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
Lavie Tidhar writes about a new storybundle It’s hard to believe this is the seventh – seventh! – World SF bundle I’ve had the privilege to put together. It’s been a trip, collecting novels and stories from around the world, both here with StoryBundle and with the early Apex Book of World SF anthologies and the more recent Best of World SF hardbacks from Head of Zeus. It’s a constant joy to see how much more international the science fiction and fantasy fields become year after year, more accessible, more diverse and more interesting.
I hope you enjoy this year’s crop, and find something you like in the selection. Remember that the bundles not only support the authors and their publishers directly, but also our partner charity. At a time when the world seems ever more strained and polarised, literature joins us together, and speculative fiction offers us that rarest of things, hope. So dive in, and I hope you enjoy these stories!
To find out more about the ten books in this bundle, click here
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.
“Murderbot was optioned for the TV show a while ago – I want to say it was before the pandemic. First, around 2019, it was optioned for a movie, and we got to the contract stage, but it fell apart because of financing. So it was available to be optioned again, and we did another round of talking to different people who were interested in it. We ended up making the deal with Depth of Field, Paul and Chris Weitz. I think the first email we exchanged was in 2021. That’s how long it’s been in the works.
“I think the TV show is going to be really good. It’s been cool for me to talk to them about it, and help come up with solutions to problems, and talk a lot about the worldbuilding, and see the production paintings. Chris and Paul Weitz are writing and producing and directing. It’s going to be on Apple TV+. They’re going to start filming in February. Right before Christmas, Paul was scouting locations. It will star Alexander Skarsgård.
Ever since Méliès sent his characters to the Moon in 1902, filmmakers have never stopped making science fiction movies. From very early adaptations of the works of Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, and Arthur Conan Doyle all the way up through the juggernaut franchises we have today, from short films to weighty epics, political allegories to gee-whiz adventure stories, arthouse darlings to summer blockbusters, moody emotional ponderings to gloriously gory monster mashes, the history of cinema is inextricably linked with the genre of science fiction.
And the Reactor Science Fiction Film Club is here to explore every corner of it!
How will it work?
Once a week, one movie at a time, we’ll watch our way through the good, the bad, and the utterly bizarre in science fiction cinema. I’ll share the month’s selections ahead of time, and each Wednesday I’ll post an essay about that week’s film, including a bit about its history, context, and impact, to revel in the weird and wonderful variety of sci-fi movies out there. Everybody will be welcome to share their thoughts in comments, whether you’re watching it now for the first time or saw it years ago.
What are we going to watch?
Anything. Everything. In any language, from anywhere in the world. As long as it’s science fiction. Some of the films we watch will be masterpieces. Some of them will be terrible. Some will be both, as is often the case. Some of them will be very familiar. Some will be obscure. Some will be movies you love. Some will be movies you, personally, hate. I am going to approach all of them with an open mind, a generosity of spirit, and the goal of having fun with a century of sci-fi movie magic. (The oldest film on my list is currently Aelita (1924), so that time frame is not an exaggeration. Depending on availability we might even look at some earlier movies.) Many of the movies will be paced much more sedately than modern films, so grab a cozy blanket, pour a glass of wine, put your phone down, and relax. Space epics, time travel, claustrophobic horrors, psychological mindfucks, political satires, alien invasions, Barbarella—it’s all good
How do we watch the movies?
Everything I’m choosing is available for online streaming somewhere, because I am not going to make anybody rely on access to a dusty box of VHS tapes in their friend’s neighbor’s uncle’s attic. Sometimes it might be a bit complicated, but I will do my best to provide up-to-date information and options. How you access the films from where you live, within your budget, is between you and your VPN. I recommend checking a site like JustWatch or similar to search for availability in different regions. When in doubt: check your local library or search YouTube and the Internet Archive.
We’re going to get started in March with a selection of classics that imagine the many problems people will face when they head out to explore space. The films are listed below by the date on which the column will be published, so you can watch ahead of time and participate in the discussion.
March 6 – Forbidden Planet (1956), directed by Fred M. Wilcox A cautionary tale about packing too much Freudian psychology in your space luggage. Watch: Tubi (free), Amazon, Apple, Google Play, and several other places as well. Watch a trailer here.
March 13 – Solaris (1972), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky Famously disliked by author Stanislaw Lem but beloved by just about everybody else. Watch: Max, Criterion, Amazon, Apple, and others. Watch a trailer here.
March 20 – Silent Running (1972), directed by Douglas Trumbull It’s basically Gardeners’ World in space, right? …Right? Watch: Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Vudu, and others. Watch a trailer here.
March 27 – Ikarie XB-1 (1963), directed by Jindřich Polák It was dubbed and released in the U.S. as Voyage to the End of the Universe, but the dubbed version has a very different ending. Watch: Criterion, Cultpix (some locations), British Film Institute (UK only), and I might gently suggest doing a YouTube search, if you are so inclined. Watch a trailer here.
Kali Wallace, Introducing the Reactor Science Fiction Film Club! from reactormag.com
A type of story set in a world that is different from the one we live in.
Insight:
To have a clear, deep, understanding of a complicated problem or situation.
speculative insight:
A journal that explores the breadth and depth of the themes, ideas, and issues of science fiction and fantasy.
Speculative Insight is the brainchild of Alexandra Pierce. As a lifelong lover of science fiction and fantasy, as well as being passionate about history and science, creating a space for SFF-related nonfiction just made sense.
Alexandra co-edited the award-winning anthologies Letters to Tiptree and Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler (both for Twelfth Planet Press). She was a co-host of the podcast Galactic Suburbia with Alisa Krasnostein and Tansy Rayner Roberts; it ran for a decade and won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Fancast.
What’s your favourite Neanderthal-related film, novel, story, TV series? Please rummage your bookcases, hard drives, DVD storage for your answer, bring along that artifact or be prepared to wave it at your camera, and perhaps contribute to the general discussion at next Wednesday’s Nova Mob.
The Neanderthal-themed meeting will be run by Lucy Sussex and includes –
Geelong author Melissa Ferguson, author of The Shining Wall (Aurealis nominated! Free download of first chapter!),
General discussion “My Favourite Neanderthal fictions”,
“My favourite Neanderthal” commentary from two other Big Name Writers.
Melissa Ferguson is a scientist and Aurealis Award nominated author who writes fiction about Neandertals, cyborgs, cults, future science, evil scientists and infectious diseases. Her debut novel, The Shining Wall, and her eco-punk science fantasy novel,Star-Scorched Fingertipsare both available now.
“A shining metal wall separates the wealthy, but highly controlled Citizens of LeaderCorp’s City 1 from the slum dwellers struggling for survival in its shadow. Gutsy slum-dweller, Alida, is forced into dangerous and illegal activities by her mother’s death and her sister’s illness. She befriends cloned Neandertal Security Force Officer, Shuqba, who tries to help Alida escape her dire circumstances. When their society, built on exploitation and inequality, tilts dangerously toward collapse Shuqba and Alida question their beliefs about justice and humanity and find reason for hope in each other. Read Chapter 1
Once again historian Leigh Edmonds and Perry Middlemiss take us to the heart of Australian fan history. This February 2024 zoom session begins with the events of 1960, and the origins of modern Australian fandom in Melbourne. Illustrated with photos and publications, Leigh tells the story of early fannish meetings, of Somerset Place, and of the competing visions of Australian fandom, from sercon to fannish. In this part 2, he covers how Science Fiction Review got started, the seminal influence of John Foyster, John Bangsund and Lee Harding, and the reason the Ditmar Awards are so named. (He also tells you what they are not named.) There’s the first APA in Australia, why it was started and what it became, the importance of comics fans in Australian fan history and Gelaticon. And Leigh conveys the reason why fans were so intent on getting together – “In this group, when you happen to say something about science fiction, people don’t look at you like you’re crazy.”
The zoom session is great fun and well worth watching. Leigh Edmonds is an Australian historian, and a very long-term science fiction fan. His history of science fiction fandom in Australia, “Proud and Lonely; a history of science fiction fandom in Australia 1936-1975 part 1”, will be published in 2024 by Norstrilia Press. Perry Middlemiss is a fanwriter, editor and podcaster as well as a former Worldcon chair. Many thanks also to Robin Johnson for providing tech support for Leigh. (Part 1 is here)
The Adelaide Fan Review 
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