Category: Critical Mass News

Best Novel

• The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)
• Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager)
• Revenant Gun, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)
• Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente (Saga)
• Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik (Del Rey / Macmillan)
• Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)

Best Novella

• Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)
• Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)
• Binti: The Night Masquerade, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing)
• The Black God’s Drums, by P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com Publishing)
• Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, by Kelly Robson (Tor.com Publishing)
• The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean Press / JABberwocky Literary Agency)

The full list of all categories is available at Tor.com

 David Langford told readers New Maps: More Uncollected John Sladek is on course for launch at the UK Eastercon in April.

Chris Priest, in his awesome capacity as agent for the Sladek estate, is very pleased with the early proof copy he’s seen; I hope to have a big pile of trade paperbacks in good time for Easter. Paperbacks and ebooks will also be available for order online, from Lulu.com and Ansible Editions respectively.

— from File 770.com

Two pieces of interesting info: opposite Frances McDormand’s God will be a Satan voiced by none other than Benedict Cumberbatch; and the series premiere will be may 21st!

Although Vonnegut often resisted his inclusion in the science-fiction club, he did consider himself part of the last generation of great American novelists (generally labeled “postmodernists”), bound together by this tendency to write about unreal and incomprehensible ideas in unusual styles. He knew there would be more novelists, of course, and some of them great, but he feared that never again would so many untested young authors hone their craft together, as a community. Part of this was rooted in economic changes to the publishing industry, but there was another threat to the novelist’s place in society: censorship. In a 1979 letter to Soviet writer Felix Kuznetzov, Vonnegut laments that writers everywhere “are routinely attacked by fellow citizens as being pornographers or corrupters of children and celebrators of violence and persons of no talent and so on. In my own case, such charges are brought against my works several times a year.”

Since its publication in March of 1969, Slaughterhouse-Five has been banned in several communities across the U.S., and challenged over 350 times for its sexual content, violence, obscenity, and “anti-religious” language. Perhaps most famously, 32 copies of the novel were burned in a Drake, ND school district in 1973. Later that year, Vonnegut wrote to Drake Public School Board President Charles McCarthy to express his anger and dismay at the school board’s actions, and to challenge the labeling of his work as “offensive.”
— Sarah Tolf, on tor.com “Kurt Vonnegut and the Science Fiction Writers’ Lodge”

DUST is the first multi-platform destination for binge watchable sci-fi. We feature science fiction short films and other content from emerging filmmakers with stunning visual effects, captivating plots and complex character explorations. Robots, aliens, space exploration, technology, and human experience are all a part of DUST. New uploads every week with DUST exclusive premieres and original series.

— from the description at https://www.watchdust.com/

High Life is a 2018 English-language science fiction film written and directed by French director Claire Denis with Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche in the leads. It is Denis’ first film in English, and was co-written by her long-time collaborator Jean-Pol Fargeau and Geoff Cox.

The film focuses on a group of criminals who are tricked into believing they will be freed if they participate in a mission to travel on a spaceship towards a black hole to find an alternate energy source while being sexually experimented on by the scientists on board.

High Life will screen several times during the Alliance Française French Film Festival (Mar 30, Apr 2, Apr 7, Apr 17th at the Palace Nova Eastend; 25 mar, 14 Apr at the Palace Nova Prospect).

Kate Treloar suggests we look at the Broken Earth Trilogy by N K Jemisin, and will talk about the first novel, The Fifth Season, at the meeting on April 3rd, 2019.
As usual, we meet at Kappys, 22 Compton St, Adelaide. 6:45 for a 7pm start.

The BBC has unveiled the first look at its forthcoming big-budget adaptation of Philip Pullman’s fantasy epic His Dark Materials.

The British public broadcaster, which has joined with HBO on the Bad Wolf and New Line Cinema-produced series, has released a trailer featuring stars Dafne Keen, James McAvoy, Ruth Wilson and Lin-Manuel Miranda that you can watch above.

“We wanted fans to have a tiny glimpse of His Dark Materials,” said exec producer Jane Tranter. “As with Lyra, there are many more worlds to discover as we start upon this epic journey.”

His Dark Materials, which is one of the biggest in scope and most expensive British dramas to date, is ritten by Jack Thorne and directed by Tom Hooper, and is based on Pullman’s acclaimed trilogy of books: Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, considered a modern masterpiece of imaginative fiction.

The cast of the drama, which started filming at the end of last year in Cardiff at Wolf Studios Wales, also includes Anne-Marie Duff, Clarke Peters, Ariyon Bakare, Will Keen, father of young lead Dafne Keen, Ian Gelder, Georgina Campbell, Lucian Msamati, James Cosmo, Ruta Gedmintas, Mat Fraser, Geoff Bell, Simon Manyonda as well as young actors Lewin Lloyd, Daniel Frogson and Tyler Howitt.

— report from Deadline

As part of the fringe, there’s a screening of this film at 6:30pm Monday, Feb 25th at the mercury Cinema.

Edwyna and Douggie are shipwrecked on a mysterious island. They are then captured by natives and sold to mad doctor who want s to use them as experimental subjects.

I like all genres, no, wait, I love all genres and often squange them together in the same book; The Eyre Affair I regard as a station with a lot of different trains—arrive on romance, and leave on alternative history. The thing is, Speculative Fiction—alright, there, I’ve done it, I’ve labelled myself —is a cradle, a nursery of fresh ideas. It’s the sandbox of the literary world, the place where new concepts are born, where the cross-fertilization of worn tropes give rise to exciting new possibilities. We take ideas, we experiment, we run with them, we have fun. Some are dead ends, but others grow and bare fruit—often in other writer’s heads. For yes, Speculative Fiction is a gregarious beast, and engages freely with other authors. The themes and ideas that I and my fellow speculators write now may lead onto much better books by more talented authors ten years from now.

— Jasper Fforde, “Genre, Speculative Fiction and the Cradle of Ideas”

read the full article at Locus Online