“The impish demon known as Beetlejuice has been dead for centuries, but he’s enjoyed a pretty long life in popular culture….. Even so, I wasn’t hankering for a sequel to the Burton movie, which might have turned out to be just another fan-servicing, nostalgia-milking cash grab.
Fortunately, there isn’t a whiff of cynicism to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Burton shows real affection for the first film’s characters and genuine curiosity about how they’re doing three decades or so later. Winona Ryder is back as Lydia Deetz, who escaped Beetlejuice’s clutches as a teenager; now she’s a paranormal expert with her own talk show.
Lydia has long since buried the hatchet with her artist stepmother, Delia — the sublime Catherine O’Hara. But she’s having a tougher time with her own teenage daughter, Astrid — that’s Jenna Ortega from the show Wednesday, whose creators, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, wrote this movie.
When Lydia’s father dies suddenly, the family reunites at their old Connecticut home for the funeral. It’s here that Lydia accidentally winds up summoning Beetlejuice, thanks in part to her sleaze of a fiancé, played by Justin Theroux. With a sudden whoosh, Beetlejuice is back — played by Michael Keaton with the same messy green hair, rotting teeth and mischievous streak as before.” — Justin Chang, from NPRs Fresh Air, writing about the movie in Beetlejuice is back, in a supernatural screwball sequel
At the August Critical Mass, we chose an old favourite worthy of a re-read.
Gerald chose Cordwainer Smith’s Scanners Live in Vain, which can be found in the collected works, The Rediscovery of Man
The SF Masterworks edition has 30+ short stories, including The lady Who sailed the Soul, The Game of Rat and Dragon, Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons, Alpha Ralpha Boulevard and The Dead Lady of Clown Town.
Kate suggested two children’s books, both by Robert C. O’Brien: The Secret of NIMH (originally Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH) and Z for Zachariah (published post-humously)
Beata selected Ostatnie życzenie (The Last Wish) by Andrzej Sapkowski (author of the Witcher series, originally written in Polish). This is a collection of short stories about The Witcher. The title story is the one where Geralt meets Yennifer, seeking her help to capture a genie.
Adam chose Simon R Green’s Blue Moon Rising , the opening novel in the Forest Kingdom series.
Prince Rupert, a second son, was sent out to slay a dragon. The task became more complicated when he spared the dragon, which collected butterflies…
Roman selected Lisa Goldstein’s second novel, The Dream Years, about a surrealist Robert St Onge, in Paris, 1924, who argues with André Breton and eventually finds himself in 1968 at the Paris riots, helping surrealist anarchists fighting for the power of the imagination.
Jeff selected Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart. A fantasy set in Imperial China (subtitled “A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was”), it follows Master Li and Number Ten Ox as they search for a cure for a plague caused by a poison. He also mentioned William Gibson’s Burning Chrome (short story collection) and George Turner’s Beloved Son.
He also mentioned
Captain WE Johns’ series of space books. (A total of ten.)
EV Olde’s The Clockwork Man
Donald Suddaby, Village Fanfare or The Man from the Future
Brian Stableford, the David Lyddyard trilogy because the third volume took years to appear.
Brian Stableford, the six volume Emortality series in internal chronological order. [Originally published out of order which was how Jeff read them…]
The first six monthly collection of essays from Speculative Insights is now available as an ebook or a physical book. That’s 13 interesting essays, 179pp. Details at the Speculative Insight website: https://www.speculativeinsight.com/buy-collections
Although Sheri S. Tepper became best known for her eco-feminist SF writing, her first published trilogy, The True Game, can be read as a more traditional fantasy with SF elements. Two subsequent trilogies continue exploring this world. Over the nine novels set on this world, many of her future themes can be found which lift it out of the traditional fantasy genre into something more interesting. Consisting of the Peter Trilogy (collected as The True Game in 1985), the Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped, and the Jinian Trilogy, the nine novels explore themes of ecology, feminism and colonialism.
Zoom Details: Critical Mass July Time: Jun 26, 2024 6:30pm Adelaide, 7pm Melbourne/Sydney, 5pm Perth
In person: in June and July, we are meeting at the Community Room at Christie Walk, 101 Sturt Street, as Kappy’s will not be open in the evenings. Turn up at Christie Walk at 6:15 for a 6:30pm start on Wednesday, June 26th.
The 2024 GUFF race is now on, with candidates Kat Clay and Ian Nichols (both from Australia) contending for the GUFF trip to the Glasgow Worldcon on 8-12 August 2024. Here are links to the PDF ballot with candidates’ platforms, and to the online voting form. Australia.
Voting closes on 22 April, 23:59 British Summer Time/8:59 23 April Australian Eastern Standard Time; see ballot for other time zones.
Roman will talk about two series by Elizabeth bear: one historical fantasy, the other space opera.
Abigail Irene Garrett drinks too much. She makes scandalous liaisons with inappropriate men, and if in her youth she was a famous beauty, now she is both formidable–and notorious. She is a forensic sorceress, and a dedicated officer of a Crown that does not deserve her loyalty. She has nothing, but obligations.
Sebastien de Ulloa is the oldest creature she has ever known. He was no longer young at the Christian millennium, and that was nine hundred years ago. He has forgotten his birth-name, his birth-place, and even the year in which he was born, if he ever knew it. But he still remembers the woman who made him immortal. He has everything, but a reason to live.
In a world where the sun never set on the British Empire, where Holland finally ceded New Amsterdam to the English only during the Napoleonic wars, and where the expansion of the American colonies was halted by the war magic of the Iroquois, they are exiles in the new world–and its only hope for justice.
This is a more recent work, the first of two novels. A routine salvage mission in space uncovers evidence of a terrible crime and relics of powerful ancient technology. Haimey and her small crew run afoul of pirates at the outer limits of the Milky Way, and find themselves on the run and in possession of universe-changing information.
When authorities prove corrupt, Haimey realizes that she is the only one who can protect her galaxy-spanning civilization from the implications of this ancient technology—and the revolutionaries who want to use it for terror and war.
Meeting details:
April Critical Mass Time: Apr 24, 2024 6:30pm Adelaide, 7pm Melbourne/Sydney/Brisbane, 5pm Perth, 10am London, noon Petersberg
Live at Kappys, 1/22 Compton St, Adelaide Please arrive at 6:15 to order drinks for a 6:30 start
They’ve made a new series based on the Liu Cixin novel.
“Ye Wenjie is an astrophysicist who sees her father beaten to death during a struggle session in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. She is conscripted by the military because of her scientific background and is sent to a secret radar base in a remote region. Her fateful decision at the base echoes across space and time to a group of scientists in the present day, forcing them to face humanity’s greatest threat.”
The english TV series is interesting and engaging, with some grim scenes from the cultural revolution, to the curious events in our present day when the stars blink at us. Several scientists have been killed (or suicided) after a series of quantum experiments started returning nonsensical results, globally. The first two episodes had me hooked!
The english translations of the trilogy (Ken Liu/Joel Martinsen)
Andrew Vincent has been analysing posts on Goodreads:
Hugo and Nebula nominees are used as representatives of popular and high-quality SFF publications over a 70-year period (>570 titles). I accessed the Goodreads website for each title and extracted the topic “tags” as a proxy for main themes of each book. The prevalence of these tags over time are analysed over the 70-year period to identify trends.
As a by-product of this process I also extracted ratings for each title allowing an assessment of the modern readership’s opinion of older titles, and for a comparison of popularity of Hugo vs Nebular nominees.
curation: The process of selecting, organising, and looking after the items in a collection. Formerly the domain of art galleries, the concept of “curating a collection” is now overused, and often in contexts bordering on the ridiculous (head online for pics of “curated salads’, “curated dog experiences” etc, etc). But it is still a hugely important practice to help navigate a meaningful path through the ever-increasing amount of stuff — both high quality and rotten — out there.
This presentation will specifically reference the book “Curation: The Power of Selection in a World of Excess” by Michael Bhaskar
Kate Treloar will do an introductory overview (15mins) then throw it open to discussion. We will look at issues facing those looking to make meaningful selections (in general and with specific reference to SF) and how this has changed over time.
Those attending might wish to consider:
– how you choose what to read/watch/download/listen to
– how this compares to decades past
– whose recommendations you trust
– is more choice a good thing?
– the role of AI in making choices in the future
Critical Mass at kappy’s tea & coffee merchant, 1/22 Compton St, Adelaide.
Wednesday Feb 28th, 6:30pm Adelaide, 7pm Melbourne/Sydney
The Adelaide Fan Review 
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