The Burlesque, take 4

We are looking for people interested in helping with a zoom reading of The Frankenstein Burlesque.

We are still looking for people to do some of the minor roles: 3 x Police; 6 x Peasants, 3 x pirates, 4 x sailors; so feel free to volunteer or pass details on to anyone interested.
We’re going to repeat Scenes III (Police, magistrate, Inspector and peasants) and IX (Pirates & sailors) on Monday March 7th.
If you are interested, have a look at the text and let roman know which role you might want to try — there are named roles, major and minor, plus an assortment of sailers, pirates, et alia.
If you want to be involved, please email Roman (websmith [at] internode.on.net) and let him know ASAP!

Time: Monday, Mar 7th, 2022 06:30pm Adelaide / 7pm Melbourne

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82538397387?pwd=NW1ZWnFOV1pIZTExTXEvckF0bkI0QT09

Meeting ID: 825 3839 7387
Passcode: Frankie

Crit Mass Feb 23: A delight of stories

People are asked to bring along an SF&F novel/novella they enjoy, and tell us why they think it’s interesting. (Assume you have 5-7mins to convince us.) We will each choose one of the suggested works to read and report on at the March meeting.

Given the current state of the covid outbreak, the February meeting will be zoom only.

Critical Mass
Feb 23, 2022 6:30pm Adelaide, 7pm Melbourne

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82167796217?pwd=M2d0aUMwU01nbVVPa2g0czNXTjQxUT09

Meeting ID: 821 6779 6217
Passcode: 784499

Dangerous Visions and New Worlds

 I wanted to let you know that City Lights Bookshop are hosting a weekend long symposium that will use Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985, as a launching point for 8 sessions covering a range of topics. A flyer is below with the line-up. The event is free to attend and a link to register for the first day is below.

It’s happening on 26/2 and 27/2 (Pacific Standard Time) which for those of us in Adelaide means day one runs from 5:30am to 1:30pm on 27/2 and day two from 5:30am to 11am on 28/2.

If you could share this with people in the Nova Mob network then that would be most appreciated.

Cheers,

Iain.

Details & registration at City Lights bookshop for online sessions.

Nova Mob, Mar 9th – Perry Middlemiss on Short SF in 1965.

Perry plans to look at all the short SF/F published in 1965. What do you think are the best picks?
For what it’s worth, The World’s Best SF 1966 published these stories:

“Sunjammer” (Arthur C. Clarke); “Calling Dr. Clockwork” (Ron Goulart); “Becalmed in Hell” (Larry Niven); “Apartness” (Vernor Vinge); “Over the River and Through the Woods” (Clifford D. Simak); “Planet of Forgetting” (James H. Schmitz); “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” (Harlan Ellison); “The Decision Makers” (Joseph L. Green); “Traveler’s Rest” (David I. Masson); “Uncollected Works” (Lin Carter); “Vanishing Point” (Jonathan Brand); “In Our Block” (R. A. Lafferty); “Masque of the Red Shift” (Fred Saberhagen); “The Captive Djinn” (Christopher Anvil); “The Good New Days” (Fritz Leiber)

Note: Algis Budrys found the anthology unimpressive, saying that one-third of the stories “will not on inspection seem to be outstanding”.


7.30pm – 9.00pm Adelaide time, 8.00pm – 9.30 pm Melbourne time
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4177583193?pwd=VjdPL1BhSTBNclN2YnRsejN3Y1hlUT09

Passcode: nova

Meeting ID: 417 758 3193

A small matter of cattitude

The 2022 Cattitude Bundle, curated Dean Wesley Smith:

Being a professional fiction writer, being owned by a cat seems almost like a requirement for the job description.

What do you do for a living? Fiction Writer.

Owned by cats? Yup.

And one of the great elements of cats and writers is that writers tend to write stories with cats in the story. Logical. The cats are always just there, so we add them into all kinds of stories. From mystery to science fiction to high fantasy. Every type of story imaginable, a writer has put a cat in it.

That’s what this bundle is all about. Cats and cat attitude in ten different books full of lots and lots of cats. Actually there are twelve books, since there is one bundle of three books as well. I hope you enjoy all the wonderful and varied cat stories.

Read more about the 10 books in the bundle here, and make sure to click on each cover for a synopsis, reviews and preview of each book!

More details from StoryBundle

Subjective Chaos

The Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards has been running since 2018. Created by a group of enthusiastic and dedicated science fiction, fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction readers, it celebrates the best in genre fiction every year, while acknowledging the subjectivity of our choices. Any traditionally published work may be nominated, but the Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards aim to look beyond bestsellers and major publishers to champion titles written by marginalised authors and/or published by independent presses.

https://subjectivechaoskindofawards.wordpress.com/

The nominees for 2022

Fantasy

Lucy Holland, Sistersong
Khadija Abdalla Bajaber, The House of Rust
Tasha Suri, The Jasmine Throne
C.L. Clark, The Unbroken
Zoraida Córdova, The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina
Shelley Parker-Chan, She Who Became the Sun
A.C. Wise, Wendy, Darling
Laure Eve, Blackheart Knights
P. Djèlí Clark, A Master of Djinn

Science Fiction

Tade Thompson, Far from the Light of Heaven
Calvin Kalsuke, Several People are Typing
Nicole Kornher-Stace, Firebreak
Claire North, Notes from the Burning Age
Catriona Silvey, Meet Me in Another Life
Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shards of Earth
Brent A. Harris, Alyx: An AI’s Guide to Love and Murder
Benjamin Rosenbaum, The Unravelling
Arkady Martine, A Desolation Called Peace

More Categories at https://subjectivechaoskindofawards.wordpress.com/2022-2/

The finalists will be selected in July and winners announced in September (chaos notwithstanding).

Some of the Best from tor.com 2021 out now!

The 2021 edition of Some of the Best From Tor.com is now available! The anthology features twenty-four of our favourite original stories published on the site in the past year.

Of course, you can always read these — and all other — Tor.com stories for free whenever you’d like, but they are available world-wide as a single, easy-to-read, FREE ebook, available from all your favorite vendors.
These stories were acquired and edited for Tor.com by Ruoxi Chen, Ellen Datlow, Carl Engle-Laird, Emily Goldman, Jonathan Strahan, Lee Harris, Ann VanderMeer, and Lindsey Hall. Each story is accompanied by an original illustration.

Some of the Best of Tor.com, 2021 — Table of Contents

Murmuring Bones…

[Angela] Slatter’s book is similarly interested in the ways stories can obscure and reveal the truth, but on a more personal scale. All the Murmuring Bones follows a young woman trying to evade a forced marriage and discover the dark secrets of her own family. Are there plot-critical bits of family folklore interspersed with the main narrative? Are there hungry mermaids and vicious kelpies? Is there also a crumbling gothic mansion? Of course! It’s the merging of folklore and fact that most compelled me, though. “Stories,” Slatter says, “Are history, whether they are true or not.”

Seven Speculative Stories About Stories, Alix E Harrow, tor.com
The new Angela Slatter

Nova Mob Feb 2nd update

Murray writes

The 2 February meeting of the Nova Mob will be held by Zoom due to too much COVID active in the community. The Kensington Town Hall will be closed: there will not be any face-to-face meeting.

Iain McIntyre’s Dangerous Visions and New Worlds event is postponed to April. The delay will allow the event to be face to face and gives time for copies of the book to arrive in the country.

February’s meeting has 3 parts:

  • The year’s topics: what would you like to speak on in 2022, and do you want your event by Zoom or face to face?
  • Acknowledgement of the late Bill Wright.
  • Hindsight: your science fictional recommendation from 2021. A Nova Mob round-robin discussion.

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Vale Bill Wright

Farewell to a steadfast friend of fandom

On 16 January Bill Wright died at the Alfred Hospital after a bad fall the previous week which had resulted in his hospitalisation. He was a day short of his 85th birthday. 

Few people are as heavily intertwined with the history of Melbourne science fiction fandom as Bill Wright. A Life Member of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club; member and contributor to Anzapa with his regular zine Interstellar Ramjet Scoop; member of the Nova Mob for decades; member of the ASFF; enthusiastic convention-goer; fan ambassador; Bill’s legacy also includes among other things the Bill Wright archive of Australian fanzines; the Meteor concept for a Melbourne slanshack; and notably the Norma Hemming Award which he instigated. Many will recall his impish humour and his pleasure at conversation. This is a sad loss.

Reported by Elaine Cochrane, who also mentioned that about two hundred messages have been received to Bruce Gillespie’s Facebook posting, and that “he remained Bill till the end.”

Bill will be acknowledged at our February 2022 meeting of the Nova Mob.

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Nova Mob 2022 topics

You may not have a novel in you so maybe talk about someone else’s.

We have four items on the 2022 calendar, for February, March, April, and November respectively. The months of May, June, July, August, September, and October are available. Do you want to claim one of those months for your topic? Let it be known at February’s meeting.

The Clarke Awards look to have permanently shifted to a late September announcement, which means we could devote the September meeting to wrangling the Clarkes.

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February meeting: Hindsight: your science fictional recommendation from 2021.

What book/film/podcast etc would you commend to others from your 2021?

A Nova Mob round-robin discussion by Zoom.

You are invited to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Wednesday 2 February

8.00pm – 9.30 pm Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney time
7.30pm – 9.00pm Adelaide time
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4177583193?pwd=VjdPL1BhSTBNclN2YnRsejN3Y1hlUT09

Passcode: nova

Meeting ID: 417 758 3193

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Calendar

Mar 2 2022 Nova Mob – Perry Middlemiss on Short SF in 1965.

Apr 5 2022 Nova Mob – Iain McIntyre – Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985 by Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre.

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