Category: Snippets

Over the past seven years, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Michael Swanwick presented a new fiction series at Tor.com, consisting of stand-alone stories all set in the same world—an alternate fin de siècle Europe shot through with magic, mystery, and intrigue.

For this Critical Mass, we’re going to discuss the series to date: please read a few or perhaps all of the stories in the series. They can be found on the Tor.com website, listed in order on this page: Mongolian Wizard

Zoom details:

Time: Nov 18, 2020 7:00-8:30pm Adelaide (7:30-9:00pm Melbourne)Note: There will be a ten minute tea-break at around 7:40

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Guest Speaker & Locus critic Ian Mond on his top 11 books of the 2020 year. Why 11? There’s a tie…

Social distancing arrangements do not allow a full Nova Mob meeting at the Kensington Town Hall, so we will continue with the Zoom video conferencing.

Murray hopes to have the recording of October’s Nova Mob celebration of John Bangsund’s life available early in November.

Congratulations to Bruce Gillespie on his Ditmar win!

*****
You are invited to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Mondiale – the 2020 world of books that are terrific sfnal stuff but probably aren’t marketed that way so log in to find the true quill. [Nova Mob Nov 2020] Ian Mond

Time: Nov 4, 2020 08:00 PM to 09:30PM Melbourne time,
7:30 to 9pm Adelaide time

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If you wish to view the award ceremony, and hear the winners’ speeches, there are two versions available online: the full ceremony (3hrs+), or a (recommended) shortened verson (1h 41m).

Nova Mob’s convenor, Murray, writes:
Our guest is Farah Mendlesohn, who is a simply amazing person: BSFA, Clareson and Hugo-award winning academic, critic, author, editor, essayist, historian, reviewer, disability advocate, con organiser and fan. Farah will be videoconferencing to us from London on Zoom, from what could be described as a door into summer. Her topic is: 

Robert Heinlein: 50 years as the SF genre’s pivot point. 

Farah’s latest book is The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein. In terms suitable for a festschrift’s blurb Paul Kincaid in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction describes it as “an ambitious and intensive argument for conceiving of Robert A Heinlein‘s long career as a surprisingly integrated whole; it won a BSFA Award for best nonfiction.”
That award was announced on 17 May 2020, and made Farah the only person to have won the BSFA twice for non-fiction; she will be speaking to us with the award newly perched in the trophy cabinet.
Nova Mob is now celebrating 50 years and a sterling examination of such a central author of the genre as RAH is a great way to do so. Twenty years in, this is the most significant critical work on Robert Heinlein of the millennium thus far.

You are invited to a scheduled Zoom meeting:

Topic: Nova Mob Aug 2020 Farah Mendlesohn 

Time: Aug 5, 2020 08:00 PM Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (7:30 Adelaide)

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The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein is widely available in e-book formats. 
Original crowd-funded publication:
https://unbound.com/books/robert-heinlein/

For Australian currency, booktopia has it for just over $10. 
https://www.booktopia.com.au/search.ep?author=Farah%20Mendlesohn

The accompanying bio says Farah Mendlesohn is “the co-editor of the Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, and the Cambridge Companion to Fantasy and co-wrote A Short History of Fantasy, all with Edward James. Her other work includes Rhetorics of Fantasy and Diana Wynne Jones and the Children’s Fantastical Tradition. She won the Hugo Award with Edward James in 2005, and is currently working on a book about fiction about the English Civil War.”

In August Kate Treloar will look at the Kraken – the myth, the reality it’s based on, and key inclusions in literature and popular culture.
Krakens are giant squid sea monsters from the ocean’s depths, capable of destroying ships and hurling hapless sailors to watery deaths. Seemingly based on real creatures, the line between reality, myth and imagination easily blurs, providing a fascinating topic to explore.
Before the Kraken catchup, you may be interested in delving into a selection from this list:
NOVELS

• Kraken by China Mieville (2010)
• The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham (1953)

SHORT STORY

• The Call of Cthulhu by HP Lovecraft (1928)

“Of such great powers or beings there may be conceivably a survival . . . a survival of a hugely remote period when . . . consciousness was manifested, perhaps, in shapes and forms long since withdrawn before the tide of advancing humanity . . . forms of which poetry and legend alone have caught a flying memory and called them gods, monsters, mythical beings of all sorts and kinds. . . .”
—Algernon Blackwood.

MOVIES

• Clash of the Titans (1981, 2010)
• Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest (2006)

MOVIE SCENE

• Giant squid battle from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUgDYxZHGz0

POETRY “The Kraken” (1830) – Victorian Web Below the thunders of the upper deep; Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee About his shadowy sides: above him swell Huge sponges of millennial growth and height; And far away into the sickly light, From many a wondrous grot and secret cell Unnumbered and enormous polypi Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. There hath he lain for ages and will lie Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep, Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die. “The Kraken”, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical by Alfred Tennyson

Further suggestions welcome!!

Locus magazine reports

J.K. Rowling will publish a new children’s book, The Ickabog, with free chapters appearing online every weekday in 34 installments from May 26 – July 10, 2020.

Rowling is holding an illustration competition for children between ages seven and 12, with with winning drawings to be featured in the published book.

For more, see Rowling’s introduction or The Ickabog website.

The winners (in bold) and finalists are as follows:

Novel

• A Song for a New Day, Sarah Pinsker (Berkley)
• Marque of Caine, Charles E. Gannon (Baen)
• The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow (Redhook; Orbit UK)
• A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine (Tor)
• Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey; Jo Fletcher)
• Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing)

Novella

• This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Saga)
• “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom”, Ted Chiang (Exhalation)
• The Haunting of Tram Car 015, P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com Publishing)
• Her Silhouette, Drawn in Water, Vylar Kaftan (Tor.com Publishing)
• The Deep, Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes (Saga)
• Catfish Lullaby, A.C. Wise (Broken Eye)

— from the full list of winners at Tor.com

We’re waiting to hear from our potential guest speaker, but while you’re waiting, you can read a couple more novellae to prepare for our discussion of Hugo nominees:

• “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom”, Ted Chiang (Exhalation)
• In an Absent Dream, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)

 

Details of Zoom meeting:

Time: Jun 17, 2020 07:00 PM Adelaide

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Mike Glyer writes in Pixel Scroll, File770

• April 27, 1955 — The Devil Girl From Mars premiered. It was produced by Edward J. Danziger and Harry Lee Danziger as directed by David MacDonald. It was written by James Eastwood and John C. Maher  It starred Patricia Laffan, Hugh McDermott, Adrienne Corri and Hazel Court. Critics in general called it a delightfully bad film with the Monthly Film  Bulletin saying  “Everything, in its way, is quite perfect.” The audience reviewers over at Rotten Tomatoes apparently don’t agree as they give it a 22% rating. You can decide for yourself as you can see it here as it’s in the public domain.

• April 27, 1963 — The Day of the Triffids premiered in the USA. It was produced by George Pitcher and Philip Yordan, as directed by Steve Sekely.  It’s rather loosely based on the 1951 novel of the same name by John Wyndham (who was toastmaster at Loncon 1) as scripted by Bernard Gordon and Philip Yordan. It starred Howard Keel, Nicole Maurey, Janette Scott, Kieron Moore and  Mervyn Johns. Critics who were familiar with the novel weren’t terribly happy with the film. It currently rates a 52% rating among audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes.  Yes, it’s in the public domain, so you can watch it here. 

Garth Nix has a new story in tor.com

Sir Magnus Holmes, cousin to the more famous Sherlock, is asked to investigate the appearance of an otherworldly knight carrying a legendary sword in the cellar of a Victorian London pub.

“We was ’oping for t’other ’Olmes to take an interest,” said the publican. He wiped his fingers again on his striped apron as if this might somehow remove the strong aroma of beer that emanated not just from his hands, but his entire being. “Meaning no hoffence, your ’onour.”

— read the full story at tor.com