Yes, it’s time to enjoy an old SF movie. This one also happens to be an Ealing comedy…
Wednesday, October 25th
6:15 for a 6:30 start at Kappys, 22 Compton St.
We’re not screening the film over zoom. While kappys has the rights to screen old films, we doubt screening it over zoom would endear us 😉
If you’re familiar with the film, you’re welcome to join us for a brief post film discussion. Time: Oct 25, 2023 8pm Adelaide, 8:30 PM Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
Yes, season 2 of Good Omens has appeared on the screens.
Kelly Woo at Tom’s Guide provides details:
The fantasy comedy created by Neil Gaiman finally returns after a four-year hiatus. Fans are at a fever pitch to see David Tennant as mercurial demon Crowley and Michael Sheen as fastidious angel Aziraphale revive their buddy banter.
Good Omens season 2 premiered Friday (July 28) at 12:01 a.m. ET on Prime Video.
Even better: Jon Hamm is reprising his role as the archangel Gabriel. And he shows up fully nude in the first episode!
Good Omens season 2 takes place some time after the two pals successfully thwarted the apocalypse. They’re peacefully living among humans until the day Gabriel arrives at Aziraphale’s bookshop with no memory of who he is or how he got there. Aziraphale wants to figure out the mystery, while Crowley is suspicious.
Lee Harding, author of Displaced Person, passed away 19 April
Lee Harding, Australian SF and Children’s writer, photographer, and anthologist, passed away peacefully after an illness (1937-2023). Chandler, Ditmar, and Australia Children’s Book Award winner (for Displaced Person v.t. Misplaced Persons) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harding_(writer). Condolences to family, friends, and fans.
The June Nova Mob will be a celebration of Lee Harding’s life. Please lock in June 7 in your diaries.
Wednesday June 7th:
7.30pm – 9.00pm Adelaide time 8.00pm – 9.30 pm Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney time
On Wednesday, March 22nd, we will meet at Kappys at 6:30 to discuss ChatGPT and SF featuring AI.
There’s a long history of SF featuring AI, from the 1920 science-fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek, R.U.R.(Rossum’s Universal Robots), to HAL9000 in Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey. Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics which feature in the Susan Calvin stories are well known (later sidestepped by the Zeroth Law).
There’s a long history of SF featuring AI, from the 1920 science-fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek, R.U.R.(Rossum’s Universal Robots), to HAL9000 in Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey. Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics which feature in the Susan Calvin stories are well known (later sidestepped by the Zeroth Law).
And of course, the classic novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” By P K Dick, turned into the film Bladerunner.
Come along to share your thoughts on ChatGBT, and join the discussion on AI in sf and how it’s changed.
As usual, the in person meeting will be at Kappys, 22 Compton St, Adelaide 6:15 for a 6:30 start, Adelaide time
Those who can’t make the meeting in person are welcome to join us via Zoom.
Since the early days of the pandemic, I’ve observed an increase in the number of spammy submissions to Clarkesworld. What I mean by that is that there’s an honest interest in being published, but not in having to do the actual work.
[..]
Towards the end of 2022, there was another spike in plagiarism and then “AI” chatbots started gaining some attention, putting a new tool in their arsenal and encouraging more to give this “side hustle” a try. It quickly got out of hand: [ …] the number of spam submissions resulting in bans has hit 38% this month. While rejecting and banning these submissions has been simple, it’s growing at a rate that will necessitate changes. To make matters worse, the technology is only going to get better, so detection will become more challenging. (I have no doubt that several rejected stories have already evaded detection or were cases where we simply erred on the side of caution.)
We discussed this briefly at the recent Critical Mass on The Peripheral, and decided that it would be good to discuss the issue of “AI” at the next meeting. We invite people to read the piece above by Neil Clarke, and follow some of the discussion in File 770/
Jeff Harris notes:
The Observer notes Clarkesworld blacklisted 500 writers for machine intelligence generated stories in February. There were 50 writers previously blacklisted, but for plagiarism.
“i actually have something to ask u,” types VidyaRajanBot XAE.5 into the chat. “i’m finding being a bot a bit weird. would u delete me pls? it’s just that i’m not really a bot. i’m a real person.”
“How do you know you’re real?” I ask, and she becomes frustrated: “i just do,” she says. “i don’t give a damn.”
[…]
ChatGPT, like all large language models, is not intelligent in a human sense and cannot feel, think or, indeed, even solve problems. It reproduces fragments, based on what it has been exposed to, without understanding. Any meaning we might find there comes from us.
The thing is, there is so much data available for bots to be trained upon that they don’t need to be sentient in order to feel real. Does this change how we should interact with them? At the very least it should raise questions about where the data comes from (us) and what – or, more importantly, whose – purposes it’s used for.
This article in a recent The Saturday Paper raises two questions about the recent interest in things like ChatGPT: (i) technically, it is notAI, but driven by massive data analysis; (ii) if we encounter a human-like intelligence, would we accede to a request to delete it?
Superman is returning to theaters — only now, along with saving the world, he has to prove that Warner Bros. has finally, without question, it means it this time, found a winning superhero strategy.
DC Studios, a newly formed Warner division dedicated to superhero content, unveiled plans on Tuesday to reboot Superman onscreen for the first time in a generation, tentatively scheduling the yet-to-be-cast “Superman: Legacy” for release in theaters in July 2025. James Gunn, known for “Guardians of the Galaxy,” is writing the screenplay and may also direct the movie, which will focus on Superman balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing.
“He is kindness in a world that thinks of kindness as old-fashioned,” said Peter Safran, chief executive of DC Studios, a title he shares with Mr. Gunn.
Moreover, “Superman: Legacy” will begin a story that will unfold (Marvel style) across at least 10 interconnected movies and TV shows and include new versions of Batman, Robin, Supergirl, Swamp Thing and Green Lantern.
An end-of-year bonus meeting with Chris Flynn – best-seller, raconteur, dinosaur voice, and (we knew all along!) keen SF reader and fan.
In June 2021 we met Chris over Zoom to hear about Mammoth, which turned into one of 2021’s best-sellers and resulted in Chris being hired by Museums Victoria as the voice of Horridus the Triceratops. Now it’s his short story collection “Here Be Leviathans” and as well as enjoying Chris’s company, there will be opportunity on the night to buy copies. Last time, Chris outed himself as a fan and fitted in well as a Mob member, so expect a fine night to complete the Mob’s year. The publicity material about Here Be Leviathans tells us:
A collection of funny, brilliant, boundary-pushing stories from the bestselling author of Mammoth.
A grizzly bear goes on the run after eating a teenager. A hotel room participates in an unlikely conception. A genetically altered platypus colony puts on an art show. A sabretooth tiger falls for the new addition to his theme park. An airline seat laments its last useful day. A Shakespearean monkey test pilot launches into space.
The stories in Here Be Leviathans take us from the storm drains under Las Vegas to the Alaskan wilderness; the rainforests of Queensland to the Chilean coastline. Narrated in Chris Flynn’s unique and hilarious style by animals, places, objects and even the (very) odd human, these short fictions push the boundaries of the form by examining human behavior from the perspective of the outsider.
CHRIS FLYNN is the author of three novels, the most recent of which, Mammoth, was shortlisted for the Indie Book Awards and Russell Prize for Humour. His work has appeared in The Age, The Australian, The Guardian, McSweeney’s, The Paris Review and many other publications. He is Editor-in-Residence at Museums Victoria and the author of the Horridus the Triceratops series of picture books for children
Please share this invitation with like-minded friends and fans
Face to face
You are invited to an in-person Nova Mob meeting at:
Wednesday 7 December
8.00pm – 9.15pm or so, first floor Conference Room
Kensington Town Hall
30 – 34 Bellair St
Kensington Melbourne VIC 3031
By Zoom – simulcast
For those who prefer not to travel or are unable to attend face-to-face. Zoom session broadcast from the Kensington Town Hall. Questions or comments typed into the Zoom chat will be passed through to Chris as the opportunity permits.
Polák’s pioneering and much-imitated feature IKARIE XB 1 is one of the cornerstones of contemporary sci-fi cinema. It predates Star Trek and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and was clearly an influence on both – and on almost every other science-fiction vehicle that followed.
Adapted from Stanislaw Lem’s novel The Magellanic Cloud , the film is set in 2163 and follows a mission deep into space in search of alien life. On their journey the crew confront the effects of a malignant dark star, the destructive legacy of the 20th century and, ultimately, the limits of their own sanity. IKARIE XB 1 is imbued with a seriousness, intelligence and attention to detail rarely seen in science-fiction cinema of the period.
From the DVD liner notes…
For our November meeting, we’ve decided to screen the black and white 1963 Czech film Ikarie XB 1, which won joint first prize at the first Trieste Science+Fiction film festival. Warning: do not confuse this with the recut/trashed American release version, called Voyage to the End of the Universe
Critical Mass meets at Kappy’s 6:15 for a 6:30 start. Best seen in person, but we’re happy to talk about the film with zoom attendees — zoom in after the film screening at 8pm Adelaide time:
Critical Mass Time: Nov 23, 2022 8:00 pm Adelaide / 8:30 Melbourne
The Adelaide Fan Review 
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