sort of honeymoon period in the history of science, when immense possibilities were expected and things had not yet started to go wrong."
The previous century had seen tremendous upheaval in the store of knowledge of the world inherited from Greek and Roman sources. Vast gulfs of impossibility had been conquered by the newly-formed armies of Science; brave explorers had discovered new lands where none had been known before; it must have seemed entirely natural that anything might be possible. Enough science was known to allow him to get a good head start on his project; but not enough science was yet known to show him where it was impossible.
He knew that the Earth was a giant magnet; he knew (more or less) that the Earth had what we now call gravity; and he knew that they both operated in roughly similar fashions. It wasn't hard for him to conflate the two into one force. He used trigonometry and careful measurements to estimate the heights of the tallest cloud tops as roughly 20 miles above the surface of the earth; it wasn't that unreasonable for him to assume, therefore, that anything above that point would be free from the magnetic pull of the Earth. Therefore, all one had to do was to somehow make it the first twenty miles straight up towards the Moon, and the rest would be dead easy.
As for the vehicle, he ended up taking a 17th century technological overkill approach to it. In addition to having immense wings coated with the feathers of particularly high-flying birds, it was to involve truly enormous springs, as well as every other cutting-edge gadget he could cram into it to propel it higher. He even played around with using gunpowder — not as a direct propellant, but as a method of applying tension to the springs, using a sort of gun barrel-cum-piston; almost a primitive internal combustion engine.
Goose wings and gunpowder springs: That perfectly encapsulates the heady combination of knowledge and ignorance that existed in the contemporary world of natural philosophy.
In the long run, of course, he never did land on the moon. He never even made a try at it. After all, England was slightly preoccupied with Civil Wars and whatnot until Wilkins was a comfortable middle-aged man with a family; and by the time the Royal Society was in full swing, discoveries by folks like Boyle and Hooke had thrown enough cold water on his earlier speculations to let him know that it was never to be: Outer space was a vacuum; space would be too inhospitable; springs could never be strong enough; and so forth.
It was too late.
And so, John Wilkins, who very nearly founded the first space program in the history of mankind; and who became the first human being ever to turn his gaze from the moon to a desk full of engineering calculations on how to get there; also became the first human to ever be disappointed by the cold equations of orbital mechanics and material science which conspired to keep him earthbound.
It has been just over 32 years now since Apollo 17 lifted off from the Taurus-Littrow valley on the Moon to return home. Looking up in the sky at night, I know how John Wilkins felt.
How tall is today's tale? Just over a quarter of a million miles tall. And the best part is that it's all true, even if it is eerily similar to a tale told by a man who was, himself, half-fictional.
It all starts around 1638 or so. In Scotland, the National Covenant was pushing back against Charles I of England's attempts to "reform" the Scottish Church. The military and political reversals Charles was to experience would lead, in a few short years, to the "Short Parliament," the "Long Parliament," and, finally, the English Civil War. Into this environment arrived John Wilkins, a young churchman of respectable (if unspectacular) birth and a certified genius for mathematics and natural philosophy.
He also seems to have had a natural gift for not pissing people off, which was no mean feat in those days.
As a result of these gifts, he swiftly progressed from being a small-time vicar to being personal chaplain to a variety of increasingly powerful and influential figures — such as William Fiennes, and the King's nephew, Prince Charles Louis — who were to spend the next several years trying to kill each other. Not only did Wilkins come through that era unscathed, he went on to marry Oliver Cromwell's sister, become a close advisor to Richard Cromwell, and still survive the Restoration with only the slightest of inconveniences (Lavoisier would be so jealous).
Indeed, he is best known today for his accomplishments after the return to power of Charles II: specifically, the founding of the Royal Society, for which he was the first Secretary; and his treatise An Essay Toward a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, which contained quite sophisticated analyses of the ontology of natural language, and its explication in the construction of new, artificial languages (thus demonstrating, of course, that "Ontology Recapitulates Philology").
But just because his main claims to fame came after 1660 does not mean that he was sitting on his hands or kissing up to important people for the first 46 years of his life; far from it. In fact, in 1641, on the eve of the Civil War, he published Mercury, or the Secret and Swift Messenger, the first English-language work on cryptography (which is just the sort of thing that comes in handy during a Civil War).
Even that wasn't his first unique contribution, however: Before it, in 1640, he wrote what might be thought of as the Cosmos of its day, A Discourse Concerning a New Planet, which set forth in layman's English the discoveries and revelations of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and other cutting-edge scientists.
But even that was not his first work: In 1638, he wrote a curious book entitled The Discovery of a World in the Moone, or, A Discourse Tending to Prove That 'Tis Probable There May Be Another Habitable World in That Planet. As the title indicates, he felt that the Moon was a simple terrestrial sphere like the Earth, and that, as a result, it was likely to be inhabited.
While he understood that there was no requirement for it to be inhabited, he — like many leading natural philosophers of his time — considered it only reasonable to assume that if God had created a whole great additional world, He would naturally not let it go to waste. And just as humans had spread their presence across the whole of the habitable Earth (and Canada), it was natural for him to assume that the Moon was likewise occupied by its natives.
Being English, however, he went one step further than most individuals who had embarked upon that same course of speculation: He reasoned that creatures living on the Moon represented a vast, untapped market. Just think of the possibilities for trade and commerce! And so, in the third edition of his book, published in 1641, he began to lay forth the steps which would be necessary to undertake such a mission.
He was, as Dr. Allan Chapman described in a lecture at Gresham College, living in "a sort of honeymoon period in the history of science, when immense possibilities were expected and things had not yet started to go wrong."
The previous century had seen tremendous upheaval in the store of knowledge of the world inherited from Greek and Roman sources. Vast gulfs of impossibility had been conquered by the newly-formed armies of Science; brave explorers had discovered new lands where none had been known before; it must have seemed entirely natural that anything might be possible. Enough science was known to allow him to get a good head start on his project; but not enough science was yet known to show him where it was impossible.
He knew that the Earth was a giant magnet; he knew (more or less) that the Earth had what we now call gravity; and he knew that they both operated in roughly similar fashions. It wasn't hard for him to conflate the two into one force. He used trigonometry and careful measurements to estimate the heights of the tallest cloud tops as roughly 20 miles above the surface of the earth; it wasn't that unreasonable for him to assume, therefore, that anything above that point would be free from the magnetic pull of the Earth. Therefore, all one had to do was to somehow make it the first twenty miles straight up towards the Moon, and the rest would be dead easy.
As for the vehicle, he ended up taking a 17th century technological overkill approach to it. In addition to having immense wings coated with the feathers of particularly high-flying birds, it was to involve truly enormous springs, as well as every other cutting-edge gadget he could cram into it to propel it higher. He even played around with using gunpowder — not as a direct propellant, but as a method of applying tension to the springs, using a sort of gun barrel-cum-piston; almost a primitive internal combustion engine.
Goose wings and gunpowder springs: That perfectly encapsulates the heady combination of knowledge and ignorance that existed in the contemporary world of natural philosophy.
In the long run, of course, he never did land on the moon. He never even made a try at it. After all, England was slightly preoccupied with Civil Wars and whatnot until Wilkins was a comfortable middle-aged man with a family; and by the time the Royal Society was in full swing, discoveries by folks like Boyle and Hooke had thrown enough cold water on his earlier speculations to let him know that it was never to be: Outer space was a vacuum; space would be too inhospitable; springs could never be strong enough; and so forth.
It was too late.
And so, John Wilkins, who very nearly founded the first space program in the history of mankind; and who became the first human being ever to turn his gaze from the moon to a desk full of engineering calculations on how to get there; also became the first human to ever be disappointed by the cold equations of orbital mechanics and material science which conspired to keep him earthbound.
It has been just over 32 years now since Apollo 17 lifted off from the Taurus-Littrow valley on the Moon to return home. Looking up in the sky at night, I know how John Wilkins felt.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Twilight of Witch World
I'm going to get ahead of the curve, here, and post something before it's time to use parentheses surrounding two dates in my message title: Andre Norton is in seriously failing health, and has returned from the hospital into hospice care at home, surrounded by the comforts of cats and books and friends.
On February 20, the SFWA announced the creation of the "Andre Norton Award," which will be given out each year, starting in 2006, for the best work of fantasy or science fiction for the young adult market. This came three days after she turned 93, and one day before she left the hospital; and it is singularly appropriate, given how many people have been turned on to science fiction — or reading in general — by her books.
Those of you who might wish to send her cards or letters can do so at:
On February 20, the SFWA announced the creation of the "Andre Norton Award," which will be given out each year, starting in 2006, for the best work of fantasy or science fiction for the young adult market. This came three days after she turned 93, and one day before she left the hospital; and it is singularly appropriate, given how many people have been turned on to science fiction — or reading in general — by her books.
Those of you who might wish to send her cards or letters can do so at:
Andre Norton
c/o Sue Stewart
1007 Herron Street
Murfreesboro, TN 37130
Observer Affects
Who knew that even zoologists need Heisenberg Compensators? Nature is reporting that equipping voles with radio collars — for purposes of tracking their movements — causes changes in their birth patterns, with the ratio of males to females born tilting heavily towards the production of more males.
This also explains why high-energy physics experiments in vole decay regularly yield such apparently contradictory results. Nevertheless, researchers at CERN say they are quite comfortable with their overall statistical analyses, and are pushing forward with plans to build new accelerators capable of producing collisions in the two to three trillion electron-vole range.
In the meantime, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are working to develop a "plasmonic cover," which could render an object invisible by using electron-density waves to prevent the scattering of light from the object's surface. While there are still immense technical hurdles to overcome, scientists around the world are already reported to be intensely jealous of how incredibly cool a name "plasmonic cover" is.
This also explains why high-energy physics experiments in vole decay regularly yield such apparently contradictory results. Nevertheless, researchers at CERN say they are quite comfortable with their overall statistical analyses, and are pushing forward with plans to build new accelerators capable of producing collisions in the two to three trillion electron-vole range.
In the meantime, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are working to develop a "plasmonic cover," which could render an object invisible by using electron-density waves to prevent the scattering of light from the object's surface. While there are still immense technical hurdles to overcome, scientists around the world are already reported to be intensely jealous of how incredibly cool a name "plasmonic cover" is.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Media Madness Monday
Well, it's been more than a month now since I introduced my last gimmicky theme, so I'm obviously overdue (by this time next year, I'll be wishing a happy 100th birthday to little old ladies named "Gladys," and giving £5 to anyone who spots me on the street and says the magic phrase).
First off, it looks like even things which never started must someday come to an end, as last December's reports of a new Babylon 5 theatrical movie, to be called The Memory of Shadows, has been superseded by this February's cold blast of bad news from JMS, that financing for the deal has fallen through for good, and there will be no movie.
On to a quick bit of cinematic sport: Halle Berry became, to my knowledge, only the second person to ever show up to accept a Razzie Award in person (the first was Showgirls writer Joe Eszterhas), when she picked up her Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress, for the execrable Catwoman.
Some news on the DVD front: The 2004 remake of Masamune Shirow's Appleseed now has a R1 DVD release date of May 5. There's no word on a R2 release date yet, but I don't want to hear any whinging at all from a region that is getting both The Ascent of Man and Civilisation on DVD in April.
And speaking of That Region Beyond The Seas, one of the most interesting bits of movie news I've heard in a while concerns a new movie, starring James Purefoy and Natalie Portman, which, for obvious reasons, is scheduled to open on Friday, the Fourth of November. It'll be one to Remember, that's for sure.
First off, it looks like even things which never started must someday come to an end, as last December's reports of a new Babylon 5 theatrical movie, to be called The Memory of Shadows, has been superseded by this February's cold blast of bad news from JMS, that financing for the deal has fallen through for good, and there will be no movie.
On to a quick bit of cinematic sport: Halle Berry became, to my knowledge, only the second person to ever show up to accept a Razzie Award in person (the first was Showgirls writer Joe Eszterhas), when she picked up her Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress, for the execrable Catwoman.
Some news on the DVD front: The 2004 remake of Masamune Shirow's Appleseed now has a R1 DVD release date of May 5. There's no word on a R2 release date yet, but I don't want to hear any whinging at all from a region that is getting both The Ascent of Man and Civilisation on DVD in April.
And speaking of That Region Beyond The Seas, one of the most interesting bits of movie news I've heard in a while concerns a new movie, starring James Purefoy and Natalie Portman, which, for obvious reasons, is scheduled to open on Friday, the Fourth of November. It'll be one to Remember, that's for sure.
Friday, February 25, 2005
Ook
Ah, the perfect start to a Fan Fiction Friday: Slashdot sez that a group of German Terry Pratchett fans have finished a fan film adaptation of Lords and Ladies, with all proceeds going to the Orangutan Foundation.
They have trailers online, although at the moment the servers hosting them have been rendered into their component atoms by the mighty force of fandom. For some mythical later date when they might return, however, here are links to the English trailer, the German trailer, and a quick scene with Cohen the Barbarian. For those who can't wait, there's also a Swedish mirror site for the English trailer, as well as a Bittorrent link.
But wait! That's not all! The part of the story which Slashdot missed (well, until I posted a message about it on the thread, at least) is that Lords and Ladies is not the only PTerry "Discworld" film nearing completion: LSpace has information about a group of Aussie filmmakers who are nearly finished with a film adaptation of the Discworld short story "Troll Bridge." Terry even wrote some new dialogue for the script.
They have trailers online, although at the moment the servers hosting them have been rendered into their component atoms by the mighty force of fandom. For some mythical later date when they might return, however, here are links to the English trailer, the German trailer, and a quick scene with Cohen the Barbarian. For those who can't wait, there's also a Swedish mirror site for the English trailer, as well as a Bittorrent link.
But wait! That's not all! The part of the story which Slashdot missed (well, until I posted a message about it on the thread, at least) is that Lords and Ladies is not the only PTerry "Discworld" film nearing completion: LSpace has information about a group of Aussie filmmakers who are nearly finished with a film adaptation of the Discworld short story "Troll Bridge." Terry even wrote some new dialogue for the script.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Just one more pick at the 'Tics, oh pleeeease
Bestest visual comment ever on the WB fever-dream. (By Matthew Hunter on Golden Age Cartoons, hosts of the annual Design An Ugly Video Cover contest.)
Groundroast Day
From Greg Stephens' Zwol comes this glorious story of an enterprising group of individuals who weren't afraid to demonstrate that Starbucks, being environmentally enlightened, is now going so far as to recycle even space-time and linear causality itself!
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
How to Destroy the World
From Claude Muncey, via Electrolite, comes this Must Read Primer for the Mad Scientist who is not afraid to dream big.
The good advice doesn't just extend to the planning and implementation stages, either: "Take a camera. Most of the methods listed above are incredibly spectacular and witnessing them will probably be once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you, so remember to capture the moment."
The good advice doesn't just extend to the planning and implementation stages, either: "Take a camera. Most of the methods listed above are incredibly spectacular and witnessing them will probably be once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you, so remember to capture the moment."
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Into the Garbage Chute, Felineboy
This Tuesday, for a change of pace, I thought I'd share a funny animal story with you.
Today's remarkable true-life tale of derring-do comes our way courtesy of Dr. Patricia Schroeder, Blues scholar and Professor of English at Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA (which, frankly, sounds like the kind of place you'd expect Professor Utonium to be from). Like our other animal tales, this one involves lovable pets, delicious food, and wanton household destruction.
Our story begins one night in the spring of 1999, with an innocent meal of smoked salmon...
Today's remarkable true-life tale of derring-do comes our way courtesy of Dr. Patricia Schroeder, Blues scholar and Professor of English at Ursinus College in Collegeville, PA (which, frankly, sounds like the kind of place you'd expect Professor Utonium to be from). Like our other animal tales, this one involves lovable pets, delicious food, and wanton household destruction.
Our story begins one night in the spring of 1999, with an innocent meal of smoked salmon...
One Door Closes...
Almost missed in the hubbub about Enterprise's cancellation was the likely-- but by no means certain-- announcement of Galactica's continued life. Slashdot discusses.
On the other hand, will Nintendo's ownzoring of Sci-Fi lead to problems with content?
Normal/abnormal dichotomy. I've been saying this for years...
Christie Davies sez this is Mapplethorpe doing SF illustration. (Work-safe.)
"Pleez, Joss! Pretty pleez! I'll be yor best frend!" I think the funniest thing about this story is how Wonder Woman and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are both "a kind of female superhero character." I mean, they're female and they're superheroes, but one's a normal teenybopper cheerleader with a Destiny, the other is a royal ambassador from a Land of Better-Than-We-Are. Extended conversation between them would be awkward. But y'know, they both punch and kick.
Or maybe Joel meant Emma Frost?
On the other hand, will Nintendo's ownzoring of Sci-Fi lead to problems with content?
Normal/abnormal dichotomy. I've been saying this for years...
Christie Davies sez this is Mapplethorpe doing SF illustration. (Work-safe.)
"Pleez, Joss! Pretty pleez! I'll be yor best frend!" I think the funniest thing about this story is how Wonder Woman and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are both "a kind of female superhero character." I mean, they're female and they're superheroes, but one's a normal teenybopper cheerleader with a Destiny, the other is a royal ambassador from a Land of Better-Than-We-Are. Extended conversation between them would be awkward. But y'know, they both punch and kick.
Or maybe Joel meant Emma Frost?
Monday, February 21, 2005
There's Still Room on T Campbell's Amazon Wish List
What better time than Jeri Ryan's 37th birthday to mention that Season One of Star Trek: Enterprise arrives on DVD May 3 (in other words, just about the same time that Season Cancelled reverses its final polarity).
Beyond 2772
Getting away from Loonatics for a bit, I've recently rediscovered Technorati, and through it, found two SF-related tidbits from Wired.
Bruce Sterling on the latest intersection of architecture and robotics: the viab.
Biohybridism for those who've lost a limb. Way better than Vic Stone's deal.
Bruce Sterling on the latest intersection of architecture and robotics: the viab.
Biohybridism for those who've lost a limb. Way better than Vic Stone's deal.
Bleeding Edge Animation
The irrepressible Chex gets on the Loonatics' case, and reveals their fatal design flaw. If the episodes end with group hugs there'll be trouble. Talking of trouble, if WB names their leader "Buzz Bunny" as reported, well... I wouldn't Google the name at work if I were you.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Saturday, February 19, 2005
F.M. Busby (1921-2005)
Victor Gonzalez' Trufen.net is reporting that Francis Marion Busby died yesterday afternoon in Seattle of intestinal problems, and complications from multiple surgeries to correct them.
Like many of his contemporaries, "Buz" made his mark in Fandom before going on to a successful career as a writer; and, along with his wife, Elinor, remained active in Fandom for the rest of his life. He and Elinor, along with Burnett Toskey and Wally Weber, edited Cry of the Nameless, the legendary fanzine of "The Nameless Ones" (Seattle Fandom in the 1950s and 1960s); they were also closely involved with Seacon, the 1961 Worldcon in Seattle.
Cry won the Hugo Award for "Best Fanzine" in 1960 — ironically, the only Hugo Award which he ever won, despite such memorable novels as Cage a Man, All These Earths, The Alien Debt, The Long View, and others in his "Rissa Kerguelen" series. He was also responsible for some excellent short stories, including "Getting Home" and "If This Is Winnetka, You Must Be Judy."
Further information, including funeral and memorial details, should be available later on his CaringBridge patient web page. His CaringBridge page also has a guestbook where well-wishers can leave their thoughts and condolences.
Like many of his contemporaries, "Buz" made his mark in Fandom before going on to a successful career as a writer; and, along with his wife, Elinor, remained active in Fandom for the rest of his life. He and Elinor, along with Burnett Toskey and Wally Weber, edited Cry of the Nameless, the legendary fanzine of "The Nameless Ones" (Seattle Fandom in the 1950s and 1960s); they were also closely involved with Seacon, the 1961 Worldcon in Seattle.
Cry won the Hugo Award for "Best Fanzine" in 1960 — ironically, the only Hugo Award which he ever won, despite such memorable novels as Cage a Man, All These Earths, The Alien Debt, The Long View, and others in his "Rissa Kerguelen" series. He was also responsible for some excellent short stories, including "Getting Home" and "If This Is Winnetka, You Must Be Judy."
Further information, including funeral and memorial details, should be available later on his CaringBridge patient web page. His CaringBridge page also has a guestbook where well-wishers can leave their thoughts and condolences.
Friday, February 18, 2005
Fan Fiction Friday, John Constantine Edition
The miracle is not that someone wrote a Hellblazer/Buffy crossover, or a Hellblazer/The Vampire Lestat crossover; those are practically mandatory. Having Cancer Man try to use John Constantine as a go-between for a shady deal is clever, and Krychek/Constantine slash is unusual, but X-Files crossovers aren't exactly unheard-of in fanfic circles, either, are they? And anyway, Ethan Rayne/John Constantine makes a lot more sense as a slash pairing.
Putting John Constantine at Hogwart's is also a bit obvious, what with Tim Hunter, and all: but when it leads to things like Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Constantine's list of "Things I Am Not Allowed To Do Any More at Hogwart's" ("28. 'Ten points from Gryffindor' is an acceptable form of discipline. 'Peeves? I'd like you to do something for me' is not"), who could possibly complain?
Other bits of British television also get their turn: Sometimes it's Mr. Steed and Emma Peel crossing paths with John Constantine; sometimes it's Doctor Who and his various companions who have the honor.
But all of this is still too normal, after its own fashion; too expected. We're talking about John Constantine, here! When you want to write about him, you've got to Bring the Weird. Twin Peaks is always worth a few weird points, but it's still not unexpected. If you sat down with a pad of paper and made a chart of all the media properties that you could drop John Constantine into, you'd have listed all of these at some point already.
Let's go off the charts, instead, now: Teaming John Constantine with TV psychic John Edwards (a Crossing Over crossover?) is a powerful step in the right direction; and dropping him into a Warren Zevon song that isn't "Werewolves of London" is a stroke of genius.
But beyond genius lies madness, and that is my preferred destination. For that is where you will find the terrible beauty of the John Constantine/Oh My Goddess! crossovers. Yes, crossovers. Plural. Including a musical.
After all that, who would balk at Sailor Hellblazer? I certainly wouldn't.
In fact, I'd probably scream, "Again! Again!"
Putting John Constantine at Hogwart's is also a bit obvious, what with Tim Hunter, and all: but when it leads to things like Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Constantine's list of "Things I Am Not Allowed To Do Any More at Hogwart's" ("28. 'Ten points from Gryffindor' is an acceptable form of discipline. 'Peeves? I'd like you to do something for me' is not"), who could possibly complain?
Other bits of British television also get their turn: Sometimes it's Mr. Steed and Emma Peel crossing paths with John Constantine; sometimes it's Doctor Who and his various companions who have the honor.
But all of this is still too normal, after its own fashion; too expected. We're talking about John Constantine, here! When you want to write about him, you've got to Bring the Weird. Twin Peaks is always worth a few weird points, but it's still not unexpected. If you sat down with a pad of paper and made a chart of all the media properties that you could drop John Constantine into, you'd have listed all of these at some point already.
Let's go off the charts, instead, now: Teaming John Constantine with TV psychic John Edwards (a Crossing Over crossover?) is a powerful step in the right direction; and dropping him into a Warren Zevon song that isn't "Werewolves of London" is a stroke of genius.
But beyond genius lies madness, and that is my preferred destination. For that is where you will find the terrible beauty of the John Constantine/Oh My Goddess! crossovers. Yes, crossovers. Plural. Including a musical.
After all that, who would balk at Sailor Hellblazer? I certainly wouldn't.
In fact, I'd probably scream, "Again! Again!"
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