Category: Critical Mass News

A stunning new series from Joss Whedon, written by Jane Espenson and Douglas Petrie. If the first episode is any indication, it will be a very interesting series. Set in Victorian England, where a strange incident endows various people with talents. Will the gifted (as they are known) be allowed to continue their lives? Or are they too much of a threat to the established order. It doesn’t help that one of them has become a serial killer.

Another riff on the Sherlock Holmes canon, this TV series focuses on a team of young friends who are initially hired by Watson to investigate a case. Unlike the original, this is a series about the supernatural, as monsters cross a dimensional rift to terrorise London. As I recall, the hell-hound was the only supernatural element in the original canon.

It’s an interesting Netflix series, focussed on the inter-relationships between our young protagonists. A satisfying ending to series one seems to end the problem of the rift. It seems to be aimed at the YA market.Filming has apparently already begun on a second season. ❦

April 4, 2021

The winners for the 2020 British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) Awards have been announced.

Best Novel

• WINNER: The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

• Threading the Labyrinth, Tiffani Angus (Unsung Stories)
• Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury)
• The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, M. John Harrison (Gollancz)
• Light of Impossible Stars, Gareth L. Powell (Titan)
• The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
• Club Ded, Nikhil Singh (Luna)
• The Doors of Eden, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tor)
• Comet Weather, Liz Williams (NewCon)
• Water Must Fall, Nick Wood (NewCon)

see the full list of winners and nominees at Locus: the 2020 BSFA winners

No, I didn’t kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn’t dump the body in the station mall.

When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?)

Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans!

Again!

It’s with considerable delight that our speaker this Wednesday is Jane Routley, who will discuss her latest and just-launched fantasy novel “Shadow in the Empire of Light”. That meeting is a mere 48 hours away as I type this and Jane will be bringing copies along for the actual in-person signing thereof. More important is actually… getting… published…., and that it’s a good book (It’s a good book). Come along and hear Jane talk about the story of the novel, and the story of the writer. 

Jane will be speaking face to face at the Kensington Town Hall only.  There won’t be a zoom option for this Nova Mob event, more on this below. 

Jane is also known as Rebecca Locksley.

Jane Routley – After the launch:
“Shadow in the Empire of Light”

Wednesday April 7th

8.00pm – 9.30 pm or so, Melbourne time

Only at the first floor Conference Room,  

Kensington Town Hall

30 – 34 Bellair St

Kensington VIC 3031

Please don’t attend the physical meeting if you are feeling ill. At the Conference Room the sign-in obligations are as light as practicable – you’ll simply be asked for a contact phone number. Please do read the Nova Mob’s Safety Plan if you haven’t already. The Kensington Town Hall operators have locked the kitchen so please bring your own coffee. Nibbles will be provided as usual. 

Take a look here for the book launch:
https://www.facebook.com/Jane-Routley-Rebecca-Locksley-196061513783811/

***

I first announced the April meeting as being an acknowledgement of the late Yvonne Rousseau. That acknowledgement is in preparation and will take place at a future Nova Mob.

Zoom meetings are seeing more people attend remotely than for the physical meetings at Kensington Town Hall and a good thing too because there’s a pandemic on. Change is likely: With vaccination under way, some of the previous habits will return. At this stage I’m wondering how it would work if we went entirely Zoom for remote external guest speakers, and entirely in-person Mob meetings when the speaker is speaking face to face at the Kensington Town Hall. Your thoughts please; it’s obviously something to discuss.

💥 💥 💥 

SF COMMENTARY March 2021 has landed in the letterbox from Bruce Gillespie and it’s up to the usual handsome standard. The 80 pages include a conclave-cum-conversation about the late John Bangsund; a lettercol of interest, and a deep dive into current science fiction novels and criticism from the ANU’s Colin Steele, thirty pages of reviews among which I note Susanna Clarke; Cory Doctorow; Naomi Novik; Terry Pratchett; Don DeLillo; Alex Pheby; Paul McAuley. From efanzines.comor the editor: gandc001@bigpond.com

Murray, from the Nova Mob newsletter

Two Hugo award-winning speculative fiction authors, Arkady Martine and Ann Leckie discuss the realm of writing books in this genre, the process of bringing their full imaginations to the pages, and some of the plot lines of Arkady’s latest work, A Desolation Called Peace.

PLACES IN THE FILM ATTACK THE BLOCK ARE NAMED AFTER FAMOUS BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AUTHORS

The movie takes place in a fictional neighborhood. The main council block in the film is called Wyndham Tower in honor of John Wyndham, the English science fiction writer famous for novels such as The Day of the Triffids (1951) and The Midwich Cuckoos (1957). Other locations include Huxley Court (Aldous Huxley), Wells Court (H.G. Wells), Moore Court (Alan Moore), Ballard Street (J.G. Ballard), and Adams Street (Douglas Adams). Just after the movie title appears, the camera pans across a map of the area, showing the various names.

from File770, item (15) in Pixel scroll, 27 Feb, taken from Mental Floss

Kate Treloar will discuss cli-fi through the lens of two Kim Stanley Robinson offerings written almost 20 years apart. The Ministry for the Future (2020) is set in the very near-future with climate change impacts increasing in severity. The novel follows the titular international organisation as it advocates for future generations.

KSR has been at this for a while and back in 2004 he published the first of the “Science in the Capital” series. This Trilogy also focuses on looming climate change, with numerous perspectives including scientists, bureaucrats, political advisors, sea-rise refugees and flood victims. Kate will discuss the first novel in the trilogy, Forty Signs of Rain (which she also briefly reviewed at the recent virtual mini-con).

Robinson is perhaps best known for his “Mars” Trilogy – Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars – chronicling the settlement of Mars.
But he also wrote other cli-fi novels including 2312 and New York 2140. It would be interesting to hear comments from anybody in the group who has read these.

This month’s Critical Mass will happen at Kappy’s from 6:45pm.
Please take standard COVID precautions: you will be required to sign in; please do not attend if you are feeling unwell.
You can join the meeting via zoom:
Time: Mar 17, 2021 7pm Adelaide, 7:30 Melbourne
Doors open at 6:45pm

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84218097771?pwd=WkxhcTRmZE9Kd013SGNxbHVjY2t0dz09

Meeting ID: 842 1809 7771
Passcode: 852519