Category: Snippets

Did you know that the BBC shares a lot of their teleplays online? Including a lot featuring our favourite Doctor.

I didn’t until today (thanks for the information, Bleeding Cool), but it turns out the BBC Writer’s Room website features an extensive backlog of screenplays for BBC shows. Their latest post is the first episode of this past season of Doctor Who, featuring the debut of Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor.

There are a lot of goodies here, actually, from some older Doctor Who’s to Sherlock to Luther. For fans of the BBC’s approach to genre television, this is a goldmine. And for students of screenwriting, resources like this are always an incredible find.

So, pull up a chair, settle in, and spend the evening reading some screenplays. It’ll be relaxing.

— Julie Muncy, gizmodo.com.au

File770 reports

CBS All Access has officially tapped Yeoh to captain a Star Trek series of her own: a black ops-themed spinoff of Discovery in which the actress will reprise her role and explore the next chapter in the life of Capt. Philippa Georgiou. The untitled drama will further explore Starfleet’s Section 31 division, a shadow organization within the Federation featured on Star Trek: Discovery.

2019 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees Announced — January 12, 2019

The judges of the 2018 Philip K. Dick Award and the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, along with the Philip K. Dick Trust, are pleased to announce the six nominated works that comprise the final ballot for the award:

• TIME WAS by Ian McDonald (Tor.com)
• THE BODY LIBRARY by Jeff Noon (Angry Robot)
• 84K by Claire North (Orbit)
• ALIEN VIRUS LOVE DISASTER: STORIES by Abbey Mei Otis (Small Beer Press)
• THEORY OF BASTARDS by Audrey Schulman (Europa Editions)
• AMBIGUITY MACHINES AND OTHER STORIES by Vandana Singh (Small Beer Press)

First prize and any special citations will be announced on Friday, April 19, 2019 at Norwescon 42 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Seattle Airport, SeaTac, Washington.

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States during the previous calendar year.
The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the Northwest Science Fiction Society.

The 2018 judges are Madeline Ashby, Brian Attebery, Christopher Brown, Rosemary Edghill, and Jason Hough (chair).

One of the bedrocks of the sf magazines was the short story. At the february meeting (7pm Wed feb 6th, at Kappys, 22 Compton St, Adelaide) we’re going to discuss some recent short stories published by tor.com on their website.

We invite you to read (at least) two of the following, and come prepared to talk about them.

These include stories by Australian authors, new authors and old favourites:

• 11874 words  Triquetra, by Kirstyn Mcdermott
• 11972 words Nine last days on Planet earth, by Daryl Gregory
• 6644 words AI and the trolley problem, by Pat Cadigan
• 13824 words Fitting In, by Max Gladstone
• 6201 words Bread and Milk and salt, by Sarah Dailey
• 9453 words The Word of Flesh and Soul, by Ruthanna Emrys
• 5744 words  The Last voyage of Skidbladnir, by Karin Tidbeck

Tor regularly publishes short fiction on their tor.com website.
Here are some recent entries of interest…

• The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir / Karin Tidbeck
  Life on the transdimensional ship Skidbladnir is a strange one. The new janitor, Saga, finds herself in the company of an officious steward-bird, a surly and mysterious engineer, and the shadowy Captain.
• The Word of Flesh and Soul / Ruthanna Emrys
  Fantasy || The language of the originators defines reality, every word warping the world to fit its meaning…
• Bread and Milk and Salt / Sarah Gailey
  Not all things are built to obey… Reprinting Sarah Gailey’s “Bread and Milk and Salt,” originally published in Robots Vs. Fairies (Saga Press, 2018).
• Fitting In /  Max Gladstone
   A Wild Cards story. A failed contestant of the superhero reality TV show, American Hero, Robin Ruttiger now works as a high school guidance counselor to reluctant students. Things change, however,…
• AI and the Trolley Problem / Pat Cadigan
  Science Fiction || A provocative story about the relationship between the humans on a British airbase and the AI security system that guards that base.
• Nine Last Days on Planet Earth / Daryl Gregory
  Science Fiction ||  When the seeds rained down from deep space, it may have been the first stage of an alien invasion—or something else entirely.
• Triquetra / Kirstyn McDermott
  Dark Fantasy, Fairy Tales and Folklore || After marrying the prince and having her own child, Snow White visits her stepmother—promising to kill her in ever more horrible ways, at the same time attempting to stay away from the mirror that started it all.

How stable would a World State be, in practice? Sure, one could argue (and people have) that without external enemies there’s no particular reason for a world-spanning government to fall apart. That was the argument in A World Out of Time: the state controlled all the apparatus necessary to sustain Earth’s vast population, making rebellion suicidal.

The problem is that one can point to historic polities that managed to dissolve into independent regions without much help from the outside. Gran Columbia lasted twelve years. The West Indies Federation lasted about four years. The United Arab Republic lasted three. All that’s needed is for the divisions driving people apart to be slightly greater than the ones binding them together.

Indeed, peace might exacerbate internal divisions, since there is no common enemy against which to unite. Canada might have escaped the West Indies Federation’s fate only because of the perception that a moment’s inattention would allow our hegemonic neighbour to invade (again), burn our cities (again), commit affronts against our Catholic population (again ) and leave the letter “u” out of some words for some reason (still).

— from “World States and Mega Empires in SF” by James Davis Nicoll
at Tor.com See the full article for examples of large empires on Eaeth and how long they survived…

The British Fantasy Society has announced the winners for the 2018 British Fantasy Awards:

Best Fantasy Novel (the Robert Holdstock Award)

• WINNER: The Ninth Rain, Jen Williams (Headline)

Best Horror Novel (the August Derleth Award)

• WINNER: The Changeling, Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau)

Best Novella

• WINNER: Passing Strange, Ellen Klages (Tor.com Publishing)

Best Short Story

• WINNER: “Looking for Laika”, Laura Mauro (Interzone 11-12/17)

Best Collection

• WINNER: Strange Weather, Joe Hill (Gollancz)

Best Anthology

• WINNER: New Fears, Mark Morris, ed. (Titan)

Karl Edward Wagner Award

• N.K. Jemisin

Winners were chosen by jury, except for the special award (the Karl Edward Wagner Award), which was chosen by the BFS committee. Winners were announced during an awards ceremony at FantasyCon 2018, held October 19-21, 2018 at the Queen Hotel in Chester, England.

— from Locus magazine, which includes runners up and details of several media awards.

We invite you to look at the list produced for the 1975 meeting of the Nova Mob. If we were producing such a list today, what would feature?

• Would we keep any of the books listed in 1975?
• Would we replace some of them with better examples?
• Would we form a completely different list?

Come along to Kappy’s, 6:45 for a 7pm start, with your comments on the list provided.

The first meeting of the Nova Mob for 1975, on Jan 2nd, discussed the Basic Science Fiction Library.

They started by considering the List from Lee Harding.

Basic for whom? Anyone, when pressed, should be able to name their favourite (12) sf books. This has not been my intention. I have chosen a list of titles I would recommend to anyone not yet acquainted with the genre – in particular schools and other libraries — and i would use all or any one of them to convert educated readers to sf. My intention has been to produce a short list of relatively permanent value: one that will not be made unfashionable by social progress of literary pretentiousness. So: a Basic Library of SF for all time (one hopes):

1. Earth Abides George R Stewart. The definitive catastrophe novel; well-written and, in this respect, well ahead of the competition.
2. Tiger! Tiger!* Alfred Bester. The best example of what has been loosely termed ‘wide-screen baroque sf’, and easily the most entertaining sf novel ever written. [* also known as The Stars My Destination]
3. The Silver Locusts* Ray Bradbury. He has his detractors, and no one will deny that his later work, chocolate fudge and all, has tarnished a reputation that once burned brighter than any other sf star. But time cannot efface the weird lyricism of these tales. They helped sf to take a giant leap into literature and influenced a generation of writers. It is good to reflect on that.
   [* aka The Martian Chronicles]
4. Space Lords Cordwainer Smith. His unique vision of a far-out future deeply reflecting our past hardly needs any introduction. These stories seem to best typify his remarkable output… but it’s hard to choose.
5. Hot House Brian Aldiss. Chosen to best represent the far, far, future sub-genre. Aldiss’ apocalyptic vision of a world gone mad with vegetation is surely one of the most extravagant in all sf.
6. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame ed Robert Silverberg. This is volume 1 of the series, but any one of them will suffice. The more one digs into the sf past the more it becomes apparent that the best material has been under novel length…
7. Cities in Flight James Blish. The one volume Avon edition, naturally. Of all the so-called ‘epics’ of sf, this one seems to me the most satisfying. Blish’s imagination continues to soar when lesser writers give out, and his prose remains constantly readable where, say, the Asimov of Foundation time hasn’t aged at all well.
8. The Nine Billion Names of God Arthur C Clarke. When it came to selecting a one-author collection, Clarke’s seemed the one best suited to display the short storey medium. he has the hard-science approach of many of is compatriots — Anderson, Clement, Niven, etc. — but blended with the gentle poetry I have been convinced best represents a ‘sense of wonder’.
9. The Man in the High Castle Philip K Dick. A fine, smoothly-written novel that best typifies the sf predilection of playing with alternative possibilities. Quiet, moving and richly detailed; possibly the best book Dick has done.
10. The Sirens of Titan Kurt Vonnegut. Chosen because it is such a damn fine book — probably the only one to match Tiger! Tiger! for sheer entertainment.
11. The Paradox Men Charles L Harness. Sorry, but I just had to slip this one in. It overlaps with the bester book — both being superior examples of wide-screen baroque. But it has so many brilliant passages that cry out for examination and appreciation that I had to put it in.
12. The Short Stories of H G Wells This needs no special reading: here a re just about all the plot elements of every sf story you have ever read. Wells was a master story teller, then and now. I know of mo better way to begin an odyssey into short story sf than this marvellous volume.

Well, there it is. One final word: my selections have been soundly based on availability of the works mentioned. Bearing in mind the basic premise of the above library, I feel this is essential.

Have fun,

Lee Harding

—— from John Foyster’s Nova Mob Leaflet, Jan 1975, reproduced by Bruce Gillespie as part of his incomplete history of the Nova Mob, *brg* 102